Let's All Hate Toronto!

Caution: The Mark is based in downtown Toronto, and therefore our writers are afflicted by a condition that has rendered them ignorant, elitist crybabies. Take this piece for what it's worth.

Here’s a ludicrous column from the National Post’s Kelly McParland, in which he rejoices that Toronto, “the country’s most self-absorbed city,” is losing its influence on federal and provincial politics. By which measure Toronto is the country’s most elitist city McParland doesn’t say, but if this earlier column is any indication it has something to do with the fact that Torontonians frequent Starbucks and ride bikes, two inherently stupid and uniquely Torontonian things to do, obviously. McParland is pleased as punch that there are no MPs from Toronto in the federal cabinet, only two in the cabinet at Queen’s Park, and that the city’s voice is less represented in government than ever. “There’s an obvious reason for the fact no one in Ottawa has to listen to a bunch of people from Toronto,” writes McParland. “The city’s voters … haven’t been able to bring themselves to elect a single Tory.” Ridiculous. Since when is our democracy a system in which people who didn’t vote for the governing party don’t deserve representation? This will come as distressing news to not only the jackasses populating downtown Toronto, but to the majority of Canadians who didn’t cast a ballot for Harper’s minority government.

McParland’s hate-on for Toronto, a recurring theme in his columns, really is inexplicable. Why should a city that has a bigger population than six of Canada’s provinces and serves as the country’s economic hub not have commensurate influence? Because McParland finds its citizens annoying? Who's being elitist here?

Despite McParland's fears about Toronto bullying the rest of the country, in reality the underrepresentation of Toronto's voters is institutionalized. Today the Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson reports that federal parties have shelved a bill to add 18 new federal ridings in Ontario to reflect its growing population. Ibbitson says the need for the bill was plainly evident in Monday’s by-elections: “In the exurban Toronto riding of Vaughan, 120,864 voters were entitled to cast ballots. But Winnipeg North has only 51,198 electors, making a vote in Greater Toronto worth less than half the value of a vote in Winnipeg,” he writes. Now that’s democracy!