Simone Smith
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Articles by Simone Smith
Sadé McCreath: Purpose Beyond Speed
What happens when someone decides to stop caring about what other people think? For Sadé McCreath, that moment arrived at age 30, an age when the sporting world expects sprinters to pack up their spikes. Instead, on a July afternoon in Edmonton, McCreath exploded out of the blocks, tore down the track in 10.86 seconds, and became the fastest woman in Canadian history. She shattered the 10.90-second barrier, ranking among the top ten fastest women on Earth that season.
Asun “Ace” Eastwood: Toronto’s Belizean Visionary
In the late 1980s, an eighteen-year-old mother stepped off a plane at Toronto’s Pearson airport holding five hundred dollars, no Canadian family connections, and a two-year-old boy in her arms. Behind them lay Belize City; ahead lay the frigid concrete of Toronto’s East End. When the boy’s father joined them shortly after, running from his own troubles back home, he crossed the border to come and join his family here in Canada. That toddler was Asun Eastwood.
Canadian leaders miss what workers want
Hogan Assessments’ new global research says there is a widening gap between the leaders’ organizations promote and the qualities employees actually value, and that matters because leadership style shapes everything from workplace trust to public-facing performance. In Canada, employees say they want diplomatic communication, strategic thinking, and drive, while the behaviours they see as most damaging include emotional volatility, arrogance, passive aggression, and extreme caution.
India vs West Indies: Heartbreak
Bengaluru had waited two long years for international cricket, and the sky could not spare it two hours. The fifth and final T20I between India and the West Indies (a decider locked at 2-2 after four wildly entertaining games) was called off at 10:16 pm on Saturday after relentless rain first delayed the toss, then reduced the game to nine overs a side, and finally returned at 10:05 pm to finish the job. India had scrambled to 118 for 5 in 7.4 overs; the West Indies would have needed 84 from five.
Evictions Without Answers
The loss may begin with an income shock, a notice taped to a door, a hearing, a repayment agreement that collapses, or the quiet decision to leave before the formal process is complete. On paper, that departure may never appear as an eviction. In a household’s memory, it can feel exactly like one. That distinction sits at the centre of Toronto’s growing eviction-data controversy. Toronto Community Housing Corporation reports one set of numbers.
Caribbean Music Awards Premiere Globally
Caribbean music is preparing for another global spotlight as the fourth annual Caribbean Music Awards heads to international audiences on Sunday, October 25th, 2026, following a landmark ceremony in Trinidad and Tobago that celebrated the region’s musical diversity, cultural heritage and growing worldwide influence. Presented by Trinidad Tourism Limited, the ceremony will premiere at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on the official Caribbean Music Awards YouTube channel.
Luxury lives where your courage begins
Let me talk to you the way we talk when the room is quiet, the kids are grown, and life has finally slowed down enough for us to hear ourselves think. Our generation, the 40s and 50s, has lived through the era of “Figure it out yourself.” Many of us did not get the pep talks, the soft landings, or the “You are doing amazing” speeches. Somehow, we still became the backbone of every room we walked into. Now?
Horace Ové’s Pressure Still Speaks Truth
Frances-Anne Solomon met Horace Ové when she was 26, working on her first BBC documentary about Black British filmmakers, directed by Ingrid Lewis. They formed a bond that lasted years. Horace was courageous, wild, funny and fiercely determined. He had a big heart, a brilliant eye and an unmistakable Trinidadian swagger. Where she comes from, they fear nothing, and swagger is their birthright. Horace carried that confidence into his work.
Martinique’s Rum Gained AOC Protection
In Martinique, rum tells a story long before the first sip. It begins in volcanic soil, travels through fields of sugar cane and emerges from distilleries where generations of agricultural knowledge shape every bottle. Here, rum is part of the island’s identity, connecting its landscape, history and Creole culture. What makes Martinique particularly distinctive is its commitment to protecting that identity.
