Living In This City Can At Times Drive You Mental...

In search of a Toronto mentality

March 16, 2010
Rosie DiManno

What is a Toronto mentality?
Perhaps, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, that being a Torontonian is 90 per cent mental and the other half physical – (italics here) in loco (close italics) geographicus.
We (italics here) are (close italics), therefore we think we are…the centre of the universe.
In truth, I don’t think most Torontonians think about it all that much.

It is very prevalent in the area bounded by Bloor, on the north, Toronto Islands, on the south, DVP, on the east and Spadina on the west and the inhabitants in this enclave are the ones that send the leftists to Toronto Silly Hall.

That’s the purview of local politicians, endlessly jacked-up about the alleged preeminence of this metropolis, vis a vis the rest of Canada, and newspaper columnists who consider themselves above such plebian debate, albeit dipping into the dialectic for occasional riffs.
From time to time, as well, some mook with a soapbox will come along to suggest that Toronto secede from the province and establish itself as a city-state, like Washington D.C., or Sparta. Phrased more bureaucratically, this essentially is what’s meant by demands for a “New Deal’’ from Queen’s Park and Ottawa, a concept heavily promoted by the Star in crusade-past and routinely bruited about by power-greedy mayors-who-would-be-king.
For the most part, though, people from afar – and afar is anyplace outside the 905, though personally I would draw the boundary at Eglinton – are satisfied simply kicking around T.O. for its perceived sins, the self-preoccupation and smugness, the liberal-left tenor, the disconnect from heartland values, the yearning for Big Apple little apples metaphor. Even back in Alberta’s energy glut era, when the screw-youse mantra was all about letting Toronto freeze in the dark, few came out and overtly advocated for the capital of Upper Canada to take a Confederation hike – or detach itself for special status sovereignty.
Yet now a Progressive Conservative MPP – duly elected so presumably not a complete whackjob, although we are talking Tories here – has made exactly that postulation, as a means for getting the purported un-Ontarioness of Toronto off the weary province’s back.
Bill Murdoch, who represents Bruce-Grey-Owen-Sound, which I think is somewhere due north, made his comments this week at a meeting of the Bruce Country Federation of Agriculture, which sounds vaguely gay-Commie to me. According to a Canadian Press report – though why the over-tasked national wire service would be staffing such an inside-the-tractor-belt confab is hard to fathom – Murdoch claimed that Ontario, as state of mind and agronomic society, is fighting a losing battle against a big-footing “Toronto mentality’’.
Again, I don’t know what “Toronto mentality’’ means and more specifically when used in such a clearly pejorative context. But Murdoch added that Toronto decision-makers routinely ignore rural voices, which leaves me wondering which Toronto decision-makers have any influence at all on rural matters outside the city’s jurisdiction. I do not recall Toronto Council, loopy though it may be, ever debating issues that might directly impact Bruce County or any other rube burg, unless maybe we at some point considered shipping our garbage there.
By way of illustrating his point, Murdoch referenced Toronto’s coyote problem as among the hurdles that T.O. based decisions create for the farming and rural economy. Now, really, I don’t see where predatory middle-aged women in the city should be causing any problems for farmers. Sorry? Oh, that’s cougars, my mistake. Coyotes would be those confused bush creatures that have occasionally ventured into the Beaches and snatched little doggies for dinner. Most Beachers don’t want them killed or harshly leg-trapped, I understand, just transported back whence they came. Admittedly, this is a squishy tree-hugging response to prowling carnivores. But still, don’t see why farmers should have their overalls in a twist about it. Let ‘em long-gun shoot all the coyotes they want, in season and with a properly registered firearm, as the law allows.
In fact, bet there aren’t half as many guns in Bruce County as there are in placeScarborough. Just saying.
Anyway, Murdoch suggested to his audience that Toronto designate itself Canada’s 11th province, which would require amending the Constitution. This, he argued, is rural Ontario’s only hope of having its voice heard, not drowned out by Toronto’s urban caterwauling.
Actually, I like the idea. But if Ontario wants to dispense of Toronto, go all rural rogue, maybe the rest of the province should be the party initiating divorce proceedings on grounds of irreconcilable ideological differences. Doubt if anyone down here would contest the action.
Murdoch said Ontario should keep the 905 region, though.