“What exactly was he planning to do with 2,865 bicycles?

“The police are baffled by what Igor Kenk planned to do with such a surplus of bikes.

There is no discernible pattern to the bicycles in the Kenk collection, which includes several children’s bicycle trailers and at least one toddler-size tricycle. But not everything is old, incomplete or damaged. Along two walls of the garage are dozens of packing cases filled with a product that is either appropriate or preposterous, given the circumstances: new bicycle locks.”

“Canadians who may have become tired of being passed over as porn stars will have a new, home-grown outlet to showcase their erotic talents.

The CRTC received no interventions in connection with the application, which was initially launched in October 2007.”

“The University of Toronto and IBM Corp (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) are building Canada’s most powerful supercomputer, a mammoth machine that will need its own building for storage and will be capable of performing 360 trillion calculations per second.

It’s expected the system will be among the top 20 fastest supercomputers in the world and the largest outside the United States. It will be able to store data equivalent to that held by one million regular DVDs.

The entire budget of the project, which includes construction and operating costs, is just under C$50 million ($47 million) over five years.

Its power is roughly equivalent to “30,000 to 40,000 home computers linked together,” said Chris Pratt, strategic initiatives executive at IBM Canada.

“The kind of interconnect between parts of the system will allow the equivalent of two full-length feature DVD movies to be moved around in the space of a second,” he said.

It will be a big boost to scientists at the University of Toronto and its associated research hospitals, as it will help tackle projects in an array of areas from aerospace and astrophysics to climate change prediction and medical imaging.

Among the research, the system will be used to explore the modern scientific mystery of why matter has mass and what constitutes the mass of the universe.

Funding is being provided by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, in partnership with the province of Ontario and the university.

Building the supercomputer will involve the largest implementation of IBM’s iDataPlex system, which holds twice as many processors per unit as standard systems and is entirely water-cooled. More than 4,000 servers will be linked together.

“Every aspect of the system has been put together to be the most powerful and yet the most energy-efficient,” Pratt said.

A data center will be built just north of Toronto. Installation will begin in the autumn and it’s expected the supercomputer will be fully operational by next summer.”

Check it out here

Live Green Toronto

Look for your meetup group here

Today, the walk is through Bâby Point to learn about 10,000 Years of History, but the walk won’t take 10,000 years, rest assured. Explore some of Toronto’s First Nations and French history with this tour of the area named after the estate of James Bâby, an early French settler. Hear about the Seneca village of Teiaiagon, the Carrying Place trail and the first French fort in what is now Toronto. Tours will be offered in English and French. It all begins at 1:30pm today so if you can make it, you won’t regret the last minute plans. The walk will last approximately 2 to 2.5 hours. Meet at the southwest corner of Jane St and Bâby Point Rd/Annette St. You will end your walk near Old Mill Subway Station.

July 26 – 1:00pm – 3pm – you’ll find yourself in the footsteps of black Victorians. In the 19th century, Toronto was a centre of antislavery organizations and Black cultural and political activities. Hear about the men and women of the community as we visit some of the sites known to them. Meet at South St. Lawrence Market, 95 Front St E at Jarvis. End at Mackenzie House, 82 Bond St, S of Dundas St.

August through October

AUGUST
Lambton Mills (Aug 9 2008 – 1:30pm)
African-Canadian Women in Early Toronto (Aug 10 2008 – 1:00pm)
Cabbagetown People: Discoveries of Remarkable Lives (Aug 16 2008 – 1:30pm)
The Royal Alexandra Theatre and Its Neighbourhood (Aug 17 2008 – 11:00am)
Faces on Places: Gargoyles and Other Architectural Ornament (Aug 23 2008 – 1:30pm)
Edwards Gardens and Wilket Creek (Aug 24 2008 – 1:30pm)
Colourful Corktown (Aug 24 2008 – 1:30pm)

SEPTEMBER
Spadina: The Story of an Estate & Its Neighbourhood (Sep 6 2008 – 1:30pm)
The Guild Inn Gardens (Sep 7 2008 – 1:30pm)
Weston Side Story – All Around the Town (Sep 13 2008 – 1:00pm)
Yorkville (Sep 14 2008 – 11:00am)
Imagining Toronto’s Past – CANCELLED (Sep 20 2008 – 1:30pm)
Wellington Place Neighbourhood (Sep 21 2008 – 1:30pm)
Historic Moore Park (Sep 27 2008 – 1:30pm)
Fort York: 200 Years of Lakefront Development (Sep 28 2008 – 1:30pm)

OCTOBER
Exhibition Place: Ghostly Secrets Revealed (Oct 3 2008 – 7:00pm)
Swansea: The Country in the City (Oct 4 2008 – 1:30pm)
Thomson Pioneer Settlement (Oct 5 2008 – 1:30pm)

More information about Heritage Toronto Walks

[via]

This week, Collected Wisdom is driving to the supermarket in its luxury Globe and Mail company car — a 1978 AMC Gremlin. But do we reverse into that parking space or drive forward into it?

“I was reading a book that mentioned that bell-bottom pants were long associated with the Royal Navy,” says John Manuel of Golden, B.C. He wonders if there was a functional reason for this.

These magnificently exposed layers of rock reveal the world’s most complete fossil record of life in the “Coal Age” when lush forests covered Joggins and much of the world’s tropics, 300 million years ago.|

Preserved in situ at Joggins, “Coal Age” trees stand where they grew, the footprints of creatures are frozen where they once walked, the dens of amphibians are preserved with remnants of their last meal, and the earliest reptiles remain entombed within once hollow trees. Nowhere is this record of plant, invertebrate and vertebrate life within now fossilized forests rendered more evocatively.

The fossil record includes species first defined at Joggins, some of which are found nowhere else on earth. It was here that Sir Charles Lyell, with Sir William Dawson, founder of modern geology, discovered tetrapods — amphibians and reptiles — entombed in the upright fossil trees. Later work by Dawson would reveal the first true reptile, Hylonomus lyelli, ancestor of all dinosaurs that would rule the earth 100 million years later. This tiny reptile serves as the reference point where animals finally broke free of the water to live on land. This evolutionary milestone recorded at Joggins remains pivotal to understanding the origins of all vertebrate life on land, including our own species.

With careful observation and interpretation, you may find your own missing piece of time’s puzzle. As you explore the beach at Joggins, remember that every rock holds the possibility of discovery. [source]

From pch.gc.ca:

Background

Since 1985, Canada Day Committees are established in each province and territory to plan, organize and coordinate the Canada Day celebrations locally. Grants are provided by the Department to those committees.

tags: toronto canada canada day

There will be a public preview screening on July 8th at 7:00 p.m.here:

The Royal Cinema,
608 College St. West
Toronto M6G 1A1
Phone: 416-534-5252

The Royal has recently been renovated and has an High Definition projector so the documentary will be seen on a 40-foot screen.

There’ll be a $6 charge at the door with all proceeds going to the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies.

The doors open at 6:30.

if you’re anywhere in the vicinity of Toronto. Or not. Some highlights from last year featured Al Green, so you must see the Rev (June 19) if you’re tired of being alone, because if anything, he’s still in love with you. Ahmad Jamal will be there (June 23) too! And – A surprising guest, a very old timer in jazz, Dave Brubeck will be kickin it with y’all (July 2) and taking at least 5 minutes to play his signature tune. If you have no idea who he is, you will surely recognize his tunes, and at 88 years old, he will amaze you.

There will be lots of music and lots of artists and venues so the best thing to do is download a schedule and go from there. Get tickets online at www.ticketmaster.ca or by calling 416-870-8000.

For more information: toronto jazz

In Toronto there’s a new a series of food events called “Home Ec.” The Avro has taken on the mission to engage with our community, encourage people in the bar to meet each other and regularly hosts events which bring people together. WellPreserved is also about community and increasing connections to people and food (and the two together).

Read more about it here.

Read about it here.

[via]

From the nyt:

“OTTAWA — Cameco, the world’s largest uranium producer, has told the Canadian nuclear regulator that its refinery might have leaked uranium, arsenic and fluorides into Lake Ontario.

A section of the Port Hope, Ontario, plant of Cameco, the world’s largest uranium producer.
The plant at Port Hope, Ontario, across the lake from Rochester and down the shore from Toronto, first refined uranium for the Manhattan Project during World War II. It has been temporarily closed since July to remove contaminated soil.

A spokesman for Cameco, Lyle Krahn, said Wednesday that a computer model created for the cleanup, which is several months behind schedule, indicated that the radioactive and toxic materials have been polluting a harbor adjacent to the factory. The harbor leads directly to the lake.

The company notified the regulatory agency, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, about the finding at a meeting last week and now plans drilling tests to confirm the contamination and to measure its extent.

“We’re anticipating that material may have been entering the harbor,” Mr. Krahn said, adding that Cameco did not know how long it would take to confirm any possible pollution.

A spokesman for the agency, Aurèle Gervais, said: “The Port Hope UF6 plant matter has been ongoing for some time and the harbor issue is a recent development,” using the chemical formula for uranium hexafluoride.

In a background paper prepared for the agency’s commissioners last week, its staff concluded that the potential remained for continued water pollution from the plant.

Cameco in general and the aging Port Hope refinery, which transforms mined uranium into forms suitable for electrical power reactors, have long been targets of environmental groups and the regulatory agency.

After a flood last year closed one of the company’s mines, which produces about 10 percent of the world’s uranium, Linda J. Keen, then the head of the regulatory agency, said her commissioners and staff had a “lack of confidence” in Cameco and its management…”

Read the full article

They came from China and England, from India and Mexico — 94 people of every age and race, from 13 countries in all. They arrived this crisp autumn morning at an imposing new office complex in Surrey, B.C., filling neat rows of folding chairs in a second-floor courtroom, Citizenship Judge Shinder Purewal presiding. The judge is a cheerful man in a happy job. He told them about some of his own experiences: the murder of his father when he was an infant, and how he arrived in Canada from India as a 17-year-old because his mother wanted to raise her family in a land of peace and security. Purewal, also a political science professor, told them how difficult it is to move to a country where you don’t speak the language or understand the culture. Give it time, he urged them, and Canada will exceed your expectations. He told them how he built a new life in Canada and earned a Ph.D., and how this country — ranked best in the world, he said — has much to offer them as well. “What makes this country great,” he said, “is your presence.”

It was a beautiful thing to see. A visitor to the ceremony couldn’t…”

Read the rest and watch a video

“Canada cannot remain immune to the skyrocketing food prices that already affect much of the world and it may be only a matter of months before the impact here has a major impact on the economy, says a new report from Bank of Nova Scotia.

Except for baked goods, Canada been mostly spared the price spikes in basic foods that has roiled the developing world and even caused two major food retailers in the United States to ration some types of rice as a “precaution” against hoarding.

Because most agricultural commodities like grain, fuel and fertilizer are priced in U.S. dollars, the stronger loonie has cushioned Canadians from many of these shocks. Consumers have also benefited from stiff competition among grocery chains.

“But I don’t think Canada can escape the sort of food pass-through that has been going on in the global economy indefinitely,” says Derek Holt, vice-president at Scotia Capital Economics, who wrote the report.