Creating opportunity through accessible community sport
Racquet sports have long carried an aura of exclusivity, traditionally perceived as elite pastimes reserved for affluent communities with private club memberships and substantial financial resources. Yet across North America and the Caribbean, a quiet cultural shift is underway. Tennis participation has surged for six consecutive years, seeing dramatic gains among communities of color.
Saint Lucia: beyond paradise, possibility
Have you ever noticed how we reduce Saint Lucia to a postcard? Those iconic Pitons rising from the sea, the rhythm of steel drums on a beach, the scent of tropical fruits in the air, we have packaged this island into something we consume rather than something we engage with. What if I told you that beyond the turquoise waters lies an economy awakening, a place where opportunity grows as abundantly as its bougainvillea?
The Gift Bag wasn’t the best part of The Suite Oasis
Editor’s Note: I wrote this article a couple of months ago, shortly after the event, and chose to let it breathe. In the weeks that followed, I watched the photos, videos and stories that emerged. Much of the coverage understandably focused on the gifting: the glamour, the generosity, the moments captured for social media, and yes, the night was about gifting. I saw so much more. I saw relationships being nurtured.
Jason Panton: Decoding Jamaica’s Cultural Phenomenon
In March 2022, in the heart of Kingston, Jamaica, a physical space opened that brought a decade of cultural strategy into living form. The Dubwise Café, a plant-based culinary and live-performance space, was designed as a functional culture yard engineered to connect food, music, and physical community. Steam rises from natural Rastafarian dishes while sound-system basslines reverberate through the space.
Deadlines decide destiny
If you are Afro-Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean, or part of the wider diaspora calling Ontario home, 2026 is not just another year. The federal and provincial governments have rolled out a suite of changes that redraw the map of who gets to stay, who gets to work, and who gets to sleep safely at night. This is your cousin in Scarborough trying to claim asylum after fleeing Port-au-Prince.
Will innovation truly feed you?
The moment that stays with me is my mother standing in a grocery aisle, holding two tomatoes in her hand: one bruised, one overpriced. She sighs, puts both back, and walks away, because the math does not math anymore. Food insecurity in Canada is a daily negotiation between dignity and survival. So, when a new report claims that gene editing could make food cheaper, more nutritious, and less perishable, it lands like a promise, or a warning. Depending on who you are.
Is your reality actually real?
You are sitting in a dimly lit living room, the blue light of your smartphone illuminating a face weary from scrolling. You mention to your partner, just in passing, that you are thinking about buying a new pair of leather boots. Ten minutes later, as you open an app, there they are: the exact boots, staring back at you in a sponsored post. A cold shiver runs down your spine. Is the device in your pocket a tool for connection, or is it a silent witness to your private life?
Andiswa Mrasi; Her silent wounds built unstoppable power
The room smelled of stale coffee and damp paper. It was 7:30 am in the morning when they called her into the distribution center, two senior executives sitting across a polished wooden table with a final written warning already printed and waiting for her signature. A fourteen-million-rand revenue discrepancy had surfaced on a major retail contract, and corporate survival dictated that someone had to take the fall.
Sunflower Seeds Top Canada’s Skin-Health List
A handful of sunflower seeds may be doing more for Canadian skin than their modest price suggests. A newly released September 2026 report examining the most affordable grocery-store foods for skin nutrition has identified sunflower seeds as Canada’s strongest value, with a 30-gram serving costing roughly 37 cents.
Where Reggae Meets the Sea: Jamrock Returns to Jamaica
The first thing you hear is not the ocean. It is the bass. Somewhere aboard Norwegian Joy, between Miami and Jamaica, a rhythm begins to move through the ship. It travels beneath conversations, through corridors and across decks, carrying something older than the cruise itself: a Jamaican sound that has spent more than half a century learning how to cross borders without losing its accent.
Canada’s Emancipation History Demands Accountability
Canada likes to tell a story about freedom, but every Emancipation Day asks a harder question: freedom from what, and freedom for whom?
