Toronto Vs. Calgary
I grew up in Calgary and moved to Toronto at 16 and spent well over a decade and a half in the metropolis. I fell in love with it at first site because I felt welcome.
Being the most multicultural city in the world is a real treat. I love the diversity of people, sectors, and the hustle bustle vibrancy of it all. Most of the last several years I lived in Yorkville in the heart of the city and enjoyed the film festivals, easy public transit, Harbourfront and Toronto Island, and just the variety of life one can live in Toronto.
Toronto is very intellectual in that Eastern way and my career has really benefited from the polished style of business there. What I enjoy most about Toronto is that its like New York but livable and still safe compared to other US cities. Its a hub so travel in and out of Canada is easy and hey, Toronto is on the map internationally.
On a personal note, Toronto taught me that being colour blind was a good thing. I grew up in Calgary and being a minority was a different and far less kind experience back then. Ironically, family and roots have lured me back to Southern Alberta for now but I have left my heart in Toronto . I’ve decided that I do want to check out Vancouver for its West Coast lifestyle before deciding if the GTA will be home again. For now, Calgary has a bit of Toronto ’s cosmo flavor but for everything I was told was weird about me as an ethnic kid in Calgary … it was embraced by Toronto the minut e I got there. I believe I had to leave Toronto to love it even more as my adulthood continues 
Sent by Aralar from Calgary
June 14th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Montreal is the best Canadian city in which to live, hands down.
My work has afforded me the opportunity to live in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Without question, Montreal outclasses those cities by far. It really is ‘Half Ne York, Half Paris.’
Vancouver is a ‘lite’ cross between Portland and Seattle and Toronto is a great place- a large Cleveland, if you will. Lost of stuff to do, good restaurants but far too PC and schizophrenic to make life enjoyable.
Montreal is a world class city, no question. After 3 years in Toronto and 3 years in Montreal, I’ll take Montreal any day.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:51 am
I agree that Montreal is the classiest city in Canada and was once the biggest metropolis in the country. If I spoke French I would live there but Toronto is a great choice for us anglophiles.
About Calgary… a cab driver was verbally abused by the white folk in this town recently for being a minoroty. They yelled at him, “What are you doing here this is our country.” What a class act those Albertans.
July 11th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Wow Lana, way to generalize. Certainly there are idiots in Alberta, but i don’t think that is unique to the province. Having spent time in Ontario and Quebec i’ve heard of and witnessed people say and do some pretty intolerant things. Most Albertans are very deceant and accepting people, so please don’t paint us all with the same brush.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:45 am
Hello All,
Yes there is good and bad everywhere. Alot depends on where you are hanging out and doing and the people you meet because of it. Calgary and Alberta is physically prettier than Toronto and Ontario with all the nature and Rockies. I think that often places get reputations that stick. Back in the 60’s both Calgary and Toronto were very different cities but everything changes with trends, etc. Toronto people may notice some things in other parts of Canada that may seem intolerant but once they adapt it may be seen from another angle.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:52 am
Toronto was declared the safest city in Canada based on crime statistics only to have a triple murder shortly afterwards. Calgary was deemed as having the highest number (3 times the national avergae) of racially motivated hate crimes in Canada also based on statistics. Part of what goes into these facts are reporting trends and other metrics that may scew the final result. It is no secret that statistics can be manipulated by simple variables to support or negate a position. That said, some places are more tolerant, especially major metropolitan centers that have become so used to diversity over a long period of time that a certain culture develops. Eventually I hope all places get to a point where we are all color blind.
August 9th, 2008 at 6:31 am
I’ll be honest… TORONTO IS THE REASON I LOVE CANADA. Everything that Canada is all about - diversity, multiculturalism, tolerance, acceptance, and inclusiveness. When I was a kid in the old Calgary I felt like I was an outsider and would never be welcomed. This was a long time ago but emotional memories can be very strong. Toronto and Torontonians healed my heartbreak of my childhood and early youth being spent dealing with rejection for something I could never change. Now everyone has a different experience. I’ve met people who were minorities in my age group and grew up down the street from me during that same time and they have noting but positive memories. Needless to say … Toronto is not perfect but it is an ideal destination for new immigrants given the variety of settlement services in the city.
