The younger members of the "Toronto 18" were clueless dupes, according to the RCMP informant on the case. Best line from the story: "At one point, he said, the leaders hid in the bushes and made wolf and bear noises." Thank God we caught them early or they would have been making animal noises outside of Parliament! Ontario's ombudsman says that there's tons of crap the government still does wrong. He also says he......

We're as intrigued by "The Hockey Theme" saga as any Canadian sports fan—but with the story becoming increasingly surreal (not to mention trivial), we've decided it's time to focus our attention elsewhere. Like Switzerland and Austria, for instance, where Euro 2008 kicked off last weekend. We're big soccer fans (or "football supporters," if you'd like), and so naturally we're well-chuffed about the tournament. However, we're also of the opinion that those of us who are......

Photo by n0wak from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Stadium food, generally, sucks. Not only is it uninspired—nachos, cheese, and society-sanctioned violence, together at last—but it's so bloody expensive that we wouldn't be surprised if they started taking internal organs as payment. What a welcome development, then, when BMO Field and Toronto FC decided to mix it up and commit to bringing a variety of stadium edibles that "incorporate food from countries where soccer is......

It’s almost time for the Toronto International Film Festival for Children, Sprockets (it runs this year from April 12th to 18th) and the complete line-up of films has been announced. Once again this year all film journalists will find it impossible to mention the festival without bringing up Mike Myers (after all, it’s was one of the best SNL sketches ever, really) but far more relevantly, this year Sprockets features 68 films from 26......

Here's a riddle: What walks throughout Canada, weighs more than a Brit, but less than an American, and can help stop global warming? No, it's not Sasquatch. It's not Kyoto. Stumped? We'll give you a hint. It's the average Torontonian's carbon footprint! According to Zerofootprint, a not-for-profit environmental organization, the average Torontonian's carbon footprint sits at 8.6 tonnes per year—more than a fully-grown African elephant! Zerofootprint teamed up with the City of Toronto to......

Toronto FC sells out of season tickets for 2008. In response, the club promised they will try "really, really hard" to win at least one more game this season. The team's lawyers then pointed out that this was in no way a guarantee and that season ticket holders should feel privileged to be allowed to watch the game. Brian Mulroney wants a public inquiry into his scandal rather than an independent review. The last act......

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Toronto Japanese Short Film Festival opens its doors tonight and runs until Sunday at the Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex Avenue). The theme of this year’s festival is “Life is short, work hard!” and is explored throughout the festival’s programming, beginning tonight at 6.30 p.m. with the Momo (Japanese for “peach”) program. The program begins with a couple of hilarious shorts from Japanese comedy duo the Rahmens, The Japanese......

Police are investigating a mysterious purple liquid found seeping around the Don River. When asked for comment, the police stated that they have all their men rolling around in the goo in the hopes that it's radioactive and gives them all superpowers. A man is dead after a shooting near Broadview and Dundas. And an Etobicoke teen is dead after being hit by a car in a parking lot. Let's stop the hate, shall......

Sure, the Toronto FC may have lost Saturday's game 4-1––hell, they may have lost 75% of this season's games––but this clip of the soccer team's fans on the Washington DC Metro (which we discovered thanks to DCist) is kind of sweet in a "loud sports fans yelling French" way. Plus, Toronto fans are totally "the gem of the league"! If only subway enthusiasm could be somehow be harnessed and channeled into on-field talent, then......

A soccer game between Toronto and Los Angeles was played last night in honour of the Becks-Posh royal visit to Toronto. Although an injury prevented Beckham from taking the field, his handsomeness remains unimpaired. And oh yeah, the final score was 0–0. A 19-year-old man was shot to death in a stairwell near Parliament and Gerrard on Saturday afternoon. The sad thing—apart from somebody being dead—is that a single shooting in a weekend is......

Civil engineers say that Ontario bridges are at risk. Short, short version: we're not in as bad shape as the Americans on this front, but we need more strenuous testing of existing bridges since most of ours were built in the 1960s and have expected design lives of about fifty years, so we're entering the beginnings of a replacement cycle. Ontario to distribute HPV vaccines to girls in grade 8 beginning this fall. Small-c conservative......

You remember the Moose in the City, don't you? For six glorious months in 2000, more than three hundred fibreglass moose stood watch over Toronto, succesfully saving us from the shame of having hundreds of flying pigs instead. We greatly preferred the moose to any of the subsequent visitors to our fair city including aphids, SARS, and Chilean soccer players. Most of the moose had disappeared by the end of 2000, but a few......

Torontoist was at last night's Under-20 World Cup semi-final between Argentina and Chile at BMO Field and left wondering: "How did a riot not break out?" Well, as it turns out, a riot of sorts did break out after the game, when members of the Chilean team confronted a group of policemen. Reports of taser guns being used have yet to be confirmed, although eyewitnesses swear it happened. How did it all go so......

Photo of David Beckham by rayxhead These are halcyon days for Toronto soccer fans. Toronto FC, the city's long-overdue Major League Soccer team, is in its inaugural season. The 20,000-seat BMO Field is open for business, and doubles as Canada's new national soccer stadium. The Under-20 World Cup, which culminates this weekend in Toronto, is breaking tournament attendance records. And on August 5, David Beckham (perhaps you've heard of him?) is scheduled to make......

