The United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates that, as of the end of August, 2007, 4.2 million Iraqis had been driven from their homes by the war. Just under half of those are “internally displaced,” having moved within the country, while the rest have fled Iraq completely.
Four point two million is a large number of people; it is difficult to truly comprehend what this many people being forced to leave their homes means. To help, keep in mind that this number is only slightly larger than the number of people who live in Toronto. What, I wonder, would life be like if everybody in TO fled the city?
Well, yes, everybody in the rest of the country would smile gleefully and say that Torontonians had finally gotten what they deserved. At least, they would until they realized that all those Torontonians would have to go somewhere…
Getting a table at any restaurant in the city, no matter how posh or exclusive, would be easy. Of course, there wouldn’t be anybody to take your order, but that wouldn’t be much of a problem because there wouldn’t be anybody in the kitchen to prepare your food anyway.
You could try to break a land speed record driving down Yonge Street. Just be careful around Steeles, where normal traffic would resume.
You could go to the library and read all the books you want. Except, of course, that your glasses would break, and your eyesight is so bad that you would not be able to make out the print on anything but large type versions of the minutes of Audubon Society meetings. No, wait – that’s been done.
Remember Mary, that inflatable sex doll you’ve had your eye on for some time? Go get her, tiger – nobody will stop you!
You can conduct an experiment: set the bottom of the Science Center on fire and see how long it takes for the fire to spread all the way to the top. The best part? It’s scientific!
Speaking of which, you can go to the top of the CN Tower and replicate Galileo’s experiment with the feather and the bowling ball, secure in the knowledge that there is no danger of beaning somebody with the nine pound weight. Or, I suppose, tickling somebody with the feather, either.
After, you can go bowling (with a different ball, of course). You never have to wait for a lane – how can you lose?
American film companies won’t have to get permits to shoot on the city’s streets. Not only won’t they have to clean up after themselves, but, if enough take advantage of the situation, the streets will eventually look American without too much addition set dressing. On the other hand, good luck trying to collect tax breaks from the municipal government.
You can walk right into Council chambers at City Hall and demand they declare your birthday a civic holiday. In fact, you can vote it into law yourself! Congratulations. Or, if your politics tends more towards anti-establishmentarianism, you could blow up City Hall. No, wait – that’s been done, too, and probably much more impressively than you could manage to accomplish on your own. Unless you go back to the library and look up explosives on the Internet…
You can berate tourists for coming to Toronto even though we’re in the middle of a thought experiment in which the city has been depopulated and there is, therefore, no colourful culture for them to see, safe in the knowledge that there are no business owners or their municipal political lackeys to stop you.
I bet Bay Street will have a mean echo.
Let’s be honest: at your age and in your condition, this is the only way you’re going to be skating at centre ice at the Air Canada Centre.
Go to the CBC building and pretend you’re Peter Mansbridge as you read the news. Come on. You know you’ve always wanted to!
You can win any argument on the alt.Toronto.bestneighbourhoods discussion list by pointing out that you’re the only person left actually living in a Toronto neighbourhood. If you’re feeling frisky, taunt them with the argument that Jane and Finch is actually the best place in the city to live. When, despite the fact that they don’t live there, people flame you for your opinion, give up.