“This is the year it starts to catch up to Canada. We’ve already started to see in some key categories and that will intensify in the summer months.”
Scotiabank’s warning is the latest in several issued recently by Canadian businesses and international agencies.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization reports that global food prices have increased 57 per cent from last year, while the price of rice has doubled.
Meanwhile, the World Bank has forecast the higher prices are likely to last at least two years before moderating slightly.

Holt said that Canadian spending habits could change profoundly once food prices begin rising, along with higher gasoline and heating prices that have already hit Canada.

“It’s a very material risk that people will start seeing themselves having to spend dozens or hundreds of dollars a month more on basic groceries, home heating and gasoline costs,” Holt says.

“You’ve got to do something, so you start to rein in spending on everything else and you postpone plans buy that HD television, or build a backyard deck.”

Several analysts have also forecast that Canada’s holiday from food price shock will not last forever.

But where Holt’s analysis differs from others is that he believes the likely impact will not be higher inflation, but lower prices for everything except food and energy.
Holt argues that sky-high energy and food prices could actually be disinflationary for Canada because consumers will have less to spend on everything else.

“That becomes a very dangerous scenario where you can have some sectors doing very well, food and energy, but other sectors see their pricing power totally evaporate,” Holt said.
While low inflation is generally regarded as a good thing, disinflation could trigger an economic slump because it may result in consumers and businesses holding back on purchases and investments in expectations of lower prices down the road.

“I think rationing in food is a possibility,” he said. “But an even bigger danger is that we go back to the days when we thought price and wage controls were a smart thing, this time applied to a particular sectors.”

One encouraging development is that farmers have begun to switch to cash crops to take advantage of the higher prices, but Holt said it will likely take three to four years before the higher production is felt in the market.”

I Am Elvis
Gladstone Hotel, Toronto
Thursday, May 1, 2008
7-9:30pm
Melody Bar
Free

“It’s time to get over any hang ups with clotheslines.

Ontario will outlaw clothesline bans by this summer to encourage citizens to use the environmentally friendly option when doing laundry.

“We want you to feel comfortable, wherever you happen to live in the province of Ontario, to put up a clothesline and to let mother nature, let the wind and the sun, dry your clothing,” Premier Dalton McGuinty said yesterday.

Homeowners would no longer be subject to municipal bylaws or homebuilder agreements that ban the lines.

Electric clothes dryers account for about 6% of a home’s energy consumption, and cutting use by 25% would save consumers about $30 per year.

Toronto Hydro’s Take A Load Off program is offering citizens a free retractable clothesline and cold water washing detergent.

At the official launch of the program yesterday, Energy Minister Gerry Phillips was wearing a shirt that had been hung out to dry.

“I think it’s safe to say that outdoor clothes-hanging season’s now with us,” Phillips said.”

“Toronto’s resale housing market may be cooling off, but at least one enterprising owner has found a way to get his home noticed.

He put it on the market for $1.

The Canadian Real Estate Association says existing homes sales across the country tumbled 13 per cent for the first three months of the year compared with last year.

The group says much of the slide was tied to lower activity in Toronto during February and March. The city accounts for about a quarter of the country’s sales in major markets.

Toronto saw its residential unit sales drop 13.4 per cent, though new listings were also down by seven per cent.

The $1 listing comes from Omar Ibrahim, who put his two-storey house on the market for less than the cost of a litre of gas.

He told CBC News the listing is “basically to see whether or not we can get an offer and something reasonable, letting the market determine … what the value of this house is.”

The house at 93 Badgerow Ave., a semi in the city’s Riverdale neighbourhood, shows well. It has three bedrooms, new flooring, appliances, fresh paint and a finished basement.

Ibrahim is not trying to give the house away and won’t let it go for the asking price. It’s a marketing strategy.

Tony Bassels, the real estate broker, remembers another house in Willowdale that was listed for $1 in 2004.

“It sold in 16 days for about $960,000 and that was listed for a dollar. And again multiple interest drove the price up to there,” he said.

Ibrahim buys homes, renovates and sells them. He bought 93 Badgerow Ave. in January 2008 for $342,000. He’ll find out Monday night when he opens the offers if his strategy will pay off.”

A year ago, Michael Chrisman placed a pinhole camera in Toronto’s Port Lands and aimed it — as best one can aim such a camera — at the city skyline.

For 365 straight days and nights, light has crept through the pinhole, slowly building an exposure on a piece of photosensitive paper.

Continue reading and see the photo here

“After losing its 32-year status as the tallest freestanding structure on the planet, Toronto’s iconic CN Tower has something new to brag about: the world’s highest glass-floor elevator that offers visitors a thrilling perspective of the city.

Shooting upwards at 22 kilometres per hour, visitors can now watch the ground below them fall away as the elevator soars 346 metres in just 58 seconds.

For those who dare to stand atop one of the elevator’s two narrow glass floor panels – each a little more than five centimetres thick – the trip is perhaps even more harrowing on the way down.

Plunging down the concrete elevator shaft with a view of some of the…”

Full article

“Every time he bought a 6/49 lottery ticket, Jose Lima prayed he’d win the big prize and promised God to share his boa sorte, good fortune.

He’s doing just that.

Canada’s newest millionaire – the 52-year-old father of two who won $14.5 million in the 6/49 draw – is giving each of his 50 employees at O Nosso Talho butcher shop $5,000.

On April 3, the fifth anniversary of his father Joao’s death, his generosity will spread even further when he gives away 22,680 kilograms of chicken legs to thank his customers and help Toronto’s needy.

Gilberto Andre, a 10-year veteran behind the meat counter, was with Lima, who manages the busy shop, when he checked his numbers.

“When I told him he’d won, he hugged me,” said Andre who described Lima as a very caring, kind man.

“For me, he’s a great person who never says no. We’re all very happy for him. And it’s such a good thing that he’s doing, sharing his good luck with us. I don’t know if anyone else would do that.”

Lima admitted he’s still in a state of shock and it’s too early to decide what to do with the money.

“The first thing I will do is to keep my promise to my employees and the people. I’ll decide what to do with the rest of the money later.”

Also at the top of his list is his…”

Read the article

“It was bound to happen eventually: Air Canada now wants you to pay extra for better customer service.

But while Air Canada is touting the program as an industry-first, at least one observer said it was once common for big North American carriers to go out of their way to help inconvenienced or stranded customers – free…”

Article

Apparently, a guy from Toronto is the first person EVER to get an eyeball tatoo. I get weak knees thinking about it.

The photos are a bit scary so I’m not going to post them here. Check them out at the inventorspot.

View the slideshow

“Monday, March 24th
Easter Beer Dinner
Abbot On The Hill, 1276 Yonge Street
$65 – call 416.920.9074 for reservations
A special Easter Monday dinner pairing five Belgian beers from import agents Roland & Russell – Margriet, St Martin Blonde, St Martin Brune, Gouden Carolus Easter Beer & Boscoulis – paired with a five-course meal, including a main course of Rabbit Fricassee with Apricot Preserves & Spiced Pecans.

Wednesday, May 28th
Dogfish Head Beer Dinner
beerbistro, 18 King Street East
$100 – tickets on sale May 1st
A dinner with Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head, featuring the beer cuisine of beerbistro chef Brian Morin paired with a number of DFH beers, some available for the first time in Ontario. Further details t.b.a.”

Check them out

“They gleefully sang O Canada on the bus back to the hotel and again on the street after they arrived at the Howard Prince in Taichung, Taiwan.

Against the odds, the national baseball team qualified for the Beijing Olympics on Thursday and the jubilant players celebrated in the same way they did when a berth for the 2004 Athens Games was secured – by singing the anthem over and over.

“We’ve sung O Canada at least four times already,” said veteran infielder Stubby Clapp of Windsor, Ont. “Here we go again Canada, come on with me!”

The emotional display of national pride came after a 4-3 win over South Korea ran Canada’s record to 5-1 at the final Olympic qualifier, and guaranteed it a finish in the top three. South Korea and Taiwan, both 5-1 too, claimed the other two berths up for grabs at the tournament.

Washington Nationals prospect Matt Rogelstad of New Westminster, B.C., hit a three-run homer in the first while Cleveland Indians youngster Nick Weglarz of Stevensville, Ont., added a solo shot in the fourth to lead the way.

Cincinnati Reds product James Avery of Moose Jaw, Sask., held South Korea to a run on four hits in four innings and after Mike Kusiewicz of Ottawa recorded the final out, the Canadians partied into the wee hours on the eighth floor of their hotel, as players hooted, hollered and contemplated their achievement.

“To hear the national anthem sang on the bus so many times, we stopped at the hotel and we got off and before the players would go in the hotel they were singing outside and all the people were looking at us,” said manager Terry Puhl. “It really was quite a scene.

“It’s been a great night and a great tournament.”

Canada’s performance in Taiwan has been especially impressive since…”

Read full article

“OTTAWA — The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Loblaws Inc. have warned the public not to consume certain pear juices for toddlers that may be contaminated with arsenic.

The CFIA says in a news release that there have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of the products.

The two products listed in the warning are the one-litre President’s Choice Organics Pear Juice from Concentrate for Toddlers and the 128-millilitre Beech Nut Pear Juice from concentrate with Vitamin C added.

The products have been distributed across the country, the agency says.

Arsenic is a toxic heavy metal that may be carcinogenic and may pose developmental risks to children.

Loblaws Inc, has voluntarily recalled the affected products and the CFIA is monitoring the effectiveness of the recall, the release says.”

“PAYING TAXES is, for most people, both unavoidable and irksome. But how much hard-earned pay is taken by governments varies considerably across the world. Among the rich countries of the OECD, Germans shell out the most, with a worker earning an average income giving 43% of their gross pay to the state, with nearly half of that going towards social security. Workers in Poland hand over nearly 25% of their wages to social security; whereas Australians pay nothing at all directly. Mexicans and South Koreans enjoy the lightest taxation by some way.”

See the chart

Canada Blooms
Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC)
South Building
222 Bremner Blvd.
Toronto, Ontario

Eco Wedding/Bridal Show
March 1 & 2, 2008
at the Design Exchange
234 Bay Street
Toronto Ontario M5K 1B2 Canada
10am to 7pm
Website: Eco Wedding Show

“Surveillance cameras make TTC riders feel safer and the plan to dramatically expand their numbers is okay with Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s privacy commissioner.

“Installing 11,000 cameras on buses, streetcars, subway cars and in stations complies with privacy standards, Cavoukian said yesterday when she released the results of her investigation.

The group argues there is no public-interest justification for the $21 million security system….”

Continue

“Alberta’s privacy commissioner has ordered a Calgary nightclub to stop scanning patrons’ driver’s licences, disputing the bar owner’s stance that the practice curbs violent behaviour.

Nyall Engfield filed a complaint to the office in August 2005 after his driver’s licence was scanned before he could enter the Tantra Nightclub at 3rd Street and 10th Avenue S.W. He claimed his personal information was collected without his permission.

Tantra and its parent company, Penny Lane Entertainment Group, argued the scanning system was for their customers’ safety and discouraged troublemakers from entering.

