Irelyne Lavery
Irelyne Lavery follows how city life, culture and leisure are changing in and around Toronto, focusing on the places, events and experiences that define the region. She reports for Toronto.com on lifestyle and culture stories, with a clear service bent that helps readers decide how to spend their time and money. Her work centres on the intersection of entertainment, food, travel and urban amenities, and she writes with the perspective of a self-described “city enthusiast.”
City events, festivals and entertainment
Lavery tracks the city’s major and emerging events, from long-running institutions to new additions to the calendar.
She covers large-scale spectacles such as North America’s longest-running air show taking over Toronto’s waterfront for a full weekend, laying out when it happens and what attendees can expect. She follows the return of signature neighbourhood events, including the revival of Toronto’s iconic street festival on the Danforth and the expansion of outdoor music festivals on the Toronto Islands. Her entertainment coverage extends to major tours, detailing Bruno Mars’s 2026 run of multiple Toronto dates at Rogers Stadium and the subsequent addition of a fifth show driven by local demand, with a focus on ticket timing and practical information.
She also reports on television and filming, treating the city as a character, including guides to Law & Order Toronto’s third-season filming locations and features on how the series keeps Toronto front and centre. Across these pieces she writes in a clear, accessible format that emphasises dates, venues and “here’s what to know” guidance.
Food, drink and the restaurant and bar scene
Lavery’s coverage of food and drink follows both beloved institutions and new, intimate openings. She profiles long-standing dessert brands such as Demetres, exploring how the business has shaped Toronto’s dessert scene over nearly four decades and how it continues to evolve.
She highlights small, high-touch hospitality concepts, including a tiny 20-seat French restaurant in Toronto that serves a secret multicourse dinner, describing its scale, experience and approach.
Her work also spotlights chefs and restaurants outside the core city, such as a local chef at a Michelin-recommended restaurant in the Niagara region who is reshaping the culinary scene with distinctive decor and concepts. She reports on lists and rankings, notably Toronto’s strong showing on Canada’s 50 best bars in 2026 and local restaurants named among Canada’s best, using those lists to frame trends in the city’s dining and drinking culture. On the retail side of food, she follows grocery expansion stories, including a new 40,000-square-foot T&T store in the GTA and the opening of Canada’s largest Korean grocery store in the region, focusing on scale, authenticity and what the openings mean for local shoppers. Across the beat she treats restaurants and bars as both cultural touchpoints and practical destinations, combining narrative detail with specifics on locations, offerings and opening plans.
Travel, destinations and regional escapes
Lavery frequently steps beyond the city limits to cover travel and day-trip destinations that matter to Toronto-based readers. She writes about natural landmarks and wilderness sites, such as a 940-year-old cedar tree on Ontario’s tallest cliff and a remote wilderness castle in a small town, weaving together history, geography and how visitors can experience these places today. Her stories include distinctive regional events, like a butter tart festival in an Ontario area famous for its 13-storey waterfall, linking local food culture with the appeal of the landscape.
She highlights unique points on the map, including Canada’s southernmost inhabited point on an Ontario island known for warm weather and historic ruins, positioning it as both a curiosity and a travel option.
Her travel reporting also covers infrastructure that connects Toronto to the wider world, such as the relaunch of direct flights between Toronto and Helsinki after an 11-year hiatus, detailing frequency, timing and the appeal of the destination as one of the world’s most livable cities. These pieces blend discovery with logistics, giving readers reasons to visit and enough practical information to plan a trip.
Urban lifestyle, retail and real estate amenities
Lavery’s urban lifestyle coverage focuses on how residents experience the city through retail, housing and everyday spaces.
She tracks brand expansions such as Uniqlo’s growth across Canada, including a new store in the Greater Toronto Area that adds to a national network of locations, and she notes how these openings contribute to the regional retail landscape. Her reporting on housing and amenities includes guides to Toronto condos for rent with picturesque pools that feel like private resorts, emphasising infinity pools, rooftop sanctuaries and the specific features that differentiate these buildings.
She produces service pieces on consumer-facing changes like extended liquor store hours during major global sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup, treating policy-driven shifts as practical information for residents. Her work also follows chains and quick-service concepts, such as a popular sub brand planning hundreds of new locations and adding a new Toronto restaurant as part of that expansion.
Underpinning this strand of her coverage is a consistent attention to how city dwellers access experiences - whether through a condo amenity, a new store opening or adjusted retail hours - and how those details shape everyday life.
Across these areas, Lavery’s reporting is grounded in clear, factual prose and a strong sense of place. She returns repeatedly to Toronto and nearby Ontario communities, using specific examples of events, openings and destinations to show how the region’s culture and lifestyle are evolving.
Her stories combine enthusiasm for the city with precise information, making her coverage useful for anyone looking to understand or participate in its food, entertainment, travel and urban lifestyle scenes.
4 more politics journalists.
Aaron D'Andrea
Aaron D’Andrea is a supervising online journalist at Global News who treats politics as part of a wider news ecosystem, combining breaking-news speed with close attention to how decisions and incidents shape public life. He focuses on high-impact politics and breaking stories for a national audience, especially where provincial power struggles and national politics collide, and how premiers, opposition parties and activist groups can turn local moves into national questions. He reports on digital deception and politics, including deepfake scams targeting public figures, and covers crime and public safety when cases rise to national significance. His background includes covering the 2018 Toronto van attack, local reporting for Metroland Media with award-winning coverage, and earlier work in television production. He now also oversees online content from journalists across the country while still contributing fast, visually driven, fact-first stories.
Abhishek De
Abhishek De is a senior journalist at India Today who turns complex political and security developments into clear, accessible stories. He covers foreign affairs, geopolitics, defence and politics, with a focus on strategy, alliances, military doctrine, domestic power struggles and party accountability. His reporting on Trinamool civic battles and Abhishek Banerjee puts internal party dynamics, civic governance and institutional power at the centre of the story. He has also worked on news desks in print and digital media and has filed on politics, health and sports. His style is direct and controlled, with clean structure, tight language and strong explanation.
Adam MacVicar
Adam MacVicar focuses on how local government decisions become budgets, transparency fights and changes for residents. He is Global Calgary’s city hall reporter, covering municipal governance and politics, Alberta’s referendum on its place in Canada, independence campaigns, investigations and party politics. His beat also includes major civic projects, transit, public spaces, redevelopment and housing affordability. He has reported on leaked budget documents, property tax pressures, closed-door meetings, a proposed lobbyist registry, the RCMP corruption probe into city hall and allegations of voter fraud in a provincial party leadership race. He has covered the Olympic Plaza transformation, the Green Line LRT route, the Symons Valley Centre library and housing supply. His work uses leaked documents, economic analysis and reporting from council chambers and project sites. He has worked with Global Calgary since 2017, after earlier radio and television news roles.
Aishwarya Dudha
Aishwarya Dudha reports on how politics, justice and public decisions affect vulnerable people. She works for CBC News, covering immigrants, Indigenous communities, people with disabilities and families facing loss. Her beat includes crime, policing, courts, housing, homelessness, climate policy, economic decisions, local development, sport, health and disability. She has previously worked for CBC News Network and Global News. Dudha connects official decisions and events to lived experience. She centres under-represented voices and examines the human stakes of homicides, trials, institutional failures, public infrastructure, industrial projects and community safety. Her reporting combines timelines, policy and public response with family perspectives, testimony, workplace details and local context. She also profiles athletes and community efforts, keeping personal stories central while showing how law, economics and public systems shape daily life.