In The News

We're known for our international music stars, but we've also got the indie scene covered. BlogTO takes note of the Torontonians who made the Polaris Prize shortlist, including Feist and Drake (who also happen to be international superstars).
 
Read the full story here
Original source: BlogTO

New York Times travel writer Sarah Wildman recently explored Toronto's offbeat fashion and design scene and was surprised to discover new life on (and off) legendary Queen Street West.
 
"Canada's largest city has seen an explosion of small avant-garde neighborhoods in the last decade, with slick bars, restaurants and boutiques nudging into immigrant areas. But the origin of Toronto's indie streak is Queen Street West, a strip that a decade ago began filling with locally owned retail shops and has in recent years seen yet another influx of new boutiques that seamlessly blend in with older standbys."
 
"Rather than chain retail stores, what have arrived are businesses like Ruins (960 Queen Street West, 416-725- 0723, ruinstoronto.com), a two-year-old clothing store that sells deconstructed pieces for men and women by the design team of Michael Thomas, a 27-year-old who divides his time between Berlin and Toronto, and Joshua Reichmann, 35, who also owns the boutique."
 
Read the full story here
Original source: New York Times

Whatever the critics say about the new Windows 8 operating system, there's agreement that Microsoft's Worldwide Partners Conference, held Sunday at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and the Air Canada Centre, was good for Toronto, bringing 15,000 people to the city.
 
"This is a great privilege, and what a great showcase for Canada," Max Long, president of Microsoft Canada, told the Financial Post.
 
"We have an opportunity with the thousands of people coming into town from 150 different countries to see what Canada is capable of. To come to Toronto, see the city, see the way we do business here and see the people. So from that respect, I'm really excited about what it brings to Canada as a whole."
 
"This year's WPC marks the first time since 2004—the last time it was hosted by Toronto—that Microsoft has held the conference outside the United States. That year, about 5,000 delegates attended the conference…. More than 40 hotels will be hosting attendees, with more than 50,000 hotel nights already booked."
 
"According to Tourism Toronto, the conference is expected to generate an economic footprint of between $50 million and $52 million in hotel room bookings, convention centre rentals and officially organized transportation. But those figures don't include the extra revenue expected to pour into the city from attendees frequenting local restaurants, shops, events and taxis."
 
Read the full story here
Original source: Financial Times
 

Mississauga hosted the International Fashion Show last week in true Bollywood style, reports Oye Times.
 
"Fashionistas, socialites, social climbers, models and model wannabes, photographers, industry heads and politicians, all jostled for their place in the lineup to get into the hall for this stunning show."
 
"Several local and international designers revealed their creations at the International Convention Centre in Mississauga with the grand finale featuring the breathtaking creations of Indian fashionista extraordinaire Vikram Phadnis and Lebanese renowned designer Walid Atallah's bridal collection."
 
Read the full story here
Original source: Oye Times

Just as this year's Toronto Pride celebrations were fading from local headlines, the city made a splash in the United Kingdom during London's Pride festival.
 
Last Saturday, London hosted the third-ever WorldPride, an event that happens every few years, aiming to deliver a lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans parade and festival of international scope and appeal. Though the streets of central London were packed with excited attendees, colourful characters and intrigued onlookers, a series of organizational snafus led to the entertainment program being dramatically reduced—and the parade turned into a march without motorized vehicles—just days before the event.
 
Meanwhile, delegates from Pride Toronto, Ontario Tourism and Tourism Toronto, promoting Toronto's own upcoming WorldPride celebrations in 2014, swept in to fill some of the gaps. When the official media area in Trafalgar Square didn't happen, London Pride organizers directed international reporters to Toronto's media lounge in a hotel just outside the square. In fact, that's where some London organizers went themselves for a break.
 
More dramatically, Canadians dominated the entire final hour of London's Pride programming, with Proud FM host Mike Chalut taking over as MC to welcome '80s star Corey Hart and Toronto booster and high-energy headliner Deborah Cox to the stage. By day's end, there was a buzz that Toronto's WorldPride organizational abilities would decidedly exceed London's.
 
"According to [Toronto] organizers, they have been planning it for the past four years," reported Gay Star News.
 
Caryl Dolinko of InterPride, the international association of Pride organizers that sanctions WorldPride, told the Toronto Star that Toronto's is "going to be the biggest and probably one of the best WorldPrides we'll ever have… Toronto will do it right."
 
Read the full stories here and here
Original sources: Gay Star News & Toronto Star
 

Progress reinvigorating Toronto's waterfront hasn't been fast, but Susan Griffith, a writer for the UK's Independent newspaper, seems impressed by what's taking shape.
 
"Over the past 20 years, the city fathers have been imaginatively transforming the concrete piers, abandoned silos and crumbling warehouses of the industrial waterfront into welcoming public spaces."
 
Offering a tour starting at the Toronto Music Garden, Griffith suggests heading east.
 
