It gives me great pleasure to be making my first official visit as Governor General to this city which I have known since 1956 and where I have lived the greater part of my adult life. Sometimes when I think about this city I think about one of the great inhabitants of this city, who was also a teacher of mine at the University of Toronto, Northrop Frye, who mused a great deal on Canadian identity. And I think about that when I think about Toronto, because Toronto in a way is an accident of geography. Muddy York or Hogtown or New York run by the Swiss. They reflect a change from a swamp, a garrison town, to a cultural and economic powerhouse.
Unpromising beginnings can lead to something much better, and that's what Toronto is.
I remember when I first came to this city, which I longed to come to because of its great university, the still great University of Toronto, and I guess the only languages you could hear were Northern Irish, Lowland Scots. Now, of course, you hear over 80 languages at any particular place. And it's also Canada's financial centre, with a terrific quality of life, with green spaces and trees, with the Leslie Street Spit which has just come into being, with its waterfront, with its art scene, with everything evolving and changing and becoming as dynamic as it is. But it's always been a struggle in this city to keep a balance between moving forward really fast, and preserving the past. Of what to keep and what can be given away or given up.