In a ruling released Wednesday, Frank Work, Alberta’s information and privacy commissioner wrote: “The organization did not provide any evidence to establish that collecting the complainant’s driver’s licence information, or that of other patrons, is in any way a deterrent to violent behaviour.”

Work ordered Tantra to cease scanning licences because “it has no reasonable purpose for doing so,” and to destroy the information it’s already collected from other patrons.

The Alberta Liquor and Gaming Commission said it would…”

Continue

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — “Three times in less than a year, three right feet inside running shoes have been found on separate islands in the Strait of Georgia.

He speculated the feet floated away in the buoyant shoes after breaking from decomposing bodies, possibly of people who drowned in boating accidents. Others said they could be from four men whose bodies weren’t recovered after their small plane crashed in the area.”

[source]

Now imagine that this tunnel flows into Niagara Falls, emerging behind the pummeling curtain of water that nearly everyone in North America journeys to see at some point in their lives.

This tunnel exists. In the autumn of 2004, thanks to the work of two people with the experience and equipment to make it happen, I had the chance to feel Niagara Falls.

Hydroelectric generating stations work by capturing the kinetic energy of falling water and converting it into mechanical energy using a turbine and then into electricity in a generator mounted at the other end of the turbine. At the beginning of the twentieth century, this technology had just begun to reach industrial maturity, and something of a race developed among competing private interests to capture the gravitational potential of the most spectacular water feature in Eastern North America, Niagara Falls….”

Continue

[Via]

“Legendary blues and jazz guitarist Jeff Healey has died, his publicist said Sunday. The Canadian musician had battled cancer his entire life.

“It was something he fought with considerable bravery,” his publicist, Richard Flohil, told Newsnet late Sunday.

Healey, 41, had lost his eyesight to a rare form of the disease, retinoblastoma, at the age of one.

The musician had performed with such acclaimed guitar players as B. B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert Collins and George Harrison.

His full name was Norman Jeffrey Healey and he passed away Sunday in the city of his birth, Toronto, at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

Healey first began playing guitar at the age of three and formed his first band while still a teenager, according to his website. He played with a very distinctive style, laying his guitar on his lap….

Article

“The Canadian military has resumed handing over prisoners captured in Afghanistan to the Afghan government, a practice it quietly suspended late last year over concerns about torture, the military said Friday.

The transfers were ended in November after a Canadian prison inspection team concluded that at least one detainee had been tortured and heard complaints of torture from several others. A heavily censored government report said that one detainee showed inspectors a braided electrical cable and a rubber hose that he said were used for beatings…”

Read the article

“Why worry about keeping church and state separate when oil and automobiles already poison North American political culture? Here’s the latest dustup:- a trade war threat by a Canadian official against US presidential candidates. Analysis by category.

Car Making
Canada exports numerous cars that are designed in the US, assembled in Canada, and then sold in the US, bringing many jobs and sustaining a positive balance of trade for Canada (which does not want things messed up by challenges to NAFTA by US Democrats).

Lobbying
Neither do the Detroit-based car companies and the US oil companies operating in Alberta, all of which seem to have positive relationships with the present US Federal and the Canadian National Governments. Tactical similarities between national leaders of the US and Canada are remarkable:- see: Prime Minister Mini-Me Cans Science Advisor

US Politics
On the campaign trail, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both have been trash talking NAFTA a bit lately, taking a populist stance toward jobs and health and environmental protection. For Ohio’s sake.

Canadian Politics….”

Continue reading

Science for Peace- An Environmental Forum
Feb. 29, 2008 – 1pm to 5pm
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Oise Auditorium
252 Bloor Street W (at St. George Subway)

Science for Peace is a charitable Canadian-based organization of natural scientists, engineers, social scientists, scholars in the humanities and lay people throughout the world. It brings together professors, graduate students and first degree students who are concerned about peace, justice and making an environmentally sustainable future. SfP has NGO status at the United Nations.

Speakers for the event: Tony Clarke, winnter of Alternative Nobel Peace Prize and tar, sands, water and anti-corporation campaigner, Peter Victor, Bill Vanderburg, Eduardo Sousa, Jocelyn Thorpe, Lois Wilson

For more information: 416.535.6605

Most Canadians still proudly believe that their government refused to join the Iraq War. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some of the ways in which we joined the fray.

How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again! – Mark Twain

On March 25, 2003, during the “shock and awe” bombardment of Iraq, then US Ambassador Paul Cellucci admitted that “… ironically, Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and personnel… will supply more support to this war in Iraq indirectly… than most of those 46 countries that are fully supporting our efforts there.”

Cellucci merely scratched the surface of Canada’s initial “support” for the Iraq War, but he had let the cat out of the bag. As then Secretary of State Colin Powell had explained a week earlier, “We now have a coalition of the willing… who have publicly said they could be included in such a listing…. And there are 15 other nations, who, for one reason or another, do not wish to be publicly named but will be supporting the coalition.”

Canada was, and still is, the leading member of this secret group, which we could perhaps call CW-HUSH, the “Coalition of the Willing to Help but Unwilling to be Seen Helping.” The plan worked. Most Canadians still proudly believe that their government refused to join the Iraq War. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some of the ways in which we joined the fray:

continue reading

“The Canadian government will reintroduce a controversial anti-terrorism measure as early as today in a bid to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that has forced Parliament to give more rights to immigrants accused of links to terrorist groups.

In addition to assigning so-called “special advocate” lawyers to act for defendants in closed hearings, the new law bans making detainees answer allegations flowing from torture in foreign jails.

Further, government officials have privately signalled they will no longer use evidence from alleged al-Qaeda trainer Abu Zubaydah. The Guantanamo Bay detainee’s statements had figured in two of Canada’s six ongoing “security-certificate” proceedings.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency this month admitted to “waterboarding” Abu Zubaydah to get information about possible terrorist cells. The interrogation method is designed to make a suspect talk by inducing fears he is drowning.

“I can confirm that the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration will not rely upon information provided by Mr. Zubaida,” John Sims, deputy minister of Justice Canada, wrote in a Jan. 11 letter.

The correspondence was sent to defence lawyer Paul Copeland, who represents an Algerian held under a security certificate. Mr. Sims’s letter pointed out that Canadian judges were already giving “no weight” to the Abu Zubaydah evidence.

The old law left admissibility of such evidence up to…”

Continue reading

Researchers at Toronto’s University Health Network found that curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric, both prevents and dramatically reverses enlargement of the heart in mice.

Enlarged hearts can lead to cardiac failure, a common and often fatal condition where the organ is unable to pump enough blood to keep the body functioning properly.

If similar results were one day duplicated in humans, the widely available spice could …”

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The City of Toronto, which has insisted for years it cannot escape a fiscal straightjacket created by the province, could be debt-free by 2010, according to an independent panel whose recommendations include tolling expressways, taxing parking lots, streamlining city operations, beefing up the mayor’s powers and studying the sale of assets including Toronto Hydro, the Toronto Parking Authority and Enwave.

Authored by six eminent Torontonians hand-selected by the Mayor, the report identifies up to $3.5-billion that could be squeezed out of city assets — either by selling them or finding other ways to extract more money from them — and urges council to axe $50-million in spending this year and $150-million in future years.

“Ultimately, if you could implement this and you had the will to implement this, you could get to a situation where Toronto is debt-free and [has] a balanced budget … within three years,” said panelist Paul Massara, the president of Genesis Capital Corporation, in a meeting with the National Post’s editorial board. “The question is, is there the political will?”

At the top of the panel’s wish list is fixing the “broken” …

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Thompson Hotel Toronto
550 Wellington Street W
Toronto ON M5V Canada
Telephone: 212.204.5010 (for info)

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Ba Ba Lu’u
136 Yorkville Ave., Telephone: 416-515-0587

Bovine Sex Club
542 Queen St. W., Telephone: 416-504-4239

Cira
126 John St., Toronto, Telephone: 416-979-0044

Courthouse
57 Adelaide St., Telephone: 416-214-9379

The Dance Cave
529 Bloor St. W., 2nd floor

Devil’s Martini
473 Adelaide St. W., Toronto, Telephone: 416-603-9300

The Docks
11 Polson St., Toronto, Telephone: 416-469-5655

El Convento Rico
750 College St., Telephone: 416-588-7800

The 5th Social Club
225 Richmond St. W., Toronto, Telephone: 416-979-3000

Fluid Lounge
217 Richmond St. W., Telephone: 416-593-6116

Funhaus
526 Queen St. W., Toronto, Telephone: 416-703-4999

The Guvernment/Koolhaus
32 Queens Quay E., Telephone: 416-869-0045

Hotel Boutique Bar
7 Peter St. Telephone: 416-345-8585

Inside
218 Richmond St. W., Telephone: 416-591-0009

Limelight Nightclub
250 Adelaide St. W., Telephone: 416-593-6126

Muzik
15 Saskatchewan Rd., Toronto, Telephone: 416-595-9998

Shallow Groove Lounge
559 College St., Telephone: 416-944-8998

This is London
364 Richmond St. W., Telephone: 416-351-1100

Tonic
117 Peter St., Telephone: 416-204-9200

[source]

“The Book Room will be closing its retail bookstore on Barrington Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Over the next few weeks The Book Room will begin an orderly shutdown of its retail store and dispose of its inventory by the end of March. However, the wholesale operation will continue.

Mr Burchell said: “Changing times and market conditions have necessitated our decision. The coming of big-box-bookstores with their large inventory at discount prices; the expansion of books into grocery and drugstores; the ease of ordering books at discount prices over the internet and the dual pricing of books with higher selling prices in Canada than in the United States have made operating a profitable independent bookstore in Canada extremely difficult. I am very disappointed to make this announcement as The Book Room has been an institution in Nova Scotia. The bookstore has survived two World Wars, the Halifax Explosion, the Great Depression and many economic ups and downs over its 169 year history. It is the end of an era, one which I am proud and privileged to have been part of during my 42 years with the bookstore.”

Gouden Carolus Dinner – Friday and Saturday, February 22 and 23, 2008 – This event is a 3-course Belgian menu fixe ($40) menu with your choice of Gouden Carolus, Gouden Carolus Tripel or Gouden Carolus Ambrio. The Abbot On The Hill, Abbot on the Hill, 1276 Yonge Street, call 416.920.9074 to reserve

Clark Graham, who lives in the Moncton area, takes in abandoned pet rats as part of his Angel’s Heart Rat Rescue adoption program, Canwest News Service reported. He’s been at it for five years now, charging those who want to adopt a rat $10 to $15.

“I look for people who do not want them for food for their snake,” he told Canwest in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Rats get a bad rap as disease-spreading vermin but Graham finds them friendly and loyal.

“They love the company of people,” Graham said. “They crave it. I walk into a room and they all jump up and want me to come see them.”

Mike McDonald of Waterloo, Ontario, northwest of Toronto, is too young to legally play in most Canadian provinces and the United States, but since turning 18 in September, has racked up some impressive wins in London, Prague, Macau and Aruba, his mother told the Waterloo Record.

Saturday night was the biggest win for McDonald, who saw through repeated bluffs by German poker veteran Andreas Gulunay in Dortmund, the report said.

