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What do you like/dislike about Toronto (pg. 17)
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| Taz |
| quote: | | -Great electronic music scene, tons of great locals |
Don't mind my asking but where? The only shows I hear about are the big ones where so-and-so comes to town. I'm interested in the smaller ones. |
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| VERTiG0 |
I don't live in Toronto, but the skyline is damn nice. One of my old friends is an aerial camera operator, and he took some pics last September while he was in town for work.
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by malek
most of the time identity starts with food, i have a hard time finding a special dish found only in Toronto, sure we don't have hotdogs in the streets, but thats only because of a bylaw.
So is there a toronto dish that I'm unaware of? |
Only thing that comes to mind is the Peameal Bacon sandwich at SLM, haha. :p
Although there are a lot of interesting "fusion" restaurants that you don't often find in other big cities. Some might argue that this doesn't really count, but think about a place like New York - most of its "unique" food is also just a hybrid of western European (mostly Italian) and American continental.
Mind you, how many delicacies can you think of that really come from a specific city? Most of the time, foods are ascribed to whole countries or at least large regions (i.e. Tuscany). Canada has Canadian bacon and a million different maple products, the latter really originating from Ontario. Tim Horton's also started out in Hamilton and grew mostly in Toronto. We also have some surprisingly decent wineries in the area, like Cilento and Magnotta.
This city may be deficient in a lot of ways, but I don't think that food is one of them, especially given our relative infancy. |
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| malek |
maybe not even a dish unique to Toronto (its really hard to keep a secret), but something the city is recognized with, something that I could forward to if I visit the next time.
For example Montreal is known for smoked meat, bagels and poutine but we didn't invent any of them. |
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| Fpcookie |
| reading through this thread, Toronto sounds exactly like Melbourne! In both pros & cons. |
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| dEsidEL |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fpcookie
reading through this thread, Toronto sounds exactly like Melbourne! In both pros & cons. |
i think Melbourne gets bonus points over Toronto in terms of weather though .. that is if you're a sun lover and not a snow lover
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| dEsidEL |
multiculturalism or self-segregation?
| quote: |
Jaideep Kaur teaches a Grade 2 English lesson at Claireville Junior School. She also speaks Punjabi, handy for her primarily South Asian students.
Serving students in culturally clustered schools
Educators debate need for same-culture role models amid reality of 'segregated' schools
Louise Brown
May 20, 2008
When Canada's largest school board votes tomorrow on whether to start an Africentric alternative school, there will be those, including Ontario's premier, who oppose a school that clusters children by race.
Segregation, critics charge, has no place in our public schools.
Yet schools have long been segregated, naturally, by virtue of the colour-coded neighbourhoods in which they sit, says veteran urban planner Mohammad Qadeer of Queen's University. In Canada, he argues, this could be a good thing.
From the Chinese tracts of Markham to the Jewish community down Bathurst St. and the South Asian hub in Brampton, the professor emeritus says Canada's "ethnic enclaves" provide a soft landing for immigrants and fuel hubs of cultural commerce, yet are still open enough to allow some racial mix, unlike the ghettos of some American cities.
But because Canadians prize social integration, we need to step out of these natural enclaves to get to know each other – and that's where he said schools come in.
"Schools are one of the places where people form social bonds, like offices, clubs and even bars, so schools that are segregated do pose a problem," said Qadeer, adding both curriculum and teaching staff must be broad enough to reflect the colours of today's classrooms.
"You want to increase exposure to people of other backgrounds so the children will know each other – or at least know of each other."
Schools might even redraw boundaries to straddle different neighbourhoods, he suggested – "although I'm not talking about busing, which was not a great success in the United States" – or plan joint projects between students of different neighbourhoods.
Black teacher Ainsworth Morgan is one of several advisers to the Toronto District School Board on Africentric programs, and agrees many public schools are already segregated, in large part, by virtue of the ethnic neighbourhoods in which they sit.
As the latest census shows, these enclaves are on the rise; many people simply prefer to live among those who are like them, especially newcomers.
Morgan says culturally clustered schools should be seen as a challenge, not a curse.
"Many schools already are segregated in a way, based on the demographics of local neighbourhoods," said Morgan, a teacher at Nelson Mandela Park Public School in Regent Park, where he grew up.
"If I'm living in Jane and Finch, the majority of kids will be black and brown. If I'm in Riverdale or Leaside, the majority of kids will reflect the white population of those neighbourhoods," said Morgan, who is on a three-year leave to work with the Pathways to Education mentoring program.
"No one walks into schools with all white students and all white staff and asks how those kids will assimilate in a diverse world when they graduate. Why do we ask that about schools that aren't white?"