"Within 10 or 15 minutes the sign for the unlovely Redpath Sugar Refinery will come into view, hiding an unexpected urban treat. This is the third summer that a load of sand has transformed a carpark into Canada's Sugar Beach, featuring 150 white slatted Muskoka chairs under pink umbrellas, where Torontonians come to picnic and sunbathe. Swimming is not permitted but you can cool off in the fountains that shoot out of the pavement."
 
Read the full story here
Original source: The Independent
 

There are lots of ways to measure the livability of cities. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is one of the leaders in figuring out who's good at what. In a recent experiment, they held a competition that made their data available to outside researchers. Participants could tinker with the numbers to make certain indicators more or less important to give a unique view on what makes a city liveable.
 
The winner was Filippo Lovato, an Italian architect who produced the Spatially Adjusted Liveability Index.
 
"This added seven new indicators on 'spatial adjustments' to the EIU's ranking. Mr Lovato assessed cities' green space, sprawl, natural assets, cultural assets, connectivity, isolation and pollution on a scale of 1 to 5, and then gave the resultant combined score 25 per cent of the weight of his new index. The remaining 75 per cent derives from the five categories that make up the EIU's ranking: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure."
 
Lovato also focussed on larger cities, excluding perennial well-ranked cities like Melbourne, Vancouver and Vienna. The result? Toronto came in at #8, doing well on being green, but lacking cultural assets compared to the cities that beat it.
 
Hong Kong came in at #1.
 
You can read the whole list here and here
 
Original sources: CNN Go & The Economist
 
 

Gordon Nixon, chief executive officer of Royal Bank of Canada, is being recognized this year by research firm Catalyst for championing women in business, reports Bloomberg News.
 
"Catalyst, an organization founded in 1962 to advance and support female executives in business, said Royal Bank under Nixon 'has consistently shown leadership across all industries in the representation of women and visible minorities.'"
 
"Nixon established a council at the bank after becoming CEO in 2001 to oversee diversity efforts across the Toronto-based company, including increasing the amount of women and visible minorities for senior roles, Catalyst said this week in a statement. Women comprise 65 per cent of Royal Bank's Canadian workforce and 37 per cent of the firm's executives."
 
"Nixon said that Canada is 'absolutely' ready for its first female bank CEO."
 
"'Not only will Bay Street be ready for it, they'd welcome it,' Nixon said, referring to the Toronto street that serves as the financial hub for Canada. 'We're now getting more and more women in the senior ranks of companies.'"
 
Read the full story here
Original source: Bloomberg News

As Toronto celebrates its annual Pride Week, there's more to ruminate on than Mayor Rob Ford's queer absence.
 
On This Magazine's blog, writer Kyle Dupont examines the inroads LBGTQ (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transsexual and transgendered and queer) people have made in this country.
 
"The attitudes on Parliament Hill have continued to shift in greater support for the rights of the LGBTQ community. Most politicians today no longer view this topic negatively, or in the equally harmful don't-ask-don't-tell light of our not too distant past. Even Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated a few months ago that his government has no intention of revisiting the issue of same sex-marriage in Canada—likely because the tide of public support for same-sex marriage has become so strong here."
 
Meanwhile, US-based gay travel magazine Passport reports that two Americans have won a wedding vacation after entering a Tourism Toronto photo competition with a photo of themselves posing with their wedding cake. They will receive a trip to Toronto to be married on a parade float.
 
"It's the dream wedding: walking down the aisle, moving slowly toward the person of your dreams as friends and family stand with tears in their eyes. Now, replace the aisle with Toronto's main thoroughfare and your friends and family with thousands and thousands of LGBT revelers at Pride Toronto, and you've got New York City residents Carter Etherington and Breken Elwood's winning wedding."
 
Over at The Huffington Post, there's a story about Pride Toronto partnering with Google+ to create a series of documentaries by Jeff Feurzeig.
 
"Together: Stories by Pride & Google+ profiles a diverse cross-section of Toronto's LGBT community. Everyone from Hugh and Gerald, a couple who marched in Toronto's first Pride Parade in 1972, to drag queen, Jonathan."
 
"Our favourite might be Connor's story. An interview with a 17-year-old teen who came out just days before Feurzeig met up with him."
 
Pride Week wraps up July 1 with the parade down Yonge Street. The whole schedule is Pride Toronto's website. 
 
Read the full stories here and here and here
Original sources: This Magazine, Passport & Huffington Post
 

Australia's Sydney Morning Herald reports that Air Canada made America's first "perfect" flight last week.
 
What does that mean? It's about maximum energy savings and minimum carbon emissions.
 
"They combined the most efficient aircraft, biofuel and even lightweight cabin equipment to cut energy and carbon emissions to a minimum," writes the Herald.
 
"The commercial flight on an Airbus A319 from Toronto to Mexico City used a state-of-the-art aircraft, powered by sustainable fuels and guided by 'streamlined' air-traffic control, Airbus said in an e-mailed statement."
 
