Sketch and the City

Complain all you like about the state of Canadian media, but the brilliance of its political cartoonists is beyond dispute. In addition to the likes of Aislin, Michael de Adder, Patrick Corrigan, David Parkins, and Ed Franklin, there was the late, great Duncan Macpherson, whose extraordinary draftsmanship bordered on genius. Now the former Globe and Mail editorial jester Brian Gable, who left the paper in 2023 after more than three decades toiling at the inkwell, has taken his considerable talents and moved on to more literary pursuits. In Toronto: A Sketchy History, the award-winning illustrator pokes good-natured fun at the city most Canadians — and many Torontonians — love to hate.

To be honest, Gable’s barbs could have been a little more pointed. We Torontonians have seen and heard it all before. We can handle the criticism. Actually, we revel in it. We know how hopelessly self-absorbed we are and how we carry on about life at the centre of the universe. But don’t forget: the one thing we can’t be accused of is sensitivity. Living in Toronto requires not just a thick skin but also the ability to laugh in the face of a nation’s scorn.

It’s not that we don’t care what others think; it’s just that we know better. Say what you will about Hogtown, we really are the biggest, the best, the richest, the most exciting. . . . Or so we believe. And let’s not forget what Glen Murray, the former mayor of Winnipeg, used to say: if it weren’t for Toronto, he would argue whenever he got the chance, Manitobans would have a much tougher time paying to keep their roads clear of snow. Alas, being the country’s single most significant cultural player and fiscal engine — the only Canadian economies bigger than Toronto’s are those of the federal government, Ontario, and Quebec — doesn’t win a city any thanks.

But enough with the boasting. As Gable makes clear, through his plain, simple, and unadorned tour guide with sensible shoes, life in Toronto has its ups and downs, its drawbacks and its rewards. The highlights of its history, according to the author, range from the Toronto Purchase of the 1780s and the destruction of Fort York in 1813 (partly at the hands of its defenders) to the completion of the CN Tower in 1976, of the SkyDome in 1989, and, several years later, of Santiago Calatrava’s Allen Lambert Galleria, which connects Yonge and Bay Streets. Gable laments the rise and fall of Yorkville, a once vibrant Victorian neighbourhood that went from happy hippie haven to a vulgar upscale shopping district so quickly that heads are still spinning. “There’s a danger that Toronto risks losing the neighbourly ambience of its streetscapes,” he writes. Looking back, Yorkville’s fate was an early warning about Toronto’s willingness to disfigure its best features. Nevertheless, it’s good to know there’s a place for those desperately seeking a $10,000 bomber jacket.

Originally from Saskatoon, Gable is effective when it comes to illustrating his adopted town’s kneejerk outrage at anything recent and vaguely threatening. The shock of the new reverberates in the city. Or at least it used to. A terrific example is the cartoon that accompanies his entry for 1964, the year Henry Moore’s (now beloved) sculpture The Archer was selected to adorn the then just opened Nathan Phillips Square in front of City Hall. In Gable’s drawing, a group of bug‑eyed citizens clutch babies to their breasts and carry away those overcome by the sheer horror of the event. The scene is ridiculous, of course, yet the citizenry really was shocked and appalled. The mayor at the time, the progressive Philip Givens, lost the civic election in 1966 largely because of his support for The Archer. The idea that the city would spend public funds on an artwork — a radically abstract sculpture, at that — was too much for the good citizens of Toronto (Still) the Good. Although Givens eventually raised the money for the Moore through private subscription, the Big Smoke had a long way left to go before it became anything remotely resembling the city we know today.

Gable rightly transforms that episode into an occasion for laughter, but it marked a largely forgotten turning point in the evolution of a place that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern age. Interestingly, the Archer dust‑up also inspired a memorable cartoon from Duncan Macpherson; his response was a caricature of Givens’s dour socialist successor, William Dennison, gazing wistfully at the sculpture outside his office window while imagining a statue of Queen Victoria in its place. In case you are wondering, Her Majesty can still be found — appropriately ensconced on the grounds of our resolutely provincial legislature at Queen’s Park.

Many locals would agree with Gable that Toronto has not always done well at withstanding the pressures of success. One page, showing the kind of fruit market that used to dot Kensington Market and Koreatown, has a caption that reads, “Here today . . . condo tomorrow.” There’s another titled “Sunset over Lake Ontario.” A jumble of construction cranes and identical glass towers make it all but impossible to see the sun sinking over the waters of Toronto Harbour. Amid the carefully calculated sketchiness, this unexpectedly poignant image brings us back to reality with a familiar thud. It is a reminder not just of how much has been gained in Toronto’s struggle to achieve its own sense of urbanity but also of how much has been lost.