(Yonge) Dundas Square comes of age - Does it need a new name?

[Tewder]

^ That's an interesting viewpoint, because from what I've seen, Multiculturalism itself has become one of the major pillars of the Canadian identity. If anything, I say it strengthens it. Look at Toronto in the 60's: Blue Collar and Whitebread, hoping to become the next Buffalo, NY. You must admit, things have improved, not gotten worse.

The reality is that western nations can be multicultural (as in have world immigration) or they can go the way of Japan and go down kicking and screaming as not to damage their "unity". It will lead to their decline: people just aren't interested in having babies like they used to.

Oh I'm in no way suggesting that we shouldn't have pursued immigration or that we shouldn't have diversified, those are good things to be sure and they are a core part of our history. All western democracies have done this.

My concern is with the official government policy of Multiculturalism as has been practiced in Canada - in the English speaking parts of it at least - and that has bulldozed over the centuries of culture and tradition that founded the nation and its institutions, and that inform who we are today. It essentially destroys an understanding, celebration and teaching/assimilation (to newcommers) of that which forms our collective identity, shared experience and mythology, and which makes Canada 'unique' and recognizeable on the world stage in a way that the more general global reality of multiculturalism doesn't. In other words in becoming everything - and again this is our very government stance here - we in fact become nothing.

Interestingly, your very discounting of all of this by reducing a pre-Multicultural Toronto to merely 'blue collar and whitebread, hoping to become the next Buffalo' sort of illustrates the very point. Multiculturalism has brainwashed us, even coerced us somewhat through often implacable and ridiculous political correctness, to turn our back on the real richness of our past, and the very core beliefs/values that define the process of evolution towards Canadian tolerance, liberalism and diversity as we know it today. These things did not incongruously appear overnight. Not even because of Trudeau.

Diversity and the experience of the immigrant are indeed the sort of cultural 'pillars' you speak of, but Multiculturalism is not.

 

[toraerach]

Interestingly, your very discounting of all of this by reducing a pre-Multicultural Toronto to merely 'blue collar and whitebread, hoping to become the next Buffalo' sort of illustrates the very point. Multiculturalism has brainwashed us, even coerced us somewhat through often implacable and ridiculous political correctness, to turn our back on the real richness of our past, and the very core beliefs/values that define the process of evolution towards Canadian tolerance, liberalism and diversity as we know it today. These things did not incongruously appear overnight. Not even because of Trudeau.

But official Multiculturalism was product, not the instigator of the immense changes that occurred in post-war English Canada. To put it in simple terms, the Orange Order was not killed off by Multiculturalism, but the void left by the decline of Orangeism allowed English Canadian cultural discourse to shift to a point where official Multiculturalism was not only possible but inevitible. This is the same shift that made Trudeau's electoral success in English Canada possible.

Why did this shift happen? There are many reasons: technological and economic advancement, increased education, the rise of the US as superpower, collective horror after the Holocaust, secularization that destroyed or otherwise significantly changed cultural identities and relationships, etc.

 

[Mystic Point]

I've never seen that or sensed drug dealing happening there.

I've spent days down there interviewing people for a variety of clients. And while I'm standing there, chatting away with people, I'm watching the deals go down, one after another.

It's become a hot spot for tourists and kids from the suburbs to score their " shit " in the language of the " square. "

It actually reminds me of downtown Glasgow. Drugs, drugs and more drugs.

Spend a couple hours a day there for a couple days and you'll see the show.

 

[bleeepbluuup]

My concern is with the official government policy of Multiculturalism as has been practiced in Canada - in the English speaking parts of it at least - and that has bulldozed over the centuries of culture and tradition that founded the nation and its institutions, and that inform who we are today. It essentially destroys an understanding, celebration and teaching/assimilation (to newcommers) of that which forms our collective identity, shared experience and mythology, and which makes Canada 'unique' and recognizeable on the world stage in a way that the more general global reality of multiculturalism doesn't. In other words in becoming everything - and again this is our very government stance here - we in fact become nothing.

Interestingly, your very discounting of all of this by reducing a pre-Multicultural Toronto to merely 'blue collar and whitebread, hoping to become the next Buffalo' sort of illustrates the very point. Multiculturalism has brainwashed us, even coerced us somewhat through often implacable and ridiculous political correctness, to turn our back on the real richness of our past, and the very core beliefs/values that define the process of evolution towards Canadian tolerance, liberalism and diversity as we know it today. These things did not incongruously appear overnight. Not even because of Trudeau.

Diversity and the experience of the immigrant are indeed the sort of cultural 'pillars' you speak of, but Multiculturalism is not.

Isn't this just an issue of lack of education in Canadian history? Canadians are just so low-key about these matters naturally...

Since immigration has occurred so quickly and in such great numbers, the Canadian identity is bound to be shifting. This doesn't make us less unique or dilute our heritage into 'nothing'. It just means we have more heritages to draw from. Even if we are doing a poor job of teaching our history, Canadian-ness will rub off on everybody who lives here, whether they realise it or not. It's impossible for people to live together and emerge from the encounter unchanged by the others.

 

[urbandreamer]

Square Toronto.

mtl-ers would love this name.

 

[GenerationW]

Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act during the October Crisis fueling Quebec separatism and the exodus of English business class to Toronto.

Hardly. The exodus was fueled by the PQ winning power in 1976.

