Leave it to CanStage to somehow, in the midst of extreme internal upheaval what is maybe their darkest financial hour, be simultaneously running two of their strongest shows by far in recent memory. In fact, Palace of the End (which closes tomorrow night) and The Clean House (which runs until March 8) aren't just good shows for CanStage, they would be amazing shows for anywhere. Hopefully, they can win the audiences they deserve, but......

Many of us developed an affection for opera early in life through Looney Tunes versions of Rossini and Wagner. For some, having Elmer Fudd chant “Kill the Wabbit” to the tune of “Ride of the Valkyries” in Chuck Jones's animated masterpiece taught us everything we wanted to know about opera. But if your ambition to appreciate the finer things in life extends beyond Bugs Bunny, real opera could be an intimidating world of old rich......

There were 4 more murders in Toronto on the weekend, meaning we only need 11 more to tie the all-time record of 89 set back in 1991. A spokesman for City Hall said that sure, the numbers look bad now, but crime would drop once all the thugs had killed each other. Not only more violent, but poorer too––a United Way report says that the median family income in Toronto is $10,000 lower than......

The Toronto Star is known for a lot of things, but editorial consistency isn't one of them. This Saturday's paper contained a particularly flagrant example of the ongoing conflict between Star's left and right brains. A six-page section called "Counterfeiting" was dedicated to exposing the evils, perils, and all-around immorality of making, buying, or using any kind of knockoff goods ranging from electronics to clothes. One article warns us sternly that trafficking in counterfeit......

Mayor David Miller passed a compromised version of his contentious land transfer and vehicle registration taxes yesterday. The taxes will raise only about $175 million of the $414 million estimated budget shortfall, and will add about $3,700 to the price of the average home. "I think it's a vote of confidence in Toronto," said the Mayor inexplicably about the plan to layer more costs onto taxpayers in a city with a hollowed-out manufacturing base,......

Do you wistfully dream of having a little corner of the city to call your own, but balk at the "Homes" section of the classifieds with its hyperbole-strewn ads and dead-eyed realtors? A new Google Maps-based website, housing123.com, tries to make things a little easier for potential home buyers across the GTA. The Canadian Real Estate Agency (CREA) operates a database known as the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), which allows realtors to view virtually......

The Canadian National Exhibition opens this week, bringing with it nearly 130 years of tradition, from its beginnings as an industrial showcase to its current role as a signal that summer is drawing to a close. Today's pair of ads provide a glimpse of what the Ex was like on the cusp of World War II, before it was closed for wartime activities. The "new amusement area" touted in 1937 proved significant, as it......

Canadians must really, really hate their political leaders. At least that’s what a recent online poll conducted by The Beaver is saying. The Canadian history magazine asked readers who they believe to be the worst Canadian. 15,000 votes later, the results are in. On the list are four prime ministers—Chrétien ranked seventh, Harper got sixth, Mulroney got fourth, and the master of flair, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, received the most votes. Trudeau managed to beat......

Flush with the success of their campaign to publicly insult women and minorities, the Ontario government has taken the bold step of verbally abusing the entire City of Toronto. Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty yesterday indicated he wasn't inclined to share any of the billions of dollars that the province sucks out of Toronto each year, blaming the looming fiscal crisis on the City's failure to use its shiny new tax powers, and by implication......

God bless our sister site LAist for discovering The Canadian Cafe (no, there's no acute accent), a small restaurant 4,000 kilometres away, in Montrovia, L.A., where (their website claims beside a clip art picture of a moose dressed as a mountie) "You'll Find Family Dining With A Taste Of The North." What, exactly, is Canadian cuisine, beyond poutine and Canadian bacon? Well, they have a "selection of Maple Syrup products" (!!!!), a "British Columbia Burger"......

It's the week where the Canadian broadcasters announce their upcoming season (known as an "upfront" because advertisers are then able to buy commercial airtime ahead of time or "up front"), and ACTRA isn't very happy. The Canadian actors' union is angry that domestic networks are spending a record $688-million on foreign programming (2006) instead of investing in new Canadian dramatic programming. Currently, the most successful Canadian shows are expensive franchises like Canadian Idol, Entertainment......

Some biggish news announced this week in regards to two of this city's major theatres: Passe Muraille and CanStage (oh, I'm sorry, I mean "The Canadian Stage Company"—more on that later). Let's start with Passe Muraille, the plucky underdog. Probably the biggest morceau is that they're kicking off their 40th season with a remount of Michael Healey's ridiculously successful The Drawer Boy. If you missed all the (admittedly numerous) previous opportunities to see this which......

For two weeks in May, a 1280-cubic-foot shipping container at an as-of-yet-unannounced location along Queen Street West will serve as the temporary home for Jeremy Lynch's fascinating Containers exhibit. The Canadian-raised Lynch's "individual art project, free from any Institutional or Corporate participation" is relatively straightforward but utterly unique: he makes hundreds of "3d street art from used 35mm film containers and plastic toy figures" and places them around the streets of Toronto and Berlin.......

There are as many types of poetry as there are different styles of music. Books of poetry are usually confined to a shelf or two at a local bookstore, but if you want to buy a CD, you visit an entire store dedicated to music. When someone professes to like poetry, the reference is probably to a favourite type of poetry, and not all poetries—just as a jazz afficionado might dislike Country and Western,......

The University of Toronto really seems to be getting as much as it can out of its relationship with Atom Egoyan. The Canadian film auteur, currently in the first year of his three-year term as the Dean's Distinguished Visitor in Theatre, Film, Music and Visual Arts, will be giving a free lecture at Innis Town Hall tonight (Wednesday, April 11) where he will screen a selection of his short films and discuss "the appeals and......

