Talk:Toronto

Module:WikiProject banner/doc
This page is a soft redirect.

This page is part of a WikiProject. Please see that page for guidelines and volunteer to help with related articles.

---

Featured on Template:March 6 selected anniversaries (may be in HTML comment)

---

• Archives: Talk:Toronto/Archive 001

---

Population

Although technically correct, stating that Toronto is the "fifth most populous in North America" is a little misleading. Many people may form the wrong impression that it is the fifth largest urban area in North America. It is actually 13th...or so. One can argue this a little, depending on where one limits each urban area, but Toronto is definitely nowhere near the fifth most populous centre. Not that this was said, but it will be believed by many.(see http://www.citypopulation.de/World.html) Did I just make sense here? [canadaguy]

=============================

I changed the population to 5.2 million as I checked in statistics canada it is NOT 5.6 million! get your facts straght please.

Listen here buddy, I've raped more than 5.2 million people in Canada alone, and you'll be next if you don't shut the fuck up. My facts are straight, but YOU'RE GAY. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Banana008 (talk • contribs)

It would be great if you could take a look at Wikipedia:Assume good faith, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Etiquette. Thanks! Skeezix1000 15:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I admit I chuckled at that comment --KingZog 01:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Early discussion

I am not new to research/analysis but am new to WikiWhatevers and cannot believe this mess. This page needs organizing, sources have to be included for anything and everything or the page is completely worthless. Why would anyone just take someone's word for something, like "over 5.6 million people (2005)"? Where did that come from? Where did "US $305 billion gross domestic product, CDN $360 billion" come from and if anything in USD is going to be posted then what exchange rate was used? But where did it come from, where are the sources for all of these allegations and which fiscal year is the alleged CDN$360 billion from? Most economies tend to be in millions of dollars and is it real GDP (based on what year in prices and chained or not) or current "dollars"/prices?

01-Toronto Division: 629.91 square km

02-Peel Regional Municipality: 1,241.99 km²

04-York Regional Municipality: 1,761.64 km²

05-Durham Regional Municipality: 2,523.48 km²

11-Halton Regional Municipality: 967.04 km²

TOTAL: 7,124.06 square kilometers

Source: Statistics Canada - http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/standard/popdwell/Table-CSD-PS2.cfm

Not 7,000 square km but 7,124.06. "Close enough," wild guesses that are not backed up by reliable sources amount to nothing; not that I consider StatsCON to be reliable but unless someone knows of a private surveyor's organization to verify the above then it's the best we've got.

But where is anyone getting updated "gross domestic product" information from for a bunch of municipalities (the "GTA thing")? No fiscal year is even stated, let alone whether it's nominal/real GDP in the usual 1997 "dollars" (prices), and is it chained from 1997 or not? Or did someone actually find current dollars at current prices for a GDP in the Canadas? And if anything in USD is going to be stated then post the exchange rate.

And which NAICS industries make up what in "the GTA" in economic output with percentages? www.2ontario.com has tons of stats, but not for the municipality of Toronto or the "GTA."

The most basic things to get together do not exist, with any credibility at all on the Greater Toronto Area page, which has to have the populations, population densities, unemployment rates, average household incomes, GDPs and in what NAICS industries, per municipality, as the very start of a template to mean anything.

It's not even mentioned that the municipality of Toronto out-populates all four "provinces" of the Atlantic Canadas and all three territories combined, or Manitoba + Saskatchewan + PEI + all three territories combined (with 154,905 in irrelevant residents of the municipality of Toronto leftover and the resident population is irrelevant due to how many commuters, business travelers, tourists and other visitors on average last fiscal year?).

