I Wouldn't Think Of Living Anywhere Else

A city still worth saving

Torontonians know there's a lot to love about Hogtown, and room to improve

By ROB GRANATSTEIN, EDITOR

After a round of golf in the rain last week, our group and the foursome in front of us sat down for dinner at Royal Woodbine, and the discussion came around to Toronto.

Usually that's my influence. On this day, it wasn't all my fault.

Clay Horner is leading the chatter, as I'm sure he dominates most discussions he's involved in.

One of the world's leading merger and acquisition lawyers (TD-Canada Trust, Molson-Coors, Seagram-Vivendi and so on), Horner has seen the world, lived in New York City and had just flown overnight from London, England to play in the Woodbine Entertainment golf tournament. He's also vice-chairman of Woodbine's board and owns horses himself.

We discussed Toronto, and his love for the city, at length. He's passionate about the place, calling it the world's greatest livable city.

New York, he says, requires people to be one-dimensional -- too focused on work, leaving room for nothing else. Chicago is second fiddle to New York and knows it.

Vancouver is beautiful, but the pace is too slow and the work environment doesn't offer enough to keep world leaders interested.

London's a great city, too, Horner said. Paris is beautiful. A gem.

But for his family and for his life, nothing compares to Toronto. It's also the little things. He loves to be able to walk down to the end of his street and have his choice of three restaurants to eat dinner at on a Tuesday night.

Sitting next to Horner is David Wilmont, chairman and CEO of Woodbine, and owner of Kinghaven Farms. He said he was looking forward to seeing his wife more after she lost herself in the joys of Luminato, the arts festival that dominated the culture scene in downtown Toronto for 10 days, drawing one million people.

Nick Caving, president of Woodbine, was getting ready to host Canada and the world for the 150th running of the Queen's Plate, last weekend.

Earlier that week, I was lucky enough to be at the Dr. Jay Charitable Foundation golf tournament.

After the golf, listening to former Sun Sports editor Scott Morrison talk about the great work the Dr. Jay Foundation does, and how it helped his family after his wife died almost a year ago of a brain tumour, brought chills to the room.

The Dr. Jay Foundation is the work of dentist Dr. Jay Bacher and his golf buddies, who started raising money to help kids.

They've raised millions of dollars so far and now focus on helping families forced to look untimely death in the eye.

For Morrison, the counselling the foundation provided helped his young son find his way after his mother, Kathy, was taken from him, far too early.

He couldn't thank Bacher enough on behalf of his family, along with all the contributors to the Dr. Jay Foundation -- a unique Toronto charity.

These are all very different, but just a few, stunning examples of what makes Toronto a great city.

It's easy, especially in the throes of a civic workers' strike, to run down T.O., our politicians, and to complain about crime, uncleanliness and the transit system. Plus, it's true, the city has been in a long period of decline.

But there is so much to be thankful for and enjoy in Toronto.

The waterfront is, slowly but surely, being resuscitated. Our transit system is in fact seeing huge new investments and our financial and legal core are still strong.

Isn't it time to highlight the good side of the city and offer constructive suggestions on how to make Toronto even better?

To help do that, we're bringing back our "Saving Toronto" feature in the Comment section for another year.

We've lined up a fantastic roster of writers -- the distinguished, the famous, the hidden gems -- to let you know what one thing they would do to make Toronto even better than it is today.

They live in Toronto, they're passionate about our city, they know it's a great place to live and they want to make it even better.

We kick off our summer special with the energetic Rob Devitt, president and CEO of Toronto East General Hospital.

You can visit torontosun.com/saving to see both the news stories and commentary that have already appeared. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Toronto is good. Let's make it better.

ROB.GRANATSTEIN@SUNMEDIA.CA