Tomorrow kick-starts the Canadian Wildlife Federation’s annual National Wildlife Week. Proclaimed in 1947, the festival is about reminding us humans that we must maintain a sustainable ecosystem to preserve what little wildlife we have left. This year’s theme is Canada’s North. It seems like every small city, town, and county in Ontario will be recognizing NWW, but shamefully not Toronto. Because wildlife doesn’t matter in our urban centre, right? To celebrate squirrels and polar......

A CN train jumps the tracks in Kingston, delaying rail traffic between Toronto and Montreal/Ottawa. Nobody was hurt, but observers told reporters this in a tone of serious disbelief because thirty-two train cars went off the rails less than a thousand feet from Kingston's passenger station, and apparently it was quite disturbing to see, what with the thousands of tons of out-of-control metal and all. A Canadian soldier has been charged with manslaughter in the......

Every two weeks "What's The Frequency, Campus?" will highlight some of the intriguing shows and special programming happening on Toronto's campus and community radio stations. One of the main mandates of campus and community radio is to give a voice to views and people who are underrepresented in mainstream media outlets. The fifth annual Homelessness Marathon will do precisely that when it takes to the airwaves tonight at 8 p.m. for 14 hours of radio......

In the fall of 1979, 21-year-old Terry Fox, recovering from a recent lower-leg amputation, devised a plan to help support the thousands of Canadians who, like him, had faced off with cancer. He would run across Canada, beginning in St. John's, Newfoundland, and wrapping up on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Figuring the journey would take roughly five months, Fox hoped to raise $1 for every Canadian man, woman and child. The Canadian......

Microsoft put up an ice house in Dundas Square yesterday to promote the launch of Windows Vista. WARNING: Only click through to the article if you have never read a "tee hee I don't know shit about computers but I sure like to play Minesweeper, does Windows Vista have Minesweeper on it?" type of article and are interested in a fresh experience, complete with - yes - a reference to HAL from 2001: A......

George W. Bush made his State of the Union address last night. Among his policy initiatives introduced in the speech were a request to Americans to reduce their gasoline consumption by twenty percent in ten years (while simultaneously claiming American needed to increase domestic gasoline production), and a proposal to tax employer-based health plans to pay for HSAs (which don't actually solve the problems facing American healthcare). An annotated and rather niftily clickable rebuttal......

Condoleezza Rice promises to "look into" why Maher Arar is still on an American terrorist watchlist. Remember when you were at work and someone at work kept stealing your yoghurt and you were pissed so you went to your supervisor and complained and he said he'd "look into" it? This is kind of like that, except Maher Arar is probably a lot less important to Condoleezza Rice than yoghurt is. Queen's Park Grits and Tories......

Few things are more representative of the holiday season than the bell ringers and familiar red shield of the Salvation Army. Ever-present at malls, street corners and inside TTC property, the London-based organization collects cash for its Christian outreach services benefiting 30 million people in Canada and abroad. The Sally Ann is one of the world's largest, richest and most visible philanthropic agencies, recently providing significant relief for victims of Hurricane Rita and support for......

This Is Not A Reading Series wraps up 2006 with its final two events of the year. With the temperature dropping every day and water soon turning into ice, what better topic than hockey? Tomorrow, join Rheostatic/author Dave Bidini (On a Cold Road; Tropic of Hockey; The Best Game You Can Name) as he launches his new book of hockey erotica (Indigo will need a new section) The Five Hole . Joining Dave to celebrate......

Here at Torontoist, it is no secret that we love trains. A lot. This is why we are so excited that tomorrow evening, a super trippy lit-up train will roll into the Distillery District at 8:15 PM. The Canadian Holiday Train embarked on its two-week journey across the north on the first of this month and will be stopping in our fair city tomorrow evening, raising money and collecting food donations for Toronto's local......

David Miller was reelected Mayor of Toronto with almost 57 per cent of the vote. Voter turnout increased to 41.1 per cent. Full election results for all wards are available on the Toronto website. Miller used his acceptance speech to make his promises clear. Rather than use the new City of Toronto Act to add new taxes, Miller will be asking for 1 cent of the sales tax generated by Toronto from the provincial and......

Blame it on the warm weather, but in the last 24 hours the city has seen two drownings. Police found a man who fell into Toronto harbour right at the foot of Yonge St. Police aren't sure why the man jumped in or whether he was pushed. An eight-year old boy drowned in Etobicoke Creek yesterday. The creek's waters rose quickly because of yesterday's storm. Two men tried to save the boy but failed, they......

The Canadian Content of the Late Show with David Letterman will increase by several hundred percent as our own uber-group Broken Social Scene hits CBS tonight. We wonder whether Paul Shaffer will join Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, et al. BSS will be joined by new Lois Lane Kate Bosworth and hopefully be upstaged by a bunch of middle-aged New Englanders who do crazy things with Mentos and Diet Coke. Letterman airs at 11:30 ET.......

It could be one of two things the sound of CBC TV's ratings plummeting or it could be the sound of the the IQs of Canadian TV watchers reaching new lows. The CBC announced its fall lineup and it's a strange mixture of mainstream trends that the CBC resists (more reality tv, quiz shows) and giant national projects meant to unify Canadians in front of their TVs (Hockey: A People's History). The CBC will try......

It’s an interesting and potentially important time for English language Canadian filmmakers, with several Canadian films managing to reach cult hit status, such as It’s All Gone Pete Tong and The Life And Hard Time of Guy Terrifico. With only five percent of movies seen by Canadians made by Canadians (according to the program guide) and the writer of It’s All Gone Pete Tong Michael Dowse expressing a wish for Canadian content quotas for cinemas......