The bizarre messes around taxation, the "Ontario" feds steal all municipal property taxes that the "municipality" of Toronto zones as commercial/industrial, "Ontario" Social Services, "Ontario" Housing do exist, but not in Toronto they don't and whatever 20% of the expenses of the "Ontario" feds happen to be to pay for "Ontario" Social Services, "Ontario" Housing, ODSP is taken right out of Toronto's (municipality of, unless otherwise is stated for this purpose) residential property taxes, which amounted to 37% of our MUNICIPAL residential property taxes last fiscal year, which resulted in another TTC fare hike to try to cover those expenses that nothing covers, quite unlike any other sane city in the world, let alone an alleged city-region, where they actually keep their municipal taxes and get shares of state/provincial and federal taxes to pay for things that municipal taxes were never designed to pay for: like public transit (the TTC's web site used to claim that the TTC was the 2nd largest public transit system in North America behind only NYC, in ridership, but not anymore, it lost ... Google +"vital signs" +toronto, 1,316,000 riders between 2001 and 2003, while service was cut and fares had increased 27 per cent since 1997, almost twice the rate of inflation -- due to the confederate feds stealing $22 billion a year on average (not returning its fair share to the "Ontario" feds) ever since they got their own budget deficit paid off in fiscal 1997-98 and half of that deficit has been run on the "municipality" of Toronto by the "Ontario" feds.

Why are we paying "provincial" or confederate ("federal") taxes in Toronto? A whole $90 million and change was sent back to Toronto via the "new deal for cities and communities" (due to the Stampede Town Hick Party; it was supposed to be "the new deal for CITIES" given that they're the economic backbones of the Canadas; but nothing puts up with what Toronto does; probably anywhere on the planet in any alleged "democracy") while $11 THOUSAND million was stolen by the "Ontario" (which Ontario?) and confederate feds in return for a whole $90 million and change of our own revenues back.

So what if it's going up to $100+ million next fiscal year? Another $1.1 BILLION will be stolen and wow, we get the decimal point back.

I'm just barely getting warmed up but will leave it at that for now. It's a mess, the Toronto page and the "GTA" page (what GTA? What say does Toronto City Hall have over the "T" in GTA?) other than the usual of blowing sunshine up arses for no apparent reason instead of dealing with reality?

S-Ranger S-Ranger 03:35, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Toronto, Ontario → Toronto

There are around 500 direct links here, but as many from Toronto and Toronto, Canada. Taking into account that most external links and find queries are likely to come in the form of the city name only, I think it should probably be moved to Toronto. Same reason as London contains the article on London, England and York contains the article on York, England. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:07, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Support. If someone links to Toronto without further clarification, they clearly mean Toronto, Ontario. Furthermore, many people (non-Canadians) are aware that there is a large city in Canada named Toronto, but are not aware that it is in the province of Ontario. I don't see any downside to making the move, and it somehow feels more clean. --LostLeviathan 23:59, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support, indeed difficult to see why this hasn't already happened given that Toronto is currently a redirect to Toronto, Ontario anyway! Shouldn't need any discussion imho. --Vamp:Willow 00:10, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support. -- Naive cynic 00:57, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Comment - I think this is because of the general style for North American cities of City, State/Province. It's also used for Australian cities (although I think Melbourne exists by itself). Adam Bishop 01:00, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support - When people say "Toronto", it's quite safe to assume they mean Toronto, Ontario. →Raul654 01:43, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose: The name of the article should abide by current naming conventions. Having Toronto redirect to Toronto, Ontario should be sufficient. DCEdwards1966 02:36, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)
• Support, for sure. Are there other Toronto's? it would make much more sense for "Toronto" to be the title of the article for toronto, ontario. SECProto 03:36, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)
  • Well, there is Toronto, Australia...Adam Bishop 22:50, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Most likely meaning of "Toronto". —Tkinias 22:41, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Just like London, New York City and a lot of other big cities that stand on their own, including Canadian cities like Montreal and Ottawa. —ExplorerCDT 23:00, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Clean. Simple. Nuff said. Icundell 00:20, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose. Yet another exception to the naming convention. So now we start having exceptions and just because Toronto is a large city, it gets preferential treatment? If we are going to enforce a naming convention, then stick to it. Hundreds of other cities and towns get redirects. People in Western Canada would ask why should Vancouver, Calgary or Winnipeg have to follow naming conventions while all the large eastern cities do not? Looks to me like eastern NA bias here. RedWolf 06:51, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