The St. Clair West neighbourhood has had some conflict-filled times over the past few years. Who can forget the St. Clair streetcar ROW debacle, during which there were calls to boycott the beleaguered community? We think that it’s time to forgive and forget, and how better to do that than with a sultry summer samba party? Salsa on St. Clair emerged two years ago to stake its own claim on the city’s busy summer......

Every weekday, we pick an image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! Who says soccer—er, football—isn't a contact sport? Behold this moment frozen in time by Flickr pool contributor sthursby, taken last Wednesday during the U-20 FIFA World Cup at the National Soccer Stadium here in Toronto. The action finds Gambia's Ousman Jallow......

Neighbourhood festivals are a great way to either explore unfamiliar pockets of the city or actually meet the people who cross your path on a daily basis. Signage for this neighbourhood street festival at the corner of Wyndham Street and Brock brought our attention to tomorrow’s day of events and big FUN in The Brockton Triangle area. The wee bit of west end land known as The Brockton Triangle stretches from Dundas to the......

This week, the already-awesome Dufferin Grove Park is absolutely ablaze with awesomeness, with tendrils of wicked cool billowing through its leafy canopies and filling the lungs and hearts of theatre aficionados everywhere. The Cooking Fire Theatre Festival, which runs from June 20-24, is a presentation of five short plays, accompanied by a spectacular organic meal and infused with a spirit of collaboration and comraderie from start to finish. This is not your ordinary trip......

We’ve been looking for a way to talk about King Kong again for a while now. It’s unlikely you’ll remember, but Torontoist’s first Film Friday column was actually published in the week Peter Jackson’s remake hit cinema screens, yet that’s not (specifically) the reason we’ve been in the mood to mention it again. It just happens to be that a few weeks ago, with an evening to kill, we picked up Peter Jackson’s King......

It's Thursday, which means it's the first day of North By Northeast and the end of our previews. In the final installment of our NXNE recommendations, we'll guide you through the best that Saturday has to offer. And, if we may say so, Saturday has a lot of good stuff to offer. Before heading out, you may want to fuel up at the 2nd Annual Back Lot BBQ put on by Six Shooter Records. It......

Similar to how the Oscars end the awards season with a bang, the coming of North By Northeast signals the end of festival/conference season for another year. Running from June 7th to the 10th, with over 450 bands playing NXNE shows between Thursday and Saturday, not to mention the NXNE film festival, we're already starting to sleep in a little longer so we can bring you as much of the festival as we can. To......

Only three days left in the 17th Annual Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival! Last night, Eleven Men Out screened at the Bader; an Icelandic comedy with a reasonably original premise: a soccer player named Ottar being interviewed by a reporter in the locker room after a game while the rest of his team is changing decides, for the benefit of appearing on the magazine's cover, to come out of the......

The 17th Annual Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival Continues! Last night, the festival presented its centrepiece gala screening at the Isabelle Bader Theatre of King and Clown (reviewed by Torontoist at last year's TIFF), a movie about a Korean monarch who falls in love with his cross-dressing jester that also happens to be the top-grossing Korean film of all time (OK, so at least it was until this happened). Meanwhile,......

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh's controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio's Hacienda is a good place to get......

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! Yesterday, we featured the Toronto FC in the Daily Photoist, but we can't forget how spring also reveals our Boys of Summer. This minimalist shot of Jays centrefielder Vernon Wells was captured by dave_in_t_o, and we like how it......

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! Another gorgeous day descended upon us yesterday and sent Torontonians to the streets and into parks. Tossed frisbees and bouncing soccer balls contended with lounging picnics on the grass and packed park benches in every direction. Trinity Bellwoods Park......

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. Austinist has a chat with the ever-fashionable Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and managed to catch some local fashionistas making......

Photo by Kurtis Billard on Flickr. Hey, Toronto sports fans, it's time to wake up. The Leafs did not make the playoffs, now take off the black armbands and get over it already. The Blue Jays are dealing with a number of injuries, but even if they weren't, the season's just begun and there are still approximately 800 games left to be played this year. Sadly, Toronto's brand new soccer franchise has been outscored 9–0......

First major solar farm project in Ontario approved. The 40-megawatt farm in Sarnia will generate .02 percent of Ontario's energy needs, which is...well, a start, if nothing else. Now how about some investment in nanosolar technology, Ontario? And rocket-packs? Can we have environmentally friendly rocket-packs? However, this good enviro-news is balanced out by Ontario environment commissioner Gord Miller issuing a special report on how budget cuts at provincial ministries are crippling efforts to protect the......

With Toronto FC's home opener drawing near, today's trip in the wayback machine stops at an earlier point in the city's professional soccer history, offering "super summer nights" for a pair of twenties. The Metros joined the North American Soccer League in 1971. This was the city's second go-round with the league – the Toronto Falcons had been a charter member in 1968, but folded after one season. When this ad appeared, the Metros......