TORONTO — Every winter, Canada is reminded that it is, in fact, a winter country. And every winter, Toronto reacts as if this is a shocking new discovery.On Thursday, a snowstorm — upgraded by Environment Canada from a yellow to an orange alert — dumped between 20 and 35 centimetres of snow across the Greater Toronto Area. Temperatures plunged into the minus 20s with the wind chill. Roads were icy, visibility was poor, schools were closed, flights were cancelled, and city officials urged residents to stay home.In other words: it snowed in Canada.Yet in the GTA, the response bordered on paralysis. Major highways ground to a halt. Pearson Airport descended into chaos. School boards shut down almost wholesale. The City of Toronto declared a “Major Snowstorm Condition and Significant Weather Event” to free up resources, as though the city were dealing with an unforeseen natural disaster rather than a January snowstorm..Compare this to Calgary, Edmonton, or much of the Prairies, where 20 to 35 centimetres of snow is unpleasant but hardly apocalyptic. Calgarians wake up, scrape their windshields, and get on with their day. Schools stay open. Transit runs. Life continues, albeit more carefully.The difference is not weather. It is preparedness, expectations, and political culture.Environment Canada’s new colour-coded alert system is meant to simplify risk communication, but the upgrade to orange in Toronto exposed a deeper issue. Officials openly admitted that part of the reason for the escalation was not just snowfall totals, but the anticipated impact on a large urban population unaccustomed — or perhaps unwilling — to function in winter conditions.Meteorologist Monica Vaswani told Global News that confidence in the severity of the storm only came after observing real-world impacts: school closures, stranded drivers, and even meteorologists struggling to commute. In other words, the alert level rose because the city proved itself incapable of coping.That should concern everyone..Toronto is Canada’s largest city, its economic engine, and the nerve centre of government, finance, and media. If a single snowstorm can paralyze roads, shut down schools, disrupt international travel, and require emergency declarations, then the problem is not the weather. It is systemic fragility.This fragility is partly self-inflicted. Toronto has spent years prioritizing boutique policies and symbolic gestures over core infrastructure resilience. Snow-clearing budgets are politically unpopular until the snow falls. Transit systems are designed with little redundancy. Urban planning increasingly discourages car use without ensuring reliable alternatives when conditions deteriorate.The result is a city that works well on ideal days and poorly the moment reality intrudes.Western Canadians have long joked about Toronto’s inability to handle snow, but the joke has a serious edge. Prairie cities budget for winter. They design roads, transit systems, and maintenance schedules with the assumption that snow and cold are not anomalies but constants. Citizens are expected to adapt, not retreat..There is also a cultural difference. In Calgary, winter competence is a point of pride. In Toronto, winter is treated as an inconvenience imposed by external forces, something to be managed through warnings, closures, and risk avoidance rather than preparation and grit.This mindset feeds into institutional decision-making. Closing schools is safer, politically, than insisting on normal operations. Advising people not to travel avoids liability. Declaring emergencies signals action, even if the underlying problem remains unsolved.None of this is to dismiss genuine safety concerns. Heavy snow, blowing winds, and black ice are dangerous. People should drive cautiously. Vulnerable populations need protection. But a society that shuts down at the first serious test is not a resilient one.Global News described Thursday’s system as the most significant winter storm to hit the region since January 2022. That alone should raise eyebrows. Two major storms in four years is not extraordinary in a country defined by winter. If anything, climate volatility suggests these events will become more frequent, not less.Toronto can continue treating snowstorms as crises, or it can learn from cities that have accepted winter as a fact of life. That means investing in snow-clearing capacity, hardening transit systems, setting realistic public expectations, and resisting the reflex to reach for emergency language every time flakes hit the ground.Calgarians are not tougher because they are born that way. Their cities are built — physically and mentally — for the climate they live in.Toronto would do well to remember that Canada does not stop being Canada just because it is inconvenient.