Speaking to the newspaper by telephone, the teenager said he’ll continue playing until he’s had enough.

“I see these guys who are playing 60 hours a week when they’re old, and none of them seem very happy,” McDonald said. “I don’t want to make this my long-term career … I might like to go back to school and get a real job.”

He said he’d also like to buy a used car, although he hasn’t got his drivers license yet, the report said.

General

95% less energy is used to make new aluminum cans out of old ones. Recycling just one pop can saves enough energy to power a television for three hours. Throwing away a single aluminum can is like pouring out six ounces of gasoline.

[source]

“While police forces around the world search for the Indian doctor who scammed hundreds out of their kidneys, his wife and children remain barricaded behind security doors at their Brampton home.

Neighbours said Kumar, his wife Poonam Ameet, and their two boys, 5 and 4, moved into the area last …”

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Environment Canada has “muzzled” its scientists, ordering them to refer all media queries to Ottawa where communications officers will help them respond with “approved lines.”

The new policy, which went into force in recent weeks and sent a chill through the department research divisions, is designed to control the department’s media message and ensure there are no “surprises” for Environment Minister John Baird and senior management when they open the newspaper or turn on the television, according to documents obtained by Canwest News Service.

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The fired head of Canada’s Nuclear Safety Commission on Tuesday defended a decision to keep a reactor shut down for nearly a month, creating a critical shortage of radioactive isotopes used to diagnose cancer patients, and causing delays to thousands of cancer patients around the world.
Former commission president Linda Keen said the agency was following the law when it refused to approve the restart of the reactor in Chalk River, Ontario. When the government ordered operations to resume last month, the risk of a nuclear accident was 1,000 times greater than acceptable, she said.

“Ignoring safety requirements is simply not an option,” Keen said. “Safe enough is not good enough.”

The reactor supplies half the world’s radioactive isotopes. Thousands of patients around the globe faced delays in crucial medical tests because of the shutdown.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last month there was no risk of a meltdown with the start-up, and his government blamed Keen for refusing to quickly resolve the impasse.

The 50-year-old reactor was shut down Nov. 18 for maintenance. It was scheduled to resume operations on Nov. 23, but the commission ordered an indefinite stoppage after discovering the reactor had been running without the emergency power system connected to two cooling pumps.

The Canadian government scrambled to pass legislation allowing the company to bypass the nuclear safety watchdog. The reactor reopened on Dec. 16…

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Zachariah no longer has to wonder about why AppleCare costs more in Canada ($199) than in the US ($169), he found a deal at L.A. Computer Company where he could get it for $119. They emailed him the agreement number, he registered the number online at Apple, and received his official AppleCare Protection Plan Certificate in the mail. So what’s the solution to the mystery of why there was a pricing disparity even though there’s parity between the dollar and the loony? We don’t know for sure, but we’re placing our money on that the prices were figured out when the dollar was worth more and they just haven’t been readjusted since.

Part 1 of the story: Canadian wonders why he has to pay more for AppleCare

The recent rabies death of a puppy has led to a major scare in Toronto, where at least 20 people have since been vaccinated against the disease.

Toronto Public Health Spokeswoman Susan Sperling said that since a puppy purchased at a flea market died of rabies, local health officials have been inundated with calls from concerned citizens, The Globe and Mail in Toronto reported Saturday.

“We’ve had 500 calls to date, but no human cases so far. We’ve also managed to recover some of the other puppies,” Sperling said.

The border collie puppy died at the Toronto Humane Society last week, prompting health officials to recommend that anyone who came in contact with the animal to call for a medical assessment.

The Canadian newspaper said the dog’s former owner will likely not face charges in Toronto due to the fact the vendor operates outside the Ontario city and a lack of provincial regulations regarding dog sales or breeding.

The Canadian airwaves will soon be alive with “The Sound of Music” when a TV reality show begins auditions to cast the role of Maria in an upcoming Toronto production of the beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is producing its own version of the hit BBC series “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?,” which garnered the 2007 International Emmy Award for best non-scripted entertainment program.

Auditions began Friday in Toronto to start a seven-city, cross-country audition tour, from Vancouver, British Columbia, to St. John’s, Newfoundland, that will run through Feb. 9.

About 200 hopefuls will be invited for callbacks in Toronto, and about 50 finalists will attend the “Maria School” for further training.

The 8-part TV series set to air this summer will follow the “Marias” as they go through auditions, training sessions and evaluations.

Canadian viewers will vote to determine their choice to play Maria von Trapp, the singing and dancing nun-turned-governess made famous by Julie Andrews in the 1965 film.

The winner will join the cast of a production of “The Sound of Music” premiering in October at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Ian and David Mirvish.

“I am delighted that `How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?’ is coming to Canada,” Lloyd Webber, the famed British composer and impresario, said in a CBC news release.

“It was an enormous success in the…

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]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/11/09/cattle-call-to-star-as-maria-in-sound-of-music/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/11/04/canadian-privacy-commissioner-rejects-drm/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/11/04/canadian-privacy-commissioner-rejects-drm/#comments Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:06:38 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2008/01/21/canadian-privacy-commissioner-rejects-drm/ The Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart, published an open letter to Josée Verner, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Industry Minister Jim Prentice, who has been diligently committed to resurrecting his disaster of a copyright bill, which will import the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Canada. Essentially, the systems in question often spy on users and then report back with detailed, private information about your activities. Ms. Stoddart is very concerned with the prospect of changing Canadian law to make it illegal to tamper with this spyware. An excerpt is below:

…Canadians are making use of new information and communication technologies to obtain access to information, films, music and other content. While new technologies have generally widened individual access to copyrighted content, they also allow copyright holders the means to control use or reproduction and to manage authorized uses.

Technological protective measures can be embedded in various media to control copying and prevent copyright infringement, or they can be built into electronic devices to prevent the reading of unauthorized content. Digital rights management (DRM) is the general term for the varied technologies used to enforce pre-defined limitations on the use of digital content. These include any means by which publishers or manufacturers control use of data or hardware. My office has prepared an information sheet on DRM technology, a copy of which is enclosed for your information.

If DRM technologies only controlled copying and use of content, our Office would have few concerns. However, DRM technologies can also collect detailed personal information from users, who often do no more than access the content on a computer. This information is transmitted back to the copyright owner or content provider, without the consent or knowledge of the user. Although the means exist to circumvent these technologies and thus prevent the collection of this information, previous proposals to amend the Copyright Act contained anti-circumvention provisions.

Technologies that report back to a company about the use of a product reveal a great deal about an individual’s tastes and preferences. Indeed, such information can be extremely personal….” read the whole letter

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]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/11/04/canadian-privacy-commissioner-rejects-drm/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/11/01/guess-whos-in-the-top-10-happiest-countries-in-the-world/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/11/01/guess-whos-in-the-top-10-happiest-countries-in-the-world/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2011 23:06:01 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2008/01/18/guess-whos-in-the-top-10-happiest-countries-in-the-world/ No. 10: Canada
Population: 33 million
Life Expectancy: 80 years
GDP Per Capita: $34,000

Canada may sometimes feel overshadowed by its giant neighbor to the south, but a strong sense of national identity and abundant natural beauty help make the sprawling and sparsely populated country one of the world’s happiest. Canada also punches above its weight economically, with a huge $1.1 trillion GDP and per-capita that ranks among the world’s highest. It also has strong health care and a low crime rate.

Yay! We always knew Canada ruled.

See the other 9 happy countries

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/11/01/guess-whos-in-the-top-10-happiest-countries-in-the-world/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/31/canada-puts-us-on-torture-watch-list/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/31/canada-puts-us-on-torture-watch-list/#comments Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:06:37 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2008/01/17/canada-puts-us-on-torture-watch-list/ From CTA:

Omar Khadr’s lawyers say they can’t understand why Canada is not doing more to help their client in light of new evidence that Ottawa has put the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on a watch list for torture.

Khadr — a Canadian citizen who was just 15-years-old when he was captured in Afghanistan more than five years ago and taken to Guantanamo — has claimed that he has been tortured at the prison. Now, CTV News has obtained documents that put Guantanamo Bay on a torture watch list.

Khadr’s U.S. military lawyer says the new documents contradict Harper’s assurances that his client is receiving fair treatment.

“Omar has certainly been abused, his rights have been violated under international law, and apparently the Canadian government has reason to believe that’s true, and yet, they’ve acted not at all to assist him,” William Kuebler told CTV News.

Khadr’s lawyers say suspicions of torture undermine claims that he can get a fair trial from the military commission in Guantanamo Bay. They want him sent back to Canada to face justice here. But the government has said he’s charged with serious crimes and they are waiting for the U.S. judicial process to play itself out.

Canada’s new focus on torture was ordered by the inquiry into Maher Arar’s nightmare in Syria. U.S. authorities sent Arar — a Canadian of Syrian ancestory — to Syria after he made a brief stopover in New York in 2002. They wrongly accused him of…

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]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/31/canada-puts-us-on-torture-watch-list/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/26/how-to-move-to-canada/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/26/how-to-move-to-canada/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:08:06 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2008/01/12/how-to-move-to-canada/ It’s no shocker that Americans are extremely disgusted by the U.S. government, and because of all of the lies, murders and secrets the government is responsible for, well, many American wanna get the heck outta Dodge. And fast. I don’t blame them. America is flawed. Very flawed, I hate to say, and I sympathize with Americans.

So. Many Americans are seeking a new place they can call home sweet home, and be proud of where they live. Howz about moving to Canada?????

This primer might be just for you. How to Move to Canada: A Primer for Americansmight be the ticket to your happiness.

Recently, 1.1 million Canadians voted Tommy Douglas, “the Sakatchewan premier who spearheaded Canada’s universal health care system” the “Greatest Canadian” of all time. This sort of mentality is what makes Canadian emigration more and more enticing to Americans out of step with their homeland’s priorities. In an easy-to-follow and comprehensive guide, How to Move to Canada: A Primer for Americansoffers a detailed action plan for Americans seriously thinking about making a permanent move to Canada. From the smallest details on what is necessary on the application to the rules regarding moving from Hawaii with a houseplant, the books covers details vital and otherwise, and lists websites and phone numbers for additional information. In addition to the hows, this helpful guide provides the whys from a Canadian perspective: apparently, skilled workers are needed, and as it currently stands 49 percent of Toronto residents were born outside Canada.

Brief overviews of each province and territory help readers find where they fit best. The writers play to the presumed liberal bias of their readers and provide information to that end (abortion: legal since 1988; the death penalty: abolished in 1976; same-sex marriage: legal since 2004;the firearm homicide rate: one-eighth the U.S.’s). As a lighter and less ideological companion to this useful but narrowly targeted book, readers should check out Will and Ian Ferguson’s comic work How to be Canadian.

