[toaster]

Originally Posted by vid

Every YQT-TO flight I've been on (regardless of whether it's between Pearson or City Centre) has been completely full, but I've only been on one flight between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg that was more than 75% full. The first and last scheduled flight every day at YQT (and I think YTZ) is a Thunder Bay/Toronto flight. 5am to 1am. And Thunder Bay has the province's 5th or 6th busiest airport (used to be 3rd before Porter Airlines revitalized City Centre and discount airlines discovered London and Hamilton) even though we're the 17th largest CMA in the province. It's by far the busiest airport in Northern Ontario, probably half of the passengers that fly in this region go through it.

Should note that no airlines use jets to service us anymore, they all replaced them with Q400s so they could increase flight frequency, which is kind of annoying (they're a bit slower and there is no tv on the back of the seat) but also really convenient (you can chose from 12 to 16 flight times per day, and two different airports). I think we only had 8 flights to Pearson daily back when it was just WestJet and Air Canada jets. So you can probably credit Porter Airlines for bringing us closer to Toronto.



That's mainly due to services though. Thunder Bay is the service centre for NWO, so most people in NWO have been here to access health care, education and government services. If Thunder Bay doesn't have it, you go to Toronto, not Sudbury. (In rare situations, Winnipeg; in exceptional situations, Duluth or Minneapolis) In the north east, you'll go to Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Timmins or North Bay depending on what service you need, not Thunder Bay. And Toronto from there is the service isn't in those towns.

The space between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie is a huge obstacle, and the amount of people travelling that corridor doesn't justify a cheap flight (it costs 5 times as much for me to fly from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie than it does to fly to Toronto; and in that respect, Europe is more accessible.)

Northeastern Ontarians consider NWO to be part of the province because there's more province to the north and west of them. But for us, we're the end. If they take a step back, they're in our yard. If we take a step back, we're not in Ontario anymore. And since we never need to go to the Northeast, it doesn't really factor into anything for us. The closest I've been to Sudbury is when I flew over Espanola to get to Toronto.

Also, Northwestern Ontario is bilingual too, but English and Oji-Cree, not English and French. Anti-francophone sentiment is disappearing but still exists here. You're more likely to hear several languages before French in this city. That creates a bit of a further disconnect. I've met people here who think everyone in Northeastern Ontario speaks French because they went to Hearst once and everyone speaks French there.



I like to bring this up to people about those isolated communities. If you're going to say that remote First Nations need to be relocated to larger cities, you should probably concede the same about remote white communities like Nakina, Armstrong, Manitouwadge or Pickle Lake. The sum of their populations could be put into Thunder Bay Transit's 49-vehicle fleet and driven the 500km to this city and I doubt people here would even notice the new arrivals.

But then you can do the same with Thunder Bay and Toronto. Depends on how centralized you want people to be. Newfoundland literally bribes residents of its outports to move to centralized communities and many refuse.

I appreciate everything you are sharing, but this is all anecdotal at best. If you do go to North-Eastern Ontario, you would almost always hear French being spoken out in the community (Sudbury, Timmins, Hearst, Kap, and most other small communities). Sure, everyone doesn't speak the language, but it is very common. I do get a hint of the anti-French sentiment from your post.