Toronto, Canada
Toronto, city, capital of the province of Ontario, southeastern Canada. It is the most populous city in Canada, a multicultural city, and the country’s financial and commercial centre. Its location on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario, which forms part of the border between Canada and the United States, and its access to Atlantic shipping via the St. Lawrence Seaway and to major U.S. industrial centers via the Great Lakes have enabled Toronto to become an important international trading center. Moreover, the city is positioned on the edge of some of the best farmland in Canada, with a climate favorable to growing a wide range of crops, thereby making Toronto a transportation, distribution, and manufacturing center. Most importantly, its central location, along with a host of political policies favoring international trade, places this city with the greatest economic ties to, and influence from, the United States. Since the second half of the 20th century the city has grown phenomenally, from a rather sedate provincial town—“Toronto the Good”—to a lively, thriving, cosmopolitan metropolitan area. Area 244 square miles (632 square km); metro. area, 2,280 square miles (5,905 square km). Pop. (2011) 2,615,060; metro. area, 5,583,064; (2016) 2,731,571; metro. area, 5,928,040.
City site
The melting of ice from the past glacial age altered the Toronto region’s landscape profoundly. Approximately 11,000 years ago a body of water much larger (about 130 feet [40 metres] higher) than the present-day Lake Ontario was in existence there—a glacial lake referred to as Lake Iroquois. With the opening up of the St. Lawrence River, the lake waters receded, dropping in excess of 300 feet (90 metres) below the present level. Over time, the water levels rose to the present condition, leaving a marshy shoreline but a fine natural harbour. The site of the city is almost uniformly flat, although 3 to 4 miles (5 to 6 km) inland there is a fairly sharp rise of some 40 feet (12 metres)—the shoreline elevation of the former glacial lake.
People
Toronto’s growth and demographic makeup were influenced by many political and economic events that affected the whole province of Ontario. After the American Revolution, Ontario was referred to as a loyalist creation because of the influx of English-speaking Protestants (and a number of First Nations) that chose to live in British North America. Immigration continued, slowly to begin with but then much more rapidly through transportation improvements that placed Toronto as a key transportation and industrial centre. Many of the immigrants were from across Europe as well as the United States. Still the population remained largely English-speaking and Protestant.
Following World War II, Toronto was a magnet for thousands of new immigrants, many coming from Europe during the 1950s and ’60s. Immigration laws had become more flexible by the 1970s, thus opening the door to a flood of new arrivals, particularly South Asians and Chinese. By the time of the 2006 census more than half of the Toronto metropolitan area was made up of “visible” minorities, making Toronto a truly cosmopolitan city.
History of Toronto
Early settlement
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, a number of First Nations peoples inhabited the site of the present city of Toronto and the surrounding regions. Their seminomadic settlement patterns included using the Toronto Passage—a portage from the mouth of the Humber River to Georgian Bay—as a trade route. Traditional conflicts had existed between some First Nations peoples, but when the first Europeans arrived, the dynamics of relationships changed, in some instances greatly. The complex relationships that developed were shaped not only by competition between the European colonizers but also by the introduction of firearms and diseases such as smallpox. The French, who initially claimed this territory and realized its potential as a fur trade empire, aligned themselves with the Huron First Nations and sided with them in their traditional conflict with the Iroquois to the south. The Iroquois, in turn, formed an alliance with the British, who wanted to take possession of the French colonies, and the fur trade, in North America. An unfortunate and devastating consequence for all First Nations was the introduction of European diseases (such as smallpox) that eliminated whole tribes of First Nations.
In 1615 Étienne Brûlé (an associate of Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec city) visited the Toronto region, which was under the control of the Huron, although it is questionable whether he actually traveled the Toronto Passage to the location of present-day Toronto itself. By the 1660s the Seneca occupied two sites—Teiaiagon, at the mouth of the Humber River, and Ganatsekwyagon, located near the mouth of the Rouge River. However, these sites were abandoned by the Seneca, and the Mississauga (Ojibwa) occupied the area by the end of that century.
By the early 1700s the fur trade had migrated west and north of the Great Lakes, and the competition between the French and British only intensified. A small French fur trading post was erected at the mouth of the Humber in 1720, but it was too small to compete with the British Fort Oswego, located on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario. Another small post was in place by 1750, but it too was abandoned in favour of a larger fort 3 miles (5 km) to the east, Fort Rouillé. The British-French conflict escalated with the capture of a number of French forts by 1759, and Fort Rouillé was burned to the ground. In 1763 (under the Treaty of Paris) French territories in North America were surrendered to the British. The Toronto region remained in British North America after the founding of the United States during the American Revolution, after which several thousand United Empire Loyalists resettled in southern Ontario.
