Toronto Life’s most-read Q&As of 2024
Including conversations with a cottage country guru, Toronto’s Swiftie army, the city’s traffic czar and the legendary Vince Carter
Torontonians are loud, proud and opinionated—which, over the past year, has made for some great conversations. Our readers’ favourite Q&As of 2024 stood out for their candour and verve. But what’s most striking about this year’s list is its range. A chat with Jen Agg about her new high-end restaurant on Geary was eaten up, but so was an interview with a Leslieville grocer taking Loblaws to task. Then there was our November streeter with Toronto’s most hard-core Swifties, which was just as well received as our interview with U of T’s pro-Palestine protesters. The Torontonians we spoke with had a lot to say about our often wonderful, sometimes infuriating but always exciting city.
Here are Toronto Life’s most-read Q&As of 2024.
No. 10 “Toronto has a lot of rich people, and a lot of them don’t give much”: Meet philanthropist and media mogul Gary Slaight
Through his family foundation, Gary Slaight donates a lot of money—$15 million to this, $30 million to that—and he’s not above shaming his wealthy friends into doing the same. Here, he talks about how he chooses his causes, how to save the city’s arts institutions and applying pressure to Toronto’s cheap elite. | By Courtney Shea | August 12
No. 9 “The boos did get to me”: Vince Carter on becoming the first Raptor to have his jersey retired
Vince Carter has had a great run: a 22-year career, a Hall of Fame induction and, now, his number being selected as the first to hang in Scotiabank Arena. In this wide-ranging conversation, he talks about climbing out of fan purgatory, putting old beefs to rest, why he can’t stop crying these days and that time he introduced bottle service to Toronto. | By Barry Jordan Chong | October 30
No. 8 “I’ve seen unhoused patients lose limbs”: Physician Andrew Boozary on opening the country’s first social medicine housing
These days, shelters are regularly filled to capacity and often have to turn people away. Hospitals are also overwhelmed, with average ER wait times ranging anywhere from 10 to almost 26 hours. And the two phenomena feed into each other. At the University Health Network, 100 unhoused patients accounted for more than 4,500 emergency department visits in a single year. In response, the UHN has opened Dunn House, Canada’s first social medicine housing project. The complex provides permanent, affordable accommodations and wrap-around health care services to 51 of the UHN’s marginalized patients, many of whom have been unhoused. Here, Andrew Boozary, executive director of the UHN’s Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine, discusses how this new model works, his response to the neighbourhood’s safety concerns, and how projects like this could help solve Canada’s housing and health care crises. | By Ali Amad | October 16
No. 7 “When I told my son it was closing, he burst into tears”: Toronto public health expert Sabina Vohra-Miller on her plan to save the Ontario Science Centre
In June, Doug Ford’s Conservatives abruptly announced the closure of the Ontario Science Centre due to what the Ministry of Infrastructure deemed an unsafe roof. The decision to shutter a beloved Toronto landmark wasn’t well received by residents, including enraged city councillors. Public health doctoral candidate Sabina Vohra-Miller is so outraged that she personally offered up $1 million to help keep the facility open. She’s hoping that her offer—which has been matched by other high-profile Torontonians like Geoffrey Hinton—will help the Science Centre survive. | By Courtney Shea | June 28
No. 6 “The good old days of driving downtown without hassle are over”: Meet Roger Browne, Toronto’s director of traffic management
Engineer and bureaucrat Roger Browne is leading the fight against the city’s soul-crushing congestion—and he genuinely thinks he can win. Here, he explains how to survive Taylor Swift–induced gridlock, what he would do with an extra $1 billion of funding, Ford’s proposed tunnel under the 401 and the city’s never-ending strategies to reduce traffic. | By Courtney Shea | October 24
No. 5 “The university’s response has been pathetic”: Scenes from the pro-Palestine encampment at U of T
In the early hours of May 2, a group of students at the University of Toronto took over King’s College Circle to set up a pro-Palestine encampment, one of about a dozen similar student-led protests across the country. Protesters demanded the immediate disclosure of—and divestment from—the university’s financial ties to Israel. Toronto Life spent a day at King’s College Circle interviewing students, staff and community members about the stand-off. Here’s what they had to say. | By Emma Buchanan | May 13
No. 4 “My restaurants are for anyone, they just might not be for everyone”: Jen Agg on perceived value, handling rude customers and burgers that aren’t smashed
Fifteen years ago, Jen Agg led a Toronto restaurant revolution, ripping the stuffy white tablecloth out from under high-end dining with her chalkboard charcuterie mecca, the Black Hoof. Ten openings, one bestselling memoir and a million social-media spats later, Agg continues on. Her new baby, General Public on Geary Avenue, is her most ambitious project to date—two stories, open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., with a menu that offers neither pizza nor tacos. “The last few years have been so precarious, but I really want to see Toronto menus stop playing it safe,” says Agg. Here, she talks about how the restaurant business is only getting harder and explains her updated approach to handling rude customers. | By Courtney Shea | October 15
No. 3 “One woman emptied her cart and drove straight here”: This Toronto grocer sells some items for 50 per cent less than Loblaws
While the cost of groceries at stores like Loblaws continues to rise, one Toronto grocer has achieved the impossible: receiving actual praise for the price of their products. This past January, Raise the Root, a locally owned organic market in Leslieville with just two full-time employees, posted a sign that compared the cost of its vegetables, fruits, spices and canned goods with the prices of those same goods at Loblaws; some of their products were as much as 50 per cent less expensive. We asked co-owner Angela Donnelly about how she manages to keep things affordable and the importance of cheap food as millions of Canadians are turning to food banks. | By Alex Cyr | January 19
No. 2 “Luckily we didn’t have to remortgage our homes”: Meet the Swifties who attended the first night of the Eras Tour
On a chilly night this past November, Taylor Swift landed. Her record-setting six-night run at the Rogers Centre was the first time she’d been in the city since 2018, and on opening night, Swift devotees from across Canada and beyond gathered in droves outside the stadium—which was adorned with a 40-metre-long inflatable friendship bracelet. They were decked out in costumes that paid homage to Swift’s discography and buzzing with excitement as they prepared to experience the Eras Tour IRL. Before the show, we asked some of the 50,000 concert goers how they secured their tickets, why they absolutely had to see Swift live and whether they think the city went overboard with its Swift fever. | By Soraya El-houni | November 15
No. 1 “People who romanticized rural life during the pandemic can’t come back”: A GTA mortgage broker on cottage buyers’ remorse
At the start of the pandemic, a wave of Torontonians traded their cubicles and cramped condos for remote work and the wide open spaces of cottage country. Now, with many companies mandating a return to the office and the allure of rural isolation having lost its lustre, some urban transplants are eager to move back to the city. The snag: they’re finding themselves priced out of the Toronto real estate market. Here, Laura Garetson, a GTA-based mortgage broker, explains the financial barriers city skippers are facing and when they might be able to return to Toronto. | By Ali Amad | August 22
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