The Ontario Fact Book: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ontario Mark Kearney, Randy Ray
Interesting to note the authors’ parks chosen to epitomize the camping experience. I’d have chosen Killarney, Grundy Lake, Quetico, Sleeping Giant, Turkey Point.
Since this book was published the CN Tower may no longer have its chief claim to fame. Hanging off the side of the building is not my idea of fun, life is scary enough.
Anyone taking a look at their telephone or internet bill would take issue with the authors. No one would call hydro and water cheap. With rents topping $3-5000/month the average person can no longer afford to live in Toronto and business is moving away.
Since the Insane Felon occupied the white nuthouse free trade has suffered a severe downturn.
Not surprisingly after 25 years most of the information here is out of date. No mention is made of U of Waterloo one Ontario’s largest universities. The Ontario Government underfunds education and blames school boards who have to negotiate with teachers and support staff for running deficits.
Years of underfunding has left colleges and universities without sufficient housing for an international student body and left community resources saturated. Restricting foreign students has resulted in programs being suspended for lack of funds. The cost of special interest courses has increased exponentially.
Allowing private enterprise to deliver mail has left the post office handling only the products private enterprise can’t operate at a profit. E-mail and internet banking have taken care of the rest.
Ontario’s present premier considers environmental assessments unnecessary red tape and the Green Belt wasted development opportunities. Drive Clean was terminated. You don’t eliminate environmental controls, you just underfund the department so that a plant faces the threat of an inspection only once in five years and pays any fine as the price of doing business. The powers and budgets of Conservation Authorities have been severely curtailed. Governments have short memories. Why shouldn’t you build homes in a flood plain?
Fall Colours. Global warming and an overcast summer make for a mediocre showing. That Algoma Trip I’ve taken. The line is no longer properly maintained as the mine it was built for is no longer operating; hence the train is on a go slow for weak tracks. And since the verge is no longer cut back the brush obscures the view.
Missed in the Fairs section was the International Ploughing Match that was just held a few weeks ago.
Flowerpot Island has been shored up by concrete to prevent it from collapsing.
I’ve better ways to spend my time than touring Kingston Penn. The father of Confederation’s home is a pub in Kingston. Missing from the list is Maplehurst in Milton, Canada’s largest prison.
Oktoberfest ist wunderBAR. A dream in the mind’s eye of a group of drunks at the Concordia club KW’s festival became a worldwide phenom after a poster featuring a buxom lass holding 12 steins of beer got free promotion across the media after a liquor board flunky banned it. Million Dollar Poster indeed.
Festivals such as Gay Pride and Caribana are great at making money disappear, not so good at accounting for where it went. When they approach governments cap in hand agencies would like to know how that money was spent, not nebulous economic impact statements.
When you drive highways in Northern Ontario you are lead to believe we have endless forests as a 200 ft wide strip is left along those roads. Pull off the highway and walk back 200 ft and you’ll witness the clear-cut devastation.
Old Fort Henry is the real thing. Internees and turn-coats have broken out of its marble limestone walls but it has never been attacked. Its 110 lb gun can throw a ball almost 2 miles and if fired today would blow out most of the glass in Kingston. Members of the Fort Henry Guard are college students. David, a White Saanen goat is their official mascot.
The filtering action of Zebra Mussels turned the murky dead waters of Lake Erie pellucid in one year.
Holland Marsh has flooded as recently as 2020. Failure to maintain the dyke system led to 20 ft of water covering parts of the farmland. Anyone who has washed their lettuce or celery can understand why it is disappearing at an inch a year.
The history of the International Ploughing Match demonstrates just how much prime farmland urban expansion has destroyed.
At a time when the population of Ontario was 9 million there were 12 million health cards. Institution of a new health card did little to change that abuse.
When I came to Waterloo Lutheran University in 1967 residents in senior’s homes we visited still referred to their home as Berlin. The University was formed to train Lutheran Pastors. U of W began as a trailer on WLU’s parking lot and hived off when the Holy Fathers failed to approve of its continuance. Old Willison Hall now long gone with is clanking steam radiators was the original all-in-one structure. Seagram Stadium was donated to the university as the home of its football team but the holy fathers refused to accept anything honouring demon liquor so it was given to U of W. The U of W student union uses a massive Stillson Wrench as its mace referring to it as the Rigid Tool. The Ontario Government’s decision not to continue to finance parochial Universities came with a great deal of bitterness, the church retains control of its seminary. It was the horrible fare provided by Mennonite Cooks in the Dining Hall that led to my decision to move off campus and cook for myself.
