Of late, downtown Toronto has felt a lot like New York City. In addition to the influx of celebrities for TIFF and Toronto’s growing reputation as a hub of pop culture, the amount of new tower construction near Union Station is reminiscent of the development boom in the Big Apple. Being like New York is rarely a bad thing, but there are occurrences that make you hope Toronto has some distinct qualities. The recent financial......

Cheap Thrills is a new bi-weekly column filling you in on fresh ways to get your kicks in the city and on the cheap. Photo by lucianvenutian. Whether you're a certified foodie subsisting on caviar and champagne, or a slob scraping by on a modest regimen of ramen noodles, groceries are an essential part of living. Shopping for foodstuffs covers two of the basic necessities of life―and without food and water, shelter is out of......

People work hard for their money, but don't make their money work hard for them. It's time to fix that. Economist whips your income into shape with smart, practical advice. Photo by wvs from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. While on vacation, Economist overheard a man talking about his experience at Purdue: "In America, you have to do four years of university. It's not cheap either. It's like $2,000 a year." The Economist almost choked on......

With the public’s attention focused on enjoying the last of the warm summer air, the Big Six Canadian banks reported their third-quarter earnings last week. Typically disregarded for the summer memories replaying in Canadians’ minds, this quarter's results hold some weight because Ontario’s economy is in limbo. The past twelve months have shone a light on the province’s ailing economy: both manufacturing and financial services—two important industries—have seen a reduction in profits and number......

Cheap Thrills is a new bi-weekly column filling you in on fresh ways to get your kicks in the city and on the cheap. Photo by DAVID BOOGIE. So, you finally made the move. You popped the question, fumbled over exchanged numbers, and set a date for a date―soon, but not desperately soon. Now it's the day, and due to unforeseen circumstances (gas pumps, anyone?), your pockets are looking a little lonely for your big......

People work hard for their money, but don't make their money work hard for them. It's time to fix that. The last Wednesday of every month, Economist—formerly Saverist—whips your income into shape with smart, practical advice. Photo by Swilton from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. The simplest (and least risky) way of saving money is to put it in the bank. Not only is it a safeguard against rising inflation rates, but balances up to $100,000......

Toronto is the second most expensive city in North America and fifty-fourth most expensive city in the world, according to the Mercer's annual cost of living survey. In the worldwide list, Toronto jumped twenty-eight spots and now ranks as more expensive than Los Angeles, a city known for its frugality. How's tourism in Toronto doing? Depends on who you ask: the Globe says it's not going so hot across the board for the big......

In the United States, rising fuel costs have forced airline carriers like Delta and American Airlines to cut both routes and jobs—with executives happily playing the victim by reinforcing the myth of speculation causing higher oil prices. (Speculation actually decreases volatility and the blame for surging prices sits squarely on that boring old idea of supply and demand.) In Canada, two airlines will be cutting jobs: Jazz Air by 270 and its parent company......

Toronto's city councillors have voted to change the rules governing their office budgets, which includes the elimination of alcohol with meals with staff, mileage compensation to and from City Hall, and compensation for raffle tickets or silent auction bids. On the bright side, Torontoist's corporate booze budget is at an all-time high. Statistics Canada recently released data indicating that Canada's crime rate is at a 30-year low, with reductions in violent crimes such as......

People work hard for their money, but don't make their money work hard for them. It's time to fix that. The last Wednesday of every month, Saverist whips your income into shape with smart, practical advice. Photo by shervin2 from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Being green is popular, but can it also help the wallet too? Whether grabbing a cup of coffee, foraging through the laundry, or making popcorn in the microwave for a movie,......

What's better than sex? Maybe writing about sex. Sex and Our City is a special week-long series that looks for questions and answers about love and sex in our city. Photo by PPDigital. Ah, the second date: dinner and a movie. (First date involves, of course, a course of non-alcoholic beverages.) Choosing the right restaurant is a chance to demonstrate compatibility ("You love sushi? No way! I love sushi!") and the right flick can demonstrate......

Ever wonder what hundreds of thousands of dollars looks like? These 41 Division officers pose with almost $400,000 in cash recovered during the execution of a search warrant in the Danforth and Birchmount area on Wednesday. A 62-year-old man was arrested and charged with trafficking cocaine, and these guys (photographed with their battering ram) got a rare opportunity to see what most of us only dream of when buying a lottery ticket or playing......

Former Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier lives on as a program in the 1982 Disney film Tron. Torontoist reader Brent created these "enhanced" bank notes. Contrary to popular belief, defacing currency is not illegal in Canada. For defaced currency from elsewhere in the world, check out the defaced presidents Flickr pool. Via Laughing Squid.......

People work hard for their money, but don't make their money work hard for them. It's time to fix that. The last Wednesday of every month, Saverist whips your income into shape with smart, practical advice. Photo by hrtmnstrfr. We know high gas prices are a headache, and prices aren't expected to get much cheaper in the coming years. Although it's easy to place the blame elsewhere (for example, on oil companies), there's a need......

Because nothing says "I'm sorry" like cash in hand, the TTC has just announced a fleet of refunds for all day passes, metropasses, weekly passes, GTA passes. As repentance for that whole surprise strike thing, owners of an adult metropass will get $7.50 back (or $7.00 for those with the Metropass Discount Plan); those with an adult weekly pass will pocket $9.50; and those with a day pass for April 25 will get $3.00 for......

