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June 07, 2005

But they look so perfect in the brochures...

You just have to love municipal politicians:

[Toronto City] Coun. Jane Pitfield thinks the mayor and his supporters should be fixing the city's own problems first before jetting off all over the world.

There should be more focus on the city of Toronto," she says. "We have to deal with reality ... this city is not Barcelona or Berlin, we have some major issues."

And Barcelona and Berlin don't? Yeesh! I've said it before: Canadians think of themselves as men and women of the world except when they're trying to make themselves or each other feel bad, when they tend to become insufferably myopic whiners. Complain if you like about the Toronto Transit Commission's eight-man junket to Rome — well, actually, you might as well leave it to Sue-Ann Levy, the Toronto Sun's tireless inquisitor of every tax dollar spent by City Hall — but please, do so because they won't bring anything useful back. Don't do it on the false premise that Toronto is some sort of crumbling wreck that can't afford it, instead of the modern, prosperous, rather boring metropolis that it is. Self-loathing is not a motivational tool.

Posted by Chris Selley at June 7, 2005 09:47 PM