Redpath Sugar and the Toronto waterfront

Well, the script doesn’t write itself as easily as all that. Another reason to be wary of manufactured narratives.

Interesting piece from Tavia Grant in the Globe this morning. The headline: “Redpath Sugar is sticking around, gentrification be damned.”

At first glance, it’s easy to sympathize with Redpath. One can’t help but feel a sentimental attachment to an established industry with its working-class overtones, fighting to maintain itself, its identity and its economic contribution (jobs, anyone?) in the face of privileged johnny-come-lately condo dwellers who knew about it going in and yet demand that it shut down because they don’t like the noise and smell associated with industrial land use.

That was until I read that it’s owned by Cuban exiles, who “fled Castro’s regime,” with ties to the Florida sugar conglomerate. Google Florida sugar Everglades sometime.

Nothing is ever that simple.

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