X Marks the Spot

PHOTO: Justin Trudeau in Mississauga!

Justin Trudeau was here!

Women swooned, or nodded off, and handsome Hammerson Hall, which seats about 1,300 people, was nearly full. It was so close. There must have been roughly 1,000 people there. So close. If Justin Trudeau, the second coming of grace and attitude to Canadian politics, can't fill that place, who can? I am now convinced it would take a public hanging or a visit from God himself to get those last-row seats on the third level properly christened by Mississauga backsides.

Trudeau was joined by Larry Beasley, former Director of Planning for Vancouver and a professor of planning at the University of British Columbia.

Beasley, it turned out, was the interesting one.

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As former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray said while he was on the stage a few weeks ago, "Beauty pays," so we'll start our coverage with Trudeau.

So, he got up on the stage, looking clean and glamourous in a perfectly-tailored grey suit, and he told a story that immediately endeared him to the crowd.

Trudeau's first impression of the city was formed when he was a 13-year-old son of the prime minister. He was living in Ottawa, and his father decided young Justin should go to camp in Algonquin Park. Justin went to camp. He met other boys and girls from Toronto and Montreal, and he met a girl named Natalie and he kissed her with his first kiss. "She was from the exotic sounding place of Mississauga." That was his first impression. The kiss, I assume, was better than the city is. It's hard to imagine a kiss being worse than Mississauga.

Trudeau's second impression was when a friend from Toronto took him paddling down the Credit River. Trudeau had nothing but good to say about the experience. Then he asked the 1,000-odd people how many of them had taken advantage of this natural wonder in our midst. About 10 people raised their hands.

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"There's a little bit of defensiveness to Mississauga," Trudeau said. "It's as if (you think) everyone automatically has a negative impression of Mississauga. That's not entirely true."

For the rest of the night, Trudeau's local content was lacking. Throwing in something about Mississauga in his talk appeared to be an afterthought, a line tacked on to a well-practised monologue.

Points raised by J.T.:

Riding one's bike is both good for the environment and good for one's body.

Climate change is coming, and we shouldn't wait to fight it: "In this closed system, every action has consequences, everything we take from the ground, everything we discard, comes back to us.... If every action counts, every good action counts, too. We can make a difference in the world."

Young people are good. We should all quit undervaluing them: If they're apathetic, "It's because they care so much they're deeply frustrated.... There's a future that's wide open that they don't feel locked into."

I agree, young people do care, but I don't think they disconnect because they're frustrated. I'm pretty sure they disconnect because they're lazy, don't know what they're talking about, and are entirely self-absorbed. I know; I was there less than a decade ago.

In the end, J.T. did say something interesting, not new, but something we often forget: "The Canadian identity is built into the fabric of our land...two irreconcilable identities - English and French... - which require the first Canadians to accept that though they were Canadian, another person with a different religion, background, language, was also a Canadian."

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Now, Larry Beasley.

He spoke quickly, and had a lot of interesting things about city building to say, nothing as interesting as this: "None of this will happen by accident."

He also said this: "You don't want to continue as you have in the past, and you probably can't afford to continue on as you have in the past."

He was saying what everyone has said on that stage, all in different and vague ways. He was saying what everyone knows, that Mississauga was built poorly. It's ugly, it's stupid, and we're going to have to pretty much start from scratch if we want to make it a real liveable city with an identity.

The inspiring part came next, as he showed a visual that illustrated how the Vancouver skyline changed between 1983 and 2003. In 20 years, it became a completely different city. That could happen to Mississauga.

Beasley then went into a list of friends of the city. I led with this in my story in today's paper because it was the most provocative thing said last night.

"Congestion is our friend," Beasley said, echoing Glen Murray, who said the same thing when he was speaking a few weeks ago.

This was Murray: "I think congestion is a great thing in a downtown.... All great cities have terrible transportation systems in their cores."

It makes people walk, and ride bikes, and it adds excitement to the street.

"Density is our friend," Beasley said, though Mayor Hazel McCallion pointed out, as she took the stage to say her thank-yous, that Port Credit was rebuilt and beautified without the use of high-rises. So, if Hazel has her way, there will be no high-rises on the water. That will make a lot of people happy, though I've never really understood the objection to high rises on the lake.

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"Put parking, as much as you possibly can, underground, except for short-term parking so people can get in and out."

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"I hope you see your city can be a work of art."

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Hazel ended the evening by telling J.T. that his father, PET, was at one of Streetsville's first Bread and Honey festivals. "Boy, was he popular, just as popular as you might be one day."

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Other observations:

No cell phones went off this time. Amazing.

Crowd questions were better than usual last night, though still entirely unnecessary.

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In other news, the audience was told last night that the "Visioning Symposium" to be held Feb. 1-3 requires registration.

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any way to register. There's no link on the website, and the people answering phones at the number provided don't know anything about the Visioning Symposium.

It is three months away, so you'll just have to remember to check back to get the 411, when it's eventually posted.