UNFORGETTABLE SAGAS, SCOOPS AND SCANDALS
 from Toronto Life’slong-form archives

Dear Reader,

As the city’s housing crisis rages on, life across the lake continues to be wildly affordable by comparison. Legislation dictating who has the right to own property on the Toronto Islands (very few people) hasn’t changed for 30 years, essentially locking home prices in the early ’90s. The average age of residents, however, is creeping up, leading to questions about who will get to be part of the next generation—and how. In “Clash of the Islanders,” Katherine Laidlaw took readers behind the scenes of a vicious property battle that pitted neighbour against neighbour.

Clash of the Islanders

There are 262 homes on the picturesque Toronto Islands, and the battle to get one is epic. Inside the fight over a prime property that’s ripping the tight-knit community in two

BY KATHERINE LAIDLAW | JUNE 23, 2021

Despite their 31-year age difference, Peter McLaughlin and Steven Whitfield bonded quickly. They met at a house party on the Toronto Islands in the summer of 1984 and, over the next three decades, became like father and son. When they made the relationship official through an adult adoption, fellow islanders went ballistic. Island rules stipulate that homes can be passed down only to a spouse, a child or a co-owner, and Whitfield’s neighbours believed that he was gaming the system. As Katherine Laidlaw wrote in this riveting feature, that’s when the islanders went to war with one of their own.

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