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It was the last day of Caravan, the city's annual cultural carnival, and the streets bustled with people in festive mood. Fifty different 'ethnic pavilions' had been set up in civic gardens and squares. In the Jamaican tent revellers bought synthetic rum-flavour cakes then pumped and ground to high-volume reggae. Across the road in the Hungarian pavilion goulash and instant Viennese coffee were on offer. In the Mexican tent a Rastafarian crowned by a great white stove-pipe hat swallowed and laughed, “Man, I just love tacos.” He took another mouthful of refried beans. “That's why I come to Canada, to make me life better.”

Under a broad weeping willow an albino Indian family, with skin of translucent silver and long almond eyes, sat in saris on an embroidered mat and nibbled at bhajis. Beside them a blonde-haired man ate popsicles with his Malaysian wife and child, staring across the harbour. Clean-lined sailboats and ultra-modern gin palaces glided across the city's gilded facade.

“We in Toronto,” he said to me, pointing over the pavilions, “this is something we're really proud of.” A tribe of Africans in luminous baseball caps camped around a picnic table. A black-shirted mandarin lounged in a deck-chair reading the Sing Tao Chinese daily.

“When Katelynn was born our parents were pleased as pie. My mother said, ‘Isn't it nice that her skin is so dark..’”

“My mother said, ‘Isn't it nice that her skin's so light.’” murmured Salbiah, his shy, diminutive wife.

Entry to each Caravan pavilion was by 'passport', a ticket which was stamped at the door as proof of the visit, and the urban globe-trotters rode rickshaws between events. In an afternoon a spectator could take in a dozen pre-packaged cultures, each carefully laid out on a map, and still ride the subway home for supper.

But on my drive back uptown I saw that on every block there seemed to be a homeless person. Some were Cree or Ojibwa. The Daily Bread Food Bank, one of the 'assistance centres' which helped to feed the poor in 174 communities across the province, was doing brisk trade. This was their 'ethnic pavilion' - for every week of the year.

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