Toronto's Identity Politics

Before Toronto expanded to its present boundaries, the city's motto, created by the city's first mayor, extolled the virtues of Industry, Integrity, Intelligence. These civic ideals stood us in good stead since our founding in 1834.

To appease every enclave of the enlarged city, every activist and political-correctness enforcer, every identity group or community, our motto was changed in 1998 to Diversity Our Strength.

Rather than celebrate mutually shared aspirations, such as the common good, our new motto invites us to observe what separates us racially, ethnically, sexually, politically, and financially. The city fell into the trap of identity politics with its hint of victimhood. Diversity is a condition, a fact, not a value or goal.

The old motto encouraged a citizen to say, "Here I am. How can I help?" The new motto, "Here, Toronto, are my rights and my demands. What can you for for me and  my particular cause?"

Each minority group clamours for its own representation and share of the budget, its own agenda, all leading to fragmentation of civic purpose, quotas and negativity. This guarantees we will not have our best people in positions of influence and authority, just an average of mediocrity.

Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed that one day his children would "not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Greece, Toronto and Subsidiarity

Letter to the Toronto Star. Unpublished.

Richard Gwyn points out the flaw in bigness ("Taking on the bullies," July 7, 2015).  Much of the pain now endured by the people of Greece can be traced to the enormous bureaucracy of the European Union, Gwyn maintains. 

Elsewhere in the same issue of the Toronto Star we see the headline "Amalgamation a flop, Fraser study suggests."  The report questions the purported financial advantage of amalgamating Metropolitan Toronto into a mega-city. Purported cost savings were not realized. In fact, overall costs increased. This mistake was the work of the government of Mike Harris who believed bigger is better. 

In Toronto, there is talk of de-amalgamation. Europeans should also be thinking in terms of de-centralization, of invoking subsidiarity, that is the placing of control of various matters with the smallest government level best able to handle it.

Toronto is Great by Our Own Efforts

Allan Levine claims that Toronto "does not quite measure up to the truly great cities of the world like London, Paris and Rome." (Hogtown's badass side, National Post October 2, 2012).

Each of these cities was once the capital of an empire. They had colonies to exploit. The magnificent vistas, monuments, galleries and museums we see today in many European cities were paid for by their colonies, one of which was Canada.

Toronto, in contrast to the "truly great cities of the world" has always paid its own way. Everything we see and enjoy in our city today we bought and paid for by our own efforts.

Ode to Toronto at 175

Dear earth of my city:
From you we draw our strength,
Land for which many have died
But elsewhere;
Land where many have been born
And nourished;
Land which has welcomed many
Who prospered;
Land which inspires many
To create.

Under your roofs, we find shelter;
In your schools, growth;
In your libraries, ideas;
In your parks, recreation;
From your platforms, culture;
In your laws, protection;
In your streets, each other;
In your places of worship,ourselves;
In your cemeteries, final rest.

Environment impelled,
We renew our city each day;
Reverencing the past,
Enjoying the present,
Planning the future.
Like Ancient Athens's youth,
Let us pledge to make our city
Not only not less, but greater,
Better and more beautiful
Than it was given to us.

Quality Trumps the Incidentals

Letter to the Toronto Star. Unpublished.

Re New push to make boards match colour of city, Jan 26 (2009)

Toronto has adopted a Utopian report that every board, commission, committee, sub-committee and school-yard huddle must consist of people reflecting the ethnic mix of the city. This misplaced idealism carries seeds of danger en route to failure. Nowhere do we read of quality, competence and ability.

In this quota system, the minority appointees will feel they represent only their particular ethnic or social group. In the absence of competition for these appointments, how else did they get the job? This initiative is based on the belief that the present system does not represent every community. By the same token, should we fear that ethnic appointees will not represent majority interests?

The danger is the ghettoization of supposedly pan-representative committees and commissions. Worse yet, the majority may defer to the representative of this or that particular community, even though the matter under debate is not in the best interests of the larger community. Worse still, the practice may develop whereby community representatives horse-trade authority among themselves.

Toronto's motto once was: Industry, Integrity, Intelligence. The city's new motto, Diversity Our Strength, celebrates our differences, not something we can all aspire to together.

This is multiculturalism and diversity gone barking mad. How else to keep this policy current other than by racial profiling? We can hope this is a temporary aberration in our city's passage into maturity. At which time, the sole criterion for appointment or election to office will be ability to speak to the interests of every community, and voters mature enough to judge candidates solely on quality, competence and ability.

One person cited in this report believes that children are inspired by people of the same skin colour, ethnicity or religion. Role models are important. But to the extent that it is true, our educators have failed. The challenge is to teach young people that they can be successful regardless of these incidentals, and that they should grasp good ideas and inspiration whatever their source.