Stay in-the-know on all things Toronto with these highlights from the TorontoToday reporting team this week.
Toronto snowstorm highlights risks faced by gig workers who ‘can't afford to take days off’
TorontoToday reporter Kathryn Mannie hit the snowy streets this week to talk to gig workers about transporting people and delivering food during dangerous weather conditions. Some said they've been injured while working during snow storms or have feared for their safety.
Earla Phillips, the vice-president and co-founder of the Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario, said it's “exploitative system” in which rideshare and delivery apps make profits off the backs of gig workers more willing to put themselves in harm’s way due to their financial situation.
Mayor Chow’s budget passes after protesters storm City Hall chamber
Toronto City Hall reporter Aidan Chamandy was in the building when protesters stormed the council chambers during Mayor Olivia Chow’s 2025 budget meeting last week. Protesters rushed the chamber floor and shouted grievances about the city’s action on Palestine, Indigenous relations, spending on housing, homelessness and addictions, defunding the police and more.
Chow's budget, which includes a 6.9 per cent property tax increase, was passed by city council.
Tribunal rules longtime tenant can stay in her home, dismissing landlord's personal-use eviction attempt
For nearly half a century, former special education elementary school teacher Victoria MacDonald has called a two-bedroom apartment in Toronto’s west end home.
An adjudicator with the Landlord and Tenant Board tribunal last week decided she is allowed to stay indefinitely, tossing an application brought by her landlord, South Ontario Investments Ltd., to evict MacDonald to make way for a corporate director’s son.
TorontoToday reporter Gabe Oatley spoke to the landlord's legal representation and to MacDonald, who is “elated” and “relieved” to be able to stay in her home.
Selling human skulls just ‘small part’ of Toronto museum’s identity
While so much of downtown Toronto is pressing towards the future, Ben Lovatt is taking the public back in time with his massive collection of oddities and artifacts at the Prehistoria Natural History Centre near Dundas Square.
TorontoToday reporter Alex Flood visited the store to see the Egyptian artifacts, dinosaur fossils and taxidermy mounts offered at the SkullStore Oddity Shop.
Avid collectors looking to make their next big purchase can buy a human child skull (hydrocephalic) for $14,950, a woolly rhino fossil skull for $49,750 or an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus for $395,850.
TDSB trustee committee votes to accept controversial antisemitism report
Members of a Toronto District School Board trustees’ committee voted on Thursday night to accept a controversial report on combatting antisemitism in schools.
The vote came during the second part of a meeting of the board’s planning and priorities committee, after the committee’s Wednesday meeting saw more than 80 speakers — including parents, rabbis and community group representatives — give deputations that were nearly evenly split in favour or against the report.
A major flashpoint was a recommendation in the report for teachers and trustees to receive training about how antisemitism is enacted, which included “modern manifestations such as anti-Zionism, intersectionality, and Jewish identity diversity.” Delegates on Wednesday night were nearly evenly divided over whether anti-Zionism constitutes antisemitism.
