Results tagged “caribana”

CULTURE: The city will come alive this weekend—resplendent with vibrant colours, spectacular pageantry, extravagant costumes, and the lively music of masquerade bands—with the wrap-up of the forty-second annual Caribana Festival. The festival, a celebration of Caribbean culture and traditions, billed as Canada's largest cultural celebration, is expected to draw more than one million participants this year. The festival slogan for 2009 is "Won't Stop the Vibe" and hopefully the civic workers' strike or the six- to eight-foot-tall fences along the parade route —on Lake Shore Boulevard from the CNE to Parkside Drive—won't stop it. As the parade wends its way along the route, visitors can also enjoy the entertainment in a relaxing atmosphere at the Caribana Tent Theatres in Marilyn Bell Park. Lake Shore Boulevard and Exhibition Place (200 Princes' Boulevard), 10 a.m.–6 p.m., FREE ($15–18 for seats in the CNE).

Urban Planner is Torontoist's daily guide to what's on in Toronto, published every morning. If you have an event you'd like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you've got any—to events@torontoist.com.

FUNDRAISER: Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) presents Pikin News: Out Loud!, a celebration of a youth-run Sierra Leone newspaper. Pikin (Children's) News—a government agency and UNICEF-funded project—was launched in 2006 to serve as a platform for youth in Sierra Leone to discuss issues affecting them. Proceeds from tonight's event will support the young journalists who conceived and contribute to this publication. In addition to music and a performance by a traditional Sierra Leonean dance group, the event will feature guest speakers reading articles and poetry from the newspaper, providing insight into the experiences of a generation of children who have been impacted by the country's eleven-year civil war. Lula Lounge (1585 Dundas Street West), 8 p.m., $10.

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention that they deserve.

SPORTS: The Toronto FC are playing FC Dallas this afternoon. The team's had a week to rest since their loss to Real Salt Lake last Monday, so hopefully a victory is in store. BMO Field (170 Princes' Boulevard), 4 p.m., $21–$85.

PARADE: The 41st annual Caribana Parade runs along Lakeshore Boulevard today, starting at Exhibition Place and moving west. This year's celebration—like years past—will include Jamaican reggae bands, Latin salsa, Haitian zouk, and other music of the Caribbean, alongside colourfully-dressed dancers and other performers. And there will also be lots and lots of delicious Caribbean food. Exhibition Place (200 Princes' Boulevard), 10 a.m., FREE (unless you want to sit in the seated areas, where tickets are $25).

Environmental groups including Ecojustice and Earthroots are decrying that golf courses on the Oak Ridges Moraine use billions of litres of water a year. The report they issued points out that groundwater levels in the area are declining sharply. Not in their report but should have been: the fact that golf sucks.

Poor OCAP. They can't even complain about the police watching them without the police watching them. At noon on Wednesday, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty held a press conference (not a rally or an action or a march but a press conference) at the northeast corner of Dundas and Sherbourne, and there was about one police officer for each person in attendance (around twenty). As eight or so cops casually observed the conference from across the street, Beric German of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee speculated on how much each one was being paid: "About fifty dollars an hour?"

When the Information and Privacy Commissioner for Ontario published its guidelines for the use of video surveillance cameras in public places back in October 2001 [.PDF], it summarized that institutions considering their use "must balance the benefits of video surveillance to the public against an individual’s right to be free of unwarranted intrusion into his or her life. Pervasive, routine and random surveillance of ordinary, lawful public activities interferes with an individual’s privacy."

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention that they deserve.

We publish a lot of articles here on Torontoist, and sometimes it's hard to keep up with all of them. Populist is a weekly recap intended for the casual Torontoist reader, featuring some of the coolest, most interesting, most commented, and most recommended posts from the past week on Torontoist. Populist will appear every Sunday night.

So much for Brampton.

Top photo by News46 from the Torontoist Flickr pool; bottom photo by Marc Lostracco.

Every weekday, we pick an image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!

Paramedics dispatched to a house fire in west Toronto ended up on the Danforth because of a duplicate street name. Even worse, the fire may have resulted in the death of a 65-year old woman. This begs raises the question: why hasn't the city fixed the problem? The Star reminds us that the city has actually done a study about this problem (there are about 100 or so duplications around the megacity) and done nothing.

A 12-year old girl who has been missing for two days has been found after an exhaustive search in the city's east end. She had run away after a fight with her parents.

The Star does a little digging and pulls out the startling fact that 21 of the 32 accused murderers this year were under court orders. Toronto homicide detectives are concerned that so many people accused of violent and gun crimes are able to get bail so easily.

Three hit and runs in Etobicoke over the weekend has killed one and injured five others. Two of the hit and runs were possibly sparked by earlier disputes.

The Diamond Cherry Reading Series – run by local poets and small-press publishers Devon Gallant and Julie Cameron Gray – kicks-off the week with performances by audio poet Hilary Peach (Poems Only Dogs Can Hear) and singer/songwriter/poet Nik Beat. The series takes place each month at the Zemra Lounge – 778 St. Clair West – and starts at 8pm. It’s free, too, so you have no excuse not to go.

From where the men are men and the women are wrapped in layers of clothing comes the five piece cinematic stylings of Huskey Rescue. Smooth, chilled out and laid back is their way, which should be a perfect reprise for those soaking up the heat from the Caribana parade. To enhance the evening's events, you'll also discover the delicate and devastating sounds of The Elanors and the always interesting mix ups from turntable fanatics InsideAMind. And to make everything even more interesting there will be live video mixing by project3media and Charles Officer. Goes down tonight at the El Mocambo - 464 Spadina.

Yes we know that our headline sounds like something out of X-Men IV but it's not. Unless you went to bed at 9pm, you probably saw that really bad summer storm kick the snot out of the heatwave. You're not so tough now are you heatwave. Sadly about 150,000 Ontarians are without power because of the storm.

Big news on the municipal election front. Former mayor John Sewell wants back into the concrete clamshell. He's running in Ward 21 against Miller ally Joe Mihevc. Sewell has the support of Margaret Smith and many from the Save Our St. Clair campaign that lobbied against the right-of-way.

Police announced this morning that eight men have been arrested for the Boxing Day shooting of Jane Creba. Police have pointed their fingers at two west-end gangs. The Creba shooting was a huge priority for the police and at one point 20-full time investigators were working on the case.

Things are getting ugly between the city and the Carribean Cultural Committee, the organizers of the huge Caribana festival. Citing the lack of a clean audit, the city is refusing to give $400,000 or so of funding and asked another group, the Toronto Mas Band Association, to take the reins of the festival.

Another Caribana Parade, another disgusting amount of money pumped into our city. Torontoist hit the Caribbean celebration on Saturday, spending some of our money and picking up a few tidbits of Jamaican Patios Patois in the process.

Why is Jay Z's grill all up in your grill, all up over our website? There's no reasonable explanation. It's true Mr Z is in Toronto this weekend for his MuchMusic gig tonight (with Kanye the Jesus freak), and at the cheese bar Montana's on Saturday night (Montana's is not actually a bar that serves cheese, rather a cheezey hangout for cheeseball people), but it's not as if any Torontoist readers or cohorts will be able to see the man. Firstly, the Much gig will overblown with tweens, making it next to impossible to be near Queen. Nextly, Jay is charging $80 to get to his parking lot partay, which may be more fashion show than concert.