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/26/how-to-move-to-canada/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/23/free-wifi-at-these-toronto-public-libraries/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/23/free-wifi-at-these-toronto-public-libraries/#comments Sun, 23 Oct 2011 23:08:18 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2008/01/09/free-wifi-at-these-toronto-public-libraries/
When you’re traveling, the last place you’d think you’d visit would be the public library, but don’t knock it! You can find travel books and magazines there to peruse (and be up to date with current news by reading newspapers) but it’s also a great place to catch up on email or do work online, while you’re in our great Canadian city. So if your accommodations don’t, by chance, have any internet accessibility, here are the public library locations in Toronto where you can access the internet for free via Wifi:

Agincourt – 155 Bonis Ave. Toronto, Ont. M1T 3W6, T: 416-396-8943
Albion – 1515 Albion Rd.Toronto, ON,M9V 1B2 T:416-394-5170
Albert Campbell – 496 Birchmount Rd. Toronto, ON, M1K 1N8 T: 416-396-8890
Bridlewood – 2900 Warden Ave. Toronto, ON, M1W 2S8 T: 416-396-8960
Centennial – 578 Finch Ave. West Toronto, ON, M2R 1N7 T: 416-395-5490
Eatonville – 430 Burnhamthorpe Rd. Toronto, ON, M9B 2B1 T: 416-394-5270
Flemingdon Park – 29 St. Dennis Dr. Toronto, ON, M3C 3J3 T: 416-395-5820
Gerrard/Ashdale – 29 St. Dennis Dr. Toronto, ON, M3C 3J3 T: 416-395-5820
Lillian H. Smith – 239 College St. Toronto, ON, M5T 1R5 T: 416-393-7746
Mimico – 47 Station Rd. Toronto, ON, M8V 2R1 T: 416-394-5330
Morningside – 4279 Lawrence Ave. East Toronto, ON, M1E 2S8 T: 416-396-8881
North York Central Library – 5120 Yonge St. Toronto, ON, M2N 5N9 T: 416-395-5535
Parkdale – 1303 Queen St. West Toronto, ON, M6K 1L6 T: 416-393-7686
Parliament – 269 Gerrard St. East Toronto, ON, M5A 2G3 T: 416-393-7663
Richview – 1806 Islington Avenue Toronto, ON, M9P 3N3 T: 416-394-5120
Riverdale – 370 Broadview Ave. Toronto ON M4K 2M8 T: 416-393-7720
Toronto Reference Library – 789 Yonge St. Toronto, ON, M4W 2G8 T: 416-395-5577
Woodside Square – 1571 Sandhurst Circle Toronto, ON, M1V 1V2T: 416-396-8979
York Woods – 1785 Finch Ave. West Toronto, ON, M3N 1M6 T: 416-395-5980

For more information

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/23/free-wifi-at-these-toronto-public-libraries/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/22/the-power-plant/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/22/the-power-plant/#comments Sat, 22 Oct 2011 23:07:46 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2008/01/08/the-power-plant/
Toronto’s contemporary art museum, The Power Plant, is worth a visit and will make for a wonderful day spent perusing modern art. The museum itself has 3 major exhibition galleries and smaller, adjacent indoor and outdoor sites which lend themselves to virtually any presentation circumstance.

The interior of The Power Plant is made up of 3 major gallery spaces. The 2 largest, named the Royal LePage and J. S. McLean Galleries, are designed for maximum flexibility and for the diversity of contemporary art. The ceilings are nine meters high they have an adjustable grid lighting system. The third, named the Canadian Tire Gallery features three-meter high ceilings. In addition to the galleries, which share approximately 650 square meters, the Fleck Clerestory, a central corridor with a glassed roof, lobby and exterior spaces are also designated for exhibition purposes.

The Power Plant is wheelchair accessible. An elevator connects the visitor to both levels.

The Power Plant
231 Queens Quay West
Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M5J 2G8
T: 416.973.4949

Regular Hours

Tuesday to Sunday | 12-6 pm
Wednesday | 12-8 pm
Closed Monday
Open Holiday Monday | 12-6 pm

HOLIDAY 2007-08 HOURS

24, 25, 26, 31 December 2007 | Closed
01 January 2008 | Closed

ADMISSION
$5 | Adults
$3 | Seniors & Students

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/22/the-power-plant/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/19/the-toronto-marathon/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/19/the-toronto-marathon/#comments Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:06:57 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2008/01/05/the-toronto-marathon/
I know it’s a bit early! The Toronto Marathon takes place this year on October 18, 2008, but don’t you need time to train for it? THAT’S why I’m telling you about it so early!! If 26 miles isn’t your style, try the half-marathon or the 5k run.

For more information and to register

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/19/the-toronto-marathon/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/18/winter-activity-in-toronto-surfing/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/18/winter-activity-in-toronto-surfing/#comments Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:06:05 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2008/01/04/winter-activity-in-toronto-surfing/
From Blogto:

Canada is brutally cold in the winter. This weekend Toronto had one massive winter storm. 30cm (about a foot) of snow accumulation, gusting winds creating wind chills of -20°C (sub 0°F) and complete road carnage were enough to keep most of us in the city holed up in our homes this weekend. The closest I came to “surfing” was when, in my pajamas, I sank into the couch with a mug of fresh coffee and remote control in hand, and flipped through the channels looking for something to watch on TV.

Hardcore Toronto surfers Mark Karvonen, Walter Tuokkola, and Geoff Johnson, on the other hand, got suited in their neoprene wetsuits, waxed their boards, and headed down to Ashbridge’s Bay to ride the wicked waves of Lake Ontario.

Nuts, I say. NUTS! These guys surfed up a….

Continue reading the whole article

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/18/winter-activity-in-toronto-surfing/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/16/toronto-fire-chiefs-drive-hybrids/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/16/toronto-fire-chiefs-drive-hybrids/#comments Sun, 16 Oct 2011 23:06:29 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2008/01/02/toronto-fire-chiefs-drive-hybrids/ From Treehugger:

Remembering the events of five years ago, none of us would begrudge our firefighters a nice ride; we are pleased to see that the Toronto Fire Services chief is tooling around in a Highlander hybrid. It won in a competitive bidding process that looked at performance, ground clearance and versatility. They are almost off-the-shelf- a custom Toronto colour (is not fire engine red the same all over?) and “a set of very subtly-integrated strobe lights built into the roof rack, grille, side pillars and rear lamps: at night, the thing lights up like a Christmas tree, and is visible from very far away, even though the LED units are actually tiny. ” TFS liked the fuel consumption stats and the fact that it was not a beefed up heavy duty sedan but an off-the-shelf car that was strong enough to take it. Sez Chief Stewart: “”All of the equipment we’ve chosen is here so we can respond faster and work safer.” Canadian Driver

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/16/toronto-fire-chiefs-drive-hybrids/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/13/canadians-warned-to-avoid-travel-to-pakistan/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/13/canadians-warned-to-avoid-travel-to-pakistan/#comments Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:09:52 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/30/canadians-warned-to-avoid-travel-to-pakistan/ From Canada.com:

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada is warning Canadians to avoid all non-essential travel to Pakistan.

“Canadians who choose to travel to Pakistan despite this warning should evaluate carefully the implications for their security and safety,” the government warned on its website.

The warning was issued Friday, the day after Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.

Pakistani soldiers stand guard during a lawyers’s protest against the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto, in Quetta, 29 December 2007. Pakistan’s planned elections were in doubt after polling officials said the vote had been “adversely affected” by a wave of violence and unrest after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

“News reports indicate that riots and violence have occurred in several locations throughout Pakistan, mainly in Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi,” according to the warning on the website.

“During the period of mourning and the funeral, riots and large-scale demonstrations may take place. Heightened security measures have been put in place in major cities, including the set up of checkpoints.”

Canadians are warned to exercise an extreme level of caution, monitor news reports and follow the advice of local authorities.

The warning also said to avoid all crowds, demonstrations and political gatherings, “and stay away from areas where they will occur, as they may turn violent without warning.”

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/13/canadians-warned-to-avoid-travel-to-pakistan/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/12/pools-for-kids-and-adults-at-the-delta-chelsea-hotel/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/12/pools-for-kids-and-adults-at-the-delta-chelsea-hotel/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 23:07:00 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/29/pools-for-kids-and-adults-at-the-delta-chelsea-hotel/ I can’ really recommend the actual hotel or condition of the Delta Chelsea Hotel. What I can mention here and want to share with you is the very awesome 130-foot heated indoor waterslide! Pretty neat.

Delta Chelsea Hotel
33 Gerrard Street West
Toronto (Downtown), Ontario
M5G 1Z4
Tel: 416-595-1975

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/12/pools-for-kids-and-adults-at-the-delta-chelsea-hotel/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/11/radioactive-waste-found-in-ontario-groundwater/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/11/radioactive-waste-found-in-ontario-groundwater/#comments Tue, 11 Oct 2011 23:07:06 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/28/radioactive-waste-found-in-ontario-groundwater/ From Canada Environment:

Ontario Ministry of Environment officials are downplaying the discovery of high levels of a radioactive substance called tritium (radioactive waste) found recently in the groundwater of a Pembroke landfill.

“While there was tritium in the ground water at the site, [it was] well below our ministry standards,” said Ministry spokesperson Kate Jordan. “We don’t feel that they pose a risk to the community or to the environment.”

Tritium is widely used in nuclear weapons for boosting a fission bomb or the fission primary of a thermonuclear weapon.

The highest level found in the dump’s groundwater was 1,000 Becquerel/Litre – which is 7 times lower than the level considered “safe” under Ontario law.

Not very reassuring when you consider that the the European Union’s “safe” level of Tritium concentrations in water is 100 Becquerel/Litre. In California the allowable level of Tritium in groundwater is 15 Bq/Litre.

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/11/radioactive-waste-found-in-ontario-groundwater/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/10/toronto-says-goodbye-to-a-legend-oscar-peterson/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/10/toronto-says-goodbye-to-a-legend-oscar-peterson/#comments Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:07:26 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/27/toronto-says-goodbye-to-a-legend-oscar-peterson/ Canadian jazz piano virtuoso, Oscar Peterson, died on Sunday at the age of 82. A gentle giant of a man, Peterson set the standard for taste and invention and shaped the jazz scene indelibly in the history of music.

Although his greatest influence was undoubtedly Art Tatum, he incorporated elements of Nat King Cole and Teddy Wilson into his own inimitable sound. Norman Granz discovered him in 1949 and put him to work in his Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts.

In the early 1950s, Peterson began performing with Ray Brown and Charlie Smith as the Oscar Peterson Trio. Shortly afterward the drummer Smith was replaced by guitarist Irving Ashby, formerly of the Nat King Cole Trio.

Since the late 1950s, when Oscar Peterson gained worldwide recognition as one of the leading pianists in jazz, he played in a variety of settings: solo, duo, trio, quartet, small bands, and big bands. However, his solo piano recitals, as well as his solo piano recordings were rare, until he chose to make a series of solo albums titled “Exclusively for my friends.” This solo piano sessions, made for the MPS label, were Peterson’s response to the emergence of such stars as Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner.

Oscar Peterson also taught piano and improvisation in Canada, mainly in Toronto. He also published his original jazz piano etudes for practice. However, he asked his students to study the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, especially the Well Tempered Clavier, the Goldberg Variations, and the The Art of Fugue, considering this piano pieces essential for every serious pianist. [source]

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/10/toronto-says-goodbye-to-a-legend-oscar-peterson/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/06/solar-powered-car-wash-in-toronto/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/06/solar-powered-car-wash-in-toronto/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:07:55 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/23/solar-powered-car-wash-in-toronto/
Solarco has completed the installation of twenty solar thermal panels at the Wash N’ Go Car Wash, located at 4000 Dundas St West in Toronto. The system pre-heats process hot water used for washing cars. Awesome.

