Posted on 11/29/2005 2:52:59 AM PST by NZerFromHK
Toronto's journalist and academic elites have dreamed up a national vision that's blind to the realities of the world
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John Ibbitson, one of The Globe and Mail's severely intellectual columnists, favoured us last month with a portrait of the New Canada--a remarkable place that "works better" than any country in the world. Certain of its cities "are becoming the first places where no one race is dominant, where women can live in real equality with men, where it's okay to be gay, and where people pick up after their dogs."
Above all, the New Canada is polite. "Politeness is not some accidental quality of being Canadian. It is at the core of what we are . . . Canadians have used politeness to foment a social revolution. And from that revolution, our Canada has emerged--young, creative, polyglot, open-minded, forward-looking, fabulous."
Its sole weakness is its government. The Liberals have been in too long, and the Tories can't get elected because "they don't like cities." They're "trapped in a rural anachronism." However, all these problems will be solved by the "millions of new arrivals who have landed at our docks and airports, transforming us." Significantly absent in our New Canada is the phenomenon of religion. It is mentioned only as one of the detriments holding the Tories back.
The article is a précis of Ibbitson's new book, The Polite Revolution. It's important if only because it delivers in a single package the national perceptions of the little journalist-academic circle in Toronto that has assigned itself the onerous burden of telling Canadians who we are and what we think. What's puzzling, however, is that they actually believe what they write, for their every premise is simply false.
Is Canada the only country with cities where no one race is dominant--meaning, presumably, Toronto and Vancouver? Sure--unless you count London, New York, Miami, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Marseilles, Manchester, Birmingham, Amsterdam and heaven knows how many others. Is the equality of women somehow an exclusively Canadian thing? Is it not OK to be gay in other cities? How about Paris, for example? Did Parisians have to wait for Toronto to show them the way to sexual liberation? And are Toronto and Vancouver really the only cities where people pick up after their dogs?
And as for our renowned politeness, has there ever been an instance where a member of an American diplomatic delegation, or that of any other nation, publicly declared our prime minister to be a "moron," and got away with it? Or has the American secretary of state had to urge other supposedly friendly governments to tone down their anti-American rhetoric?
Or does this ostensibly unfailing Canadian politeness not extend to our immediate neighbours who
(a) defended us for nearly half a century against the Communist slave states with little help from us;
(b) provided us with almost all our entertainment because we did not or could not provide our own, and;
(c) financed the development of our oil-and-gas industry, the mainstay of our present economy, because Canadian investors wouldn't take the risks?
And do the Tories really "hate the cities?" The cities don't seem to hate them. Metro Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton elected them massively. Even left-wing Winnipeg gave them half its seats. But then these aren't real cities; they're just western cities. There's only one real city, isn't there, Mr. Ibbitson?
Or is Ibbitson himself perhaps trapped in an urban anachronism, a narrow and myopic one? Is he still lost in the sixties, fantasizing as a whole country a mere village that has little existence beyond the Don, the Humber, the lake, and the 401, and which takes itself so seriously that it cannot comprehend its own absurdity.
To envision the New Canada, he writes, "we must see it through the eyes of a young woman arriving here from Manila." I'll go along with that, because I know about 10 young women, all of whom once arrived here from Manila. All 10 are intelligent, hard-working and devoutly Christian. The only things they loathe about Canada are among the very ones Ibbitson finds so attractive. So if they shape the New Canada, I want to live in it. And if he and his ilk do, then I don't.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
>> they actually believe what they write, for their every premise is simply false.
Not false, dangerous. Adult supervision is required if you give a child a computer.
Very good article. Exposes the type of hypocrisy and assumptions of moral superiority that are exposing Canada to ridicule. However, as the article points out, such hypocrisy and assumptions of moral superiority are confined to the minority and are based on myth rather than fact.
BTW did you see where the Province of Prince Edward Island just rejected (via referendum) an attempt to adopt MMP voting? Thought that might interest you as a Kiwi.
This is good for Canada's PEI, since under First Past the Post, you get the Left semi-permanently in government, and with MMP you are certain to get a Left-Hard Left coalition permanently in power!
