Toronto has museums and galleries for all tastes

Toronto, where I spent several enjoyable days in August, is one of the best cities in North America for lovers of museums and art galleries.

The biggest city in Canada and the capital of the Canadian province of Ontario, it has a wide range of museums and galleries including the [Ice] Hockey Hall of Fame, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Bata Shoe Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art

The Art Gallery of Ontario has a large and distinguished art collection, while the Hockey Hall of Fame has the world's largest collection of hockey gear and historic artefacts including including NHL masks, hockey sticks, championship rings.

Located in the heart of downtown Toronto, AGO houses an expansive collection embracing classical masterpieces to contemporary works, while the Bata Shoe Museum showcases over 1,000 shoes and related artefacts from a collection of nearly 15,000 objects that span 4,500 years of history. 

It is housed in Raymond Moriyama’s award-winning building displaying everything from Chinese bound-foot shoes and ancient Egyptian sandals to chestnut-crushing clogs and glamorous platform shoes.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) hosts a rotation of exhibitions of artists of the 21st century. Central to the museum’s ethos is the impact of colonisation in modern Canadian life. 

Fort York Historical Park, meanwhile, is preserved as a 43-acre archaeological park on the site of the 1812 Battle of York battleground.

# The writer was a guest of Novotel Toronto Centre. See https://novoteltorontocentre.com/

He flew via Doha with Qatar Airways. www.qatarairways.com   

# Image: Winsor Dobbin  

Angry Canadians turn on former national hero turned wine producer

Angry Canadians have turned on former national hero Wayne Gretzky - an ice hockey player known as "The Great One".

Gretzky, now a wine producer, is a pro-Trump, MAGA supporter.

Which has not made him popular in his homeland, local media report.

Images of Wayne Gretzky Estates wine bottes went viral after appearing on social media platform Reddit with some derogatory descriptions, leading to accusations that a Toronto store had tampered with them. 

Others argued the images had been photoshopped.

On-shelf signage showing the price and information underneath Gretzky’s pinot grigio describe the wine as “weak & backstabbery,” while claiming it “delights with notes of elitism, and affluence.”

A cabernet merlot in Gretzky’s range also bore a shelf-description claiming that the “sad and two-faced” wine is as “weak as its namesake’s moral fibre” and should be paired with “boiled raccoon.”

His chardonnay was said to “reek of betrayal”, with “acrid” hints of “treasonry”.

After conducting an investigation, The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) - which runs all retail wine stores in the province - announced that “we have found no evidence to suggest that any product label was altered in our stores”, and suggested that the images on Reddit had been photoshopped.

Gretzky played 20 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for teams including the Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers and St Louis Blues and is the top-scoring NHL player of all time.

Gretzky, who founded his wine business in 2007 at Niagara on the Lake, is an outspoken Trump supporter and has been photographed wearing a MAGA baseball cap.

Trump has declared him “a good friend” and “a fantastic guy” on his media channel Truth Social, and some Canadians feel Gretzky hasn’t done enough to oppose Trump’s goal of making Canada the “51st state of America”.

With anti-Trump sentiment running high in Canada, many are boycotting businesses seen to support the US President.

The Toronto.com website reported that residents in Niagara-on-the-Lake have called for a boycott of Wayne Gretzky Estates winery and distillery.

A petition to re-name a road named Wayne Gretzky Drive in Edmonton, Alberta, has also reportedly gathered more than 13,300 signatures.