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Independent

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Independent

Best Italian Restaurants in Montreal

As voted by our readers in the 2026 Best of MTL readers poll, these are the best Italian restaurants in Montreal. For more results from the Best of MTL, please click here. These are the best Italian restaurants in Montreal. To read the 2026 Best of MTL issue, please click here.

Cult MTL·
Independent

FLETCHER: David Eby’s desperate search for a villain targets Jimmy Pattison

OpinionThe anti-Trump tactic fizzled, so the BC NDP leader borrows false claims of grocery price gouging from Avi Lewis. Skeena MLA Claire Rattée (left) participates in a campaign stop in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with BC Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson, Oct. 6, 2026. Rattée related her experience in the notorious neighbourhood as a homeless drug user at age 17. Image courtesy of ChatGPT/ScreenshotPublished on:17 Oct 2026, 11:30 amLoading content, please wait...

Western Standard·
Independent

Has Olivia Chow Been an Effective Mayor?

I followed Olivia Chow over a summer of announcements and events to try to understand how she's fared as a leader. I came back with a more fundamental question about what it means to be mayor of Toronto when real power lies elsewhere. July 15, 2026, is the kind of day on which riding the exposed section of Line 2 across the Bloor Viaduct feels like creeping through a red-orange cloud, and blasting out of the tunnel in Scarborough feels like landing on Mars. Smoke from out-of-control wildfires in Northern Ontario has finally made its way to Toronto, and there’s only so much that we, here, can do about the choking ochre tide.

The Local·
Independent

Our Parasocial Relationship with Politicians

When Zohran Mamdani appeared on comedian Kareem Rahma’s popular internet talk show Subway Takes during his successful run for New York City mayor last year, the interview was a sensation, garnering nearly three million likes across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. The subway interview marked yet another jewel in the crown of a formidable new media strategy that helped the 34-year-old democratic socialist win the November 2025 New York City mayoral election with 50.78 per cent of the vote. Mamdani’s short-form vertical campaign videos endeared him to younger and newcomer voters who supported him at the ballot box. His campaign became an object lesson for political strategists.

The Tyee·
Independent

Heart of the City Festival Returns This November

The Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival takes place from Oct. 30 to Nov. 7. For 23 years, the Heart of the City Festival has been grounded in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and focused on listening and learning from the community's cultural practices. The festival works with, for and about the Downtown Eastside community to carry forward the community’s stories, ancestral memory, cultural traditions, lived experiences and artistic processes, illuminating pathways of resilience.

The Tyee·
Independent

My Seventeen-Hour Wait in an Edmonton Emergency Room

I took my daughter to the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton after work. Because she’s a teenager and deserves her privacy, I don’t want to share too much about why, but I will say, with her permission, that it was a mental health concern. I was worried about her safety. The question I couldn’t shake was: The next time she was on her own, could I trust that she would be OK?

The Tyee·