Toronto Star

As communities across the province celebrate Heritage Week this week, it's time to talk about the desperate need we have in Toronto for a museum dedicated to telling the story of Toronto. There is a huge untapped civic hunger for opportunities that guide people to a better understanding of this place called Toronto. "Doors Open Toronto," the annual event that allows people to explore Toronto's architectural gems and "Nuit Blanche," the all-night event that allows people to explore the city's arts, are huge successes because they tap into an unfulfilled appetite to explore, understand and celebrate Toronto through an authentic content-rich program. As Poet Laureate and curator of Humanitas, the city's initiative to create a place to tell the Toronto story, I know first-hand that when people are told, for example, that Toronto has an 11,000-year history, that Fort York was built on the shore of Lake Ontario and that everything south of the Fort is land fill, they are amazed.