What Do You Call Them in Your Part of the Country?

You know the type: fresh off the flight from Pearson, come to live for a while in the colonies. They walk around like plantation owners, checking up on their inferiors in the fields – and they don’t like what they see. They can’t wait to move back home after they’ve made a bit of money – away from the colonial rubes “out here,” as they call it, back home to the real Canada.

Here in BC, some people call them Ontariholes – but that’s unfair because it’s just too broad. So most of us just call them Torontholes.

A Toronthole is an a-hole from Toronto (sorry if that sounds redundant) who’s recently migrated to another region but already knows all its deficiencies – and can’t wait to tell you about them. When you meet a T-hole at a party or in the workplace, it’s never more than a few minutes before he or she starts telling you all the things wrong with your part of the country. Anyone who isn’t a T-hole has heard it a million times.

They’re superior because they know in their bones that they alone are the real Canadians – the true, original Canadians. They are, and you aren’t. Only Ontario – especially southern Ontario, especially especially Toronto – is the real Canada. Everywhere else is inferior – and the further it is from Toronto, the more inferior it is.

So when they happen to find themselves living out in the colonies, they know in their bones that they’re living among their inferiors. You can spot their attitude of cultural superiority right away because you’ve seen it so many times. And you can’t wait until they go back home.

Let’s have a show of hands: How many of you have ever said you’d be happy to pay someone’s ticket back to Ontario? Ever said you’ll drive them to the airport right now? We’ve all thought about it and many of us have said it to them. It’s become a Canadian social cliché.

The fact that we all recognize this scenario — the fact that we’ve all met at least one T-hole — tells you something important about the country. You know, because you’ve met them, about the disrespect that the overstuffed center has for the rest of us. And that tells you a lot about the politics of Canada.

We’re ruled by a creepy subculture of centralists who see themselves as colonial masters. The old nineteenth-century colonialist mindset is alive and remains strong in the cultural self-understanding of Ontario. That’s why – without knowing anything about you or your part of the country – they automatically see you as an inferior.

So it’s not just Toronto, though it’s strongest there. The creepy smugness, the colonialist mindset, belongs to the (w)hole of Ontario.

But of course, it’s a big country with diverse regions, so there’s probably a range of local terms to describe these smug centralists. In Alberta alone there’s a diversity of opinions. Some Albertans still call them “eastern bums and creeps.” But others disagree strongly, insisting that the correct term is “eastern creeps and bums.” Arguments rage over dinner tables. Much familial strife could be avoided if Albertans would follow BC. Just call them T-holes, like we do.

Again, it’s a big country. But wherever you live, you know the type. So what does that tell you about the political character of the country? What does it tell you about the culture of the single region that has the power to elect every government by itself?

You know the Toronthole mindset, because you’re governed by it.