There is a convention to make exceptions for larger cities to the naming convention for cities, in favour of the broadest naming convention (most common usage). Whatever its origins or validity, that is the case. Some other larger cities might be worth the same move; let's not get upset about bias. I would guess most of the voters above aren't even Canadian. Rd232 16:18, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Support I believe I'm a little too late to vote, but naming this article Toronto, Ontario IMO borders ridicoulous. Most of non-English language wikipedias refer to Toronto by the name of the city only and not Toronto, Ontario or different variants of it. This kind of convention can be applied to places like Sioux Falls, North Dakota or Red Deer, Alberta but not to Toronto. I mean we are talking about one of the largest cities in the Americas as well as the World's most multicultural city. VicFromTheBlock

Crime

re) Crime. Explain to me how 60 homicides in 2004 = 1.8 per 100,000 and 78 in 2005 = 3.1 per 100,000.

Could we get this clear? In addition: is the 1.8 per 100,000 for Toronto only or for the GTA? 64.231.165.67

(I moved this comment from the top of the talk article to here where it should go. Ben W Bell 08:34, 2 January 2006 (UTC))

I noticed that the section on crime was revised yesterday, but I still don't see how 60 homicides in 2004 = 1.8 per 100,000 and 78 in 2005 equals 3.1.

In fact, I'm a tad confused on the 1.8 figure, since it works out to 1.8 / 100,000 = 60 / x, so x= about 3,300,000 total population. So what "Toronto" is Stats Can talking about? Anyway, accepting the Stats Can figures, by my math it's 2.3 per 100,000, not 3.1, which puts it below Vancouver, Winnipeg, and London Ontario for the year.

Toronto's crime statistics are kept by the Toronto Police Service, whose jurisdiction is the City of Toronto.

Prior to 1998, they were called the Metropolitan Toronto Police, and their jurisdiction was the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto (which included the old, smaller City of Toronto plus five other localities.)

The geographic boundaries of the present City of Toronto are exactly the same as the former Metropolitan Toronto.

Statistics are kept by recording the number of incidents reported within these boundaries.

Rates are determined by placing that number over the resident population contained within these same boundaries.

(As we know, the areas surrounding the city have been surging with increased population. So, while these regional people increase activity within the city itself, they are not counted as residents for the rates calculations. However, anyone involved in an occurence reported within the city is counted as an incident.)

As for the homicide rate, Toronto Police report that the number of incidents within the city have been stable at an annual average of about 60, (just over one per week.) They also report that the resident population has only slightly increased to just over 2.5 million. (Remember, we are only talking about the number of people who live within the city boundaries.) Therefore, 60 incidents over 2,500,000 residents, gives a rate of 2.4 per 100,000. (60/25=2.4)--Harry 19:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Cycling as transport?

I am considering a move to Toronto from (sister city) Portland, Oregon. I read a lot about traffic problems and public transport in Toronto, but I'm still wondering if I can just ride my bike to work & errands like I do here. Seems like it might deserve a mention. --Shafferl 22:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Your wish is my command (sometimes). A bit cold (let's see... Portland oregon...you're good to go) -Dhodges 02:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, cycling's usually okay in the downtown core and beaches. I'd advise against it if you're in the suburbs, or the west end, or even just north of Bloor St, however. --coldacid 22:49, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I would say Davenport (slightly north of Bloor) and south is fine for a bike. Davenport has a bike lane. I bike from St. Clair, but there's a steep hill between Davenport and St. Clair (one of the few in Toronto) which can be annoying if you're carrying a load or tired. As for the west end, I'd say as long as you're east of Keele (and not too far north of Bloor) a bike's fine as well.--Stetson 23:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

French-language in Toronto

A few mentions of the French language in Toronto striked me as purely POV. I have removed "Only 1.4% of city residents claim French (Canada's other official language) as their mother tongue." as it is as relevant as a mention that only 1.4% of Quebec City's population claim the English language as their mother tongue in an article about the latter city. Furthemore I have edited the mention of ESL, specifically "These students come primarily from Latin America, East Asia and German-speaking Europe with surprisingly few coming from nearby French Canada." Present-day Germans and Swiss are not emigrating to Canada in significant numbers. Moreover, people from Quebec would likely be attending French-language schools.