The Conservative Agenda is vicious in transferring public services to the private sector. It’s the reason Canada Post is no longer viable. The LCBO creates profits that benefit the people of Ontario but Conservative Governments regularly discuss turning it over to the private sector. Encroaching on Brewer’s Retail’s monopoly on the sale of beer is becoming a debacle for the Ford Government just as it proved you cannot brew a drinkable beer to sell for a buck, mind you you could but for the government’s taxes.
Ontario Place was William Davis’ Baby. He appeared bigger than life on the IMAX Screen of the Cinesphere, (developed in Oakville). When successive governments failed to invest in new innovations to keep it up to date it fell into decline. Any performance space that requires a Mosh Pit does not play my kind of music. The Ford Government would turn it into a playground for the super rich.
The Ontario Science Centre was a cutting edge emporium to teach science to the young and young at heart. Again it needs investment to keep it up to date. Once more Ford has gotten his bumbling hands on another innovative institution.
Two economic shocks have hit Ontario since this book was published. The SARS epidemic was a minor shock but the Covid Pandemic led to major shut-downs of industry and even schools. At the time of writing Trump’s Insane Trade War has led to the threat of major Tariffs that will have a dual effect of stifling exports and encouraging US Branch Plants to move their manufacturing back to their home States. Many of those industries received incentives and concessions to locate here in the first place.
Not mentioned is the Waterloo Central Railway train to the Maple Bush in Elmira which is “robbed” yearly by suitably dressed “desperadoes”.
Urban expansion has made farmland near Waterloo too expensive for farming and superhighways unsuitable for horse and buggies so Mennonites have packed their cash in cream pails and moved to North of Lake Erie and the Bruce Peninsula where they have bought up large tracks of land.
No mention made of the Oakville Forwarding and Storage Fire set by children playing with matches. Burned a year’s supply of insect spray bombs that exploded like pop corn and Ford’s oil based metal paint in 45 gallon drums that exploded like fireworks. Burning over a main natural gas line shut down the QEW and caused a minor evacuation.
Since this book was published West Nile Virus has become a factor in Southern Ontario.
Norman Bethune’s home in Gravenhurst is a pilgrimage site for Communist Chinese.
Unchanged street signs notwithstanding Ottawans can no longer cross the river and have a Hull of a time.
The technological revolution means that change of government will no longer spark such a great a sale on paper shredders and a greater need for hard drive wiping technology. There’s a reason it’s called government wipe.
I’ve climbed the fire tower at Dorset, at the same time that a group of high school brats discovered, the tower sways. On my livingroom wall hangs a spray of maple leaves in copper purchased at a Whitney Gallery.
Missing it the tale of how Paul Bunyan dug the Great Lakes and St Lawrence River. When the buyer reneged on payment in a rage he threw back 1000 clods that became the Thousand Islands.
The Polar Bear Express will stop anywhere along its line and can be flagged down anywhere as well. As noted there are no polar bears. The children at an elementary school run from their classroom daily to greet passengers on the train.The original wooden tripods that supported the telegraph lines still stand as nothing rots in the short season including large stands of burnt over black spruce. There are roads in Moosonee but no street signs as the Ontario Traffic Act does not apply here, only emergency vehicle drivers are required to have a licence. Pedestrians be ware, if you don’t like my driving....
Estimated 2025 pop. of Ontario: 16,258,260.
Canada has a 10 year backlog of immigration cases. Developers find no profit in building affordable houses so we are faced with a housing crisis. People no longer build their own log cabins or live in Soddies.
The Ford Government has just issued another attack on Conservation Authorities.
When I visited Pukaskha National Park at start of season half the campground was closed and the portapotties overflowing. Trail Maps were out of stock and the first bridge on the Coastal Hiking Trail was not in service.
As a matter of fact Kilarney Provincial Park is South-West of Sudbury.
