Toronto Off The C-List

The Centre of the Universe's newspaper of record is distraught and dismayed that the exemplar of multicultural tolerance and diversity (or is that tolerant diverse multiculturalism? diverse multicultural tolerance?) has been left off somebody or other's list of world class cities:

Vancouver and Victoria have the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains.

Quebec City and Montreal have history and culture.

But what does Toronto have to entice tourists from around the world? Not much, according to the readers of Travel + Leisure magazine.

Four Canadian cities ranked in the top 10 U.S. and Canadian destinations in the popular travel publication's annual World's Best awards.

Vancouver ranks the highest at Number 6, followed by Quebec City, Victoria and Montreal.

But noticeably absent is Canada's biggest city.

You mean that the world's largest collective sense of smugness isn't a sufficient tourist attraction? Or the greatest and most aggressive army of panhandlers? Not even the hottest cauldron of silently seething ethnic tensions? I'm all verklempt.

Yet another pretension to world-class status exposed along with Toronto's insecurity about same. If New York had been left off the list, would the Times have even noticed?

Source: Toronto Star