The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1954, Side 40

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Spring 1954
WHAT MAKES TORONTO TICK ?
by J. RAGNAR JOHNSON, Q.C.
J. Ragnar Johnson, Q.C.
Toronto is probably the most
maligned community in North Amer-
cia. Known to its critics alternately as
Toronto the Good or Hog Town, it
is the butt of more cartoon, gibes and
calumny than any city of its size. The
feeling has apparently existed for a
long time, for in the days of the Fam-
ily Compact, John Galt, the Scottish
immigrant poet, called it “one of the
worst blue-devil haunts on the face of
the earth.” More recently, the Honour-
able Mr. Justice Maybank of the
Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench,
when he represented South Centre
Winnipeg in the House of Commons,
vehemently shouted: “The City of Tor-
onto has more grasping, greedy,
unctuous people in it than any other
city in the world.” One would scarcely
quarrel with the sagacious verdict of
a man who has become a high court
justice, but one might reasonably
wonder what would impel a man in
public life to utter such fearful
words.
Even a casual observer does not have
to be in Toronto long to come to a
realization that here is a busy, energet-
ic and bustling metropolis, the com-
mercial and industrial heart of Can-
ada— quiokly supplanting Montreal as
its financial headquarters; an import-
ant seat of learning and culture; and
the nerve centre of the artistic, literary
and theatrical life of our great country.
Here scientific and medical contribu-
tions to the world have been made,
great business enterprises directed,
books written, national magazines
published, and television and radio
programmes arranged and produced.
Toronto is the headquarters of the
Meteorological Service, the mailing
centre of Canada, the home of the
greatest mining Stock Exchange in the
world, the air-hub of Eastern Canada
with ultra modern airport facilities;
and its citizens use nearly half a mil-
lion telephones. It is the national head-
quarters of several churches and ser-
vice clubs and such institutions as the
Canadian Red Cross, the Health
League of Canada, the Canadian Na-
tional Institute of the Blind, the
Institute of International Affairs and
many others.
Located on the north shore of Lake
Ontario, almost opposite the mouth
of the Niagara River, Toronto was in
the 15th and 16th centuries the south-
ern end of the most important of the
Indian trails connecting Lake Huron
and Lake Ontario and the site was
called “The Toronto Carrying Place”.