August 9th, 2008 at 7:17 am
It reminds me of a saying “For everything that I was mocked and ostracized for in Montana … those were the very same things I was celebrated for in New York.”
Canadian version: “For everything that I was shunned and reject for in Calgary … were the very things that were appreciated and valued in Toronto.”
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Alberta may have lots of oil money right now but remember … all booms go bust … and cash does not equal class. I vote for Toronto!
August 25th, 2008 at 4:05 am
I go to Calgary for business and there is this anti-Toronto prejudice rampant in the city. But you know …. THEY ARE JUST JEALOUS!!!!!! Toronto is in the top 10 of global metropolitan powerhouses, Toronto is on the monopoly gist of global 22 cities of international prominance, Toronto is the world’s most multicultural city, Toronto International Film Festival is world renowned. The list goes on and one. FACE IT COWTOWN (CALGARY) - HOGTOWN (TORONTO) WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER THAN YOU!!!!! Enjoy the oil boom while it last because all things go bust, it went bust in Alberta twice before, and money means nothing if you have no class. TORONTO DOESN’T CARE OF THE OPINIONS OF COWBOYS WITH NO MANNERS AND ARE BIGOTTED. Calgary earned its reputation because I’ve seen white people refuse to sit by non-white people on teh C-Train every time I rode it. On the Toronto TTC I never saw it and I grew up there. Toronto laughs at Calgary because they are like a big fish in the small pond …. while Toronto is on the world stage. Toronto only cares what its peers think - like New York, LA, London. People who live in Calgary probably share the views of politicians from the West …. remember the Reform Party and their views on multiculturalism???? Not the most inclusive.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:10 am
I go to Calgary on business and I noticed that they dress like Shania Twain except without finesse. They are stuck in the 80’s and the old west. I agree that the anti-Toronto sentiment is because they realize they will never be like Toronto - international, world famous, known for inclusiveness and acceptance, and fun, vibrant, cosmopolitan, etc. Toronto can compete on the world stage in so many areas of business, culture, arts, etc. I love Toronto and would like Calgary but I am a minority too and I don’t appreciate people in cowboy hats using racially derogatory language so freely in the airport. That would never happen in Toronto. People in Toronto just know better and have that thing you can’t buy with cash = class, sophistication, and a sense of protocal.
August 25th, 2008 at 6:26 am
The bottom line is that it is disturbing behavior anywhere you go where people feel that its OK to be racist. Alberta has earned its reputation for being redbeck, hicks in the sticks, and fundamentally incapable of having a mindset that is not small town ignorant. The way of business there is casual and Toronto is pinstripe blue. Toronto is a big city and what makes Canada great is Toronto. In fact many picture books of the best cities in the world include Toronto and Vancouver. They skip over Calgary because, apart from oil, it geopolitcally irrelevant in Canada and the rest. NO ONE CARES WHAT CALGARY THINKS!!!!
August 25th, 2008 at 6:30 am
I tell people who want to come to Canada to go to Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Calgary likes to delude itself that it is cosmopolitan and worldly but I think they are getting a little too in over their heads. To be honest, the only people who think Calgary is cosmo are those with small town pride. Anyone with big city love would find the statement ridiculous. Calgary has a stalker fascination with Toronto. In the Metro News they hahd an article about how you can find the world in Calgary because its cosmoplitan. Hello that is TORONTO!!!! Calgary keeps trying to be Toronto while Toronto keeps trying to be New York. TORONTO IS THE WORLD’S MOST MUTLTICUULTURAL CITY. The only thing that distinguishes Calgary from yogurt is CULTURE.
August 25th, 2008 at 6:33 am
I hope one day all this negativity I see will transform. But I am not holding my breath and staying in Toronto.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I’ve given up on Calgary and have decided that Toronto is my first choice in Canada as the best city. I’m going to the West Coast and my parting words are: If you’re an immigrant go to Toronto to Vancouver, forget Calgary or the rest of Alberta, the boom is going to go bust anyway. Life is too short and go where you are welcome.
