Tag: Canada

News

Toronto To Get New Streetcars

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Toronto is getting 204 new streetcars.

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) says riders wanted better streetcars.

They wanted more seats and better accessibility for people who are physically challenged.

The new streetcars have a floor that is lower, so they are easier to get on and get off, especially for people with physical challenges.

They have more seats, larger windows and wider doors, including a third door for bicycles.

They are about twice the length of the current streetcars, and can handle 251 passengers.

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Animals Entertainment Environment

New Toronto Aquarium — 13,500 Creatures, Shark Tunnel

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The people who are building a huge new aquarium in downtown Toronto have released some exciting new details about it.

Ripley’s Entertainment Corporation – which publishes Ripley’s Believe It Or Not – plans to open the aquarium in 2013.

It will be one of the largest aquariums in North America.

It will be located near the base of the CN Tower.

More than 13,500 underwater creatures from around the world will be on display at the aquarium.

There will be exhibits on jellyfish, seahorses, stingrays, the Great Lakes, tropical reefs and more.

The aquarium is designed to be fully interactive.

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News

Canada Trading More With India, China

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Canada has always done a lot of trading with the United States, the biggest buyer of the products and natural resources it sells.

But now companies in Canada are finding other countries to trade with, like India and China.

A new report written by experts at one of Canada’s biggest banks says that by the end of this decade — the year 2020 — Canada will only trade about 60 per cent of its goods with its neighbouring country, the United States. That’s down from 75 per cent right now.

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Entertainment Lighter

Toronto’s Mayor Gets A Surprise Visit

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Toronto’s mayor, Rob Ford, was caught off-guard by a comedy team called This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

One of the fictional characters on CBC’s This Hour is Marg Delahunty.

She plays a “warrior princess journalist” who often confronts politicians in a funny way.

She “ambushes” them and talks to them about the issues of the day. It’s meant to be funny but often insightful, too.

Last week she tried to ambush Toronto Mayor Rob Ford in the driveway of his home.

There are two sides to the story of what happened next.

According to Marg Delahunty (comedian Mary Walsh in real life), their camera crew ambushed the mayor at 8:30 a.m., in daylight, and in her typical loud-mouthed way she started offering the mayor some advice.

She was trying to tell him that “we bombastic buffoons should stick together.”

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Arts Lighter Sports

Quidditch Tournament In Ottawa This Weekend

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The Ryerson University quidditch team is going to a tournament in Ottawa this weekend.

You heard right – the Ryerson quidditch team.

You may remember quidditch as the game Harry Potter and his friends play in the popular series of books by J. K. Rowling.

She invented the game, just as she invented Harry Potter’s world.

Fans of Harry Potter in England, the United States, Canada and other countries have created a “muggle”* version of the game.

One Ryerson player says it’s kind of a mish-mash of rugby, flag football, basketball and hide-and-seek all rolled into one great game.

Players don’t fly, of course, but they do have to run on the field with brooms between their legs. Not only is that difficult, but it can make the game a bit rough.

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Breaking News Politics

Former Libyan Dictator Moammar Gadhafi Is Dead

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The former leader of Libya is dead.

Moammar Gadhafi, who ruled Libya for 42 years, had been forced to step down from office when Libyans took to the streets in protest of his brutal dictatorship.

For months, he and his followers fought off the rebels. He maintained to the end that he was still Libya’s ruler.

Then, he disappeared. No one could find him.

All that ended Thursday, when rebel forces shot him to death in his hometown, Sirte.

Gadhafi’s reign over Libya was at times colourful and brutal.

He often acted like an arrogant celebrity, having meetings with dignitaries in an enormous white tent which he set up wherever he went including large cities like Paris and New York.

He had female bodyguards who wore camouflage and high-heels and carried machine guns.

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Breaking News Politics

Protesters Have The World’s Attention (Editorial)

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There is a park in downtown Toronto called St. James Park.

This week it is filled with “campers.”

Colourful, domed vinyl tents crowd next to each other in the mud.

The campers are cold because there is no heat at night, there is no electricity, and winter is coming. But they persist.

Why are they there? They are camping in St. James Park in Toronto for the same reason they are camping in Zuccotti Park in New York, or outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, England.

For the same reason people are camping in 80 other cities around the globe.

It is a protest.

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Gifts
Arts Kids

Grade-One Students In Canada Getting “Gifts”

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This month, every child in Grade one in Canada will receive a free book.

That will be every grade-one child, including those who are home-schooled, or in any school in the country, private or public, French-speaking or English-speaking.

The book giveaway is the product of a partnership between TD (the bank) and the Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC).

The bank pays more than $1-million to have 500,000 books printed and sent out to grade-one students across the country. This is the program’s eleventh year.

This year the books the kids will get is Gifts (Cadeaux, translated into French), by author Jo Ellen Bogart and plasticine artist Barbara Reid.

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Lighter News

Give Yourself Up – And Get A Mani-Pedi?

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If you turn yourself in to police and admit you were part of last year’s Stanley Cup riot, you could get a free manicure or pedicure.

Last June, there was a major riot in Vancouver after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to Boston. Crowds swarmed the streets, smashing store windows and stealing things.

So many people were involved that the police are still trying to identify who did what.

Vancouver’s Eccotique Salons has an unusual promotion to help the police identify and arrest the rioters. They are offering a $50 “Calm Down And De-Stress Gift Certificate” to any rioter who gives himself up to police.

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News Science

Canadian Nobel Winner Allowed To Keep Award

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A Canadian-born scientist recently won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

The Nobel Prize in Medicine is one of five Nobel Prizes given out each year for achievement in various scientific fields.

This year, a very unusual situation occurred – one that required a special emergency meeting of the Nobel Prize committee.

When the Nobel Foundation announced that it was giving the award to three scientists: Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann and Canadian Ralph Steinman, it didn’t realize that Steinman had died from cancer three days earlier.

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