Operation Soap
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Operation Soap
Operation Soap was a raid by the Metropolitan Toronto Police against four gay bathhouses in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which took place on February 5, 1981. Just less than three hundred men were arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October crisis, before the record was broken during the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs in Edmonton, Alberta. Although many gay bathhouses had previously been raided in Canada and other smaller raids followed, Operation Soap is considered a special turning point in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Canada; the raids and their aftermath are today widely considered to be the Canadian equivalent of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City. Mass protests and rallies were held denouncing the incident. These evolved into Toronto's current Pride Week, which is now one of the world's largest gay pride festivals and celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2015. Most charges connected to the incident were eventuall ...
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Toronto Police Service
The Toronto Police Service (TPS) is a municipal police force in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the primary agency responsible for providing law enforcement and policing services in Toronto. Established in 1834, it was the first local police service created in North America and is one of the oldest police services in the English-speaking world. It is the largest municipal police service in Canada, and third largest police force in Canada after the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). With a 2021 budget of $1.1 billion, the Toronto Police Service ranks as the second largest expense of the City of Toronto's annual operating budget, after the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). History 19th century 1834 Trading village, to 1845 Irish refugees From 1834 to 1859, the Toronto Police was a corrupt and notoriously political force, with its constables loyal to the local aldermen who personally appointed police officers in their own wards for t ...
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Gay Pride
LGBT pride (also known as gay pride or simply pride) is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to shame and social stigma, is the predominant outlook that bolsters most LGBT rights movements. Pride has lent its name to LGBT-themed organizations, institutes, foundations, book titles, periodicals, a cable TV station, and the Pride Library. Ranging from solemn to carnivalesque, pride events are typically held during LGBT Pride Month or some other period that commemorates a turning point in a country's LGBT history, for example Moscow Pride in May for the anniversary of Russia's 1993 decriminalization of homosexuality. Some pride events include LGBT pride parades and marches, rallies, commemorations, community days, dance parties, and festivals. Common symbols of pride include the rainbow flag and other pride flags, the lowercase Greek le ...
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CBC News
CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca. Founded in 1941, CBC News is the largest news broadcaster in Canada and has local, regional, and national broadcasts and stations. It frequently collaborates with its organizationally separate French-language counterpart, Radio-Canada Info. History The first CBC newscast was a bilingual radio report on November 2, 1936. The CBC News Service was inaugurated during World War II on January 1, 1941, when Dan McArthur, chief news editor, had Wells Ritchie prepare for the announcer Charles Jennings a national report at 8:00 pm. Readers who followed Jennings were Lorne Greene, Frank Herbert and Earl Cameron. ''CBC News Roundup'' (French counterpart: ''La revue de l'actualité'') started on August 16, 1943, at 7:45 pm, being replaced by ''T ...
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Mark Saunders (police Chief)
Mark Saunders (born 1962) is a Canadian politician and retired police officer who served as chief of police with the Toronto Police Service (TPS) from April 26, 2015 to July 31, 2020. Saunders announced he intends to run for mayor of Toronto in the 2023 by-election. He was the Progressive Conservative (PC) candidate in Don Valley West in the 2022 Ontario election. Early life and education In 1962, Saunders was born in England to Jamaican parents. His family moved from England to Quebec in 1967, and in 1969, they settled in Milton, Ontario. He was student council president while attending Milton District High School, and also attended W. I. Dick Middle School, J.M. Denyes School, and Martin Street Middle School. He earned an honours bachelor of applied science in justice studies from the University of Guelph-Humber. Toronto Police Service Saunders began his policing career after graduating from high school. Before being appointed chief in 2015, he held the position of deputy ...
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Daily Xtra
''Xtra Magazine'' (formerly ''DailyXtra'' and ''Xtra!'') is an LGBTQ-focused digital publication and former print newspaper published by Pink Triangle Press in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The publication is a continuation of the company's former print titles ''Xtra!'', ''Xtra Ottawa'', and '' Xtra Vancouver'', which were all discontinued in 2015."Gay newspaper Xtra to stop printing, go digital only"
'''', January 14, 2015.


History

''Xtra'' was founded in Toronto on February 19, 1984 (with a March cover date) by Pink Triangle Press, a not-for-profit organization. It was introduced as a fo ...
