Toronto

📍 Location: Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto 📅 Date: Saturday, March 22, 2025 ⏰ Time: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHMGxEMvUKY/

About the Event: After an incredible turnout in Ottawa, Elbows Up, Canada! is coming to Toronto. This grassroots movement is about standing together as Canadians—proud, strong, and unwavering. We are gathering to celebrate unity, resilience, and the values that make Canada special.

Join us at Nathan Phillips Square for an afternoon of inspiring speakers, live music, and community engagement. This is a peaceful, non-partisan, and family-friendly event—a space where people from all backgrounds can come together and make their voices heard.

What to Expect:
✅ Live Music – Featuring performances by The Get Alongs (house band), and more to be determined!
✅ Inspiring Speakers – Including Shaun Majumder, Arlene Dickinson, and other Canadian leaders.
✅ Community Connection – Engage in conversations, meet your neighbours, and be part of a growing movement.
✅ A Positive & Uplifting Atmosphere – We’re about unity, not division.

Why This Matters:
In a time of uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to come together. Elbows Up, Canada! is about protecting what we value as Canadians—our democracy, our communities, and our shared future.

Come be part of something bigger. Let’s stand together. Let’s raise our elbows and stand strong for Canada. 🇨🇦.

Another person posted this in c/ontario

From the site:

Volunteers can be trained to perform a variety of duties, including sandbagging, debris removal, serving meals and more. Volunteers are contacted when needed to support emergency response efforts and will be assigned duties based on their skill level, interest and availability.

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To go with, a good read from the Tyee about Civil Defense Corps

[A] second Trump presidency is emphatically not like the first. In foreign policy, as in business, Trump does not deal with weaker counterparts — he dominates them. When engaging with countries that lack the leverage to push back, he is not transactional; he is predatory. His negotiations are not about mutual benefit but about extracting maximum advantage, imposing terms that serve his interests alone.

The shift from ally to adversary could happen overnight, as a protectionist United States looks at Canada’s vast energy reserves, fresh water and strategic Arctic position and sees weakness. Canadians must recognize that the luxury of assuming our security is someone else’s responsibility is over.

We must be strong enough to push back, resilient enough to survive cyberwarfare and economic coercion — including Tuesday's arbitrary imposition of illegal tariffs. We must be prepared to defend our sovereignty — not just with military spending, but with a population that is engaged, trained and ready.

Pause for a moment and imagine the skills or time you could bring — whether it’s first aid, co-ordination and logistics, communications, engineering, IT support, counselling and caregiving or any other expertise — to contribute to our collective security and resilience if called upon.

Stopped in on a whim while killing time as a tourist. Worth every penny!

New to Lemmy, but looking to assist in community building in the west end of Toronto. I have a variety of useful organisational and technical skills that I would like to contribute to helping those in my community.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/40253276

Related article: Measles cases nearly double in Ontario over last 2 weeks, far surpassing last decade's total | CBC News.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/40228347

The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down a Ford government law that restricted political advertising by third parties, such as unions, in the year ahead of a scheduled election campaign.

The top court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the law allowed for political parties’ ads to “drown out” those of third-party groups, infringing on citizens' right to meaningfully participate in the democratic process.

“The information available to voters in Ontario in the year before an election must include the interests, voices and views of different citizens and parties,” reads the majority decision written by Justice Andromache Karakatsanis.

https://archive.ph/F26VK

Mayor Olivia Chow says she plans to ban U.S. companies from bidding on contracts with the City of Toronto.

At a press conference Thursday morning to talk about the procurement of new TTC streetcars, Chow provided an update on her administration’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canadian goods.

She confirmed that the city will award all contracts valued at less than $353,000 to Canadian companies exclusively. She also promised to present a motion to her executive committee “barring any U.S. companies from future Toronto contracts.”

alternate CTV news link here

Thought I'd leave some links for new gardeners, or people itching for spring who just want to come check out seeds etc.

