A new survey indicates that Calgarians love their city, their municipal government and ..heck they're happy as ducklings. Meanwhile, sadly, we have a typically-negative Montreal take on stuff. The survey interviewed 400 people in Canada's four big cities, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary and what struck me most was that only 57 percent of Montrealers choose to identify as Montrealers, compared to 87 percent of Torontonians who call themselves what they are.
Montrealers possibly want to call themselves, I don't know, Quebecois or Canadian or something else. I guess calling yourself an Ontarian isn't a very sexy alternative. But heck guys, start calling yourselves Montrealers. Seriously. With pride.
Other stuff showed that we appreciate our city's attempts to stay on top of public transit and arts and cultural stuff but we despise our performance in health care and government transparency.
So why do we stay here if it's so less-good here? Because we believe that we would not be happy in other places.
Academic Daniel Gilbert, considered one of the world's experts on happiness, has argued that people find happiness even in situations which they had envisaged would be hellish, therefore people in prison report to being happy, as does that drummer fired by the Beatles before they got famous and those who say "I would hate moving to Toronto because I'd be miserable in Toronto" turn out perfectly happy to be in Toronto after they've moved there.
That being said... Calgary... um..no thanks.
the problem with surveys is if you don't interview the right people you get weird results. Who knows what they considered as "Montreal" might have been the West Island or south shore or Laval. Certainly feel like everyone I know on this island considers themselves a Montrealer first and foremost. I mean, what other city in this country has an active independence movement pushing for independence both from province and country.
ReplyDeleteI spent thirty years in Montreal, three years in Calgary and now twenty years in Toronto. They have a lot more in common with each other than I'd like to admit, to be honest...
ReplyDeleteUsually, the more you love something,someone, the more you will be critical about it because you are so passionate. That's how I see the survey results. Add to that the poor Tremblay reign as mayor and the fact that there is a very strong Quebecois pride, comparing Toronto and Calgary is like apple and orange.
ReplyDeleteMontrealer in all but passport, driver's license and other gov I.D. Always have been, always will be.
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