CALGARY JOINS CANADIANS’ “CITIES WE LOVE TO HATE” CLUB. IT MUST BE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT.

CALGARY1TORONTO’s been carrying the load for decades, but we’re no longer alone. In a national survey TORONTO has a new partner in the “most resented” sweepstakes. Welcome to the club, CALGARY! Gilliam Steward (former CEO of the Calgary Herald), in a Toronto Star opinion piece, writes “Is Calgary the new TORONTO? A city that Canadians love to hate because it’s so powerful? According to a recent poll that could be so.”  The Leger/Calgary Herald poll, conducted online across Canada, with a representative sample of 1,525 Canadians, was weighted by age, gender, region, children in the household and education.  VANCOUVER and OTTAWA topped the ranking; MONTREAL, HALIFAX and CALGARY were in the middle. But when Albertans were taken out of the equation, CALGARY sank to the same spot as TORONTO, in lower sixth place. OMG already!  GILLIAN STEWARD: “TORONTO once had that sort of reputation . . . a serious, hard working city that was the place to be if you wanted to hit the heights of your chosen career. But TORONTO’s power also rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, especially westerners who felt colonized by TORONTO’s decision makers.  “But the tables have turned and now it’s the ‘rich oilmen’ in CALGARY who are making important decisions and ruffling feathers across the country.”<ABOVE – Calgary from the International Space Station, with snow on the ground.>