Toronto Privilege

Home, sweet home

I am white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender, well-educated, I speak English as a first language, and I am border-line class-privileged. I am aware of these facts, and make an effort to keep my privilege in check. 

I'm also Torontonian, born and raised. 

Living in Canada, being Torontonian is a privilege. It comes with the privilege of being from Central Canada, which means that our interests have always been well-represented, politically, at times to the detriment of other parts of the country. Urban privilege, which means that we have opportunities that people from rural areas do not. And, being from Toronto, which means being from the economic centre of Canada. I have Toronto privilege, and it's the one kind of privilege that I'm not sure how and when to check. 


On one level, I can acknowledge that someone from say, Alberta, might take issue with Toronto, and that it has nothing to do with the fact that Toronto is really important to Canada, but the fact that they feel that their part of the country has historically been left to languish while Central Canada has flourished. And it's true that policies like Trudeau's National Energy Program sacrificed the economic interests of Western Canada for those of Central and Eastern Canada.

On the other hand, when Conservative Party politicians start pulling plays from the Republican handbook (again) and start moaning about "Toronto elites," trying to create New Yorkers/Real Americans type of divide in Canada... I can't help but respond that 18% - nearly a fifth - of the population of Canada lives in the Greater Toronto Area, and that you do not get to dismiss one fifth of the country as "elites".

Which to some degree feels like "-splaining" to me. Because I know that there is a genuine issue of regional inequality that the Conservatives are trying to take advantage of.

I find it very hard to factor that understanding of regional inequality into how I react to Albertans is particular, who provide the base for the Conservative Party. I feel like they have a sense of self-importance that is out of proportion - one time I had an argument online with this dude who insisted that thanks to the tar sands, Alberta is now the economic engine of Canada, rather than Ontario. (As of 2008, Ontario had the highest GDP of all the provinces, accounting for about 45% of the national GDP; Alberta was third, accounting for 22%). Which cuts awfully close saying that they're "uppity" and don't know their place.

The thing is, that regional inequality is the only kind of inequality the Conservatives and their Albertan supporters are interested in addressing. On every area related to social justice, they're regressive. This is the province that, in 1998, almost invoked the Notwithstanding Clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to get out of providing human rights protection to people based on sexual orientation - in 2006 when the Conservatives won their first minority, virtually the first thing they did was have a vote to repeal the Civil Marriage act, which made same-sex marriage legal in Canada - and just last year there was an uproar among Conservative supporters when a Conservative MP was photographed presenting a cheque to organizers of the Toronto Pride Parade. These are the folks who insist that "In Canada, we speak English!", get offended by census questions asking for race and ethnic origin, and whine about Canada's official policy of multiculturalism because they think everyone should assimilate with Anglo-Saxon Canadians, while being unaware of the legitimate criticisms of the policy. Oh, and hey, Toronto happens to pride itself on its multiculturalism.

This is why I have trouble checking my privilege. Because the hostility directed at Toronto isn't just inspired by the fact of regional inequality. Often that is all there is to it. But just as often it's based on hostility towards progressivism and towards the "other" that Toronto can be coded to represent. The question is, how to disentangle the two, and respond appropriately, without reinforcing privilege? I have yet to figure that out.

One thing I know, is that I love this city.

Related Reading: Montreal Simon writes about regional discord in Canada and why Conservatives hate on Quebec. I would only add that I think many Rest-of-Canadians' hostility towards Quebec depends on an inability to grasp that the fact that political elites have hailed from Quebec does not change the reality that Québécois in general have historically been disadvantaged compared to anglophone/Anglo-Saxon Canadians.