{"id":362,"date":"2025-05-01T11:39:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T11:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calexis.com\/?p=362"},"modified":"2026-03-01T20:45:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T20:45:46","slug":"toronto-should-thank-its-most-supportive-politician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calexis.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/toronto-should-thank-its-most-supportive-politician\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Should Thank Its Most Supportive Politician"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/calexis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Rene.jpg\"><\/a>Toronto should offer thanks, maybe a statue, to the one man who has made this city into the world class city it has become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I was a kid,&nbsp;Toronto was a weak number two city in Canada.&nbsp; Montreal was the most important city with Vancouver a distant number three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Head offices were in Montreal.&nbsp; Everyone who was moving to Canada, picked Montreal.&nbsp; By 1967, Montreal area\u2019s population was around 2.5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Montreal Canadiens were the most success hockey team in the NHL.&nbsp; Montreal was where the 1967 World\u2019s Fair was held; followed by the Olympics in 1976.&nbsp; Montreal even got the first Major league baseball team outside of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, in Toronto, meh.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"222\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/calexis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Rene-Levesque.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-363\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>In 1967, Toronto\u2019s metro area had a population of 2.2 million.&nbsp; It was also the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enter <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ren%C3%A9_L%C3%A9vesque\"><strong>Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque<\/strong><\/a> to become the Premier of Quebec in 1976 with a goal to separate Quebec from the rest of Canada.&nbsp; Enter policies to \u201cprotect\u201d the Quebec culture by creating language police and laws to minimize English. Enter referenda for Quebeckers to vote to leave Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Exit most of the business headquarters that were in Montreal.&nbsp; Exit more than half a million people, many of them just drove down the highway for five hours to Toronto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is a comparison.&nbsp; Today the Toronto metro area has surpassed 6 million.&nbsp; Montreal is at 3.8 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>New immigrants to Canada, and there have been many since the country declared itself to embrace multiculturalism, have made Toronto their choice destination.&nbsp; Toronto has gone from a processed cheese and white bread city to one where virtually any nationality of immigrants is well represented.&nbsp; And they all seem to get along reasonably well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Toronto is now a vibrant city that has been the engine to drive the Canadian economy, recently the nation with most successful economy in the world.&nbsp;&nbsp; Growth is everywhere.&nbsp; Toronto has become the most important city in Canada, without question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Toronto now has Major league baseball and even won the World Series a couple times.&nbsp; And even a part time NFL team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So Toronto should build a statue to the man who made it all possible, who turned the city from being a second fiddle to being a star.&nbsp; That man, Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, but the Maple Leafs still haven\u2019t won the Stanley Cup<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toronto should offer thanks, maybe a statue, to the one man who has made this city into the world class city it has become. When I was a kid,&nbsp;Toronto was a weak number two city in Canada.&nbsp; Montreal was the most important city with Vancouver a distant number three. Head offices were in Montreal.&nbsp; Everyone\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/calexis.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/toronto-should-thank-its-most-supportive-politician\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-politics","tag-unintended-consequences"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Toronto Should Thank Its Most Supportive Politician - Calexis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/calexis.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/toronto-should-thank-its-most-supportive-politician\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Toronto Should Thank Its Most Supportive Politician - Calexis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Toronto should offer thanks, maybe a statue, to the one man who has made this city into the world class city it has become. 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