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Buddies In Bad Times
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is a Canadian professional theatre company. Based in Toronto, Ontario and founded in 1978 by Matt Walsh, Jerry Ciccoritti, and Sky Gilbert, ''Buddies in Bad Times'' is dedicated to "the promotion of queer theatrical expression". Although the company eventually achieved notoriety and success in the 1980s as a queer theatre company, it was not founded with that intent. Buddies' original focus was on staged adaptations of poetry. However, during the 1980s, under the sole leadership of Sky Gilbert, Buddies developed a distinctly queer aesthetic and practice. The company is known for its work that was unapologetically political, fiercely pro-sexual, and fundamentally anti-establishment. In 1983, Sue Golding joined the company as its founding Board President—a post which she held until 1995, playing an instrumental role in shaping the direction of the organization. Some of the company's earliest commercial and critical successes included productions of Gilb ...
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Keith Cole (performance Artist)
Keith Cole is a queer Canadian performance artist and political activist. Originally from Thunder Bay, Ontario,Paul Bellini"Will a queer be Canada's Worst Handyman?"'' fab'', Issue 290. he is currently based in Toronto, Ontario. An alumnus of York University's Fine Arts program, Cole has worked in film and video, dance and theatre performance, both as himself and in character as drag queen Pepper Highway. He has produced and hosted live events in Toronto, including ''Porn-a-Roake'', a comedic event which blended karaoke performances with amateur porn videos, and ''Cheap Queers'', an annual performance night of LGBT entertainers at Buddies in Bad Times. In addition to his sometimes controversial drag performances, Cole is perhaps best known for his 2010 campaign to be Mayor of Toronto. Theatre Cole's theatrical work has included the shows ''Mine'', ''Alma'', ''The Needle Exchange'' and ''Dodged Bullets/Missed Opportunities''. He also appeared in Maggie MacDonald's play ''The Rat ...
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Same-sex Marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Same-sex marriage in Mexico, Mexico, constituting some 1.35 billion people (17% of the world's population). In Same-sex marriage in Andorra, Andorra, a law allowing same-sex marriage will come into force on 17 February 2023. Same-sex adoption, Adoption rights are not necessarily covered, though most states with same-sex marriage allow those couples to jointly adopt as other married couples can. In contrast, 34 countries (as of 2021) have definitions of marriage in their constitutions that prevent marriage between couples of the same sex, most enacted in recent decades as a preventative measure. Some other countries have constitutionally mandated Islamic law, which is generally interpreted as prohibiting marriage between same-sex couples. ...
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Court Of Appeal For Ontario
The Court of Appeal for Ontario (frequently referred to as the Ontario Court of Appeal or ONCA) is the appellate court for the province of Ontario, Canada. The seat of the court is Osgoode Hall in downtown Toronto, also the seat of the Law Society of Ontario and the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Description The Court is composed of 22 judicial seats, in addition to one or more justices who sit supernumerary. They hear over 1,500 appeals each year, on issues of private law, constitutional law, criminal law, administrative law and other matters. The Supreme Court of Canada hears appeals from less than 3% of the decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, therefore in a practical sense, the Court of Appeal is the last avenue of appeal for most litigants in Ontario. Among the Court of Appeal's most notable decisions was the 2003 ruling in ''Halpern v Canada (AG)'' that found defining marriage as between one man and one woman to violate Section 15 of th ...
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The Globe And Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it falls slightly behind the ''Toronto Star'' in overall weekly circulation because the ''Star'' publishes a Sunday edition, whereas the ''Globe'' does not. ''The Globe and Mail'' is regarded by some as Canada's " newspaper of record". ''The Globe and Mail''s predecessors, '' The Globe'' and ''The Mail and Empire'' were both established in the 19th century. The former was established in 1844, while the latter was established in 1895 through a merger of ''The Toronto Mail'' and the ''Toronto Empire''. In 1936, ''The Globe'' and ''The Mail and Empire'' merged to form ''The Globe and Mail''. The newspaper was acquired by FP Publications in 1965, who later sold the paper to the Thomson Corporation in 1980. In 2001, the paper merged with broadcast ...
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Police State
A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive, and the deployment of internal security and police forces play a heightened role in governance. A police state is a characteristic of authoritarian, totalitarian or illiberal regimes (contrary to a liberal democratic regime). Such governments are typically one-party states, but police-state-level control may emerge in multi-party systems as well. Originally, a police state was a state regulated by a civil administration, but since the beginning of the 20th century it has "taken on an emotional and derogatory meaning" by describing an undesirable state of living characterized by the overbearing presence of civil authorities. The inhabitants of a police state may experience restrictions on their mobility, or on their freedom to ...
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