Watchdog

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I'm about to make my annual pilgrimage to the Canadian National Exhibition this weekend, but unfortunately it has become a journey that is a mixture of anticipation and dread.

The anticipation comes out of a sense of nostalgia for seeing many "old friends" at the fair, such as the site's collection of historic buildings and long-time exhibits or events.

The dread lies in knowing that I'll be disappointed in what has happened to the rest of the exhibition.

It is unfortunately true that the CNE of today is a pale shadow of its former self, particularly if you remember the fair during its heyday back in the 1950s and '60s.

In that period, the fair was the focal point for not just Toronto, but also the entire province, and was a point of pride for both.

People of all ages and from all walks of life prepared for months for competitions, displays, sales and demonstrations.

As a result the fair was always packed with people and events that made it a truly exciting place to be.

However, after Montreal hosted the 1967 World's Fair, the CNE came to be seen by some as being terribly stodgy, old-fashioned and obsolete.

Worse, the unique heritage found at the CNE, in terms of both events and buildings, came to be viewed as a liability rather than an asset.

So during the 1970s and '80s the CNE tried to become something "new" and to do so it increasingly used public/private partnerships for ideas, rather than letting the community and small businesses build the spirit of the fair.

Feeble attempts were made to emulate the displays seen at Expo 67 and other big expositions, but all that accomplished was to alienate people who came looking for the traditional CNE experience and found it missing.

So by the time the 1990s came along many people were wondering if the Ex had any future at all as the fair's focus had moved so far away from the needs of the community.

Today, the real purpose of Exhibition Park is to primarily serve the requirements of the corporate market as shown in the building of the National Trade Centre and the privatization of many of the historic buildings.

Yet each year sees the annual Ex struggle to life and then re-kindle that old community-based spirit for two-and-a-half weeks.

Many of the old features of the Ex, such as the competitions, the demonstrations, and the connection to our rural and community roots, live on at the CNE in some form.

However, it's also not hard to miss the fact that many historic buildings are now in private hands and it's becoming increasingly hard to fill up the remaining ones as they once did.

So all this prompts a very simple question: If we once had the largest and most successful annual fair in the world because it was a community-based event, what does that say about the city's current frustrated attempts at becoming "world class"?