Thinking Out Loud: Diversity and the Toronto Coat of Arms

“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!