Times must be flush at the Toronto Star. They sent a reporter and a photog across the country to ask people what they thought of T.O. They found people don't like Toronto -- a shocker, if you ask me! :)

First, a quick anecdote.

When I was moving here in the summer of 2000, I stopped in Thunder Bay to get my tires rotated (it was the eastern-most outpost of Cal Tire, and therefore the last place I could get it done for free).

In making small talk with the mechanic, it came out that I was moving to Toronto. "Ecchh," he said, scrunching his face up. "Do you have to?"

Now, some excerpts:

Toronto is, to offer a taste of our 3,500-kilometre odyssey, (with enough contradictions to make anyone crazy) rude, snobbish, smug, boastful, pretentious, obnoxious, arrogant, hoity-toity, brash, crass, uptight, workaholic, lazy, self-absorbed, self-centred, self-obsessed, self-satisfied, spiritless, cold, out-of-shape, unfeeling, unsmiling and unfriendly.

Frankly, there's evidence to support all those characterizations.

It would be wrong to suggest everybody hates Toronto. Karen Rumstead, a product manager I met in a skywalk over a frigid Winnipeg street, loves our city. She came on business last spring and has returned four times. "Toronto is alive — really alive!" she says. Al Kucherhan, a snow-plow driver on a break in Saskatoon, cradles his coffee and grows wistful. "I got as far as Winnipeg when I was young," he says. "Maybe I didn't have the balls to go all the way to Toronto. I'm just a Saskatchewan farm boy."

Ms. Rumstead is right too. There's a lot to do here.

Mr. Kucherhan speaks for more Westerners than he knows. Many of them are intimidated by Toronto.

But frankly, the last time I went to Regina -- November 2003, a city where I'd lived for eight years -- as soon as I stepped off the plane, I felt like I was wading through jello. The slowness of the pace was oppressive. Reginans might want Torontonians to slow down. I don't think they appreciate that Torontonians would like them to speed up!

I had a cousin visit me from Edmonton when I lived in Regina. He hated it (he was there on a -30 night in January). "Regina's a nice place to live. You just don't want to visit here," was my response. But when Torontonians pass through Edmonton, the common assessment is a dismissive, "there isn't much to do there." Also unfair, although I think Edmonton is short of higher-end martini bars.

People are friendlier out west (more specifically, the prairies). In my first few years here, when asked how I was finding Toronto, my answer was: "Toronto's fine. Now ask me about Torontonians."

Most of people I know who moved to Toronto in the mid-1980s when Alberta's economy was tanking eventually moved back west. One would have considered those people to be natural Torontonians.

But I've also heard a native-born Winnipeger describe that city as a bit cliquey to outsiders. And I know one woman who moved to Halifax for marriage reasons and initially hated it there. Apparently that city by the sea has a substantial insular streak.

One friend once moved to Vancouver for a few years and hated it. While there, his only friends were other people who had moved there (ironically, from Toronto!). He moved back to Edmonton and has remained there ever since.

And a few times while visiting Vancouver on business, I found the people less hospitable than other westerners.

But, enough bashing of other places. Back to Toronto!

In many parts of the article, the complaints about Toronto are more related to where the complainee lived -- and the conceits that buoyed up that particular community.

Take Vancouver (that didn't last long).

"Toronto is a concrete city, flat and ugly," says Nancy Nadeau, pausing on her morning walk through Stanley Park with her dogs, Joey and Tao. "I wouldn't live anywhere else. Here, I can breathe!" she says, flinging out her arms. She's madly in love with the West Coast. Naturally, she's from Toronto.

I do love the sea air there. I always liked to visit Vancouver in March when I lived on the prairies, because it didn't feel like a biological dead zone. I could also sip a latte on an outdoor cafe without wearing a jacket (woo-hoo!).

Raza Rossan, a former wrestler with a chewed-off ear, runs along English Bay in a downpour. He arrived from Iran five years ago, passing through Pearson International. "I heard it's a big city, too big," he says. "Here, beautiful. People care about their bodies. There, not so much."

I once sat on a Kitsilano Beach driftwood log visiting with a woman I'd known in Edmonton. Listening to her snootily deconstruct everyone's beach fashion statement was not riveting to me. She's as Vancouver as they come.

Maybe "here," too much. "Too Pretty To Be Smart? Does Vancouver Have Any Brains?" asks a recent cover blurb for Vancouver magazine. Inside, brainy Vancouverites say yes.

As you would expect they would! :)

Personally, I love the <irony>"beauty"</irony> of the downtown eastside -- although it is the home of  The Only seafood restaurant (look for the neon seahorse!). :)

And face it, with one exception (Commercial Drive), once you get east of Main Street, the pretty, impeccably groomed neighborhoods start disappearing pretty fast.

Montreal has its ugly burbs as well, and there was a time when its downtown was looking very rundown and tattered (St. Catherine's was apparently trying to give East Hastings a run for its money). While I like the vibe there (it's one of my favourite cities to visit), there's plenty of evening fun here in T.O.

I recently sent a partial list of bars and nightclubs to one Montrealer who said: "Oulala...I never thought there was soooo much there."

One Montreal-born woman turned Torontonian I met also said it was way easier to get a good job here. In Montreal, it's all about who you know.

Must get ready for work now, but if you have any thoughts on this great issue of our time, I'd love to hear them.