 

[EnviroTO]

Exactly. Considering the FLQ (separatists) existed before Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act it makes no sense to say Trudeau invoking it fueled separatism. How much more fueled can you get than terrorism. Blaming Trudeau for anything to do with it makes no sense, especially since the majority on Montreal politicians supported the idea. Rene Levesque split from the Liberals in 1967 and soon after united separatists under one banner before Trudeau was even elected. He attacked the federal government at every opportunity including the use of the War Measures Act. He was a savvy politician and people were sold on his vision and his criticisms of everything that is wrong with the federal government. It makes no sense to blame Trudeau, a french Canadian selling a federalist vision, for separatism when there was Levesque, a french Canadian selling a separatist vision at the time. It makes no sense to blame Trudeau for businesses moving to Toronto when they moved as a result of the threat of Quebec leaving the country and its managers being forced to speak French in the work place.

If people flock to "Company A's" product the credit doesn't go to "Company B". "Company B" can blame themselves for loosing market share but, like the Liberal party, "Company B" isn't the only company out there. If people choose the product from "Company A" people were sold on that product. If the product from "Company A" ends up sucking you can't blame "Company B", you can only blame "Company A" and the people who bought the product but didn't do their research on negative aspects of the product.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Spend a couple hours a day there for a couple days and you'll see the show.

I'm there about once a week where I sit and drink a Starbucks and people watch with my dog. Never seen any drug dealing, but I'm not saying it doesn't happen.
I'll be watching!

 

[Tewder]

But official Multiculturalism was product, not the instigator of the immense changes that occurred in post-war English Canada.

Agreed. The changes towards modernism and diversity are part of the history of the twentieth-century in Toronto and Canada, the depression/war years being the watershed events that set us on this new course. My growing assessment, however, is that while modernism and diversity have been good, Multiculturalism was reactionary and harmful to a maturing understanding of ourselves and to the understanding that we would project to newcomers who adopt Canada as their home.

Isn't this just an issue of lack of education in Canadian history? Canadians are just so low-key about these matters naturally....

This lack of education in Canadian history and the lack of interest/passion/understanding on the part of Canadians are in themselves casualties of Multiculturalism. We are encouraged to celebrate and express the cultures of our homelands of origin, and we are funded to do so. This is reinforced pervasively within our homes and within our communities, and tellingly in the void of any substantial national collective discourse on these issues. The Canadian government perspective on this is a deconstructionist one that exists solely in the shoring up of Multiculturalist policies.

Since immigration has occurred so quickly and in such great numbers, the Canadian identity is bound to be shifting. This doesn't make us less unique or dilute our heritage into 'nothing'. It just means we have more heritages to draw from. Even if we are doing a poor job of teaching our history, Canadian-ness will rub off on everybody who lives here, whether they realise it or not. It's impossible for people to live together and emerge from the encounter unchanged by the others.

Core identity doesn't shift all that much, or at least shouldn't. These are the core beliefs and values that a nation has developed over time, and this is where we need an understanding of our history to understand these values, and a developing of a national mythos to teach/learn them and imagine them/celebrate them further. Official government policy hampers this.

There will always be more a more superficial 'Canadian-ness' shared by us through iving in the here and now and among each other, no matter how bulkanized we are becoming, but these tend to be more trivial in nature (we all experience snow, we all experience Tim Hortons etc...).

 

[Mystic Point]

i Square​

 

[bleeepbluuup]

There will always be more a more superficial 'Canadian-ness' shared by us through iving in the here and now and among each other, no matter how bulkanized we are becoming, but these tend to be more trivial in nature (we all experience snow, we all experience Tim Hortons etc...).

I think there's a little more to it than that. For all the recent immigration, the systems of Canadian life (like schools, government, media, law enforcement, etc) were built by and are still largely run by 'old-hand' Canadians. So things like what we expect of our governments, law and order, how we raise our children, acceptance, tolerance, compromise -- the 'way we do things around here' is implicit and encoded in the workings of our institutions. What is meant to be Canadian might not be taught explicitly to newcomers, but I think much of it is passed on indirectly as they are shaped by these institutions.

It's probably not the sort of thing you realise until you leave our borders, just how distinctly Canadian you are. It's a hard thing to articulate, as we haven't been teaching or celebrating the whys and wherefores of it, but it's definitely there.

I agree with you -- Canadian history shouldn't be taking a back seat to anyone else's. But I do think there is room to celebrate all our heritages.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Should it be a somewhat historical name? I do like Algonquin square.

Confederation Square?
Simcoe Square (a bit of a stretch I admit)

Would Martin Luther King, JFK be too American? I mean IIRC Montreal has a street named after JFK and/or MLK and/or "American President"

 

[bleeepbluuup]

back to the original thread:

"Dundas Square" is just fine. What's the point in changing it now?

Re-naming things just seems so lame and fickle, especially when a thing was originally named in honour of something/someone. Find something new to name if you want to honour something -- it's no honour when names are overturned on a whim.

 

[Irishmonk]

Timothy Eaton Square would be an appropriate name for that location.

 

[doady]

Canada has always been a nation of immigrants. Yes, the people who came here from Europe were immigrants too. But nowadays, the immigrants are brown, yellow, and black, instead of white, and that is truly what concerns certain people.

It was the aggressive policy of assimilation that destroyed much of the original culture of Canada. If Canada had adopted a policy of tolerance and promoting different cultures back then that it does now, the deaths of over 60,000 Native American children in the residential school system would not have occurred and the survivors would not have lost their ability to communicate with their parents and created lingering social problems today among Native American people. It is was exactly this policy of anti-multiculturalism that "bulldozed over the centuries of culture and tradition". It was exactly this policy of assimilation that destroyed "an understanding, celebration and teaching/assimilation of that which forms our collective identity."

So do I want Canada to go back to the policy of assimilation? Hell no. To promote Canadian culture and the further development of Canadian culture, multiculturalism is exactly what is needed.