TOP CLICKS: The week that was in viral stories

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The Toronto Sun takes you straight to the heart of the action.

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Whether it’s local news, provincial and national politics, or the worlds of celebrity and sports, we have you covered.

Some stories set the world on fire. And these ones are the most popular online stories from the past seven days, clicked on by Sun readers like you.

Here are our top stories:

Mike Myers backs Mark Carney with ‘elbows up’ ad aimed at Trump

Mike Myers threw his support behind Liberal Leader and de facto Prime Minister Mark Carney as the two appeared in an ad aimed at tugging on the patriotic heartstrings of Canadian voters and fears over U.S. President Donald Trump.

Both are wearing Team Canada jerseys at a rink as Carney tests Myers’ “Canadian-ness” — and, of course, the Saturday Night Live alum aced it, Mark Daniell reported.

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The ad ended with Myers declaring “elbows up” while his jersey was emblazoned with the slogan “Never 51.”

Hmm, where can we get one of those?

Are Blue Jays bracing for potential plunge in Rogers Centre attendance?

A full house was expected at the Rogers Centre when the Blue Jays opened the season at home for the first time since 2022 — even coming off a last-place finish in the American League East.

What remains to be seen is how long that welcoming feeling is going to last beyond the opener, though Rob Longley reported that much of April, as often is the case with teams around baseball, appears to be extremely lean as the usual drags on attendance come into play.

But even through the summer months, wide swaths of seats are available for games.

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Blue Jays President and CEO Mark Shapiro acknowledged there are challenges in selling seats for a team coming off a disappointing season and especially during the early weeks of the new one.

The 12-2 season-opening spanking by the Orioles won’t exactly help their cause, though, so how loyal will the fan base be?

GOLDSTEIN: Carney’s theft of Poilievre’s platform has turned into a farce

The ongoing theft of the Pierre Poilievre Conservatives’ election platform by Mark Carney and the Liberals as they face Trump tariffs has reached farcical levels, indicating they don’t believe in what they’re promising and will abandon most — if not all of it — if re-elected.

They’ve done it before, Lorrie Goldstein wrote, pointing out how Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau mocked Conservative leader Bob Stanfield in the 1974 election for proposing wage and price controls to break the momentum of inflation, with the phrase “Zap. You’re frozen,” before bringing in wage and price controls in 1975 after he won.

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Now, the Carney Liberals are pilfering the promises of the Poilievre Conservatives by announcing his government would cut the GST for first-time homebuyers of new or substantially renovated homes valued at under $1 million, saving them up to $50,000 — which the Tory leader pledged in October 2024.

This while now claiming he will scrap Trudeau’s consumer carbon tax — another position he stole from Poilievre – but keep Trudeau’s industrial carbon tax, which will raise consumer prices instead of the taxes on them.

Goldstein has more examples but noted that anyone who agrees with the Liberals’ principles may as well just vote for Poilievre and the Conservatives, who authored the positions Carney and the Liberals stole, and who actually believe in them.

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Not Vlad Guerrero Jr. or Bo Bichette, Blue Jays’ other huge free agent opens up on future in Toronto

What do franchise cornerstones Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette have in common with Mark Shapiro, the man who could ultimately decide whether they walk to the potential riches of free agency following the 2025 season?

Well, the Blue Jays President and CEO’s contract also expires after this season. What’s next remains to be seen, Longley reported.

Shapiro didn’t get into specifics but he did suggest there have yet to be serious talks about an extension and offered no timetable as to when that might happen. But he also expressed no apparent desire or urgency to leave the Jays, where his huge success on the business side for team owner Rogers Communications can’t be overstated.

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That said, it’s also unknown whether Shapiro is waiting for the right time to negotiate an extension, or perhaps much of that depends on how the team performs this critical 2025 season.

Not good when Auston Matthews must push Leafs twice in same week

Toronto Maple Leafs captain and dressing room spokesman Auston Matthews had to find the right tone of revulsion and revision twice in less than a week and get his mates to listen after the team looked so dominant for a couple of nights, then played oh-so-poorly the next, Lance Hornby reported.

Matthews now knows what John Tavares had to go through, and even what it’s like to be in the dress shoes of coaches Mike Babcock, Sheldon Keefe and even Craig Berube, trying to explain the inexplicable.

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