In 1787 Sir Guy Carleton (later 1st Baron Dorchester), governor of Quebec, opened negotiations with three Mississauga chiefs for the purchase of a site for the future capital of Ontario. About 250,000 acres (100,000 hectares) fronting the lake were acquired in exchange for £1,700, bales of cloth, axes, and other trading goods.
Ontario’s first parliament met in 1792 at Niagara, but in 1793 Col. John Graves Simcoe, lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, selected the present site of Toronto for his capital because of its fine harbour, its strategic location for defense and trade, and the rich potential of its wilderness hinterland. He changed its name from Toronto to York; two years later (1795) Ontario’s capital consisted of only 12 cottages and a small military establishment on the edge of the wilderness.
While the British were engaged with France in Europe, the United States declared war on Britain. At the beginning of the War of 1812, York, with a population of 700, was practically defenseless. It was taken in April 1813 and was pillaged and occupied by U.S. forces for 11 days before being retaken by the British. The speaker’s mace was carried off but was returned in 1934; the royal standard is still in the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland.
Economic depression in Great Britain following the Napoleonic Wars drove many overseas, and York’s population increased from 720 in 1816 to more than 9,000 in 1834, when the city was incorporated, and the former name of Toronto restored. Transportation improvements by water and land, increased immigration to the fertile agricultural lands of southern Ontario, and a mix of political policies (mostly external) advanced Toronto’s economic position as part of British North America.
The Erie Canal (completed in 1825), along with its extension to Oswego (1828), connected southern Ontario to New York City, transforming Toronto into the main center for the import-export and local distribution of goods, thus bypassing Montreal and the St. Lawrence. Improvements also occurred to the canals along the St. Lawrence in the 1840s, giving Toronto better access to Montreal and the Atlantic trade routes. Moreover, construction of the Welland Canal (to get around Niagara Falls) by 1848 reinforced trade to New York. A telegraph connection (first used in 1847) between Toronto and New York improved communications and the transfer of goods, especially all the inputs required (from seeds to processing equipment) for the rapidly expanding agricultural frontier of southern Ontario.
Politically, the dropping of tariff and trade restrictions by both the United States and Britain under the Canadian American Reciprocity Treaty (1854) facilitated even greater international trade, and the promotion of agricultural land grants increased immigration. There were only about 77,000 people in southern Ontario (then known as Upper Canada) in 1811, according to the assessment rolls provided to the provincial legislature, and 40 years later the population was nearly one million.
Rapid development followed with the construction of the Northern, Grand Trunk, and Great Western railways in the 1850s, connecting Toronto to the rich farmland of southern Ontario and timber resources to the north. These rail lines also facilitated the transportation of goods and people between Toronto and Montreal, thus improving the St. Lawrence and transatlantic trade. In addition, the Grand Trunk and Great Western lines provided Toronto greater access to New York, Detroit, and Chicago.
The steam engine increased efficiencies in transportation and also for factories that favoured larger centres such as Toronto where labour was at hand; Toronto’s waterfront became a major industrial location. The key energy source for this region—coal—came from Pennsylvania, again linking Toronto to the U.S. A treaty with the United States (1854) that gave certain products of Canada free entry to markets south of the border only enhanced the prosperity Toronto experienced during the 1850s and ’60s.
Prosperity and security were reflected in civic improvement, great building activity, and cultural progress. Unfortunately, in 1849 there was a disastrous fire that destroyed some 15 acres (6 hectares) of the downtown area, including St. James Cathedral, St. Lawrence Market, and many offices, stores, and warehouses, but the city soon recovered. Between the city’s incorporation (1834) and Canada’s national confederation under the British North America Act of 1867, many of Toronto’s buildings of historical and architectural importance were constructed, including the new St. James Cathedral, St. Lawrence Hall, and University College (now part of the University of Toronto), all of which are still extant. The Grand Opera House (since demolished) was opened in 1874, a stolid successor to the numerous small theatres of mid-century that were mostly converted barns. King’s College, the forerunner of the University of Toronto, was chartered in 1827, though classes did not begin until 1843. It was constructed on the site of the present Ontario parliament building (1886).
By Confederation (1867), Montreal was the largest metropolitan centre of Canada, with twice the population of Toronto. The Toronto economy was allied with Montreal and the transatlantic trade via the St. Lawrence, but it was not solely dependent on this economic sphere. Toronto had its own local and rapidly growing hinterland and strong economic bonds to the U.S.
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