Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Heritage Toronto Bangs The Drum Slowly For Caribbean Canadians   By  STEPHEN WEIR   The voices and pictures of the heroes of Toronto’s steel band community has come to the Internet.  Earlier this year Heritage Toronto posted an audio and  written  experience that   explores the contributions and importance of the steelpan to Toronto's music and Caribbean community through the first-hand accounts of four leading steelpan artists.   Andre Rouse, Earl LaPierre Jr, Thadel Wilson and Wendy Jones are the stars of this online history that has recently been made by Heritage Toronto. It is posted on their popular website under the title of  Timbre from Trinidad to Toronto. Heritage Toronto is an agency of the city that celebrates the heritage and the diverse stories of its people, places, and events here in Toronto. This high-profile department tells the city’s story through a number of popular programs, including tours, plaqu...

Toronto fashanistas cheer long and loud for Patricia Jaggernauth It was a given that Patricia Jaggernauth would be back in the spotlight again. After resigning from TV station CP24 and taking the broadcaster to Canadian Human Rights Commission with claims of systemic racism, fans of the popular Caribbean Canadian announcer took to social media to say they were in mourning. Well Toronto, you can put away your veils and black clothing Patricia is back and Howdy.    Last week the former weather announcer was on the cat walk looking anything but FAT dressed to the nine’s as a star model at the Fashion Art Toronto festival’s (FAT). “That moment (when I stepped out) was the celebration of a new chapter” she posted.”That moment was everything.” 30 fashion designers took part in this November’s FAT. For over ten years the fashion part cultural arts fete has presented the city's designers, creators and models with this multi-day happening. Held at the    Parkdale Hall on Quee...

" Whatz The Day Trump Goes Away (For Good)?”   Author STEPHEN WEIR's business card FICTION: A Windsor U Creative Writing Assignment by STEPHEN WEIR The gentle tap tap quickly birthed a knock knock followed by a kick kick at the base of my front door. Someone wanted me wide awake, like yesterday. “Hey Dream Boy,   rise and shine,” barked a loud voice from the other side of my solid oak front door. Was that   a faint French accent lurking in that military staccato? “ Mange la merde”, I screamed back.     I wasn’t going to give up on my disturbing nightmare without a fight and I knew this man. “ It’s Justin, he knows.” My unrequested wake-up service out shrieked me. This wasn’t going to end well. “What does his majesty know? And why does he suddenly want to speak to me after the last time? “I took it down a notch. “The PM knows about you and Monsieur Trump. Aussi Mr. Joe.” ‘How could this be?’ I asked myself.     I only finished the dream when he started ...

Best Ideas Are Being Thrown At The Wall Big Rig comes in at night on Bloor Street to work on new Mirvish complex photo Herman Silochan By Stephen Weir While you are mixing some outdoor paint, turn on the Calypso music real loud and then throw it against a blank wall. If luck is with you, you might have created Toronto’s next downtown mural, which will make Itah Sadu very very happy. The Caribbean Camera has been following how her  Blackhurst Cultural Centre, formally named A Different Booklist Cultural Centre to lead a project which will create a large outdoor mural devoted to calypso in the City of Toronto.  The proposed outdoor wall mural will be in the new Mirvish Village currently under construction where the iconic Ed’s Warehouse once stood at Bloor and Bathurst St.  Sadu’s bookstore and culture centre is directly across the street from where the mural will be installed. Earlier this week reporter Stephen Weir brought along some photographs of both Toronto...

DWIGHT DRUMMOND moving to  CBC News Network’s Canada Tonight for a year! By STEPHEN WEIR  A Toronto dinner time TV tradition is about to end at least, for the next year. On Monday night, after 10-years on the job, Jamaican Canadian journalist and announcer Dwight Drummond will not be reading the news on CBC Toronto News at Six. Oh no Drummond hasn’t left the building, for the next year he will be the host of CBC News Network’s Canada Tonight. The 8pm news broadcast is seen across Canada on the CBC News Network.  He is temporarily taking over from award winning host Ginella Massa while she on maternity leave. The Caribbean Camera contacted the CBC to find out how the community could continue to get their Dwight Drummond fix on the Canada Tonight news hour. “Canada  Tonight is available weeknights at 8 pm in Canada on CBC's premium 24/7 cable news channel, CBC News Network,” reported the CBC PR department. It is also available “with a premium subscriptio...

Hallelujah. Maybe this time it will happen The Canadian Radio and Television Commission made a decision on Tuesday that allows for a religious broadcasting company to create a radio station specializing in religious music in British Columbia with a transmitter in Saskatoon and here in North Toronto.  “ The Commission approves an application byUnited Christian Broadcasters Media Canada to operate three English-language specialty (religious music) FM radio stations in Kelowna, British Columbia, and its rebroadcasting transmitter in Kamloops, British Columbia; in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and in Scarborough, Ontario” read yesterday’s decision. “The Commission also approved an application filed by International Harvesters for a broadcasting licence to operate an English-language specialty (religious music) FM radio station in Scarborough, Ontario.  The decision might sound familiar.  As the Caribbean Camera reported last summer during the pandemic that the CRTC ...

Hurricane warning at the CP-24 weather map   Say it isn’t so Patricia Jaggernauth. Say it isn’t so.  Toronto’s TV world got a shock last week with the announcement that the community’s favourite weather announcer had just quit, and the details aren’t pretty.  The 40-year-old Caribbean Canadian journalist worked as a weather specialist a  fill-in host of the CP24 morning show.  The Emmy award winner also hosted lifestyle and celebrity talk series, Patricia J Show on  Bell Fibe TV1.  She was also  a staple at the best of the best Caribbean events in the city appearing ob behalf of the station.  With Jamaican and Guyanese parents, she was raised in Scarborough and is Caribbean to the bone. She was a fixture reporting from Caribbean Carnival events including the Grand Parade. Jaggernauth was so much a part of the parade she actually volunteered to put on the feathers and sequins and was the showstopper at a late night costume ...