Toronto at 3 AM

Short Feature by Max Mertens

Building Fun in a Notoriously Unfun City

With artists getting international recognition and partygoers eager to make up for lost time, the only thing standing between Toronto and a vibrant nightlife scene is Toronto.

Perspective by Emma Healey

Death in the Small Hours

In the middle of the night, palliative care doctor Joshua Wales drives across the city, making house calls to people during the most emotionally complex, vulnerable moments of their lives.

Short Feature by Lygia Navarro

The Night Watchmen

In the booming private security industry, the biggest problem is finding enough guards. Then came a new source of low-wage employees—international students.

Feature by Alexandra Kimball

The Brutish Lives and Hideous Deaths of Toronto Rats

Rats are cunning, ravenous, daring, disgusting. They stand in for everything squalid and dysfunctional about urban life and we will never be rid of them.

Feature by Inori Roy

A Voice on the End of the Line

For the last sixty years, crisis hotlines have been the emergency rooms of the mental health world. But remote work has transformed the already challenging overnight shift into a deeply lonely one.

Essay by Sarah Ratchford

Leaving the Party

Walking late at night, free from the noise of the day and the demands and threats of men, I can finally hear my own thoughts.

Perspective by Lisa MacIntosh

Maybe I’ll See Raymond

For years, I walked the city doing street outreach overnight—handing out socks, listening to people’s stories, always scanning the crowd for a familiar face.

Announcements

The Local Journalism Fellowship 2023

Now in its fourth year, the program provides training and mentorship to aspiring and emerging journalists from communities underrepresented in Canadian media. Applications are now open.

From the Archives: Public Education Stories

Local Journalism Matters.

We're able to produce impactful, award-winning journalism thanks to the generous support of readers. By supporting The Local, you're contributing to a new kind of journalism—in-depth, non-profit, from corners of Toronto too often overlooked.

Support
Recent issues

7 Years of Doug Ford

After seven years in office, Doug Ford has left his mark on the province. From health care to education, online gambling to the Greenbelt, we examine the record of the Progressive Conservative leader seeking a third term as premier in the February 27 Ontario provincial election.

The Immigration Issue

The last year has seen sharp changes in attitudes and policies around Canadian immigration. Nowhere are those changes felt more than in Toronto. In this issue, we dig into the complicated, sometimes contradictory, ways newcomers change life in Toronto, and how this city affects them in turn.

Divided City

In Toronto, neighbourhoods separated by just a few TTC stops can be worlds apart in terms of how residents experience life, and death. Our five-year-anniversary issue is an unprecedented deep-dive into this city’s disparities—on everything from health and housing to who makes 3-1-1 complaints.