The name associated with the destruction of Canada’s railway system is Mulroney. He isn’t very popular among Iron Ore of Canada former employees either. Budd Rail Car Service, Train 105, runs from Sudbury to White River. These self-propelled diesel cars carry passengers and light freight to remote regions of Northern Ontario. I rode the route to Biscotasing to canoe the Missinaibi River. You can take a virtual ride on a Budd car on You Tube.
Ninety years later we have a premier in Ontario who would bring back the Family Compact with all the kinds of political patronage and corruption that led to a Rebellion in 1837.
Religious affiliations in ON 2021
Buddhist 1.2 Anglican 3.7 Baptist 1.2 Catholic 26.0 Christian Orthodox 2.4 Lutheran 0.8 Pentecostal and other Charismatic 1.2 Presbyterian 1.4 United Church 4.1 Christian, n.o.s. 7.6 Anabaptist0.4 Jehovah's Witness 0.3 Latter Day Saints 0.1 Methodist and Wesleyan (Holiness) 0.3 Reformed 0.3 Other Christian and Christian-related traditions 2.2 Hindu 4.1 Jewish 1.4 Muslim 6.7 Sikh 2.1 Traditional (North American Indigenous) spirituality 0.1 Other religions and spiritual traditions 0.6 No religion and secular perspectives 31.6
And tellingly politicians no longer feel it incumbent upon them to declare one. And the largest group is those who feel religion irrelevant.
24 Sussex Dr is considered uninhabitable and while the NCC drags its feet over making a decision on the matter the Prime Minister occupies a cottage on the Grounds of Rideau Hall.
I was manning a booth at the Royal Winter Fair the year a beaver got loose and attacked the pillars of the Colosseum. A gal approached us in a panic because the batteries in her Diskman had run down.
The authors remain directionally challenged, the RBG is East of Hamilton, most of it actually in Burlington. As maintenance costs increase government support at all levels has decreased leading to parking and entry fees and the loss of former attractions.
Event Centres tend to follow the money. Massey Hall remains unchanged. Toronto Symphony, Roy Thomson Hall; Ballet/Opera, Four Seasons; O’Keefe Centre, can’t keep track of it; Basketball/Hockey, Air Canada; Sky Dome, Rogers.
Hearst has a 300 mile skidoo trail. Skidooers are the bane of private property owners in the country cutting fence wires and even decapitating themselves on unseen ones. Seadoos turn their owners brains to much. I like the quip that their owners should all line up on the Niagara River and go over the falls on their machines.
Louis Applebaum composed the series of fanfares that are played live to call the audience to their seats at the Festival Theatre when the house opens.
It says a lot about Sudbury that it is considered important to show the location of ever beer and liquor store in town.
When you approach Timmins, home of Shania Twang, you hit the outward boundary 100 miles before you see the first dwelling.
In my one-room school days the older boys arrived late for school in September because they went out to Ontario to pick tobacco. Many a teen earned the money to buy their first car that way. Since this book was written the crop that causes cancer has fallen into disrepute and the tobacco pickers cabins and the drying kilns sit abandoned. Farms now grow soybeans, asparagus, ginseng, garlic, even peanuts but nothing is as profitable as tobacco was, or sees the boys arrive, and offers a winter of leisure that tobacco did.
Everyone loves to hate Toronto. It’s a grand city if they ever finish building it. Delayed commuter lines are equalled only by cost overruns. And leaving 40,000 fans high and dry when a losing World Series Final ran into overtime and the system shut down....
Two Blue Jays stories:
The falcon who chases seagulls out of the Skydome is named Winfield after the player who was arrested for killing a gull with a thrown ball.
A husband dragged to the Opera during world series play jumped up and cheered during an aria when Carter scored his grand slam home run.
Canadian Football shot itself in the foot by failing to broadcast games unless they were a sellout. Thus an entire generation of sports fans failed to see Canadian Football on TV. It is TV Ad revenue that makes possible the multi-million dollar salaries other professional players receive.
Despite the 20 foot fence wild deer visit the Zoo population during the rut.
The latest identified threat to our water is microplastics.
The idea that a marmot could predict weather is rather far-fetched. Not to be outdone by Wiarton Willie Lucie the Lobster makes similar prognostications in Barrington Passage NS. Willie’s home is in the North End of Town.