Here's the deal: For Canada Day round up a group of writers and have them say what part of the country appeals to them most. So far, so utterly predictable. The Sunday Star found what it called "11 of Canada's top fiction writers" to answer that question. The Globe and Mail, in the weekend Travel section, no less, asked four writers, all born abroad, "which corner of the country speaks loudest to their hearts."
I'm sure all 15 writers were sincere, but what confounds me was that only three of the places they chose were urban. Writing in the Star, Heather O'Neil said St.Louis Square in Montreal was her favourite place, and Vincent Lam, in the same paper, said his favourite spot was Withrow Park in Hogtown's Riverdale district. In the Globe, Rabindranath Maharaj chose Toronto's Union Station.
I know mountains and lakes and the wide open prairie (cue the violins) can be seductive - Ontario's Victoria County and the Margaree Valley in Nova Scotia are two of my favourite places on the planet - but Canadians are urban folk and I'd have thought editors at both papers would have considered this rather obvious fact before they went to print. So next time let's give writers who have favoured places in our cities at least half the ink.
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