“Ontario’s diversity is one of our province’s greatest strengths,” said Linda Jeffrey, MPP Brampton-Centre (Ontario Government). “It means that we can offer investors not only a competitive business environment and a culture of innovation, but also a highly skilled workforce that can speak many languages and understand many markets.”
October 7th, 2008 at 2:48 am
CALGARY - Opposition parties are demanding Calgary Conservative incumbent Lee Richardson immediately resign for controversial comments that suggested immigrants are to blame for much of the crime in Canada.
In an interview with a Calgary weekly newspaper published Thursday, Richardson is quoted as saying many crimes aren’t committed by people who “grew up next door” and immigrants aren’t as law-abiding.
“Particularly in big cities, we’ve got people that have grown up in a different culture, and they don’t have the same background in terms of the stable communities we had 20, 30 years ago in our cities. . . and don’t have the same respect for authority or people’s person or property,” Richardson told Fast Forward Weekly, when asked about recent gun violence in Calgary.
“Talk to the police. Look at who’s committing these crimes,” added Richardson, the Tory candidate in Calgary Centre. “They’re not the kid that grew up next door.”
Richardson later said he regretted the comments and that he misspoke.
However, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion was unforgiving.
“Mr. Harper must fire this man right away,” Dion told reporters in Trois Rivieres. “He cannot be a candidate anymore.”
Comment: If Richardson was right, wouldn’t Toronto be the most crime-ridden city in Canada? With 42% foreign born, it has the LOWEST crime rate in Canada. Meanwhile, Regina with 7% foreign born has Canada’s HIGHEST crime-rate. Unacceptable comments, that don’t represent the views of a very immigrant friendly Calgary (which is approaching 25% visible minority - already more diverse than Montreal.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:36 pm
This choice of words from the Calgary Sun proves ONCE AND FOR ALL THAT CALGARY HAS NO CLASS, it never did, the East does, Edmonton and Vancouver do, but Toronto would never print the words “Redneck” to describe Alberta even though they deserve it.
Wed, December 3, 2008
This is the last straw. Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark. We’re signing up to separate. To the barricades! Oh wait … where is everybody?
UPDATED: 2008-12-03 03:11:56 MST
We have total war, with the prime minister heading to the appointed representative of Her Majesty to get the time to wage it.
Harper needs the Governor General to call off Parliament until after Christmas.
Otherwise, he faces a vote firing him on Monday and a good chance the Liberals and NDP, with the backing of the separatist Bloc, will get a shot to have their hand on the wheel, because the only other choice is an election.
Harper promises to fight his ousting because, naturally, he doesn’t want to get bounced. He would be in deep doo-doo with some of his own people if he loses government, no matter how it’s explained. Power is power and if you don’t have it, there’s no explaining.
Compromise or putting the parties in the same room until they play nice just isn’t happening.
Here, the majority sentiment is clear. In Calgary, Harper’s Tories won every seat by a landslide so it is absolutely no shocker the fury over the prospect of the Liberal/NDP/Bloc suddenly coming to power turns many people’s eyeballs inside out.
What does not follow, and is downright laughable, is the resurrection of the oldest routine in the book, bringing out and dusting off The Province Who Cried Wolf from the file titled: Ideas never getting off the ground.
Let’s turn up the volume. This is it. This is too much. This straw has broken the camel’s back. We’ll huff and we’ll puff and we’ll blow the darn House of Commons down.
Yes, Alberta has had it, this is the last straw, let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark, we’re signing up to separate. To the barricades! Hello, hello … where is everybody? Oh, hi Oscar. That’s Oscar Fech. Oscar goes everywhere.
This page has seen it and heard it and scribbled on separatism only to see the story dissolve because there is no wolf, big, bad or otherwise. Chatter at the coffee shop, bluster at the bar, exciting stories to fill space in the here and now. Yes, yes and yes.
But workers on the street, money in the bank and ballots in the box. Nope.
You see, don’t mean to break hearts, but Quebec has a separatist movement. They have a provincial party and it’s been the government there. They have a federal party and it holds most of the Quebec seats in Ottawa. In fact, their leader will have the balance of power if Harper is turfed and Dion put in his place. He speaks without any apology about how he is watching Quebec’s back and Quebec’s back alone.
