Quote:
Originally Posted by osmo
Toronto isn't a Canadian city. I think Toronto wants to be everything that London, NYC, and LA want to be versus just being Toronto.
But back to Toronto. It is just a odd place in the context of Canada. Only in Toronto do more Pride flags hang than Canadian flags for the 150th. Toronto has always been a big booster of Pride but they then shy away from expressing Canadian Pride which IMO is the horse that drags the inclusion cart that allows things such as Pride to be so successful in the first place. These should be linked together but in many cases, as corporate Money has flown towards events such as Pride, they will boost their exposure to one more so than the other when both should, at minimum, get equal exposure.
I've been almost all over this country and Toronto just has its own thing going on. Montreal to me felt more classic Canadian even with the culture and language quirks present there. Vancouver is unapologetically Canadian also, let it think it's California, but is very much Canada in the presence of great scenery and weather that is all.
In a perfect world Toronto would be some special administrative zone so it could just be all different on its own and it would never be a topic for discussion on a national level.
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I'm going to have to disagree on a few points.
While Toronto doesn't feel like the 'classical version' of Canada, I still think that it certainly is a Canadian city - one that still reflects the multicultural diversity of this country, especially as it changes. I'd like to think that it represents the Canada of tomorrow - someplace with some ambition to be a player on the world stage. By not being stereotypically Canadian, it makes the city a far more interesting place.
It is like the difference between New York City and Topeka, Kansas - they're very different places - but they're both certainly part of the US.
I also think weather/scenery is a poor metric for Canadian-ness. They have snow in other countries, same with mountains, too.
If you're looking for a 'stereotypically Canadian' city, look no farther than Ottawa. You have a majority English population with a significant French minority, the weather is more in line with what people think of Canada and it is very orderly/bureaucratic in terms of layout and vibe. For all its pleasantness, it is indescribably bland though.