Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2025 i Toronto Life

“Loblaws is ridiculously expensive. I avoid it completely” REGULAR EXPENSES MORTGAGE: $2,150 a month. “I’m lucky—this is close to what I used to pay for rent.” INTERNET: $70 a month with Bell. “They offered everyone on my street a great deal, so I switched from Rogers.” CELL: $27 a month with Virgin Plus. “I get 50 gigs of data, which is more than enough.” GROCERIES: $600 a month. “Last September, I decided to go vegan, and my bill went down a bit. I shop at the nearby Pacific Fresh Food Market—it’s affordable and has an incredible variety of produce. Loblaws is ridiculously expensive. I avoid it completely.” CAR: $731 a month. “I drive to my students in Toronto and to gigs across southern Ontario, so my car costs add up,…

THE EXODUS BEGAN long before the unprecedented cuts and crackdowns of the past few months. Some people made travel plans as far back as 2015, when Trump first became the Republican nominee. Others started packing the moment he won his first term. But most of the departures were set in motion more recently, as Trump began laying waste to key American institutions. Trump’s first 100 days in office have been defined by an obsession with all that allegedly flows into the US across international borders (migrants, fentanyl, under-taxed goods). The president is markedly less concerned about what, and who, is exiting his country. The scientific journal Nature recently published a survey in which more than 1,200 of 1,608 scientists polled—75 per cent of respondents—said they were considering leaving the US.…

KNOWN FOR: Using chemistry, robotics and AI to supercharge the scientific method MOVED FROM: Harvard University in July of 2018 THE MORNING after the 2016 presidential election, Alán Aspuru-Guzik woke up, shook off his sorrow and went for a run. Striding across the grounds of Harvard University, he tried to imagine what life might soon be like for him, a Mexican American professor of chemistry and computer science and a self-described “pinko commie guy at heart.” What kind of future did he have in a country run by Donald Trump, an anti-science nationalist who’d called Mexicans criminals and rapists and promised to build a wall to keep them out of America? As he was jogging, Aspuru-Guzik spotted a man in a red MAGA cap confidently strolling through campus. “I had never seen…

KNOWN FOR: Dissecting alternatives to corporate social media MOVED FROM: Louisiana Tech University in January of 2023 “JANUARY 7, 2021, was the day I started seriously contemplating leaving the US. It was three or four in the morning—I’d stayed up watching the coverage of the Capitol attack hours earlier. I remember thinking, We can’t come back from this. We can’t come back from people storming the Capitol Building and trying to stop the transfer of power, then having Republicans still lie about the election being stolen. What solidified my family’s decision to move to Toronto was the Dobbs decision in June of 2022, when the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade and took away the constitutional right to abortion. My partner had no intention of living anywhere as a secondclass citizen. We also…

KNOWN FOR: Using gaming to encourage civic engagement in young people MOVED FROM: Georgia Institute of Technology in December of 2024 “WHEN TRUMP was first elected, in 2016, I didn’t think it would affect me professionally. I was very wrong. States were emboldened to take steps they hadn’t before, a trend that continued even during the Biden administration. In 2021, I was working as an assistant professor in digital media at Georgia Tech, in Atlanta. The Board of Regents, a government-appointed body that oversees public universities in Georgia, made a change to the protections around a professor’s tenure: we could now be dismissed or have our tenure revoked without the peer-review process. That made me uneasy, because tenure is what gives professors security of employment so they can do their research even…

KNOWN FOR: Bringing classical music to the people MOVED FROM: Cleveland Orchestra in April of 2022 WHEN TRUMP installed himself as chair of the Kennedy Center this past February, his hostile takeover sent a chill through the American performing arts community. The move was unprecedented, and it crystallized the growing concern that no institution was safe, not even longstanding bipartisan ones. It wasn’t the first time the president had sought to dictate whose art and culture matters—he’s been calling for the end of funding to both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities since his first term, seeding doubt and fear that have increased exponentially in 2025. Mark Williams thinks a lot about who gets to have a voice in the arts. “I’m a six-foot-one Black…