This weekend, Saturday and Sunday at Brickworks from 9-2 (free bus just north of Broadview station) - https://www.evergreen.ca/evergreen-brick-work/events/seedy-weekend-2025

March 22, Scadding Court from 10-2 (west end of the city) - https://torontourbangrowers.org/events/scadding-court-seedy-saturday-2025

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Other good resources for beginners:

General Planting almanac

North American Native Plant Society

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26304594

Posted speed limits in nearly 200 Mississauga school zones will soon increase to 40 km/h

With the new amendments on local roads, City of Mississauga officials said the speed limit will remain 30 km/h from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Friday, and outside that period will be increased to 40 km/h. The move was prompted by complaints from drivers that the 30 km/h limit was too low during times when there were no students and other people around.

The Beer Store takes back all alcohol primary and secondary packaging sold across the province, including bottles, cans, kegs, cardboard packaging, bottle caps and plastic rings. The Beer Store also accepts all empty containers under the Ontario Deposit Return Program, including all alcoholic beverage containers sold in Ontario.

Where to take empties?

For now, it’s unclear whether customers will have a convenient empty return option if their local Beer Store closes. The best bet appears to be commuting to the next closest Beer Store retail outlet.

Alternatively, you could hold on to your empties and donate them to a fundraising drive in your community. Many community groups, such as Rotary clubs, the Knights of Columbus and local sports teams, hold bottle and can collection events.

Metroland has reached out to The Beer Store to ask what options consumers may have for empty container returns following the next round of Beer Store closures.

The lawsuit was filed in Ontario Superior Court on Friday, Feb. 21. The 40 business owners are seeking $10 million from the city for “negligence and nuisance”

The group is also requesting a court injunction to remove the bike lanes along Bloor Street West and restore the streets to their original condition.

Cody MacRae is the founder of the non-profit community group Balance on Bloor. He says the community’s concerns about the bike lanes have been ignored.

“It has caused huge suffering in our community. Whether it be senior citizens who can’t access businesses properly or people with disabilities who are complaining.”

Cyclists and advocates have long called for action to improve safety on Toronto’s streets following numerous fatalities and bikes struck by drivers on roadways.

Executive Director of Cycle Toronto, Michael Longfield questioned the decision to sue the city.

“The City of Toronto has voted on these bike lanes now at least four times. And each time it passes City Council. I understand folks may not be content with that decision, but there is actually a transparent and democratic process for how these projects happen.”

Archived link

Toronto 911 dispatcher turnover is over 20%. Most 911 calls get put on hold when seconds count. Been going on since 2017. Paramedic service is understaffed relative to the 5million daytime population.

Paywall removed: https://archive.is/15K4Z

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25878550

The Greenbelt scandal is the elephant in the room of Ontario’s 2025 election, even as Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives try to leave it in the rearview.

It’s been more than a year since the RCMP opened an investigation into the boondoggle, which saw the Ford government open sections of environmentally protected land outside Toronto for housing construction in fall 2022. That move came at the request of a select group of well-connected developers who stood to make more than $8 billion from the deal. 

In early February, The Trillium reported that two former Ford government staffers — one a central figure in the Greenbelt changes who resigned amid the fallout, the other an employee of Ford’s re-election campaign — are being sued by a developer alleging they accepted money in exchange for promises to use “backchannel contacts” to rezone land, but did not deliver.

It also prompted attention from journalists, who soon revealed developers stood to be the main beneficiaries. Ontario’s auditor general and integrity commissioner released twin reports in August 2023 that were chock-full of bombshell revelations. The public was furious, while Ford remained defiant, even as Amato and Clark resigned from their roles. (Clark has remained an MPP in the Progressive Conservative caucus, and was named government house leader last June.)

But there were also spinoff scandals. One revolved around a pre-wedding stag-and-doe party for one of Ford’s daughters in the months before the Greenbelt changes — developers were invited, and attendees were encouraged to give cash gifts to the happy couple in addition to the $150 ticket price. Another involved a Las Vegas trip involving key Tory figures and a would-be Greenbelt developer that happened in 2020. There were also allegations about an alleged unregistered lobbyist dubbed Mr. X who had close ties to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Finally, in September 2023 — as new salacious details mounted about a Tory MPP getting a massage at the same time as a would-be Greenbelt developer during that Las Vegas trip, prompting more resignations in the Progressive Conservative government