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Twenty years of laughing at Toronto

January 15, 2019
|
thebigstory

This week marks the 20th anniversary of an iconic Canadian moment—that time when the mayor of Toronto called on the army to come help dig the city out of a snowstorm. If the laughter hasn’t stopped for two decades, it’s unlikely to ever go away. Today it looks like a decision made simply to confirm what the rest of the country believed about Canada’s largest city. At the time, though, it was a bad situation that might have gotten much, much worse. No, really.

So, what actually happened 20 years ago? Why did the mayor think the army was necessary to shovel snow off sidewalks? Did you know the army had to max out a credit card buying shovels at Canadian Tire? What did Torontonians think of the decision that destined them for punchlines? Will the laughter of the rest of the country ever die down? And would Mel Lastman make the same call two decades later? 

GUEST: Nick Faris, National Post

 

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