IF YOU WERE a Torontonian with a TV in the 1980s, you knew J. D. Roberts, the heavy metal–loving, mullet-sporting, cool-guy music nerd who rose to local fame first as the co-host of The NewMusic with Jeanne Beker and then as a MuchMusic VJ. Before he hit 30, he’d swapped out interviews with debauched rockers for hard reporting, eventually relocating to the US to anchor the morning news on CBS. The network then named him chief White House correspondent, a role he later also held at CNN, winning Emmys and acclaim for his coverage of the Iraq War. (He stores the awards in a box in his basement — “I’m not really into ‘I love me’ displays,” he says.) Roberts’s move to Fox News in 2017 surprised many fans, but…

WHERE: Gravenhurst DISTANCE FROM TORONTO: 170 KM PRICE: $$$ There are few views in Canadian golf more magnificent than the one from the clubhouse at Muskoka Bay. The 17,000-square-foot building is perched on a cliff overlooking the 18th green 100 metres below. The course winds through outcroppings of the Canadian Shield, with lush forest beyond. As tempting as it would be to lounge in the clubhouse all day, there’s a lot more going on at this four-season, 850-acre Gravenhurst resort. It launched in 2007 with the opening of the golf course, and additional amenities have popped up in the years since. There’s a 62-suite hotel, a clifftop infinity pool, a full-service spa, a fitness centre and a restaurant, plus specialty experiences like a dining series and a wellness package. Later…

WHEN I WAS 10, in 1983, my father died. He had melanoma, the deadliest kind of skin cancer. If you’re in Grade 5 and your dad dies, you don’t have to go to school that day. Or the day after. I didn’t have the words to describe the weather inside me. Life went on. I seemed fine, except I wasn’t. I had gone numb. That changed when I was 14. My mom signed me up for a summer wilderness course, and I went on a month-long canoe trip with eight other teens. We travelled along the White River, which feeds into Lake Superior. When we reached the lake, which is so large it’s technically an inland sea, we had to wait for calm. Finally, we paddled out on long, rolling…

Once Upon a Time in Collingwood How does an apparently loving husband turn into a murderous monster? That was the question at the core of Luc Rinaldi’s investigative piece on the death of Ashley Schwalm. Readers had thoughts. “Once again a Toronto Life longread knocks it out of the park. In an engrossing deep dive, Luc Rinaldi investigates the murder of Ashley Schwalm.” —@SilverbergDave, X “Of the seven letters written to attest to James Schwalm’s character, five were from convicted child sex offenders? In what universe does ‘These pedos think I’m a good person’ seem like a smart tactic?” —letsgetthiscocaine, Reddit “Your coverage of Ashley Schwalm’s murder importantly positioned the case within the context of the femicide epidemic in Canada. However, it also suggested that her murder was motivated by…

A private school beside our house just started renting out its pickleball courts, and the noise is maddening. Whenever we open a window or venture into the backyard, it’s a cacophony of thwacking balls and squeaking sneakers. We’ve complained, but the school just says it can do what it wants with its property. With every pop of a bouncing ball, I can feel our property value tanking and our sanity slipping away. What to do? —Unholy Racquet, Casa Loma UD: Pickleball may be a fad, but NIMBYism is eternal. You can try calling 311—there are bylaws that address “persistent noise” at “unreasonable” hours—but noise is the price we pay for living in a thriving metropolis. Be thankful you’re facing a benign disruption rather than, say, Ontario Line construction. The school will…

KNOWN FOR: Collaborating with Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Kiss and K’naan MOVED FROM: Nashville, Tennessee, in January of 2025 You were born in Toronto and moved to the US for work in your 20s. This past January, after decades, you decided to return to Canada full time. Why? I was a dual citizen, but Toronto has always been home. I was born at Toronto Western Hospital. My first house was on Deloraine Avenue in North York, and now my wife and I are living just a few blocks from there. What are you working on now? I am committed to supporting Canadian artists. I have friends and colleagues here, and I’m talking to them about different projects—we haven’t fully started cooking yet. I am happy to help where I can. I am…

KNOWN FOR: Bringing diverse perspectives to life for museum-goers MOVED FROM: Detroit Institute of Arts in October of 2018 “FOR 24 YEARS, I worked at the Detroit Institute of Arts, one of the top museums in the US. Part of my job was to make sure people felt like the museum belonged to them. Museums can come across as elite spaces, and we worked to change that by reflecting the region’s diverse communities. That’s especially important in a city like Detroit and in nearby Dearborn, which has one of the largest Arab American populations in the country. The DIA has a collection of Islamic art and has worked with the community to highlight it. When the Trump administration introduced the Muslim travel ban in 2017, it was painful. I saw first-hand how…