WashNGo
4000 Dundas Street West
Toronto, Canada
416.766.7024

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/06/solar-powered-car-wash-in-toronto/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/04/toronto-neighborhoods/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/04/toronto-neighborhoods/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2011 23:06:13 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/21/toronto-neighborhoods/ Thought this might come in handy if you’re trying to get a feel for Toronto. Here are the neighborhoods and their names:

In-town
Annex
Beaches
Cabbagetown
Danforth
Dufferin Grove
Downtown
Kensington Market / Chinatown
Little India
Little Italy
High Park
Queen Street West
Riverdale
St. Clair West
Yonge St. (central)
Yonge & Eglinton
Yorkville

Suburbs
Etobicoke
North York
Scarborough
West of Toronto
North of Toronto

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/10/04/toronto-neighborhoods/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/28/canada-considers-the-us-to-be-unsafe/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/28/canada-considers-the-us-to-be-unsafe/#comments Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:06:11 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/15/canada-considers-the-us-to-be-unsafe/ From rabble:

“The U.S. does not meet the Refugee Convention requirements nor the Convention Against Torture prohibition.”

In a surprise ruling the Federal Court of Canada has overturned the “Canada United States Safe Third Country Agreement” in a judgment issued on November 29, 2007.

In a 124-page decision Mr. Justice Michael Phelan ruled that the Safe Third Country Agreement, which came into effect on Dec. 29, 2004 and regulated refugee movement between Canada and the U.S., violates refugee rights and that the United States did not meet the conditions required to be considered a “Safe Country” under the terms of the Agreement.

The Agreement was also held to be contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. “The interest at stake is highly important to an individual’s life, safety and dignity,” wrote Justice Phelan.

The Judge stated, “I would therefore conclude that the designation of the U.S. as a safe third country leads to a discriminatory result, in that it has a much more severe impact on persons who fall into the areas where the U.S. is not compliant with the Refugee Convention or CAT (Convention Against Torture), as well as discriminating and exposing such people to risk based solely on the method of arrival in Canada.”

“For the reasons outlined in this judgment, the United States’ policies and practices do not meet the conditions set down for authorizing Canada to enter into a Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA),” Justice Phelan stated.

“The U.S. does not meet the Refugee Convention requirements nor the Convention Against Torture prohibition (the Maher Arar case being one example.) Further, the STCA does not comply with the relevant provisions of the Charter.”

The court ruled that a one-year deadline to file refugee claims in the U.S. was inconsistent with the international conventions because it increased the risk claimants would be sent back to countries where they faced danger or torture.

Justice Phelan also noted that the U.S. definition of terrorist activities can…

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]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/28/canada-considers-the-us-to-be-unsafe/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/27/apple-announces-crappy-tv-programming-available-in-itunes-store-in-canada/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/27/apple-announces-crappy-tv-programming-available-in-itunes-store-in-canada/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:06:09 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/14/apple-announces-crappy-tv-programming-available-in-itunes-store-in-canada/ More of a general Canada news item but thought it was worth posting. I wonder: do Canadians appreciate this crappy TV programming? From MacMerc:

This is either what some American executive thinks Canadians would like to watch (i.e. give them Hockey and Corner Gas) or what some Canadian Government agency dictates that we should be forced to watch (i.e. mostly Canadian content, regardless of what the people want). The inclusion of South Park as one of the few US-produced programs available may be a clue as to which one is to blame for the horrible selection–Blame Canada.

Here’s the gist of the press release:

Apple today announced that hit television programming from Canada’s top networks, US broadcasters and the National Hockey League (NHL) is now available for CAN$1.99 per episode from the iTunes Store in Canada. iTunes customers can choose from Canadian-produced favorites such as the top-rated, award-winning “Corner Gas” from CTV, smash hit comedy “Little Mosque on the Prairie” from CBC, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning “South Park” from Comedy Central and the NHL Games of the Year.

CBC’s comedy programs “Little Mosque on the Prairie” and “The Rick Mercer Report,” reality programming “No Opportunity Wasted” and “Dragon’s Den;”
CTV’s smash hit comedy “Corner Gas,” dramas “Instant Star,” “Degrassi: The Next Generation” and “Robson Arms;”
Comedy Central’s “Drawn Together,” “The Sarah Silverman Program” and Emmy and Peabody Award-winning “South Park;”
MTV Networks programs “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “The Hills;” and
NHL Games of the Year, including top NHL games in their entirety for the 2007-2008 season, as well as Stanley Cup Classics, a five-game bundle of great Stanley Cup Final games.
TV shows from the iTunes Store are downloaded in near-DVD quality at a resolution of…

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]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/27/apple-announces-crappy-tv-programming-available-in-itunes-store-in-canada/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/26/time-lapse-video-of-toronto%e2%80%99s-royal-ontario-museum%e2%80%99s-crystal/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/26/time-lapse-video-of-toronto%e2%80%99s-royal-ontario-museum%e2%80%99s-crystal/#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:07:15 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/13/time-lapse-video-of-toronto%e2%80%99s-royal-ontario-museum%e2%80%99s-crystal/

From May 2003 to November 2007 this time lapse video was produced through a series of still images taken at 1pm every day during the construction of The Michael Lee Chin Crystal at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum. Later images were captured every 10 minutes during the building’s opening week.

It is amazing.

Watch the video

[via]

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/26/time-lapse-video-of-toronto%e2%80%99s-royal-ontario-museum%e2%80%99s-crystal/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/25/upcoming-toronto-beer-events/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/25/upcoming-toronto-beer-events/#comments Sun, 25 Sep 2011 23:06:33 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/12/upcoming-toronto-beer-events/ These are not your every day, ordinary codswallop or run-o-the-mill kind of brew. We’re talking quality liquid gold elixir. Anyway. I had to look up some beer lingo. Can ya tell?! Back to this post. Here are a couple of not to be missed beer events in the Toronto area. Happy chugalug! (just kidding.) DON’T chugalug for your liquid sleep. Ok, I’ll stop now.

Fri Jan 25 and Sat Jan 26 2008
Robbie Burns Night
Granite Brewery

2008 (date t.b.a.)
Dogfish Head Beer Dinner with Sam Calagione
beerbistro

[via the bar towel]

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/25/upcoming-toronto-beer-events/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/23/speak-easy/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/23/speak-easy/#comments Fri, 23 Sep 2011 23:06:26 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/10/speak-easy/
SpeakEasy is a Toronto gathering event, a way for students, creative pros, curious onlookers, well, just about everyone is welcome. Eight times a year, meet new people, mingle and exhibit some of your creations. This is a great way to get some exposure for your art, crafts, jewelry if you are trying to become a creative professional.

Where and When?
SpeakEasy
8 times a year on the first Thursday of the month
from 8pm-Midnight
The Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen West, Toronto
Admission is “Pay What You Can” ($4 Suggested)

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/23/speak-easy/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/19/nearly-half-of-toronto-area-residents-are-immigrants/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/19/nearly-half-of-toronto-area-residents-are-immigrants/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 23:07:25 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/12/06/nearly-half-of-toronto-area-residents-are-immigrants/ From CBC:

The Toronto region has experienced substantial growth in its immigrant population over the last five years, according to new census data released Tuesday.

Statistics Canada released information from the 2006 census that gives a snapshot of people who came from other countries to live here. It reveals that most people moving to Canada are flocking to large urban centres, especially Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Demographic experts have predicted that Canada’s population growth will be almost entirely dependent on immigration by 2030 and communities that don’t attract new Canadians may see steady declines in population.

A shrinking population can have a host of economic and social consequences, including a fragile local economy starved for workers that, in turn, discourages much-needed investment. Business and school closures can result, and as the declining population ages the delivery of social services such as health care becomes strained.

Some communities find it difficult to attract immigrants because new Canadians tend to choose large cities where their families have already settled and where they can obtain the services they will need.

The latest census statistics show that immigrants make up 45.7 per cent of the Toronto area population. Five years earlier, immigrants represented 43.7 per cent of the population. In terms of recent immigration, the number of immigrants who lived in the region increased to 2,320,160 from 2,032,960 between 2001 and 2006.

During the same five-year period since the 2001 census, the overall population of Toronto region increased by 9.2 per cent — compared to a provincial gain of 6.6 per cent and a national growth rate of 5.4 per cent.

The immigration figures shows that about one out of every five Canadians was born in another country. In the Toronto region the ratio is almost one out of every two, while for Ontario, it’s more than one out of every four.

The national figures are skewed by the concentration of immigrants in the metropolitan regions of Toronto, Vancouver (39.6 per cent) and Montreal (20.6).

In terms of the country of origin for foreign-born people in the Toronto area, the highest proportion came from…

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]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/19/nearly-half-of-toronto-area-residents-are-immigrants/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/10/the-fun-advertising-minds-of-toronto/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/10/the-fun-advertising-minds-of-toronto/#comments Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:07:02 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/11/29/the-fun-advertising-minds-of-toronto/
Tagline: Energizer. It would never run out on you.

Created by the advertising agency: TBWA, Toronto, Canada; Creative Director: Joe Amaral; Art Director: Pete Ross; Copywriter: Allan Topol; Photographer: Adam Rankin
Published: November 2007

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/10/the-fun-advertising-minds-of-toronto/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/06/dont-hate-toronto-a-brief-history-of-urbanophobia/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/06/dont-hate-toronto-a-brief-history-of-urbanophobia/#comments Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:07:05 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/11/25/dont-hate-toronto-a-brief-history-of-urbanophobia/ From The Toronto Star:

The prejudice of city-hating seems to be deeper, more persistent and more poisonous to progress in Canada than anywhere else in the world. That’s going to spell trouble in a century experts say will be defined by cities.

This week brought another sample of the disdain leaders in senior levels of government have for cities.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities on Tuesday warned that close to 80 per cent of the nation’s urban infrastructure, including roads and bridges, water and waste-removal systems, and transit are past their service life. The tab for replacing it is a staggering $123 billion.

Yet pleas for help from the weakest level of government are almost always greeted by sophistry or condescension. This time the rebuffs came from the top tier of the federal government.

First up was Prime Minister Stephen Harper: He boasted of his government’s $33 billion infrastructure program, which actually goes to provinces, not cities, and in any case works out to a paltry annual $4.7 billion over seven years.
Next came Lawrence Cannon, Harper’s minister of transport and infrastructure, who passed the buck: “I call upon the cities to go and sit down with the provinces,” he said.

And finally Jim Flaherty reminded cities of their comparatively trifling place in the universe: “We’re not in the pothole business in the Government of Canada,” said Harper’s finance minister, adding that the cities should stop “whining.”

North America is unique in its traditional denigration of cities.