"Airlines won approval from the US technical standards body last July to fly passenger planes using a 50-50 blend of petroleum-based fuel and biofuel. In October, Airbus and Air France-KLM Group said they made the world's greenest commercial flight from Toulouse to Paris, using a cooking oil-based fuel, taking the shortest available route and applying a so-called continuous descent approach, cutting emissions in half."
 
"'The aviation industry is in a strong position to reduce emissions and fly many more perfect flights,' Airbus chief executive officer Fabrice Bregier said in the statement. 'To make this a day-to-day commercial reality, it requires now a political will to foster incentives.'"
 
Read the full story here
Original source: Sydney Morning Herald

On July 1, Markham transforms from a town into a full-fledged city.
 
In May councillors voted unanimously to change the community's status. The municipality has a population of more than 300,000, making it the fourth largest GTA community after Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton.
 
"Many of the residents expressed concern that Markham will lose its quiet rural structure, but councillors argue they want to revitalize the town's image and making it Ontario's newest city will help that," reports Andrew Moran in Digital Journal.
 
"Will Markham receive any extra benefits for the name change? According to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, there are no added subsidies or perks. There are also no requirements in terms of population or size to become a city as long as the place uses a name that doesn't already exist."
 
Read the full story here
Original source: Digital Journal

The MuchMusic Video Awards were even more Canadian than usual this year as heartthrob Justin Bieber and his protégé bubblicious Carly Rae Jepsen outshone the competition. The event's unique approach also won kudos.
 
"Welcome to Canada's street-front and studio-less TV awards show, where rabid fans that camp out for days ahead of the Canadian music video kudosfest get equal billing with star-driven performances," wrote the Hollywood Reporter.
 
"This is egalitarian Canada, where fan access means getting into the face of receptive MMVA performers and presenters. To do that, the Canadian awards show makes full use of surrounding streets for red carpet entrances, the MuchMusic studio's large rollup windows to allow camera shots of sidewalks filled with fans, and a parking lot with a low-rise stage that gets stars close to their fans."
 
Read the full story here
 Original Source: Hollywood Reporter

Mississauga's Absolute Towers, dubbed the Marilyn Monroe building for their shapely curves, have been recognized by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat as the best tall building in the Americans in 2012.
 
"There have been several curvaceous towers completed in recent years—some using balconies to achieve the free-form edge, and others using the whole façade," wrote juror David Scott. "With Absolute we see the entire building twisting to achieve the organic form, creating a beautiful new landmark for a developing urban area."
 
Read the whole story here and here 
Original source: Reuters

The Wall Street Journal's Insider Guide has taken a look at Toronto with fresh eyes. And it's seeing a new glamour in all the towers and lively street life. In fact, writer Carolyn King paints an almost glitzy portrait of the city.
 
"You probably knew Canada's largest city was cool—in a "pack a sweater" kind of way. Think again. Some of Toronto's most important cultural institutions have had makeovers by renowned architects in recent years. Luxury hotel chains are falling over each other to establish outposts there. The restaurant and arts scenes are thriving, thanks to an influx of downtown dwellers drawn by a local condo boom that shows few signs of running out of steam."
 
"There's no better time to visit than the summer, when Torontonians shed their layers and descend on the city's ubiquitous patios. Luminato, the city's several-year-old arts festival, wraps up this weekend, as does NXNE, Canada's answer to Austin's annual event."
 
Read the full story here
Original source: Wall Street Journal

A nationwide poll by Forum Research suggests that residents of Mississauga, Oakville, Markham and Richmond Hill like what they get for their tax dollars.
 
The four GTA municipalities all made the top 10 in a ranking of resident satisfaction with municipal services across Canada. Respondents ranked their satisfaction on everything from fire and garbage services to libraries and public transportation. Although Quebec City came out on top, the GTA managed to dominate the list in other ways.
 
"Council and I are very pleased at seeking this kind of progress on our goal of becoming better every year," Oakville Mayor Rob Burton told InsideHalton.com. Oakville ranked fifth overall. "It's terrific really to have this validation of how hard we have been working on this and that we are actually getting some results."
 
"The town tied for second in the area of police services with 53 per cent of Oakville residents surveyed saying they were very satisfied with their police service," writes InsideHalton.com. "Oakville tied for second again in the area of ambulance and emergency medical services satisfaction with 61 per cent and tied for second place in the area of public health services satisfaction with 37 per cent."
 
"Oakville received the highest satisfaction rating of all cities surveyed for road maintenance and repair with 31 per cent, a score that left Burton particularly satisfied."
 
The top 10 in order are:
Quebec City, Que.
Burnaby, B.C.
Mississauga, Ont.
Sherbrooke, Que.
Oakville, Ont.
Burlington, Ont.
Laval, Que.
Markham, Ont.
Longueuil, Que.
Richmond Hill, Ont.
 
Read the full story here
Original source: InsideHalton.com