Photo by Marc Lostracco. Last week, minimum wage was raised to $8.75 an hour in the first of three scheduled increases. According to the arguments provided in the media (and on Torontoist), an increased minimum wage is necessary to help people make ends meet, but could force businesses to cut jobs to accommodate the increased costs. From a numbers point of view, the raise was a necessary antidote to the minimum wage being frozen......

People work hard for their money, but don't make their money work hard for them. It's time to fix that. The last Wednesday of every month, Saverist whips your income into shape with smart, practical advice. Photo by Dipp from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. The deadline for income tax returns looms with only 34 days left to file. People dread doing their taxes, but the fear is irrational: most people have already had the tax......

Photo by jpghouse. The incentive to spend money is enormous: there’s always a bigger latte, a newer iPod, and a better apartment waiting around the corner. Saving money is laborious and—let’s face it—boring. Unfortunately, easy access to credit and rising property values have turned the West into a population of grasshoppers, just starting to get a taste of the financial winter coming. Although the new federal budget has underwhelmed, the government has provided an......

Torontoist Environment Editor Chris Tindal is currently engaged in a federal by-election campaign. This weekly column is an attempt to offer a "behind the scenes" glimpse into what it's like to be that mysterious Other: a politician. Successful election campaigns require money, and that funding obviously has to come from donors. I've noticed a number of misconceptions about how political campaigns are funded, probably due to the fact that election financing laws have changed frequently......

Films! Films films films films. Sometimes it’s hard to get this column started, so we just sit in front of a blank word document and type the word "films" until it doesn’t make any sense to us any more. But by then, we’ve got started typing, at least, and so we continue. Cloverfield! Also, we just type the names of the films that are out that week with exclamation marks! In an attempt to......

Sometimes we find ourselves wondering, "Where do I put these lead acid batteries now that they've started to leak corrosive fluid all over the place," or, "How can I save money while being green in 2008?" A new Greentree book by Allison Greenbaum gives us the answers. "The Little Green Book of Big Savings" is an indispensable tool for being green and thrifty in Toronto in the new year, featuring over $4,000 in savings......

GTA "bubble boy" has new hope after new experimental gene therapy. The donor: a very surprised Jerry Seinfeld. Dalton McGuinty challenges John Tory to explain where Tory will find $1.5 billion in budget cuts. Which is a good point, and begs the question why he didn't ask that, you know, at the debate. Shocking: Stephen Harper promises tax cuts. The government has a nearly $14 billion surplus this year, but it looks like Toronto......

Just over an hour ago, the TTC concluded its meeting to discuss and vote on measures to deal with its budget shortfall. Based in part on the results of its survey––which, in spite of widespread distribution, received only 17,000 responses––the Commission members voted unanimously in favour of raising fares over cutting service. With the exception of the new jump in Metropass prices, the cost increases per fare are relatively modest and around what most were......

Once a year Toronto the Good becomes Toronto the very naughty. FFN (formerly known as Folsom Fair North) is Toronto's annual fetish fair. Now in its fifth year, the Fair features everything from play areas and parties to an art tent. Festivities kick off July 20 with the Welcome to Toronto party, being held at Alibi. The next night is Agitator, FFN’s big deal sports-themed fetish blowout at the Opera House. The FFN web......

Yesterday, the Lakeview Generating Station in Port Credit was demolished as crowds looked on. Toronto usually gets weepy over the destruction of buildings, but the station was a pretty ugly example of Soviet-era industrial architecture and it was powered by coal. Are you going to miss it? Andy Barrie, host of CBC Radio One's Metro Morning, has early-stage Parkinson's. Three men have been charged with pimping out a 17-year-old girl at strip clubs and......

It's almost time to say goodbye to North By Northeast for yet another year. Two longs nights have past, leaving tonight as the last chance to get out an enjoy some of the best new music from around the world. Seeing as it is Saturday, expect a lot of the shows to be really busy so going earlier is always better than later. All the cool kids are doing it! But before we get back......

Idiot ex-Green candidate complains that party refuses to support him just because he wrote how he thought the 9/11 attacks were "beautiful." The best part is that Kevin Potvin claims that this is proof that the Greens don't know how to handle a scandal. uh, they punted your butt off the party in about a day, jackass. Ontario voters will get the chance to vote in a referendum for mixed-member proportional government. If it wins,......

Ontario to raise minimum wage to $10.25 by 2010 in new budget. NDP critic predictably says "no, we want it NOW," but Torontoist feels this is one instance where Dalton McGuinty's tendency to take as middling a road as possible has produced just about the best possible result. A twenty-five percent raise in the minimum wage over three years (and what will be a sixty-six percent raise since the Liberals took office in 2003)......

It's always risky to see a band when they're not promoting a new album. There's always the possibility of finding a lot of new songs thrown into the mix, which can seriously hamper, if not altogether halt, what might have been a really fun show. So it was no surprise that Saturday night's Cuff The Duke show, a sold out affair infront of a well-liquored audience, was lopsided, filled with new songs from the third......

Last week, we covered the Ontario Municipal Board's approval of a plan to build several condo buildings in the area of the Queen West Triangle. The plan has been controversial from the beginning, and has been strongly opposed by a residents group called Active 18. One point that has some particularly saddened is the teardown of the structure at 48 Abell, a one time industrial building converted to lofts which are used as live-work......