The phenomenon is especially pronounced in Canada, where the urban centres, in which roughly 80 per cent of Canadians live — the country’s largest voting block — are powerless creatures of the provinces, with no constitutional standing and very limited spending powers, despite the massive downloading on to them in recent years of social-service and other responsibilities.

Almost wholly reliant for revenue on the property tax — one of the most regressive forms of taxation — municipalities are routinely depicted as feckless authors of their own misfortune whenever finding themselves staring into the fiscal abyss, even after, in Toronto’s case, accounting firm KPMG concluded in a study this year that the city is an able steward of its finances.

Toronto just lacks the money to do all that’s asked of it, a story that is repeated in scores of communities across the country.

“Many political leaders just don’t like cities,” says Richard Florida, the renowned U.S. urbanologist recently tapped to help launch the Prosperity Centre at Toronto’s Rotman School of Business. “They ofx ten think they can mobilize rural and suburban voters by running against cities.”

It might be that Western civilization traces its roots to city-states like Athens and Florence.

But suspicion of cities is as old as the Scriptures, where the Christian regard of urban life begins in Genesis with God’s wrath in destroying Babylon, Sodom and Gomorrah.

And in a New World that rejected much of the old, Henry David Thoreau despaired of the stress puppies in Boston and Philadelphia and retired to his Walden cabin far from “the desperate city.”

Even Lewis Mumford, one of the greatest urbanologists of the 20th century, worried about forces of alienation at work in cities grown too large.

“Democracy, in any active sense,” Mumford said in the 1960s, “begins and ends in communities small enough for their members to meet face to face.”

In the early days of modern neo-conservatism, prominent U.S. commentator George Gilder, appalled by the costly social-work burden cities had taken upon themselves beginning in the 1960s, described cities as “parasites,” ignoring the multitude of studies showing that national prosperity is tied to the rising affluence of urban dwellers.

More recently, the neo-conservative agenda has made room for an attack on progressive voters and U.S. cities teeming with Democrats.

“New Yorkers don’t really see themselves as part of the rest of America,” said American pundit Ann Coulter. “Americans understand that Manhattan is the Soviet Union.”

On a more sorrowful note, Joe Clark acknowledged that the easiest way to unite Canadians is to invoke their hatred of Toronto.

It helps when a nation’s capital is also its principal city. That way, federal politicians and mandarins get a daily experience of failing transit systems, decrepit schools and abandoned factories in wait need of creative redevelopment.

Outside Canada, great cities are regarded as national treasures, the face that countries show the world. Principal cities like Rome, Beijing and Kuala Lumpur, and even “sub-national” centres such as Shanghai, St. Petersburg and Edinburgh, are adequately funded by national governments.

Outside Canada, senior governments partner with cities in what are regarded as national projects.

Paris has funded a stunning makeover of the Charles de Gaulle airport in a successful bid to share European gateway status with Heathrow, Frankfurt and Amsterdam’s Schipol.

With Britain’s enthusiastic support, London is attempting to outmuscle New York as the world capital of finance.

Washington, whose ambivalence toward cities contrasts with Ottawa’s resolute disregard for them, financed Boston’s “Big Dig,” one of the largest U.S. urban-renewal megaprojects in American history.

And to help spur tourism in the gritty industrial city of Bilbao, Madrid footed much of the bill for Canadian expat Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao museum.

Outside Canada, cities have authority to collect local retail and income taxes, and they share in regional taxes. All that applies to U.S. cities, as well, which also have long been permitted to engage in debt-financing by issuing tax-free municipal bonds. Canadian cities, by contrast, are in a fiscal straitjacket, forbidden from running deficits, much less issuing and managing debt.

Yet Canadian cities have rarely been blessed with a confluence of conditions favourable to their future prospects — and to Canada’s.

The nation’s public finances are more sound than that of any G-8 country, enabling Canada to invest heavily in social as well as physical infrastructure to a degree not seen before.

Canadian cities consistently rank among the most liveable in the world. Canada’s receptivity to immigrants and America’s contrasting post-9/11 xenophobia is directing an unprecedented share of the world’s talent to Canada.

The strengthened loonie makes recruiting large numbers of leading scientists, academics, software engineers and corporate administrators away from strong-currency jurisdictions possible for the first time in decades.

These people want to live in cities. “Places that bring together diverse talent accelerate the local rate of economic development,” Florida writes on his blog (www.creativeclass.typepad.com).

“When large numbers of entrepreneurs, financiers, engineers, designers and other smart, creative people are constantly bumping into one another inside and outside of work, business ideas are more quickly formed, sharpened, executed, and — if successful —expanded.”

Globalization and the information age are accentuating the importance of cities, Thomas Courchene, director of the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations at Queen’s University and one of Canada’s foremost public-policy experts, writes in a landmark June report for the Institute for Research on Public Policy, Global Futures for Canada’s Global Cities.

Courchene describes a “virtuous circle” by which global city regions can take “actions that make them attractive to human capital, which, in turn, allows them to become magnets for attracting knowledge-based industries.

“Evidence suggests that privileging Canada’s `hub cities’ will propel them and their hinterlands forward economically.”

Yet Canadian cities are starved of the cash to fund such a renaissance.

“The international evidence on our global city regions’ fiscal weakness is striking,” Courchene warns.

“Cities like Stockholm, Berlin, Vienna and Helsinki spend twice as much and Copenhagen and Amsterdam three times as much per capita (on infrastructure, social services and cultural amenities) as Toronto does.

“This suggests that there is ample scope for decentralization in Canada to go beyond devolution of money and power from Ottawa to the provinces.”

Bottom line: It’s time Canada’s communities were funded directly by Ottawa, which is projecting $26 billion in excess funds over the next six years.

Cities should also be given the capital-raising tools common to cities elsewhere in the world.

It would help immensely if mayors like Toronto’s David Miller had quasi-premier status, with complete control over the city bureaucracy and all-important budget that New York’s Michael Bloomberg wields.

It would seem obvious that municipalities have unrivalled competence in understanding and dealing with the multitude of issues in their jurisdictions.

In the prolonged absence of visionary leadership from Ottawa or provincial capitals, “on urban planning, environment, transportation, education, refugee settlement, public health and many other policies the true innovators in Canada and the U.S. have been mayors,” says Florida.

It’s time to withhold political support from leaders who don’t grasp that urbanity will shape this century even more than the last one.

We have nothing to lose but elected representatives who take our votes for granted, impeding municipal and national progress and inviting our civic deterioration.

[source]

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/06/dont-hate-toronto-a-brief-history-of-urbanophobia/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/03/hot-plans-for-affordable-housing/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/03/hot-plans-for-affordable-housing/#comments Sat, 03 Sep 2011 23:06:11 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/11/22/hot-plans-for-affordable-housing/ From Eye Weekly:

With the vote on Toronto’s new “revenue tools” out of the way, the city can finally start concentrating on other issues. A big one that didn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserved during the provincial election — though many have deemed it a crisis — is affordable housing. Today, the city released a framework called Housing Opportunities Toronto (HOT), with the goal to develop a 10-year blueprint for meeting Toronto’s affordable housing needs. The public have been invited to comment on this document so that, much like the with city’s recent climate change plan, everyone will have the opportunity to make sure that city council ultimately approves a framework that works.

It’s wonderful to see the city finally pull together a plan on this issue. Some of you might recall that over a year ago, the Wellesley Institute released it’s own 10-year Blueprint to End Homelessness in Toronto. The idea was to push all three levels of government to at least adopt a similar strategy by showing how it could be done — including how governments could afford it. The Institute offers a…

Read the full article

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/09/03/hot-plans-for-affordable-housing/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/27/rare-dinosaur-discovered-in-museum-basement/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/27/rare-dinosaur-discovered-in-museum-basement/#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 23:07:50 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/11/15/rare-dinosaur-discovered-in-museum-basement/

The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto went hunting for a dinosaur skeleton only to discover that it already had the massive creature buried in its own collection for over 45 years. The Barosaurus skeleton, affectionately nicknamed Gordo after Dr. Edmund, will be the largest dinosaur skeleton on display in Canada, as well as the only Barosaurus skeleton on display in the world made mostly of real fossil bone. It lacks the original skull.

[via]

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/27/rare-dinosaur-discovered-in-museum-basement/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/25/direct-flights-from-lax-and-sfo-to-yyz/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/25/direct-flights-from-lax-and-sfo-to-yyz/#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:09:47 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=238
Los Angelinos and San Franciscans, rejoice! Starting June 23, 2010, Virgin America is offering direct flights out of San Francisco and Los Angeles to and from Toronto, marking the airline’s first international destination. For an unbeatable fare, you’ll get power outlets at every seat, in-flight internet, mood-lit cabins, custom designed leather seating, and Red™ — the touch-screen personal entertainment system featuring live TV, movies, music, video games and more. [via thrillist]

See the flight schedule and fees

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/25/direct-flights-from-lax-and-sfo-to-yyz/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/22/canadas-10-best-new-restaurants-2-in-toronto/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/22/canadas-10-best-new-restaurants-2-in-toronto/#comments Mon, 22 Aug 2011 23:06:56 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/11/11/canadas-10-best-new-restaurants-2-in-toronto/ 1. Atlantica

Beach House, 38 Beachy Cove Rd., Portugal Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, 709-895-1251, atthebeachhouse.ca/atlantica

2. KINGYO IZAKAYA
871 Denman St., Vancouver, 604-608-1677

3. SALT TASTING ROOM

45 Blood Alley, Vancouver, 604-633-1912, salttastingroom.com

4. BISTRO BIENVILLE

4650, rue de Mentana, Montréal, 514-509-1269, bistrobienville.com

5. COLBORNE LANE

45 Colborne St., Toronto, 416-368-9009, colbornelane.com

Read the full list

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/22/canadas-10-best-new-restaurants-2-in-toronto/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/21/organic-gardens-in-canada-an-upward-trend/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/21/organic-gardens-in-canada-an-upward-trend/#comments Sun, 21 Aug 2011 23:06:28 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/11/10/organic-gardens-in-canada-an-upward-trend/ Via ENN:

As climate change makes longer, drier summers a reality in many parts of the world, a new trend in landscaping is taking root in Canada.

In Toronto, where precipitation levels were 52 percent below the seasonal average over the past six months, according to government data, residents are trading in their manicured lawns for environmentally friendly organic landscapes.

“Irrigation is a huge issue as water is such a valuable resource,” said Claire Suo-Cockerton of landscaping company Aesthetic Earthworks. “We are trying to plant material that is more appropriate today in our climate.”

Organic landscapers use drought resistant plants and shrubs native to the region, which encourage the development micro-organisms in the soil. This attracts birds and insects to act as natural pest and disease control.

A well-managed organic landscape is self-sustaining, whereas a traditional yard needs to be watered at least once per week, Suo-Cockerton said.

“It’s a drastic lifestyle change for those who incorporate it in their homes,” she added.

But the change may be a bit too drastic for average homeowner.

Kevin MacDonald, operations manager of Humber Nurseries near Toronto, said he hasn’t seen an increase in the sale of native plants and shrubs. He said the downside to native plants is they are more susceptible to native insects.

“By planting a cultivated variety, that is non-native, you may not end up with diseases and insect problems, simply because the diseases and insects that would traditionally attack that plant are not found in the new location,” he said.