KNOWN FOR: Litigating wrongful convictions MOVED FROM: Charlotte, North Carolina, in August of 2021 David Rudolf: In 2003, I defended a man named Michael Peterson in North Carolina who was accused of murdering his wife, Kathleen Peterson, in 2001. The case was the subject of a documentary series, The Staircase, which became a worldwide phenomenon when it premiered on Netflix in 2018. Sonya Pfeiffer: At the time, I was working as a reporter for the ABC affiliate in Raleigh-Durham and was assigned the Peterson case. That’s when David and I met. After the trial ended, I took a reporting job in Boston and started law school at Chapel Hill, which kicked off three years of back-and-forth between Massachusetts and North Carolina. David and I reconnected during that time. When I graduated, I…

KNOWN FOR: Working to expand robotic surgery in Canada MOVED FROM: Mayo Clinic in July of 2023 You left Canada for the US during the first Trump administration. What prompted the move? I was on faculty at the University of Toronto at the time and had gotten an offer from Mayo Clinic in Rochester to serve as professor of surgery and as division chair of hepatobiliary and pancreas surgery, among other things. My wife and I told our children in October of 2016 that we were moving to the States, and a couple of weeks later the Republicans won the election. Was there culture shock? We managed. We were living in Minnesota, which has a fairly strong Democratic base in the urban areas and is Republican in the rural areas. As a…

WHERE: Innisfil DISTANCE FROM TORONTO: 100 KM PRICE: $$$ Friday Harbour, a 600-acre resort on Lake Simcoe, has become a year-round destination for Torontonians seeking a nearby escape. Top golf-course architect Doug Carrick designed the site’s 18-hole public course, the Nest, which features dramatic undulations that look natural to the formerly flat landscape. Since it opened in 2017, the resort has steadily added new amenities. There’s a 1,000-slip marina and pier; a promenade along the water with boutiques, bars and restaurants; beach and lake clubs; bike rentals; kids’ camps; and fitness classes. There’s also a slate of year-round programming including Cars and Jazz, a festival that combines a love of high-end vehicles with live music, and an annual fashion show that transforms the pier into a catwalk. Guests can book stays…

1. Grape Witches’ Ontario House Geisy Guy FROM PARADISE GRAPEVINE For their house wines, the Grape Witches only had to go up the road to Paradise Grapevine’s urban winery. There’s a rosé, a white and a red, plus this hazy orange wine made with Geisenheim, a hybrid Ontario grape. The Geisy Guy is textural, floral and the colour of a Dundas West sunset. $15 a glass, $30 a bottle; grapewitches.com 2. Dreyfus’s Creer Beer Light Lager FROM WILLIBALD FARM DISTILLERY The French-ish bistro’s list of small-batch wines is tempting, but trust us: this light lager made in Ayr, Ontario, is thirst-quenching when paired with such indulgent plates as pommes dauphine and pâté. And the dude pictured on the can? That’s Tom Creery, the restaurant’s chef de cuisine, after whom the…

CREATED FOR “AESTHETIC MEDICINE is such a beautiful blend of art and science,” says Dr. Amber Chen, medical director of SpaMedica since 2023. “It’s a calling for me. Being able to help someone look their best has such a huge impact on their overall well-being. We have patients who are so happy with their results they’re in tears—that’s what really moves me.” Although it feels like there are easy-come, easy-go storefronts offering Botox, laser and fillers on every corner, SpaMedica was one of the first full-service med spas in Toronto when it opened 28 years ago. SpaMedica provides holistic consultation, safe and effective aesthetic results and innovative treatments—all performed by highly knowledgeable and experienced staff. “There are so many people doing this now—not everybody can be experts,” says SpaMedica senior…

KNOWN FOR: Training the next generation of catastrophe experts MOVED FROM: Western Illinois University in August of 2016 Disaster management isn’t for the faint of heart. How did you end up in the field? I’ve always been drawn to complex questions that don’t have easy answers. Disasters are like that. If a flood devastates a city, it’s one thing to rebuild the homes and roads, but how do you help a traumatized community recover and reduce the impact of future disasters? Those are tougher challenges. You moved to Toronto in 2016, three months before Trump was elected. What were you getting ahead of? When Trump secured the Republican nomination, it was clear that dark clouds were gathering. When a position opened at York University, I applied. The idea that a reality TV star…