--- I understand what you say about why you removed "Only 1.4% of city residents claim French (Canada's other official language) as their mother tongue." from the article. I disagree with your argument, however.

For readers outside of Canada, I would think that the French fact of Quebec City comes as little surprise. But because of Canada's reputation as being a bilingual, French-English country, many assume that Toronto has a large French component as well. (I have personally met foreign visitors actually in Toronto who, having seen French language on highway signs and government-run liquor stores, along with French channels on their hotel TV sets, still had this assumption.)

I think it would be an interesting point to many unfamiliar with Toronto, or Canada in general, to re-include this information.--Harry 19:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

How can I write this page in Another Language?

How can I write this page in Another Language?

• Your question is not clear, but I'll try to help. Start by going to the List of Wikipedias. Select the Wikipedia for the language into which you want to translate this. Enter "Toronto" into the search box in that Wikipedia to see if there is already an article. it may be called "Toronto, Canada". If there is already an article, which is likely for Wikipedias in widely-spoken languages, you can edit that article to incorporate information from this one. If there is no article, you will have to create a new article, and then you can post whatever you have written in that language. Good luck. If you have further questions, you can post them here or on my talk page. Ground Zero | t 19:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

sub pages

Some of the material on this page could safely be moved to sub pages. We have main articles for a number of sections, but material on the Toronto page continues to duplicate the material in these specialized articles. (my terminology may not be entirely correct here)-Dhodges 17:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree! I started to do this with Demographics of Toronto way back when, but have since been subsumed. :) E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 17:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

cultural capital?

I believe there is a mistake in the first paragraph regarding the internal link to "Cultural capital." When Toronto is referred to as “one of Canada’s Cultural Capitals” it means that the city is a centre of some specific activity; in this case, culture. It’s like saying that New York is the financial capital of the world. However, "Cultural capital" links to an article on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital, where the word “capital” clearly means wealth, assets or advantage. Bourdieu is talking about cultural capital as opposed to human capital or money.

I would suggest that the link be removed.--OldCommentator 03:34, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that wasn't correct. I removed the link. - Randwicked Alex B 03:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Center of Universe snipe

Why is it ok for that to be in the article? Can it be verified that Western Canadians actually use that remark? John wesley 14:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I can verify that it is 'sometimes dubbed' "Centre of the Universe" (Rayburn, p. 46), but otherwise cannot. Perhaps for balance, we should merely note that it is referred to as such by other Canadians, not necessarily by those in western Canada for whatever reasons. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 14:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

When I watch TV, it's always some loud mouth Albertan, not a Nova Scotian

Twinnings

Are there any sources for the list of twin cities? I can't find any evidence for such a relationship between Toronto and Sydney, for example. JPD (talk) 15:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• I've wondered the same thing. I have no idea if the list of twinned cities is accurate, or people have just added cities as they please. At least one entry was added by an editor who otherwise vandalized the article. I could not find any "official list" on the City website. Skeezix1000 16:06, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• Fixed the Twinnings today using offical language (Partners and Friendships) and provided link to the source! It is funny...it took 3 emails back and forth to the city before they stopped sending me the link to Wikipedia!!! I finally got them to understand that I was trying to check on the accuracy of Wiki! Man...that list WAS wrong! KsprayDad 18:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

That's great! That previous list was really bothering me. Skeezix1000 01:45, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Population comparison

Someone recently made a change suggesting Toronto is the 6th-largest city in North America, but then cited in the summary information about metropolitan areas. As far as cities are concerned, only Mexico City, New York, LA, and Chicago, in that order, have larger populations than Toronto; hence, Toronto is the 5th-most populous city in North America. If you want to cite info about San Francisco-Oakland or Washington-Baltimore, than compare them to the correpsonding metropolitan area (Greater Toronto Area or Golden Horseshoe). Mindmatrix 21:02, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

-->Conceded, and changes made accordingly to the Greater Toronto Area page. Additional detail on talk page for Greater Toronto Area.