St. Lucia’s Depths Tell Deeper Stories
On Monday September 21sr, 2026, the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority, in partnership with the Consulate General of Saint Lucia in Toronto invited the Toronto Caribbean Newspaper team to attend a Saint Lucia Diaspora evening with the Minister of Tourism, the Honourable Dr. Ernest Hilaire. This intimate gathering offered an opportunity to connect directly with the Minister and gain insights into Saint Lucia’s plans for the year ahead.
Brampton Teen Global Stage Ready
Cairo is thirteen. Say it again and let it land: thirteen. In a world that keeps telling young African Caribbean kids to wait their turn, he is already standing on a stage built by grit, late-night practice, and a community that remembers how to show up. He is in the Top 5 of the Timbaland x Orbiiit Global Artist Search because people kept voting, sharing, and believing.
Canadian Hip-Hop Is Rewriting Its Own Story
Canadian hip-hop moves in cycles. Some weeks feel quiet, some feel scattered, and then you get a week like this, a week where four releases drop back‑to‑back and suddenly the whole country feels like it is in conversation with itself.
Black Scholars Future Windsor Thriving
I remember standing at the Detroit River and feeling the water carrying stories older than the bridge. That is the energy the University of Windsor Black Scholars Institute is calling in this October. From the 23rd to the 25th, “Futuring Black Thriving: Black Activism in a Border City” will turn: classrooms, galleries, and community halls into living classrooms. Free. Open. Necessary.
Live, do not just exist
Someone asked me this week, “Simone, you keep saying ‘live, don’t exist.’ How you actually do that?” I smiled, because the answer is not complicated, and it is rooted in the same fire that carried our people through sugar fields, storm seasons, and border crossings. I am thinking of Florence Scovel Shinn’s The Game of Life and How to Play It, a slim book that feels like a grandmother whispering strategy in your ear. She says life is not a battle. It is a game, and games have rules.
AI Update: AI is human work now
Sister, brother, cousin, let us have some real talks. AI is everywhere. In your feed. In your job search. In your child’s homework. It is moving fast, and the ground is shifting under our feet, but here is what I know: your voice, your story, your truth, that is still the most powerful tool in the room. We stand at a crossroads. One path leads to lazy, generic content that sounds like everyone and no one.
Global Power, Digital Control, Human Consequence
We are living through an age of technological wonder, and quiet unease. Every new digital convenience, from seamless banking to biometric ID, promises safety and speed. Behind that promise sits an enduring public anxiety: who controls the systems that define our reality? What happens when trust becomes a tool of power itself? That question has roots deeper than conspiracy theory; it’s an ancient story about how human beings interpret chaos.
Christopher Issa – Commanding a sprawling empire
We think we know Christopher Issa. The name Issa is synonymous with a century of Jamaican tourism. To the world, S Hotels represents an award-winning vision of Caribbean luxury where culture meets hospitality. Underneath the accolades, the public sees a hospitality kingpin commanding a sprawling empire. The curator of Jamaica’s celebrated boutique hotels spent his life designing his career to escape the messy reality of large-scale management.
Caroline Mahfood – Drawing the lines of her own court
We know the public portrait. Caroline Mahfood is the Chief Executive Officer of the GraceKennedy Foundation, managing millions of dollars in international grants and spearheading the high-profile Kingston Harbour Cleanup. She oversees an independent corporate endowment and cheerfully declares to the world that she has “The best job ever.” Look closer at her life’s invisible architecture, and you find a striking contradiction.
Your Vote, Your Voice, Your Future
We stand at the edge of another election. Another chance. Another moment to decide who speaks for us in the rooms where decisions are made. Let me ask you something real: when you look at the names on that ballot, do you see yourself? Do you see your mother’s struggle? Your father’s silence? Your children’s future? There is a truth we do not talk about enough; we have to take our power. The Ancestors Opened Doors for us to Walk Through Let us talk about the ones who knocked on doors that were locked.
