We both step onto the porch of the Annex townhouse. Chomsky knocks, and we are greeted by a young man, in a full suit and tie, who introduces himself as “Ben”. We later on realize this probably added formality; his friends and everyone else that night calls him “Benji”.
We are both visiting the “Rosedale Club”, a sort of informal club organized by young political activists who meet once a month for a speech and Q&A from prominent local public figures. In order to preserve our anonymity – after all, it can be risky business to report on the inner sanctum of Toronto’s political youth élite – we are using the pseudonames “Lycurgus” and “Chomsky”. This evening, Karen Stintz, the Toronto City Councillor and former chair of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) who is running for Mayor, is giving the talk and taking questions.
The club has made it to the radar of our law school community through a combination of the Toronto political blogosphere and connections to local Liberal Youth and budding politician and club co-founder Zach Paikin, who is a current MGA student at the Munk School (and a classmate of Lycurgus’). Chomsky and Lycurgus are paying the Rosedale Club a visit to learn more about this unique local club and to paint a picture of this posh political playground for the benefit of Ultra Vires readers.
Our $10 entrance fee gets us snacks (grapes, crackers, cheese, and bite-sized pieces of pizza) and alcohol (for everyone, two bottles of scotch and a bottle of Jackson-Triggs). We both grab drinks and pizza and do our best to make some friendly introductions. There is a crowd of about 23 in the fairly large and well-furnished living-and-dining room.
Lycurgus is approached by a 1L that he knows from school, who had requested his name be not given. We shall refer to him by the pseudoname “Starfish Dolphin” to respect his wishes of anonymity.
“Starfish Dolphin”, he says. “I like that for a pseudoname.”
When we ask why he’s here, Starfish Dolphin points to a well-coifed young man and says his friend brought him here. “I had no idea where we were even going.”
Starfish Dolphin’s attire is evidence that he did not know where he was going this evening; he is dressed in a simple light blue dress shirt, while almost every other male in the room has a tie and either a blazer or a suit jacket. Chomsky is in a suit and tie, and Lycurgus is wearing a blazer and tie. Some of the other patrons are wearing suits that are solid black or that are extremely ill-fitting. Regardless, Starfish Dolphin is now our companion – a kindred soul from the law school who speaks our language – in our bold adventure to stare into the intense, beating heart of the Rosedale Club.
The small talk is dominated by one topic: Zach Paikin’s decision to run for the Liberal Party nomination in Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, which was publicly announced earlier in the day. The son of TVO journalist and media personality Steve Paikin, Zach is a titan of the Liberal Youth and notably ran in the election for the Liberal Party’s policy chief in 2012. Zach is also a frequent commenter on iPolitics and The Huffington Post and has written extensively on, inter alia, criminal justice issues, the Israel-Palestine dispute, the Arctic, Senate reform, and the need for “grand strategy” to play a role in Canadian foreign policy.
“What do you think of the big news?” we ask a much older man.
“Well… it’s news,” he replies.
One of the Rosedale Club’s organizers asks Lycurgus to move away from the dining table (where the plate of mini pizza pieces is kept), because that particular spot is where the organizer would like Karenz Stintz to give her speech.
The organizer introduces Stintz, and the crowd replies with a modest round of applause.
“C’mon!” she laughs, and the crowd offers her a much louder and more robust round of applause. She then says that everyone should get on social media and talk about how loud the clapping was. “Hashtag rousing applause!”
Stintz offers a speech that was good, if without flare: she focused on her record as a politically moderate councillor who can offer reasonable policies and bridge-building politics, and who has experience on the crucial transit issue from her record as TTC chair. Her address is not a barnburner, but she is a very pleasant speaker who seems quite nice and approachable.
The organizer thanks Stintz for her speech and reminds the group to stick around after the Q&A for a photograph, as is club tradition. He makes an uncomfortable joke about the crowd being put half to sleep, promising the flash will wake us up. We both keep our heads down in our phones.