Nighttime photo

Can someone source a different nighttime photo...the one used is at least 6 years old...If you look at the TO skyline it has different colours standing out (ie..the current photo is still showing the old Canada Trust logo on top of Canada Place and is bright orange...currently you would see a green glow)...just me being picky!

Established Date

Anyone know how to fix this...I've tried editing it but can't get it to work...

DO NOT CHANGE STATISTICS UNLESS

you are absolutely sure on the contents accuracy. I find a lot of people are changing information to reflect their views and not the facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.30.71.252 (talk • contribs)

Music

Could someone add something about NXNE (North by Northeast). It's a pretty major industry event but I'm not good at writing these things. --70.30.77.176 04:59, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

About Statistics

Someone wrote: "(The non-white population grows by about 1 percent every year - while white population declines by about one percent during the same time)."

Where is the source of that. - —This unsigned comment was added by Galati (talk • contribs) .

• That section needs a clean-up to remove both unsourced claims and to move some stuff that more appropriately belongs in the subarticle. Skeezix1000 17:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

About Article

While this article says that it is about the City of Toronto, a lot of the economical information as well as other information reflects Toronto's metropolitan area and not the information of the city proper.

Therefore, why not include statistics of the mteropolitan area from StatCan. —This unsigned comment was added by Galati (talk • contribs) .

• Those stats are in the Greater Toronto Area article. Skeezix1000 17:31, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

"Safest large city in North America"?

According to the University of Toronto website, Toronto is ranked "the safest large city in North America". Does anyone have a citation for this? --DearPrudence 01:58, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure about it being the safest large city in N, America, but it certainly is in Canada. Just search statscan's website under crime rates. Considering the relatively low crime rate in Canada compared to the states and Mexico, I would tend to agree that it does have the lowest crime rate of large N. American cities.

Famous and renowned transfer tickets

The article states: "The TTC is famous for it's renowned 'transfer ticket', on which you can transfer to several buses, trains, and streetcars, paying only once at the start of your trip."

Really? Isn't this a bit of an exageration? Famous? Renowned? And isn't that what a transfer does on any transit system in just about any city? Or am I just unaware, and the TTC transfer really is something unique? --Skeezix1000 18:41, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Poorest neighbourhoods?

Is there a way of knowing what are the poorest neighbourhoods of Toronto? Some have said Parkdale or St James Town, but are they the top 2? How can we mention that they are "poor" neighbourhoods (if they are) while remaining factual? There's also an area part of Queen East that's really shady and poor, full of pawn shops, but I don't know what to call it.--Sonjaaa 04:10, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

There are stats available using census data. See this United Way site for example. Try googling poorest neighborhoods of Toronto -Dhodges 05:30, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

BTW, You might be thinking of Leslieville. -Dhodges 05:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The "really shady and poor" area "full of pawn shops" on Queen East might also be a short stretch somewhere around Queen and Sherbourne or Parliament.--Stetson 23:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

"T.O."

Where does the city's nickname "T.O." come from? Is it from "Toronto, Ontario"? I never understood it. There's not even mention of the nickname in the article (which surprised me especially as there is a "T.O." disambiguation page that links here). --Cotoco 15:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Demographics & Religion

I was just wondering about the mention of the different Christian religions under the demographics section: "Roman Catholicism is the largest faith in the city of Toronto (not the Census Metropolitan Area), accounting for 31.4% in 2001, followed by the Anglican Church (20.1%) and other Christian denominations (Pentecostal, Baptist, Church of God etc. (10.8%)." I was thinking particularly of the usage of the word faith to describe different Christian faiths because as a Christian I believe that all Christians (Catholics & Protestants alike) have the same faith.

The difference lies in how one practices their faith and some of the finer details about how they differ. One example is that the Roman Catholic Church believes that in Communion they are literally eating Jesus' body through a spiritual transformation, but most Protestants interpret the passage "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying "This is my body given for you; do this in rememberance of me." Both however believe in the Holy Trinity, Jesus' death and resurrection and that we must believe in that for salvation from our sins. James 1789 03:26 10 May 2006 (UTC)