KNOWN FOR: His expertise on propaganda and fascism MOVING FROM: Yale University in July of 2025 You’re on faculty at Yale, but you’ve accepted an offer from the Munk School at U of T. This came after what you described as Columbia University’s capitulations to the US Department of Education. Please elaborate. I’d been sitting on this offer from the Munk School for a while, and the US was getting more and more fascist. With an authoritarian takeover, you have to band together, but the democratic institutions are reacting terribly—media, courts and universities are acquiescing. My colleagues and friends are terrified. Do you fear persecution down the line? No, I welcome persecution. I would love to be arrested and for my grandkids to say, “My granddad got arrested for fighting fascism.” Though…

KNOWN FOR: Investigating anti-Indigenous violence in urban centres MOVED FROM: University of Washington Tacoma in July of 2017 WATCHING THE ELECTION coverage on November 5, 2024, drink in hand and family by his side, Jerry Flores felt the same anxious fluttering in his gut that he had experienced eight years earlier. And as the results rolled in, he felt the same hope he’d been harbouring then—that a Democrat would win the White House—evaporate. To tamp down his despair, he started silently listing off the ways in which things were now different. His three kids, all in diapers during Trump’s 2016 victory, were almost tweens. He and his wife had traded their life in Tacoma, Washington, for a quiet cul-de-sac in Mississauga. There was still fear, but it was muted—the effect was like…

KNOWN FOR: Researching how to make machine learning more democratic MOVED FROM: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in July of 2023 “MY FASCINATION with machine learning started with music. I was playing the guitar and making electronic music, and I became interested in the devices behind it—pedals, synthesizers, things like that. Eventually, I started building music software, and some of the tools I wanted to create required machine-learning techniques. I dove into the field, which led me to a PhD at Columbia University, where I worked in a lab that blended music and machine learning. From there, I did a residency at Google, then became an assistant professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina. By early 2023, I decided it was time for a change. My campus…

WHERE: Caledon DISTANCE FROM TORONTO: 67 KM PRICE: $$$$ The two courses here—Pulpit and Paintbrush—are among the highest-ranked in Canada, and for the first time, they’re open to the public. Now, anyone staying at one of three affiliated rental properties can access them. The most luxurious overnight option is Escarpment House, a 14,000-squarefoot mansion on 88 acres in the Caledon countryside. It has stately architecture and sprawling grounds with hiking and walking trails nearby, along with modern interiors and luxe amenities like a hot tub, a steam room, a gym, a games room, a theatre and a pool with views of the Toronto skyline in the distance. At five bedrooms, Escarpment House can accommodate up to 15 guests, who get chauffeured shuttle service to and from the courses. They can…

Every month, TL Insiders enjoy terrific experiences and events across the city. More than 1,000 Torontonians have already signed up, and you can too! Members get front-of-the-line access to cultural events and private dining experiences plus exclusive invitations to Toronto Life’s salon-like discussion series. Membership is only $79 a year—so sign up today and rediscover the city as a member. Don’t miss out. Sign up at: members.torontolife.com This City Live: Toronto Life’s landmark event, presented in partnership with Tricon Residential at U of T’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, featured discussion panels and fireside conversations on city building, urban innovation and community. Guest speakers included Ruth Crammond of the United Way, Mayor Olivia Chow, Gary Berman of Tricon Residential, and representatives from Uber Canada, CIBC, Evergreen Brick Works and Good…

BOOKS A story collection about parenthood Other Worlds by André Alexis Out May 6 ANDRÉ ALEXIS immigrated from Trinidad to the small town of Petrolia, Ontario, as a child, eventually settling in Toronto at age 30. His 2015 novel, Fifteen Dogs, which follows canines that have been endowed with human consciousness, has since been adapted into a hit play by Crow’s Theatre. Other Worlds, his latest book—and his first since his five-volume Quincunx series—is a collection of nine stories exploring parenthood, childhood, loss, grief and gratitude. We spoke to Alexis about moving to Canada at a young age, airing family secrets and why he loves Toronto. Where did these stories come from? They were all written under the sword of Damocles, which was the death of my father in 2019…