Is it time for Ontario to be split up into new Provinces?

[Mikeed]

Anyone North of North Bay would not consider the Muskokas 'north'. We're considered the Near North- socio-economically we're the North. Our MP is in charge of FedNor.

I dream of seeing Ottawa & the NRC become more of a separate city-state within the Federation- but that will never happen.

I really like visualizing Canada via south-up oriented maps.

[vid]

Originally Posted by Mister F

As long as we're talking semantics, that map isn't very accurate.

I know, but Bavarian mustard is awesome.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Once many areas made up the Golden Horseshoe but now those areas are, or have already been, completely absorbed by Toronto. When you have commuter trains beginning to run all day then you have become more of a bedroom community than anything else. It may still have it's own unique lifestyle, architecture, and culture but it is increasingly seen as an outer suburb more than a truly independent city.

Yet for many of the "bedroom" communities in the GTHA Toronto itself does not draw the majority of their commuters.

From the Canadian Geographic article "Commuting in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver"

[swimmer_spe]

What if they simply said that all lands within the current province of Ontario that is situated on the Canadian shield be be split away forming a separate province?

What if 100km radius from Ottawa became a province of it's own?

Would this fix most of the problems?

[vid]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

What if they simply said that all lands within the current province of Ontario that is situated on the Canadian shield be be split away forming a separate province?

What about the Hudson Bay Lowlands?

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

What if 100km radius from Ottawa became a province of it's own?

Into Quebec? This plan would also create two exclaves of Ontario or the new province near Salaberry de Valleyfield, do we give those to Quebec or violate the 100km rule?

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Would this fix most of the problems?

I doubt it.

[vid]

Posting this here since it would be off-topic in the Canadian Transit thread.

Originally Posted by Beedok

Thunder Bay is built on a lake tied to the St. Lawrence Seaway. It's clearly part of Ontario. You need good policy and enough money. Being part of Manitoba would see Thunder Bay roughly as ignored as it is now, being just as split off from the province and would be out of cash as it's own province. The lands just can't support a high enough population density, so it's best off for the north to be attached to the biggest population in the country.

In terms of social policies, the Manitoba government is at least more in touch with the substance abuse and homelessness crisis facing the Shield/Lowland aboriginal populations than Ontario's government is. I mean, this province totally lacks any form of substance abuse or homelessness strategies, to the point that the city of Thunder Bay had to create its own based on provincial models used out west, with bare-bones funding. It wouldn't be this hard if we weren't part of a province where this particular problem facing this particular demographic is virtually nonexistent.

Thunder Bay has had approximately $0 in investments in social housing, drug abuse treatment, and homeless shelters from the province of Ontario in the past 20 years. If Wynne doesn't change this before the end of her term, we won't be able to give her another.

We've had two homicides in 24 hours here. We've met our all-time record for number of homicides, and broken the record per-capita. We're now at a breaking point. The province must respond, because it is clear that as a municipality, Thunder Bay lacks the resources to cope with this crisis.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by vid

In terms of social policies, the Manitoba government is at least more in touch with the substance abuse and homelessness crisis facing the Shield/Lowland aboriginal populations than Ontario's government is. I mean, this province totally lacks any form of substance abuse or homelessness strategies, to the point that the city of Thunder Bay had to create its own based on provincial models used out west, with bare-bones funding. It wouldn't be this hard if we weren't part of a province where this particular problem facing this particular demographic is virtually nonexistent.

Thunder Bay has had approximately $0 in investments in social housing, drug abuse treatment, and homeless shelters from the province of Ontario in the past 20 years. If Wynne doesn't change this before the end of her term, we won't be able to give her another.

We've had two homicides in 24 hours here. We've met our all-time record for number of homicides, and broken the record per-capita. We're now at a breaking point. The province must respond, because it is clear that as a municipality, Thunder Bay lacks the resources to cope with this crisis.

The rest of Ontario might lack the native focus for many of those issues, but believe me it has issues. Homelessness is a fairly serious issue there too. Social housing issues there are very serious. My mum is on housing and the waiting list in southern Ontario is in the years while in Thunder Bay it was a few months. I'm not saying Thunder Bay is wonderful, violent crimes are definitely a lot higher up here and there are some issues which other provinces handle better, but I still feel that splitting off isn't a good move and joining Manitoba would just mean a shift in what problems the provincial government ignores. Nothern Ontario has many similarities with the non-Toronto/Ottawa part of the province. Places like Sarnia, Hamilton, Windsor, and the Niagara region have a similar issues with trying to recover from a declined industrial base and whatnot. Manitoba meanwhile has a fully separate list of concerns mostly focused around connecting to the prairies and such. As it's own province would have various funding issues for the infrastructure. I mean Alberta has designated provincial highways that are dirt roads and it's one of the richest provinces in the country. Sure Toronto isn't very responsive, but not all of Southern Ontario is Toronto.