Here, there is nothing. Even Alberta’s great rebellion, the Reform party, has been swallowed up by the Tories and almost nothing of the old fire still burns. Watering down tends to do that. Just ask any of the old Reform MPs.
The only fire left here is the hot air. Alberta will do this and Alberta will do that. Blah, blah, blah. It never comes to anything but filling air time for radio rant shows when the political mercury explodes out of the thermometer.
If Harper is bounced and is replaced without an election, what exactly will Alberta do?
Even during the National Energy Program, the Liberal policy so hated it is just referred to by the letters NEP, the separatists elected one MLA in a byelection. Then, they lost the riding in the general election. “Send them a message” was the slogan.
Some message.
Show me a huge rally of separatists, the kind you could get in Quebec, and this page will write of rising separatism. Until then, save the e-mail.
Back in the unreality of the real world, it truly is total war and the Tories rev up their rallies, letter-writing campaign and the radio ads against the Liberals and the Bloc already come out of the stereos. Harper may also speak to Canadians on TV, trying to get the population onside because he knows it isn’t over if he gets a reprieve.
It could be just a stay of execution. No one knows.
Harper could be voted down in January and then the Liberals and their pals could take over then.
Perhaps he will make enough moves to break up the group, since Liberals really don’t want an election. They’re broke. They have Stephane Dion as the leader.
Isn’t that enough? They went for a coalition because the only other choice if Harper was defeated would be an election.
Talk about a hell of a rock and a very rough place.
However, if Harper survives until May, the Liberals will pick a new leader and start to recoup for their recent time behind the woodshed. But such thoughts are for the next flip of the calendar.
Total war is here.
In yesterday’s question period, Dion almost loses his voice and Harper does everything short of accusing the man of treason, a tone he knows is sure to push Dion’s buttons since the Liberal gets tons of grief in Quebec for defending Canada.
As early as today, the next decision is for Her Majesty’s representative to make.
“The role of the Governor General is to make sure our governance is on the right path,” says Her Excellency.
The only question. Whose right path?
January 6th, 2009 at 9:04 am
I’m very discouraged to read such denunciating words written about Calgary and Alberta. I cannot say anything about Toronto; not having spent much time there, but as an Edmonton-born visable minority who now resides in Amsterdam I feel that I can share my experiences.
Being mixed Chinese-Caucasian, I cannot recall any instances of being stigmatized as a visable minority in Edmonton. In fact, I have always found comfort in the level of diversity there, in terms of both ethnicity as well as sub culture. After having lived in Europe for more than four years, I have quickly come to realise how much I have taken the level of tolerance in Canada for granted. Most of Europe is still going through the initial growing pains of multiculturalism. Look at the riots that happened in Paris a few years ago - there is a frighteningly palpable racial tension in many of these cities, which you would not find anywhere in Canada.
There is also a substantial community of young artists and musicians in Edmonton. I agree that there should be much more government spending on cultural development in Alberta, but I have a sense that the slight lack of funding has somehow generated a more competitive and creative spirit.
I have also had several homosexual friends while growing up in Edmonton, and while it must not have been particularly easy for them, I think that they had almost-equal, if not equal opportunities to everyone else. That’s better than you can say about most places. Several of my gay friends have moved to Vancouver, but they often mention how much they miss their hometown.
OK - Edmonton is not Calgary, and maybe I’m wrong about some things. Nonetheless, it’s not fair to generalise Calgary and Alberta as being a bad place with bad people. Calgary and Edmonton do have their own shortcomings; however, instead of just pointing out these issues, let’s look at how things will hopefully change.
I hope that the influx of people that Alberta has experienced in the past three years have brought their own cultures with them. If they share their cultures, then with more understanding will come more tolerance. Edmonton has the Heritage Days festival, which is prided as being the world’s largest celebration of diversity, for example.
I also hope that the educated professionals who have moved to Calgary for work will also create a demand for more cultural development. If Calgary wants to keep these people, it will have to provide the framework for building a more creative and tolerant community. If the city wants to carry its recent economic prosparity into the future, it would do well to put more money into the arts, education and sports.
Alberta is not such a bad place. It’s hardly New York or London, but it’s a great place to raise a family, and has provided many opportunities for those who have moved there.