What happened?..

I blame what might be called "kindliness."

I think, sometime after the Second World War, Canada became too kindly. And since Toronto is our biggest city, it became, in a sense, the kindliest of all.

We were told all the problems of the world could be solved by kindliness. Just be nice to people, and everything will be fine.

Make love, not war.

Now we knew old Toronto the Good was not always kindly. Canada of that day had massive numbers of immigrants, too. Hundreds of thousands arrived just before the First World War, most from cultures very "foreign" to the English, Scots and Irish who populated Toronto.

But, truth to tell, they were never really accepted when they arrived.

They were not told they were doing us a favour by coming here.

They were not offered instant welfare.

Most were given farmlands cheap, and told to make a living from them.

In other words, to be really accepted, they were expected "to prove themselves."

And it's a matter of record they certainly did, and in the course of doing so, they made the Canada we know -- or used to know.

But then the kindliness set in.

How harsh and condescending it was, we were told, to treat these poor incoming people with brutal demands that they earn a living.

We must help and assist them, make them feel at home, make them feel wanted.

We were kindly in other ways. We were much kindlier to school children, for instance.

In the bad old days, we actually strapped kids if they misbehaved.

We made them write really crucial exams; and we actually made them repeat the year if they failed them.

We were particularly unkind to convicted criminals. Prisons were unpleasant places.

Sensible people were somewhat frightened by the police. To most children, the huge constable, with his ramrod back, riding his bicycle and looking coldly on everything around him, was an object for terror...

In sum, we had a pessimistic view of human nature, based upon our inborn prejudice that's the way the world is.

"Exactly," said the reformers. "And the only way to change the world is to change the way we treat people. If you're nice to people, then people will be nice to you."

Well, we knew this was often true. But it was also often untrue, and we also knew that, to depend on an unfailing reciprocal "niceness" was dangerous, because those who are prepared to exploit our "kindliness" could very soon render the whole community uninhabitable.

Anyway, the reformers prevailed, and that explains what's going on in Toronto.