Did You Know???
That Etobicoke Was Once Its Own City
Before the City Of Toronto was amalgamated in 1998 (a provincial decision and most definitely not something many communities wanted to see happen at the time) Etobicoke was a city of its own. The City of Etobicoke was established in 1983 from what had been the Borough of Etobicoke since the late 60’s.
The change happened my last year of High School, I was in OAC (yes I am dating myself here a bit) and all of a sudden I went from a school being a part of the Etobicoke Board of Education to the Toronto District and slowly things began to change. Maybe at first it was just behind the scenes and new school books had new stamps showing that they belonged to the Toronto Board and not Etobicoke; but it kinda felt different and no one knew for sure why!
That year there was no more Acorns, a writing contest which I looked forward to every year. This was a publication of student writing from across Etobicoke that was produced each year. It was a very special moment for young writers who had work chosen to be part of that wonderful book. The biggest moment was when you were given your copy of the book and you could find your own words in an actual book! I was beyond thrilled the year before when FINALLY after many, many, years, I had a poem picked to be included. That was even more amazing to 17 year old me because that edition was the last year of Acorns and everyone knew it too.
Once I graduated I didn’t think much more about the education system in this city or province for more than a decade. But one day as a young parent many years later that all changed.
I now was a mom who was trying to navigate the local school system in regards to learning issues and I felt lost, stuck in a red-tape nightmare. I had a 3rd grade child who could speak to adults intelligently about all sorts of matters from pop culture to current events but could not write a sentence on paper in a straight line or pass a spelling test if her life depended on it. The TDSB is huge and is the largest school board in Canada. The roughly 200K students it serves each day is the size of a small Canadian city (one where that number would be ALL residents). We all know under funding is a major contributor to this and that is a discussion for another day; one I will save for another day. That said, this issue took our family 3 years to work through because of admin issues and wait times and in the end caused a lot of unneeded stress and anxiety on all of us, especially my little one who for a while lost her love of learning.
What does this have to do with the fact that Etobicoke was once upon a time its own City, looking back I can see that the resources were in place in the schools and that local governance was so beneficial to the needs of parents. Parents had multiple people to turn to and at the time we had only one who really couldn’t care less what we were dealing with and in their eyes our little girl was not a priority. Once upon a time there was a united voice with all our Trustees as they were one group representing all of Etobicoke from the north down south to the lake. Schools were connected and if something was going on around the Lakeshore, families living in Rexdale would hear about it. The lack of connection is no one single person's fault and I am not saying that this connection was fully lost because of amalgamation but what I am saying is that as a city we were connected. We had parades, carnivals, and other fun events that are now planned out at City Hall and not the Civic Centre. Many who work in the departments downtown are overburdened with red tape and just want to get events in place and many times they don’t even know enough about the outer suburbs to try and move things west to Etobicoke or east to Scarborough.
As a community we could bring back the pride of what was the City of Etobicoke by getting out and talking to neighbours, sending ideas on community events to our Councillor’s offices, connecting with our local Trustees and attending the info nights for your ward to keep up to date. We can reach out and look to volunteer with community organizations that share our interests or start local meetup groups in our area to make new friends with similar interests. If you have kids in school take part in school councils (once upon a time known as the PTA) as a way to meet others in the area who may not live right in your neighbourhood. This is especially great if your kids are in middle school or high school since the community becomes much larger but as a parent you are almost never present at pick up and drop off like you once were in the elementary days.
What I am in fact saying is that building a closer-knit community in Etobicoke is NOT impossible. We are big both population wise and geographically, we are diverse and speak many different languages, the cultures and backgrounds represented here are too numerous for me to guess as there are so actual stats are required; but WE ARE ALL ETOBICOKE. We all count this west-end section of the City of Toronto our home and a home we should all be proud of, one where we can show the rest of the city the best we have to offer.
I just want to thank all of those who have already subscribed as this is a newsletter that has been hanging out in my brain for a long time but just needed a bit of a push to get it to your computer screen! I hope you know how excited I am to have you along for the ride and while the articles might be a bit all over the place for the first little while, I will get the hang of a proper schedule and content plan soon. I have big things coming for this community starting off later this month with case studies on the 2022 local and provincial elections (what actually went down and what does this mean for the next 4 years in Etobicoke).
I am always happy to chat and know what is on your mind so please feel free to leave comments and connect!
If you want me to include stories about a local organization, event, or issue, you can reach out to me as I am always looking to learn more about the community and share it!
Have a wonderful day!
Until next time,
Jen