It's exhausting, we know, fighting against all these cuts. All the petitions to sign and emails to send. And with the Fords suggesting so many outrageous and offensive things, it's hard to pick which causes to champion. But we'd to like drawn your attention to a vote that's taking place on Monday. It's especially close to our little red hearts: the vote to close some of Toronto's historic sites and museums.
We have been paving over our city's history for a long, long time in Toronto. We've leveled most of our most beautiful buildings, destroyed entire blocks of the old city downtown, poured concrete over the 10,000 year-old prehistoric footprints we found on the bottom of the lake. We have very little physical history left. And the Fords are threatening much of the rest.
The city only owns ten historic sites. These are places like Fort York, where we fought one of the most important battles in Canadian history. Like Mackenzie House, where our first mayor, leader of the failed Canadian Revolution and the grandfather of Canadian democracy — William Lyon Mackenzie — use to live. And like Spadina House, built on the estate once owned by Robert Baldwin, the guy who did more than just about anyone else to win democracy for our country and freedom from British rule. These aren't just the most important historical sites in Toronto, they are among the most important historical sites in the entire freaking country.
The Fords are talking about closing three of them, but they won't tell us which ones. Some of the smaller sites are ones you may not have heard of before. But they are all among the very few places in Toronto where you can still experience our shared history in person. These are the places where school kids can see the last two hundred years come alive. And there they learn that Canadian history is more than just dull textbooks filled with canoes and snow.
If we close these places, they are gone forever. We will never be able to undo that damage.
The vote is on Monday, so there's not much time. The Fords are moving quickly to get the vote passed before there's time for opposition to build. And they're doing it all recklessly, without a plan, even though closing these sites would be an incredibly expensive and complicated process.
So! Here's the part where you leap into action and save the day. First, you can sign this petition. Then, you can "like" this page on Facebook. You can share those links on Facebook. Tweet them. And then, finally, you can email or telephone your own city councillor. Or better yet, all of them — especially the ones on Ford's Executive Committee. If you need their contact information, you can find it all right here. (And if you copy the City Clerk —clerk [at] toronto [dot] ca — your message should be sent to all the councillors automatically.)
There will also be a rally against all the cuts outside City Hall on Monday at 5:30. The Facebook page for that is here.
The city only owns ten historic sites. These are places like Fort York, where we fought one of the most important battles in Canadian history. Like Mackenzie House, where our first mayor, leader of the failed Canadian Revolution and the grandfather of Canadian democracy — William Lyon Mackenzie — use to live. And like Spadina House, built on the estate once owned by Robert Baldwin, the guy who did more than just about anyone else to win democracy for our country and freedom from British rule. These aren't just the most important historical sites in Toronto, they are among the most important historical sites in the entire freaking country.
The Fords are talking about closing three of them, but they won't tell us which ones. Some of the smaller sites are ones you may not have heard of before. But they are all among the very few places in Toronto where you can still experience our shared history in person. These are the places where school kids can see the last two hundred years come alive. And there they learn that Canadian history is more than just dull textbooks filled with canoes and snow.
If we close these places, they are gone forever. We will never be able to undo that damage.
The vote is on Monday, so there's not much time. The Fords are moving quickly to get the vote passed before there's time for opposition to build. And they're doing it all recklessly, without a plan, even though closing these sites would be an incredibly expensive and complicated process.
So! Here's the part where you leap into action and save the day. First, you can sign this petition. Then, you can "like" this page on Facebook. You can share those links on Facebook. Tweet them. And then, finally, you can email or telephone your own city councillor. Or better yet, all of them — especially the ones on Ford's Executive Committee. If you need their contact information, you can find it all right here. (And if you copy the City Clerk —clerk [at] toronto [dot] ca — your message should be sent to all the councillors automatically.)
There will also be a rally against all the cuts outside City Hall on Monday at 5:30. The Facebook page for that is here.
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