Toronto is a unique place. While it thinks that no other city
can rival it - indeed that there are no other cities - at the same
time, it has a terrible inferiority complex. It laments the fact that it is not New York.

Half of Canada lives in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) - that's over eight million people. It is the hub of the nation's financial, media and corporate sectors. Its nightlife has to be seen to be believed. And to top it all off, it's a surprisingly clean, friendly city that's easy to get around (at least until the trains and buses fall apart due to a lack of government funding).

Basically, it's got everything going for itself, despite losing an Olympic bid to Beijing in July. But that's not the cause of the city's insecurity.

Just an eight-hour drive (or one hour plane ride) away is the Big Apple. Toronto lives in the shadow of this behemoth, and struggles for the same fame and the same glory. In fact, many film crews come here to shoot movies set in New York rather than spending the big bucks to shoot the real thing. And Toronto is only too happy to pretend to be that to which it aspires.

Toronto has long had a reputation among other Canadians (non-Torontonians) as being a self-centred, ignorant den of sin. Non-Torontonians hate Toronto almost more than they hate Ottawa (but for different reasons). And they're right for hating Toronto, because honestly, Toronto doesn't give a rat's ass about anything that doesn't deal with itself (except New York, of
course).

Torontonians feel their city is the centre of all civilization (again, with the exception of New York). And why shouldn't they? This city is always buzzing about, except on Monday nights - hey, everybody needs to rest SOMETIME. Most people are too busy working to pay the outrageous rents here to care about anything that doesn't involve them personally.

You see, and this is not an apology, Torontonians are really too busy to care. It's no one's fault; that's just the way it is. The other half of the country would understand if they lived here, but unfortunately, they do not.

But despite its greatness, Toronto aspires to be more. It secretly longs to be like New York so much that it's building a Canadian version of Times Square at the seedy corner of Yonge and Dundas, where by day, tourists are dropped off from busses to indulge in the over 250 shops of Eaton Centre, and by night, gangstas and street kids gather to... Lord knows what.

The intersection and surrounding area has been under construction since I made my first trip here in 1998, maybe even earlier. But when I think of what will become Dundas Square, I think of those blue shelter things over the sidewalks by construction sites. They've finally installed the big TV, just like at Times Square, but it's really hard to see it, what with all the
shelters above and all. No cranes have been raised and weeds have taken over the lots that are to become theatres and whatever else the city and its developers have planned.

To bring culture to the city (which already has plenty), Mayor Mel Lastman (who is more salesman than politician) brought in the famous moose more than a year ago. These distractions were painted to reflect the mood of the areas they stood in, or the mood of the sponsors who bought them. I think the idea was imported from Chicago. In any case, citizens were mortified. Not
only were the moose ugly and their antlers stolen, but this was not a New York thing to do, so therefore it was not a Toronto thing to do.

As Toronto moves into the 21st Century, it continues to grow and to better itself. Currently, it's looking at plans for the waterfront that began to be discussed during the Olympic bid. Additional subway lines are being discussed, including a direct link between the airport and downtown.

Toronto is going to keep reaching, and maybe, just maybe, it will become happier with what it is. Or it will turn into New York.