I live in downtown Toronto and I don't know what city he's talking about -- the people who regularly try to run over me when I cross the street (an average of five cars run or jump the traffic light at Bathurst and Heath Street every time it changes, pedestrians be damned), the young people who routinely shove people aside in their attempt to run down the escalator to stand on the empty TTC platform, the middle-class 'children' of 18-25 who throw garbage from their lunches including banana peels and other food scraps all over the floor of the subway car -- and those who won't walk two steps to a trash can but will actually throw their garbage NEXT to the trash can or leave it all over the benches ... people who park on the sidewalk, allow their kids to run through the forecourt of Scotia Plaza, hurtling into people at will (and God help you if you ask them to control the little brats), and wait til the lights go down and the performance begins to settle down and start blabbering to their neighbour about the last episode of Desperate Housewives or telephone their friends to say "What are you doing? I'm at a concert and you'll never guess who'm here with!"
If there are any polite people left in Toronto, I haven't met them. And nothing actually works here for very long. I'd like to get Ibbotson to live in my shoe box apartment with its 30 year old refrigerator and uncontrollable heating, and no way to get into the building that doesn't involve steep stairs -- including walking through the garage and finding bags of garbage piled to the ceiling against the exit door. Then I'd like to see him pay $900 a month for that and talk about how wonderful it is to live in this high-end part of Canada.
"If there are any polite people left in Toronto, I haven't met them. And nothing actually works here for very long. I'd like to get Ibbotson to live in my shoe box apartment with its 30 year old refrigerator and uncontrollable heating, and no way to get into the building that doesn't involve steep stairs -- including walking through the garage and finding bags of garbage piled to the ceiling against the exit door. Then I'd like to see him pay $900 a month for that and talk about how wonderful it is to live in this high-end part of Canada."
Thanks for the tip. I was thinking of moving to Toronto.
You saved me a pack of doe and a lot of aggravation.
Unless you can afford to pay $2000 per month for the kind of place you could have in the US for $900, and be willing to live without most of the amenities you have now (parking will be $85-$200 extra if you can get it at all), you're better off living somewhere else. And remember when they're quoting you a salary, you're losing about $1,000 per month of that to the SingleMom riding on your back, including a big whack of dough for "free" health care that's removed by the Province of Ontario. Also you'll find that almost nothing you actually use in the health care field will be covered, and you probably won't be able to get a family doctor (it took me 6 years to find one and that was through a connection at work.)
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
ping
What a load of horse hockey. Toronto is the rudest city in English Canada. Every time I travel there, it is a nightmare. Here are a couple of examples on my last trip home. I had bread before a meal in a restaurant. When I asked for butter that wasn't served with it, I was told by the waitress to eat it without butter and she dissappeared. The other example was a trip to TIm Hortons. Wife and I gave our order and I pulled a $20 out of my wallet to pay. The cahsier grabbed the mponey and shoved some change in my hand. SHe started with ringing up the next order. I asked her what the total was and she couldn't tell me and went backt to the next customer. I had to get in the way and ask again and she said she didn't know - she cleared the register so fast i was worried she pocketed some of my money. Sure enough, after checking the tape, and annoying the line of customers behind me, I was owed another $5. I swear I will never travel to Toronto unless it is out of necessity.
And I forgot one other incident. Staying in a Holiday Inn, I made the mistake of sleeping in past 9 a.m. A note was left under the door saying that if I didn't leave the room before 10 a.m., there would be no maid service. Since there was no way I could be out that Saturday morning by that time, I called the front desk and was simply told that it wasn't the hotel's fault that I couldn't be out of my room when the maids do their rounds in the morning and could not do rooms at other times. When I told them that was pretty rude for spending $130 a night, I was nonchalantly told there was nothing they could do. To make matters worse, when I told this to old college buddies, I was told I had a bad American attitude for thinking that just because I was paying for a hotel room that tha hotel was obligated to provide service. Only a selfish American would complain about poor service. Canadians co-operate with whatever policy is dictated to them, regardless of inconvenience. After all Canadians don't want to be rude, even if they are right.
"However, all these problems will be solved by the "millions of new arrivals who have landed at our docks and airports, transforming us.""
And who will treat them when they get sick, since Canadian doctors are moving HERE en masse?
We don't call it "Hogtown" for nothing. The contrast in people's behavior between Toronto and Hamilton or Toronto and London (ON) is amazing.
Toronto isn't leaving the Liberal column. The strategy for the Conservatives is to corner them there.
There was a joke in my old hometown of Windsor: if you get sick, don't go the hospital, go the nearest Middle Eastern restaurant. So many of our best doctors had left for the states (one of our best friends moved all the way down to North Carolina), and we could potentially replace them with many excellent, highly trained professionals from Africa and the Middle East living here were it not for the fact that there were stupid laws keeping them from practicing.
Strongly agreed. Same with between Toronto and Ottawa, or Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo, qetc.
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