Still, the main reason why traditional gardens remain popular may be purely aesthetic.

“In most cases homeowners will have a preference for what looks best,” MacDonald said.

While the bare shrubs and woodchips of an organic landscape don’t quite have the curb appeal of an ornamental garden, commercial and residential buildings looking to go green are picking up on the trend.

“From a developer’s standpoint it’s a great marketing tool because people are becoming very conscious of the environment,” said Melissa Ferrato of the Canada Green Building Council (CGBG).

The CGBG uses the leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) standard developed in the United States to measure the “green factor” of a building. Avoiding pesticides, lawnmowers and leafblowers all reduce a building’s carbon footprint, contributing to a higher LEED score.

“Native, organic plants is what we’re all about,” said Ferrato. “We really discourage the use of manicured lawns and pesticides.”

While organic landscaping is only now gaining popularity in the private sector, it has long been used by city parks departments.

“We’ve been moving away from traditional lawns for many years now,” said Patricia Landry a liaison officer at the Toronto parks department. “We are using plants able to withstand drought, pollution and the changing climate.”

Organic landscaping makes economic sense for urban municipalities, Landry said. Less money is spent on labor and irrigation. And reintroducing native plants provides habitat for birds and small animals.

While efforts to convert Toronto’s ornamental flowerbeds to organic gardens were met with public opposition, some of the cultivated annuals were swapped with native plants.

“It’s about trying to keep a balance,” said Landry. “Finding different ways to keep those areas a little more environmentally friendly.”

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/21/organic-gardens-in-canada-an-upward-trend/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/13/city-of-torontos-official-website/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/13/city-of-torontos-official-website/#comments Sat, 13 Aug 2011 23:07:34 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2007/11/03/city-of-torontos-official-website/
How can I go on with this blog without talking about the very official City of Toronto’s very complete and awesome website? I can’t. It’s as simple as that.

Here, I’m going to link you to the “special events” page, where you’ll find gobs of things to do during your stay in this great city.

Toronto Special Events is a full-service Section of the City of Toronto’s Economic Development, Culture & Tourism division.

With a mandate to develop and promote dynamic, innovative and accessible events and festivals, the Toronto Special Events office celebrates the richness and diversity of this great city, enriching the quality of life for residents and attracting world-wide tourist audiences.

Toronto Special Events produces more than 30 festivals and events and consults with hundreds more every year. This web page provides you with detailed information on all events produced by Toronto Special Events.

Link: City of Toronto

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/08/13/city-of-torontos-official-website/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/25/3-concerts-for-39-toronto-symphony-orchestra/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/25/3-concerts-for-39-toronto-symphony-orchestra/#comments Mon, 25 Jul 2011 23:09:12 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=234
From daily-free:

“Toronto Symphony Orchestra: 3+ Concerts for $39 Each, Best Available Seats
August 9th, 2009 Posted in RedFlagDeals The Now or Never sale for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra is on now at TSO.ca. Until August 17th at 5PM EST, you can purchase tickets for 3 or more concerts in their upcoming season for $39 each per ticket. That’s certainly not the cheapest form of entertainment but for $39 you do get to choose from the best available seats in the house. As a bonus you’ll also get a free CD that highlights the upcoming season and an additional discount of 5% once the Now or Never sale is over.

What concerts can you choose from? Take a look at their 09.10 Season at a Glance brochure (PDF).

This deal Toronto Symphony Orchestra: 3+ Concerts for $39 Each, Best Available Seats was originally posted on RedFlagDeals.com – Your source for Canadian Deals, Free Coupons and Freebies.”

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/25/3-concerts-for-39-toronto-symphony-orchestra/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/23/canada-to-ban-bottled-water/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/23/canada-to-ban-bottled-water/#comments Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:06:31 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=232 From the cbc:

“The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has asked Canadian cities and towns to phase out the sale and purchase of bottled water on municipal property.

The federation board of directors passed the anti-bottle resolution at a meeting in Victoria on Saturday.

The move carries no legal weight and aims simply to encourage municipalities to speak out against bottled water and avoid distributing it when possible.

“It’s not a ban, we just try to educate our citizens that the water that you pay in your city is good — use it,” said FCM president Jean Perrault, the mayor of Sherbrooke, Que.

It takes a lot of energy to produce the bottles themselves, Perrault said, and despite being recyclable about half of the bottles sold end up in landfills — at a direct cost to local governments.

But there’s also the personal expense, he said.

“Buying a bottle of water costs approximately $2.50. The cost to produce water in the city? I can fill up 6,000 little bottles for the price of $2.50,” Perrault said.

Twenty-seven Canadian municipalities have already phased out the sale of bottled water on their properties.

Pam McConnell, a Toronto city councillor, described what goes on at Toronto City Hall. “You’d see glasses on the tables, you’d see jugs of water from the tap, you’d see people happily drinking them at their desks and committee meetings,” McConnell said.

Ontario’s provincial association of municipalities has also encouraged its members to use tap water, and 21 Canadian universities and colleges have created bottle-free zones.

“It’s a way to say our water is good, our water is safe and our water is paid for,’” McConnell said.”

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/23/canada-to-ban-bottled-water/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/22/goose-poo-problem/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/22/goose-poo-problem/#comments Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:07:55 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=231 From upi:

“Dogs are now banned from Toronto’s Lake Ontario beaches but there remains a persistent problem of some 3,000 Canada geese defecating every few minutes.

Carol Guy of the City of Toronto’s Waterfowl Management Program said the recent ban of dogs is a small step toward reducing E. coli contamination along some 30 miles of the lakefront but the stubborn goose population that doesn’t migrate south for the winter is still a headache, the Toronto Sun reported.

“Each bird defecates every 6 minutes and that is approximately … 1 pound of goose poo every day,” Guy said. “You multiply that by 3,000 and it’s a considerable impact.”

The city has a program in which workers coat goose eggs with mineral oil to prevent them from hatching but Environment Canada waterfowl biologist Jack Hughes said it’s a losing battle.

“They’re definitely increasing,” he told the Sun. “We’ve estimated presently that they’re increasing at about 8 percent per year.”

Some 1,300 geese were captured, caged and relocated by trucks from city parks last year, and the city also pays a woman with four trained dogs to herd the flocks away from beaches, the report said.”

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/22/goose-poo-problem/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/21/network-neutrality-in-canada/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/21/network-neutrality-in-canada/#comments Thu, 21 Jul 2011 23:05:43 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=230 From arstechnica:

“Canada’s telecoms regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is in the midst of a network neutrality proceeding, and the responses that rolled in this week were vociferous. Several ISPs and music groups objected to any such rules, arguing that they might stop ISPs from implementing all sorts of wonderful policies such as P2P upload throttling, website blocking, and graduated response rules.

One of the more interesting responses came from an ISP called Videotron, which told the CRTC that controlling access to content “peut être bénéfique non seulement pour les utilisateurs de services Internet mais pour la société en général”—that is, “could be beneficial not only to users of Internet services but to society in general.”

Continue reading

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/21/network-neutrality-in-canada/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/20/louis-vuitton-graffiti/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/20/louis-vuitton-graffiti/#comments Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:07:04 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=229
This is from viewonfashion:

The Louis Vuitton ad campaign for the Stephen Sprouse collection is really amazing, and it´s a great branding tool too. All around the world, LV shops are using graffiti to promote this long-awaited collection which is already a big sales hit.

To promote the launch of the Louis Vuitton book that pays tribute to Stephen Sprouse, they´ve got legendary graffiti artist Skam to paint an LV mural in Toronto.

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/20/louis-vuitton-graffiti/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/19/edgar-wright-in-toronto/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/19/edgar-wright-in-toronto/#comments Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:07:29 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=228 From twitch:

“Rejoice, Toronto film fans! Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright has taken up residence here in our fair city and is soon to be taking over the Bloor Cinema with a series of hosted screenings. What’s he bringing? Well, on Saturday, February 28th Wright will be hosting a night of his own work, screening a double bill of Shaun and Fuzz along with an uncut version of his Grindhouse trailer Don’t. The only thing missing is A Fistful Of Fingers, don’t hold out on us Edgar! How to follow that up? Well, the very next day Wright will be presenting – both on 35 mm – a double bill of Shaolin Soccer and legendary gore-fu flick The Story of Ricky! Pig entrails on the big screen! Hurray! As for the rest of the series, there’s still a slot or two to be filled, but here’s the list as it currently stands:

Mar. 8th: 7pm The Wanderers / 9:30pm – The Warriors
Mar. 14th: 9:45pm – Head
Mar. 15th: 7pm Dames / 9pm – Phantom of the Paradise TBC
Mar. 22nd: 5pm – Spaced Marathon TBC
April. 5th: 7pm Five Fingers Of Death TBC/ 9:30pm Drunken Master 2
April 12th: 7pm The Brood / 9pm Last Night “

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/19/edgar-wright-in-toronto/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/18/best-poutine-in-toronto/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/18/best-poutine-in-toronto/#comments Mon, 18 Jul 2011 23:06:03 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=227 Head over to nothincrazie.com to find out. Here’s an excerpt:

“There’s a new fast food eatery in town! Their name is Smoke’s Poutinerie and poutines are the only thing you will find there. The poutine lovers (me, crazyDiva, and tooVee) drove all the way downtown to check it out. We had high expectations for their poutine since it was the only dish they specialized in. After spending 10 minutes hunting down a parking spot, we hopped out of the car with big smiles on our faces, excited for the worst combination of grease you can ask for.

Strategically placed in the heart of the entertainment district (218 Adeladie Street W.), they are open until 4:00 am for drunks to get fat on after their night of…”

Continue reading

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/18/best-poutine-in-toronto/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/16/teen-was-stabbed-but-goes-to-his-job-interview/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/16/teen-was-stabbed-but-goes-to-his-job-interview/#comments Sat, 16 Jul 2011 23:05:41 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=225 From wellandtribune:

Toronto – “A 16-year-old Toronto student showed some real grit Wednesday and really impressed some potential employers, says The Canadian Press.

Despite being stabbed in the leg he showed up for a job interview instead of going to the hospital.

He another 16-year-old old were stabbed near a high school, sending the collegiate into lockdown and heavily armed police swarming through the area.

But staff at a veterinary clinic said the student showed up on time for his 1 p.m. co-op placement interview.

But when employees noticed blood on his leg, they called police.

He and the other student were finally taken to hospital.

“He did really well on the interview and we were very proud of him for sticking to the appointment,” said veterinarian Kent Ackerman, adding he was “shocked” the teen would do so.

Police were looking for two or three suspects seen running north out of the area.

Initial reports of a gun being seen prompted Emergency Task Force teams to search the collegiate.”

[via]

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/16/teen-was-stabbed-but-goes-to-his-job-interview/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/14/happy-holidays/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/14/happy-holidays/#comments Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:06:35 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=222

]]> http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/14/happy-holidays/feed/ 0 http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/13/igloo-in-to/ http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/2011/07/13/igloo-in-to/#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:07:32 +0000 contact http://www.bedandbreakfast-toronto.com/?p=223
via Neatorama

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