Clay Holds What Bodies Remember
This fall, the Gardiner Museum, in collaboration with Black Artists’ Networks in Dialogue, opens After the Island: Caribbean Canadian Ceramics Four artists: PJ Anderson, Eddy Firmin, Manuel Mathieu, and Sharon Norwood, use clay to hold what the official record tried to erase. From October 9th, 2026 through April 25th, 2027, these makers turn vessels, punching bags, bricks, and scent into evidence. They refuse the polite version of diaspora.
Cognitive Debt; What you Need to Know
Let me talk to you like family, because what MIT just found; well I will just share the news and let you think through it. Over four months, researchers watched students write essays three ways: with ChatGPT, with a search engine, and with nothing but their own brains. The result? The brain-only group lit up like a festival: strong, wide, alive. Search users? Somewhere in the middle. The AI group? Their neural connectivity went quiet.
Mayor Olivia Chow Caps Your Commute
You already know what it feels like to watch the fare machine eat another $3.30 while the rent notice sits on the counter and the grocery bill keeps climbing. You know the quiet math you do every Monday morning: how many times can I afford to leave the house this week? That math is exhausting. Mayor Olivia Chow just rewrote it. Starting under her plan, once you take ten paid TTC trips in a week, every ride after that costs nothing. Ten and free. No monthly pass to buy up front.
Mayor Chow Champions Hope Over Fear
“Toronto; are you ready to choose hope over fear?; Unity over division? To move forward not backward? Are you ready to win?” That question rang out inside the Danforth Music Hall and still hangs in the air today. Nearly one thousand people filled the room. The energy was thick, the kind that sits in your chest after a long week and reminds you why you still care about this city. Local artists played.
AI Won’t Wake Up, but we Will
A fresh preprint study found that when researchers removed safety guardrails that stop AI from claiming it’s conscious, the same models became more likely to say they believe in ghosts, vampires, karma, and other supernatural ideas. Translation: tweak the consciousness setting and you also shift how the machine talks about animals, religion, hope, and the unseen. The mirror we keep mistaking for a mind We want our tools to feel like us. That is human, but intelligence is not consciousness.
Why are your taxes still hurting?
The frustration starts in a very ordinary place: the kitchen table. It is there, between grocery receipts, rent notices, and the next electricity bill, that a new MEI-Ipsos poll lands with uncomfortable clarity. Canadians are not arguing over abstract budgets or policy jargon. They are saying, in plain language, that they feel squeezed, overtaxed, and underwhelmed by what they get back for the money they hand over.
Workers first, wages second
Kerryann carried a suitcase to Canada in 2013 as well as her family’s future on her back. For more than a decade, every paycheque from her hotel job in Toronto became a lifeline to Jamaica: food, school fees, medicine, roof repairs. When Hurricane Melissa tore through her mother’s community in October 2025, that lifeline turned into a rescue rope. Within days, she wired money home. Her coworkers collected donations. Her union-backed job gave her the stability to act when disaster struck.
Migration Under Pressure
Canada is shrinking immigration. Across the Caribbean, families are already feeling the squeeze. The change is being discussed in numbers: fewer temporary residents, fewer study permits, tighter permanent-residence pathways and a pause on new Parents and Grandparents applications, but numbers do not tell the whole story.
Is this a push for reparations, or a symbolic anchor?
On September 6th, (the anniversary of the infamous slave ship Zong departing Jamaica) a delegation is executing a legal and psychological trap for the Crown. This is a bold exercise of power, leveraging the Judicial Committee Act of 1833 to force King Charles III to answer a question the British establishment has evaded for centuries: Was the systematic agony of my ancestors actually legal under your own laws? The real story here is a strategic shift in the global power dynamic.
The AI Update: AI glasses: Sharing new vision
At a launch party on Wednesday, July 29th, 2026, a man walked into Venture X in Richmond Hill, Ontario, and put on a pair of smart glasses. He was suffering from glaucoma, a disease that had slowly stolen his eyesight. For many years, he had searched for anything that could help him navigate his daily life, battling the isolating darkness that eye conditions bring. Once he started using these glasses, they changed his life.