[vid]

Most of Ontario's provincial highway network is dirt roads, or shitty pavement at best. PEI has no dirt roads at all, and they receive more money from the federal government in transfer payments than the entire province pays in income taxes.

Manitoba has a social housing strategy, a homelessness strategy, and a drug abuse/addiction strategy. Manitoba has a provincial immigrant nomination programme that has help their population grow, and brought needed professionals to the province. Ontario doesn't those things. Thunder Bay needs them.

[Innsertnamehere]

I can assure you there are plenty of dirt roads in PEI.

[Allan83]

My 2 cents.

I would divide Ontario into 4 parts, and one of those parts I would make part of Manitoba. I think northwestern Ontario to somewhere past Thunder Bay is a more natural fit with Manitoba and the west in general, for all the reason mentioned. Manitoba knows the Canadian Shield. It knows how to mine there, and how to build roads and railways there. It knows First Nations issues, etc. TB is also a port for western goods. This would also benefit the rest of Ontario in the short term, because I believe currently that region is a net drag on the economy, and in the long term I think Manitoba could give the rest of Ontario some royalties on what comes out of the Ring of Fire. The other parts, which would become provinces, would be SW Ontario, the horseshoe area, and the rest, which would be eastern and the rest of northern Ontario. This part might seem a bit counter intuitive but I think it would function much like the western provinces where there is a large population base in the south which could fund developments in the north. There really aren’t enough people in northeastern Ontario to form a province of their own and this would solve that problem. I would make the capitol of that province North Bay, which would give the north a bit of a boost as well and help keep it from being overlooked and short-changed.

[TheGenuineArticle]

FYI (This is coming from an English Ontarian from Oshawa/Port Perry)

Its definitely time to start to be rethinking Ontario's political boundaries. Usually the smaller the democracy the easier it is to manage and easier to form a collective identity with. Also Toronto problems are not relatable to Sudbury problems nor Windsor and especially not Timmins.

South eastern and western Ontario
I believe southern Ontario should create a base (with maybe Hamilton & K/W & Guelph) being on a regional government with each) as it's somewhat francophone (usually 10-20% in areas such as Welland/Niagara/Saint Catherines and in Windsor. They are also heavily manufacturing based with exceptions such as K/W and Niagara Falls.

Boarders: Hamilton, Guelph to Grey Bruce peninsula.

Peterborough to Sault Ste Marie to Ottawa would constitute a new province as well partially due to the 25-40% Francophone population in the area as well as more rural north characteristics.


East of the Sue would be given to Manitoba. as its demographics are very similiar in terms of cultural make up including first nations and francophone.

Used this as a reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-...vice_areas.png

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by TheGenuineArticle

Its definitely time to start to be rethinking Ontario's political boundaries. Usually the smaller the democracy the easier it is to manage and easier to form a collective identity with. Also Toronto problems are not relatable to Sudbury problems nor Windsor and especially not Timmins.

South eastern and western Ontario
I believe southern Ontario should create a base (with maybe Hamilton & K/W & Guelph) being on a regional government with each) as it's somewhat francophone (usually 10-20% in areas such as Welland/Niagara/Saint Catherines and in Windsor. They are also heavily manufacturing based with exceptions such as K/W and Niagara Falls.

Boarders: Hamilton, Guelph to Grey Bruce peninsula.

Peterborough to Sault Ste Marie to Ottawa would constitute a new province as well partially due to the 25-40% Francophone population in the area as well as more rural north characteristics.


East of the Sue would be given to Manitoba. as its demographics are very similiar in terms of cultural make up including first nations and francophone.

Used this as a reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-...vice_areas.png

Your idea is not that bad, except for the western part of of Northern Ontario should just be its own part. Giving it to Manitoba is not a good idea. Having it become it's own province would make more sense.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by TheGenuineArticle

FYI (This is coming from an English Ontarian from Oshawa/Port Perry)

Its definitely time to start to be rethinking Ontario's political boundaries. Usually the smaller the democracy the easier it is to manage and easier to form a collective identity with. Also Toronto problems are not relatable to Sudbury problems nor Windsor and especially not Timmins.