No school board in Ontario had done a thorough colour count of students before the Toronto District School Board began asking students their race last year. But the latest data on visible minorities from the 2006 census gives a broad hint at how neighbourhoods – and their schools – can vary.
Schools in Stouffville, for example, where 93 per cent of residents are white, are likely to have less diverse classrooms than Markham, where 65 per cent of residents belong to a visible minority, half of them Chinese.
Almost half of Mississauga residents are people of colour, as in Toronto and Richmond Hill – in Orangeville, 90 per cent of residents are listed in the census as white. And it varies even within communities.
The census tract around Claireville Junior School near Finch Ave. W. and Martingrove, for example, is 80 per cent visible minority, and more than 40 per cent South Asian, whereas the families around, say, Blythwood Junior Public School near Eglinton and Bayview are more than 90 per cent white. In Halton Region, where Milton has seen an almost 800 per cent jump in the percentage of visible minorities in five years, "students need teachers who are both mirrors and windows," said diversity co-ordinator Suzanne Muir. "They need a mix of same-culture role models and also teachers different from themselves to help them see the world in a different way."
With the growing waves of immigration, schools dominated by a particular culture pose a challenge educators cannot ignore, says Jim Grieve, director of education for the Peel District School Board.
"We opened a school a few years ago where about 99 per cent of students were Punjabi – and pretty much from the same region; it was so interesting," said Grieve.
"But with this amazing diversity comes a responsibility to reflect the communities. If we have the distinct pleasure of being where the world comes to learn, we have to make sure we welcome that world."
This has implications for the rest of the country, he noted, because how Peel looks now is how Canada is projected to look by 2050.
The board has worked to increase the number of visible minority teachers, now at about 40 per cent. Schools try to colour-match teachers where possible.
Grieve tells the story of a male Sikh teacher working at a middle school who was approached by a Sikh mother with a question only he could answer.
"She said her son's turban kept coming off during sports and her husband was out of the country – could the teacher show her son how to tie it tightly enough so it wouldn't fall off?" recalled Grieve. But visible minority teachers should also be placed in schools where white students can see them in positions of authority, says Chris D'Souza, equity and diversity officer for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board. Only with a pool of diverse teachers will equity spread up the ladder to principals and vice-principals, he said. At his board, only seven of more than 300 administrators are people of colour.
At Toronto's Claireville Junior School in a largely Punjabi neighbourhood, teacher Jaideep Kaur speaks Punjabi to a new Grade 2 student who is struggling with English. It allows the girl to join the discussion, with Kaur interpreting.
Kaur is one of four South Asian teachers, plus a secretary, whom principal Isabelle Khan has hired to reflect the student population.
"It's not just (communicating) with students; Many of the parents are shy about their English and don't understand services Canadian schools offer like psychologists and speech pathologists, so they don't sign the forms for their kids," said Kaur, who moved to Canada from Delhi in 1992.
"I feel glad I can help them understand how schools in Canada work."
With files from Kristin Rushowy
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| quote: |
GTA VISIBLE MINORITIES
Schools are bound to reflect the diversity of their communities. The latest Census provides a broad snapshot of how this can vary:
Pickering (population 87,000) – 30 per cent visible minority (Largest group is black, 10 per cent)
Ajax (90,000) – 36 per cent visible minority (Largest group is black, 13 per cent)
Vaughan (238,000) – 27 per cent visible minority (Largest group is South Asian, 9 per cent)
Markham (260,760) – 65 per cent visible minority (Largest group is Chinese, 34 per cent)
Richmond Hill (162,000) – 46 per cent visible minority (Largest group is Chinese, 21 per cent)
Whitchurch-Stouffville (24,000) – 7 per cent visible minority (Largest group is Chinese, 3 per cent)
Aurora (47,000) – 13 per cent visible minority (Largest group is Chinese – 3 per cent)
Newmarket (73,000) – 15 per cent visible minority (Largest groups are Chinese, South Asian, Southeast Asian; 3 per cent each)
Toronto (2.5 million) – 47 per cent visible minority (Largest group is South Asian, 12 per cent)
Mississauga (666,000) – 49 per cent visible minority (Largest group is South Asian, 20 per cent)
Brampton (432,000) – 57 per cent visible minority (Largest group is South Asian, 32 per cent)
Caledon (57,000) – 7 per cent visible minority (Largest groups are South Asian and black; 2 per cent each)
Orangeville (27,000) – 5 per cent visible minority (Largest group is black, 2 per cent)
Oakville (165,000) – 18 per cent visible minority (Largest group is South Asian, 6 per cent)
Milton (53,000) – 17 per cent visible minority (Largest group is South Asian, 6 per cent)
Halton Hills (55,000) – 4 per cent visible minority (Largest groups are South Asian, Chinese, black; 1 per cent each)
Bradford West Gwillimbury (24,000) – 6 per cent visible minority (Largest group is South Asian, 2 per cent)
Source: Canada Census 2006
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source:
http://parentcentral.ca/parent/article/427519
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| Orko |
| quote: | Originally posted by dEsidEL
multiculturalism or self-segregation? |
Exactly Toronto's problem. There are pockets where English is no longer spoken, which is just idiotic. I am just fine with multicultural, but do not exclude the culture that brought you here, or the others that are trying to share the same resources.
