Toronto unveiled the public-vote-chosen names for its new electric ferries on Thursday morning at the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal — the city's last big symbolic moment before the FIFA World Cup arrives at BMO Field on June 12. Mayor Olivia Chow framed both the ferries and the tournament as parts of the same waterfront-revitalisation pitch, "a Toronto that runs on clean power and welcomes the world."
The first of the two emissions-free ferries, built by Damen at the Galați shipyard in Romania from designs by Concept Naval of Quebec City, is due to arrive in Toronto in late autumn. After commissioning, crew training and lake trials it is expected to enter passenger service to the Toronto Islands in spring 2027. The second follows roughly a year later.
World Cup logistics are dominating City Hall planning. Toronto hosts six tournament matches including Canada's opener, and FIFA estimates 300,000 international visitors will pass through the city across the month. Hotel inventory inside Toronto proper is already 92 per cent booked for the tournament window, according to Tourism Toronto, with overflow drawing demand into Mississauga, Hamilton and Niagara.
Transit will be the chief operational challenge. The TTC is finalising surge schedules for the GO and subway lines feeding BMO Field, and Toronto Police Service is co-ordinating a unified command structure with the RCMP and federal authorities. Drone-restriction zones around Exhibition Place have been published.
In a separate development, Toronto Police announced Wednesday that three suspects had been arrested and two more were being sought in connection with an armed robbery at a downtown hotel earlier in the week — the kind of incident the city is trying hard to keep out of the World Cup news cycle.