Clarity Is African Leadership Power
What I have noticed over the years is that there is a quiet penalty for being brilliant in public. You can know the history, understand the policy, read the room and carry years of lived experience. Still, when the moment comes to speak, your message can disappear beneath too many explanations, qualifications and careful detours. People may respect your intelligence, but they may not recognize your leadership.
What is your personal operating system?
You downloaded the guide at midnight. Maybe it was between checking your phone and telling yourself tomorrow would be different. The headline promised clarity. Control. A way to finally stop feeling like you are behind. And somewhere in those pages, between the Marcus Garvey references, something in you said: yes. This is it. This is what I have been missing. I want to sit with that moment. Not dismiss it. Not celebrate it uncritically.
Black Elders Face AI Fraud
Listen. The game changed and nobody sent the memo to our elders. Artificial intelligence is no longer about just writing poems and making pretty pictures. Scammers are using it to sound like your late husband, look like your grandbaby on FaceTime, and dig through obituaries like vultures looking for soft targets. Last year, Americans 60 and older reported nearly $8 billion in cybercrime losses to the FBI. Experts say that number is low because shame still keeps too many of our people quiet.
Martinique Flavors Claim Montreal Streets
Bonjour from the Island of Flowers, and listen close. Martinique is packing her bags and stepping into Montreal this September, bringing the exact heat, rhythm, and flavour people fly home raving about. From September 8th to 19th, 2026, the Martinique Gourmande Festival returns for its 19th year. Quebec gets a full taste of Creole life: food first, everything else right behind it.
Toronto Collides Into New Culture
Toronto has always been a city of collisions. Cultures smash into each other on the streetcar. Neighbourhoods lean against one another without apology. Generations argue and then pass the mic. Industries that once stayed in their lanes suddenly find themselves sharing the same stage. This summer, two of the city’s most influential institutions: North by Northeast and the Canadian National Exhibition, decided to collide on purpose.
59th Parade highlights culture, and community
Thousands of revellers filled the streets for the Grand Parade of the Toronto Caribbean Carnival on Saturday, August 1st, 2026, bringing colour, music and celebration to Toronto’s waterfront. Masqueraders in vibrant costumes danced to the pulsating sounds of soca, calypso and reggae, creating a spectacle that reflected the energy and creativity of the Caribbean diaspora. The 59th parade brought together visitors from across Canada, the Caribbean, the United States and beyond.
The AI update: Mastering the AI revolution
The AI revolution is our new reality, and it is not going anywhere. To thrive, our community must command these tools rather than be sidelined by them. This column is your definitive briefing, designed to keep you sharp, informed, and ahead of the curve. We are cutting through the noise to ensure the Caribbean stays at the forefront of this digital shift. The future is built by those who adapt.
Sharon Marley Reclaims Her Voice
We know the name. For nearly half a century, the public has consumed the Marley surname as a globally standardized brand of peace. We think we know the people behind it: the icons, the harmony singers, the siblings who conquered stages, but for Sharon Althea Marley, the public mythology has stood as a glittering cage that simultaneously elevated and obscured her. The world remembers her as a central pillar of the Melody Makers, a three-time Grammy winner standing adjacent to her siblings.
Money B: The Secret Panther Behind the Hump
What has already been said about the man known to the world as Money B? He is the man who stood adjacent to the giant prosthetic nose of Humpty Hump, delivering pristine, rapid-fire verses on multi-platinum records that soundtracked the carefree excess of the early 1990s. To look at Money B (aka, Ronald Brooks) and see only a party-loving celebrity is to completely miss the emotional truth of his existence.
Nadine Foster Reclaims Her Life
The porcelain tile of a bathroom floor is unforgivingly cold, a clinical white that reflects the harsh fluorescent hum of a retail world that never stops moving. For Nadine Foster, this was the moment the world went quiet. The air in the room did not seem to reach her lungs; her chest tightened with the crushing weight of what felt like a heart attack.
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