[URBAN NOTE] "Harper reminisces about childhood in east Toronto"

[rfmcdonald]

I wanted to share this Canadian Press report (via the CBC) reporting on Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent reminiscences of his childhood growing up in the midtown neighbourhood of Leaside, straddling Eglinton Avenue East (east of Yonge Street). It interests me, not only because it speaks of an older pre-amalgamation Toronto, but because it's one of the few mentions I've come across in the Canadian press lately referring to Harper's Torontonian roots. More often he seems to be presented as an Albertan.

Speaking at a gala marking the 100th anniversary of Leaside, Harper reminisced about the east Toronto neighbourhood where he grew up in the 1960s.

He says back then, girls and boys were still segregated in the school yard, although some of the older boys were growing out their hair and the girls started wearing shorter skirts.

Harper says it was a place where the local pharmacist made house calls and you could knock on a neighbour's door if you needed help.

He says he has some political memories too — namely the passionate national debate over a new Canadian flag in 1964.

Harper says emotions ran high and some neighbours even stopped speaking to each other.

So as a five-year-old boy, Harper says he plowed right into the debate and asked everyone on his street which design they favoured and why.

Some people, like his parents, favoured one of the two principal designs for a new flag, he said.

"The Harpers liked the one with the blue borders," Harper said with a smile, "and three maple leaves."

He remembers watching the Maple Leaf going up the flagpole outside his kindergarten class in 1965. "And very quickly, peace came back to the neighbourhood," Harper added.