The organizer then opens the floor to a Q&A. One young man wants to know why it is that Montréal’s Metro has ads for “theatre and the opera”, while the ads in the TTC are all for businesses and “personal injury law”. The young man’s tone suggests that he really has a problem with this state of affairs and would like a prospective Mayor of Toronto to solve this problem. Stintz gracefully sidesteps this very stupid question.
Another young man says that, whenever he visits Dubai (it is implied that he visits Dubai frequently) the Emiratis say they want to make their city like “New York, London, and Paris”. He asks: “Why is there no Canadian city on that list [of global alpha-cities]?” It is apparent that he is ashamed that everyone in Dubai talks about New York more than they talk about Toronto, and that this makes him feel very bad about himself on his many frequent trips to Dubai. Stintz says that Toronto is on the rise, is booming in population and construction, and that people from all over the world are moving Toronto because it is a very liveable city.
With the Q&A over, the man of the hour arrives: Zach Paikin, dressed in a Team Canada hockey jersey, enters the townhouse. Immediately, a crowd surrounds him. We wait for a while before making our introductions to Zach.
Winning a nomination contest for a political party is a challenge for anyone – and that’s all before the general election against the parties’ candidates takes place. Zach seems excited for the challenge.
He tells Lycurgus that the date for electing the Liberals’ candidate in Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas has not yet been set and will happen later in the year, possibly in the spring or summer. When we ask how big the current riding membership is, Zach tells us there are about 150 members registered with the local Liberal riding association.
Earlier in the day, Zach was criticized on social media for not having a connection to Hamilton. Despite living in Toronto now, Zach says his family has deep roots in Steeltown and lived there for “over 100 years”. When we ask if he is moving to Hamilton, he says he is planning to move in the spring. “Got any leads on places?” he asks us.
The Rosedale Club’s current leadership brings out a chocolate cake for the one-year anniversary of the club’s founding. Zach, as one of the co-founders, is given the honour of making a few words and cutting the cake.
As the makes the first cut, he smiles and remarks how “one men’s scotch night in Montréal [several] years ago has turned into this tremendous, diverse event.”
Of the now 25 people present for the Rosedale Club event, only four are women.
Despite its name, the gatherings are not actually held in Toronto’s posh Rosedale neighbourhood, the historical and spiritual homeland of the city’s wealthy white Anglo-Saxon Protestant élite. The gatherings are usually held somewhere in the Annex.
We both head to the porch after having a slice of cake. We join the porch crowd in some celebratory cigars (it is unclear what we are celebrating), as is the custom of the club.
“Are you going to the convention?” a friendly undergraduate female asks us.
We both fumble for words.
“Oh sorry, I just assumed you were Liberal,” she says. She is, we both learn, referring to the Liberal Party’s biennial convention in Montréal the coming weekend.
Several other people also try and strike up conversations about the upcoming Liberal convention with us. Neither of us is a member of the Liberal Party, nor do we self-identify as Liberals. The Rosedale Club is officially a non-partisan club, and its leadership – while admitting “a centre-right-ish” leaning in most of its members – says it is open to people of all political stripes and that it has patrons who are Tories and NDP members.
“Are you guys Liberals?” a woman asks us. We appreciate that she does not assume we are Liberals.
“No,” we both reply.
“What are your politics?” she asks.
“I’m kind of centrist,” Lycurgus says. Chomsky remains silent.
“You belong in the Big Red Tent!”
We both say our goodbyes and head to the Pizza Pizza at Bathurst & Bloor, where we both order slices of garden veggie and talk about our experiences that evening. Kathering Georgious, 3L, taps on the windows to say hello and then comes into the Pizza Pizza to engage us in a bit of conversation before she rejoins with her friends.
Overall, we enjoyed our experience at the Rosedale Club. For an evening, we both got a rare glimpse into a unique subculture – a place where the élites of youth and Liberal Youth politics play host to Toronto’s political élites. We may have spent the evening with several future Members of Parliament or maybe even a future Prime Minister. Yet one thing is certain: we really enjoyed the snacks.
