G20 Tourism Board Promotes “Toronto Without Torontonians” Campaign
A poster for the campaign reminds potential tourists of the ordinary pressures of withstanding Torontonians
As Torontonians prepare to abandon their homes in droves, hoping to avoid the inconvenience, disorder and unwashed anarchists of the upcoming G20 summit, the G20 Tourism Board has launched a massive advertising campaign aimed at encouraging tourists from elsewhere in Canada to visit the bright lights of the “Big Smoke” without any of the notoriously insufferable people that inhabit it.
“Imagine being able to visit the shops of Queen West without suffering an obnoxious gaze. Imagine being able to order a coffee at a small, independent cafe without being completely ignored,” said Reginald Hoover, Communications Director for the G20 Tourism Board. “People across Canada have broad presumptions about Torontonians: Most are correct.”
Added Hoover, “Thankfully, they’ll all be crammed up shoulder to shoulder in Muskoka. Why do you think we had to create that fake lake? We can’t have random assholes wandering into the shot complaining about cellphone coverage.”
The G20 Tourism Board is promoting a remarkably atypical Toronto experience, showing off a myriad of wonderful architecture without the obnoxious teenage tour guides, as well as restaurants without grown men who have beehive beards. Thanks to the total absence of anyone who lives in Toronto being in Toronto during the summit, basic civility is expected to prevail, with talking to strangers no longer likely to be immediately interpreted as either insanity or a prelude to requests for money, or both. Traffic is also expected to improve considerably, as out-of-town drivers on the Gardiner Expressway will not be distracted from driving by composing inner monologues about how much they hate driving on the Gardiner Expressway for later posting to their blogs, or the comment section of Torontoist.
Thus far, potential reaction to the campaign has been positive. Bonnie Stern, a Nova Scotia native who last visited Toronto in 1991 and swore to never return after being yelled at by an intoxicated TTC employee for not having a nickel, was looking forward to her return visit, despite the potential danger that protestors present. “Sure, some white guy with terrible dreadlocks might narrowly miss me with a molotov cocktail, but at least he’ll notice that I’m alive instead of just looking through me with those dead eyes after a quick scan of how slutty or rich I look.”
In spite of sharing plans with other Torontonians to leave the city as well, civic leaders have overwhelmingly welcomed the potential tourism. The lone exception to this has been fiscally conservative mayoral candidate Rob Ford, who has threatened to curtail the costly summit by eating it.