I remember one day getting lost in Richmond Hill and having to ask directions. Five out of five people did not speak English, nor could they help me. How crazy is that?
The ability to speak English/French should be mandatory to move to this country. |
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| smuncky |
| quote: | Originally posted by Orko
I remember one day getting lost in Richmond Hill and having to ask directions. Five out of five people did not speak English, nor could they help me. How crazy is that?
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sorry about that. won't happen again. |
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| dEsidEL |
| quote: |
Ideas to sell Toronto to tourists
May 20, 2008
Royson James
Adam Wetstein spends many Sundays at Union Station greeting visitors, dispensing local wisdom, suggesting where they might visit, where to stay, what attractions to see. He hears it from tourists.
For example, many tourists think Canadian retailers are crooks. Why? Because the price tag says one thing but the checkout price (with GST and PST added) is 12 per cent higher. Harmonize the taxes into one price, Wetstein says.
He and readers have much advice for the city and Tourism Toronto, currently looking to boost Toronto's stature as a premier tourist destination. Here are ideas from three, starting with Wetstein, a volunteer travellers' aide.
* Provide a bus to the Toronto zoo, one of the world's best. When tourists realize it's 90 minutes away by TTC, they "lose their desire to go."
* Improve signage everywhere. For example, road and highway signs must point to Niagara Falls, the "No. 1 destination for tourists to Toronto." Travel on the Gardiner/QEW to Hamilton gets more love than Niagara, he says.
* Show off our language skills. Stores should boast signs like, "We speak Greek." And the tourism website should be multilingual.
* Have a Euro Day at the Ex because an increasing number of Toronto tourists originate there.
* Tourist guides need to be better trained. Some are out-of-town students who don't know the city well enough. And they should know how to diplomatically steer tourists away from packages that leave them stuck in Niagara Falls at night, making day trips to Toronto; the opposite should be the aim.
Readers complain tourism is a mostly invisible industry, a $4.5 billion annual Toronto booster that few citizens recognize or take efforts to nurture. That is because there are few reminders. Ask a Torontonian to complete the following sentence, "Tourism is important to ____?" and the answer might be Mexico, Jamaica, maybe Paris, but not Toronto.
Adrian Harvey says we should lower expectations of the number of tourists we can attract, especially in an era of high gas prices, terrorist alerts and economic slowdown. Fix our weaknesses. And when the tourism market improves, be ready to pounce.
"We must stop the collective hand-wringing, bluster and incompetence from the tourism industry business and we must start human-oriented actions focused on involving, uplifting and empowering the local citizenry. Most importantly, a substantial percentage of the tourism budget should be allocated to local tourism-boosting programs that grow organically ... Unfortunately, I believe Tourism Toronto (and those who control it) will never be able to do this because they are oblivious to the fact that it is living, laughing people that other people want to interact with – not inert, dead structures."
Finally, from Dave Jameson: "I am a Torontonian living in Germany and the thing that strikes me is how each city in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands have their own `walking-shopping' streets. I find myself walking down many streets which are pedestrian only and many which are jointly shared with only streetcars. Thousands of people take to these streets especially on the weekends. Having Queen St. W., Kensington Market, College St. W., Church St. at Wellesley St. deemed pedestrian zones would definitely make Toronto a unique city among its North American competitors."
So, find an organic, natural, unique offering; sell it at the right time; and in many languages. Sounds easy enough.
Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Email: [email protected]
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source:
http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Columnist/article/427518
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| DigiNut |
Leave it to the Star to keep publishing that pedestrian-only-street bullcrap. People walk on those streets anyway, the sidewalks aren't really overcrowded, but forcing cars and buses off definitely would cripple downtown transportation.
What we really need to do to improve this city is stop listening to the Toronto Star. |
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| Zentac_75 |
| I dislike last call at 2am. |
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