23-07-2025
Marching backward? Why a recent event in Toronto leads in the wrong direction
Toronto has many nicknames, some more well known than others. There's Toronto the Good, reflecting Toronto's long history of temperance and intrusive moral policing. There's Hogtown, evoking visions of vast abattoirs along the lower Don River and the Eastern Lakeshore. There's T-Dot, The 6ix, The Big Smoke and The Queen City. Also, and much, much more puzzling for today's average Torontonian, there's The Belfast of Canada.
This nickname comes from Toronto's long association — as noted in the Star this month — with the Grand Orange Lodge, more commonly known as the Orange Order. Based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, it's a fraternal organization for Protestant men of British origin. The Orange Order has existed in Canada since its earliest days as a British colony and by 1920, at its peak, counted about 100,000 members in 2,000 lodges nationwide. This is even more impressive considering the Canadian population was around 8.5 million at the time, and that Order membership was limited to Protestant men, largely of British descent.