South eastern and western Ontario
I believe southern Ontario should create a base (with maybe Hamilton & K/W & Guelph) being on a regional government with each) as it's somewhat francophone (usually 10-20% in areas such as Welland/Niagara/Saint Catherines and in Windsor. They are also heavily manufacturing based with exceptions such as K/W and Niagara Falls.

Boarders: Hamilton, Guelph to Grey Bruce peninsula.

Peterborough to Sault Ste Marie to Ottawa would constitute a new province as well partially due to the 25-40% Francophone population in the area as well as more rural north characteristics.


East of the Sue would be given to Manitoba. as its demographics are very similiar in terms of cultural make up including first nations and francophone.

Used this as a reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-...vice_areas.png

You're dramatically overexaggerating the size of the francophone population of Ontario. No way that "Peterborough to Sault Ste. Marie to Ottawa" is anything close to 25% french-speaking. My rough guess would be 10% according to the already overexaggerated official stats. The official stats overexaggerate it by using mother tongue and not language spoken at home (the latter of which is a far more accurate measure of what linguistic community someone belongs in.. and for all languages other than English, the latter measure is smaller).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

You're dramatically overexaggerating the size of the francophone population of Ontario. No way that "Peterborough to Sault Ste. Marie to Ottawa" is anything close to 25% french-speaking. My rough guess would be 10% according to the already overexaggerated official stats. The official stats overexaggerate it by using mother tongue and not language spoken at home (the latter of which is a far more accurate measure of what linguistic community someone belongs in.. and for all languages other than English, the latter measure is smaller).

Yeah. Ottawa is by far the largest city in the region with more than 900,000 people and it's like 85% non-francophone (anglophones + people who speak non-official languages). None of the large cities in the area are majority francophone and the largest one with more than 50% francophones is Clarence-Rockland and it's under 25,000. Also there is only one "region" where francophones are the majority is Prescott-Russell (where Clarence-Rockland is located). Most of the areas south and southwest of Ottawa have little to no francophone population. The area along Highway 17 from Mattawa-North Bay-Sudbury-Sault Ste. Marie has more francophones, though but putting the border at that line also ignores the largish Franco-Ontarian populations to the north in the Timiskaming and Timmins-Kapuskasing-Hearst areas.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yeah. Ottawa is by far the largest city in the region with more than 900,000 people and it's like 85% non-francophone (anglophones + people who speak non-official languages). None of the large cities in the area are majority francophone and the largest one with more than 50% francophones is Clarence-Rockland and it's under 25,000. Also there is only one "region" where francophones are the majority is Prescott-Russell (where Clarence-Rockland is located). Most of the areas south and southwest of Ottawa have little to no francophone population. The area along Highway 17 from Mattawa-North Bay-Sudbury-Sault Ste. Marie has more francophones, though but putting the border at that line also ignores the largish Franco-Ontarian populations to the north in the Timiskaming and Timmins-Kapuskasing-Hearst areas.

Just to add, there are several cities and towns in Ontario that are majority French-speaking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Ontarian

[eternallyme]

Also some communities in Southwestern Ontario - particularly around Chatham and east of Windsor, plus in the Huronia area - have sizable Franco-Ontarian populations as well, although that is mainly for historical reasons (i.e. French settlements).

[ScreamingViking]

One of the interesting things about Windsor is the French street names. Ouellette, Drouillard, Pillette, Goyeau, Marentette, Langlois, etc.

[DHLawrence]

Coupled with Windsor's street names is the street pattern. They eschew the British grid pattern for a French-style grid with elongated blocks, mimicking the elongated land parcels seen in other French settlements.

[Blitz]

^ The name of the street is the last name of the family that used to farm the long strip of land (that said street now occupies).

It's odd that the name of the city is so British-sounding but the history of the city is so French.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by DHLawrence

Coupled with Windsor's street names is the street pattern. They eschew the British grid pattern for a French-style grid with elongated blocks, mimicking the elongated land parcels seen in other French settlements.

Originally Posted by Blitz

^ The name of the street is the last name of the family that used to farm the long strip of land (that said street now occupies).

It's odd that the name of the city is so British-sounding but the history of the city is so French.

That's really interesting, thanks to you both. I had never made that connection (my parents are from Windsor, and both sets of grandparents lived there since the 1920s... I spent a lot of time in the city over the years)

I guess that explains why the French-named streets run northerly perpendicular to the river. I was trying to think of east-west examples but could not come up with any.