“Diversity” is one of those words that get the neo-con blogerati’s panties in a twist. Many long-winded blog posts have been written on the topic, and they all seem to boil down to the same thing: Ever since my family came to this country, we’ve had nothing but trouble from the immigrants. As the most ethnically-diverse city in Canada, Toronto makes a good whipping boy for the Canadian conservative blogosphere, who often paint Toronto as “Baghdad on Bay Street”, except that Torontonians will not welcome you as liberators and greet you with flowers and candy.
(Full disclosure: I’m a first-generation immigrant from the Philippines from a family of successful professionals. You could easily argue that I’d be naturally inclined to say that diversity was good.)
In a recent post, Steve Sailer pointed to the Winnipeg-based blog I, Ectomorph, whose author “Andy” uses Accordion City’s coat of arms as a launching point for yet another waah-waah-waah rant about diversity:
Toronto, where new residents arrive every minute from all over the world, is professedly in love with “diversity”. The city’s motto is actually “Diversity our strength”. This sounds like a lot like the United States’ motto “E pluribus unum” (Out of many, one) or the City of Winnipeg’s motto “Unum cum virtute multorum” (One with the strength of many), except that it’s dumbed down into English and, more importantly, it leaves out any mention of a “one”. In this town, it’s basically E pluribus whatever…or, perhaps (at best) E pluribus ethnic restaurants.
The post reads like a watered-down version of an American red-stater’s contempt for New York or Boston, which is unsurprising; Canadian neo-conservatism often comes off as American Neo-Conservatism Lite. The post wanders on to what might have been the actual thesis of his post, a Financial Times post titled Study Paints a Bleak Picture of Diversity, which I’ll write about in a later post. (Time is short, and I’ve got work to do.)
Here’s the coat of arms in question:
I’ve got to agree with “Andy” on the point that making the bear the same size as the beaver — perhaps it’s a Shetland Bear? — is pretty silly, but perhaps re-sizing animals is one of those bits of traditional artistic license (such as the mythical “swan song”). Heraldry experts, feel free to chime in!
And from this web page, here’s one explanation behind the symbols contained therein:
The Toronto coat of arms was designed recently (finally approved by Toronto city council in October of 1998) for the newly-amalgamated megacity of Toronto. The symbolism of the shield is obvious (the big T), but at least it isn’t cluttered (and they resisted the urge to add an annulet to make it “T-O”). The large blue T in a gold field is also reminiscient of medieval maps of the world (so-called “T-O” maps), with a T-shaped ocean dividing Asia (top) from Africa (right) and Europe (left), with Jerusalem being at the centre of the circular world. It’s a standing joke in Canada that Torontonians consider themselves the centre of the universe, so this is rather appropriate.
The beaver and bear are two of the original inhabitants of the area; the beaver also suggests industry and Canada, while the bear (presumably taken from the crest of the provincial arms) represents strength and a tendency to swallow up one’s neighbors. They bear medallions with an alder leaf (representing Etobicoke) and a columbine flower (for Scarborough). The golden eagle as the crest is meant to symbolize freedom and to honour the Mississauga First Nations (who held the eagle as sacred). The previous design (shown below) used a bald eagle for this, but it was changed because it looked too American. The mural crown (beneath the eagle) represents civic authority, bears two white roses (for York and East York, two of the municipalities that were assimilated) and a heart (for North York). The compartment shows three rivers (the Don, Humber, and Rouge), flowing into a lake (Lake Ontario). The motto (rather trite, in my humble opinion, but I also think most civic mottoes are) signifies the amalgamation of the various cities into the megacity.
For comparison’s sake, here’s the old coat of arms:
More later, but I thought that this might be enough material to start a discussion. Fire away in the comments!
5 replies on “Thinking Out Loud: Diversity and the Toronto Coat of Arms”
It seems a bit rich to paint this as an anti-immigrant rant, Joey. The guy does go off on a tangent at the end, but if we’re merely evaluating the coats of arms and mottoes, the new stuff blows.
As the guy points out, previously the arms had a male native and female European, whereas now we have an anthorpomorphic beaver and bear. The humans are least slightly more representative; you’d be far more likely to run into actual male natives and female Europeans in Toronto, while the number of beavers and bears that live inside the city limits could probably be counted on one hand.
As a rallying cry for urban development and renewal, “Diversity our Strength” is a little weak. It basically boils down to “We have variety”. The prior motto, “Industry – Intelligence – Integrity” is a little more likely to make potential business owners and investors happy; it implies that we are hard-working, smart and honest.
If I was looking for a new home I’d want the hard-working, smart and honest one. Those kinds of cities attract variety because they are great places to live and work.
In the context of the rest of the I, Ectomorph blog, it’s a mash-up of anti-immigrant rant and coat-of-arms rant. I’ll tackle the coat of arms for now.
On strictly heraldic issues, I’m in Andy’s camp.
I think that using English on a coat of arms is a “dumbing down”. Perhaps it stems from my belief that words don’t belong on flags. Anyhow, I understand that it’s a time-honoured tradition to put a motto on one’s coat of arms, but I think that in doing so, you should at least avoid using living languages.
As for “diversity”, it’s more demographic descriptor than virtue. Yeah, I think that monocultures do produce monotonous cultures, but “diversity” pales in comparison to the go-getter virtues of “industry”, “intelligence” and “integrity”. I think what we’ve got here is the cult of self-esteem rearing its ugly head.
And finally, the animals vs. people: I’ll take the people over the beaver and bear.
Geez I keep forgetting to do this on your site… that first comment from Anon was actually me.
This is an old thread, but I stumbled on it while looking for Toronto’s coat of arms. For those of us whose Toronto will never really include Scarborough, the old coat of arms is both a quaint, (if gaudy) apropos symbol.
This is an old thread, but I stumbled on it while looking for Toronto’s coat of arms. For those of us whose Toronto will never really include Scarborough, the old coat of arms is both a quaint (if gaudy) and apropos symbol.