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Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Murdoch says it's time Toronto separates from the rest of Ontario.
March 16, 2010 - 6:41pm
"Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Murdoch says it's time Toronto separates from the rest of Ontario.
"The province is run totally by the mentality that is coming out of Toronto. The government of the day can't get anything done because they are overruled by Toronto," said the maverick MPP.
The suggestion was sparked by a discussion at Saturday's roundtable in Chepstow among the Bruce County Federation of Agriculture and federal, provincial and municipal politicians over Queen's Park's lack of understanding when it comes to dealing with coyotes in rural Ontario."
Sounds more like they should be expelled
[tosses a Nyah bomb at Maysie, then runs away]
Bigkitty, I believe you are onto something. I believe that being expelled from Ontario would be in the best interests of all citizens of Grey and Bruce counties.
We could set up toll booths at all the entry points into the county, and charge people coming from the GTA access to our rural areas.
I think its a great idea. Toronto has certain needs (i.e. public transit, social housing) which, while not unique, are qualitatively different than most of the rest of the province because of how big and densely populated Toronto is. Provincial status would give Toronto the taxing power (income, sales) to pay for these things, or to negotiate directly with the federal government for appropriate transfer payments. Personally rather than just making Toronto a separate province I'd prefer if some more general quasi-provincial "city state" status could be created under the Constitution, which could then potentially be offered to the National Capital Region, Vancouver and/or Montreal if they want it, too.
EDITED TO ADD: The toll booths comment above appears to have been added in jest, but I actually think something like that would make a lot of sense, too, in order to ensure that commuters who work in Toronto but live in the suburbs still pay their fare share for city roads and services and the like.
Has anyone asked Hudak to comment on this or if he plans any disciplinary action against Murdoch?
Hmmm, weird I had thought they should be kicked out of Canada, as opposed to just Ontario..... :D ;)
Gotta give Toronto one thing, they don't elect many Cons.
Too many Liberanos perhaps but hey, you lefties should look at bagkitty. [nyah]
I wonder how many people does it take to start your own country?
Maybe we should all start our own countries or city states.
Great idea Webgear.... until the inevitable nyah bomb race starts.
Personally I am holding out for a reestablishment of the divine right of
bagkittyskings... and if that ever happens, expulsion will be the the least of Toronto's worries.Bigkitty what is a nyah bomb?
I will recognize your Kingship if you grant me the title of Squire of Lindwood. I am not greedy, I just want 50 hides of land, and to be a freeman.
I notice the ONDP stated that no one is allowed to leave Ontario (Toronto Star article). I guess freedom is only a word.
Well Webgear, you pretty much have to see it in action to understand. I suggest you go through this thread where Maysie launches the first one, and I cry foul. (it also helps to remember they are normally delivered in a sequence of six, to a school yard melody, with a long drawn out fifth "nyah": " nyah, nyah, nyah nyah, nyah.... nyah" -- I hope that makes things clearer for you)
Perhaps Murdoch is using a bit of tongue-in-cheekiness to pry some discussion out of the people's elected officials, and the departments that govern the province. He should have possibly stuck with making fun of Toronto's wind turbine and suggesting legislation to pop the things up in any un-used urban spaces in the GTA.
The coyote thing has me confused. I thought that counties could set up their own regs as far as controlled hunts and bounties.
Why would Hudak punish Murdoch. Hudak should be asked for a comment, but if he dumps on Murdoch that sends a weird signal to the rural ridings that are currently PC and tend to favour anti-GTA sentiment.
I actually don't have much of a problem with this proposal. I think there would probably be advantages for Torontonians AND non-Torontonians.
Rosie Dimanno weighs in.
Normally her columns are unmitigatingly offensive, but this one leaves me more bewildered than anything.
Toronto could be our own little San Marino.
I enjoy the GTA. I don't want to live there, but it's a fun place, and occasionally I feel the urge to go to the big city and lose myself, the stereotypical story. I like people, and I love food, and the GTA has plenty of both (plus a rather large population of women).
Really, the cities and the countryside of southern ontario need to work more closely together instead of setting artificial boundaries or igniting the same old rural-urban arguments.
It's clearly a demographic challenge as well as lifestyle. The GTA is certainly more diverse ethnically than the countryside and will only continue to grow in that fashion, and that fuels all kinds of redneck racism. I really hope Murdoch\Hudak and the PC party does not play on this aspect of the discussion for political gain.
Murdoch was at a meeting of the federation of agriculture and was playing to the home crowd. Coyotes in Bruce and Grey have become a serious problem and Murdoch was just trying to juxtapose the reaction to them in rural Ontario and Toronto. Where if you remember one proposed solution was to live trap them and then send them out into 'the country' were they are killing livestock, wild turkeys, rabbits and pets.
Rosie Dimanno is a scum bag, a total fuckwad. I hope to never see her in Grey County.
"In fact, bet there aren't half as many guns in Bruce County as there are in Scarborough. Just saying."
Another useless reporter making shit up.
If this was about anyone other than rural people this column would be condemned as a piece of classist, or if similar things were said about people of colour racist trash. It is truly offensive.
Rosie Dimanno and her ilk are why people hate Toronto. Everytime I read any of her articles I just get angry, this one more then ever.I mean look the title. "Hick MPP can have all rural ontario" last time I checked Toronto isn't the only city in province. Dimanno is a fucking tool. I am a utterly ashamed she speaks for this city.
Yeah, it totally was. I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't offensive - I think I said that wrong. What I meant is, usually I'm just offended by her article, but this time I was just confused because she was kind of rambling all over the place and didn't really make any coherent points in it, whether offensive or otherwise. Sorry if it sounded like I was giving her a pass on it.
Don't forget, most of us Torontonians weren't born here, I don't think! So we're not generally delighted either at the suggestion that our former non-Toronto selves were "hicks" or that friends and family we left behind in our smaller towns, cities, and rural areas are "hicks".
And some of us born in Toronto have migrated to the hinterlands.
hear hear webgear! I completely agree with you. Yuck! What a horrible person. But if you guys don't want her, what the hell are we to do with her? Perhaps we can ship her off to Alberta to sit somewhere with a nice laptop and no windows.
I am about the only person I know who was actually born in Toronto - West General Hospital to be exact. Lived in Scarborough growing up, moved downtown where I loved it, and am now back in Scarborough living in what people around here refer to as "the slum". For all my emotional attachment to Scarborough I would much prefer living back downtown again.
By the way I love Toronto and almost all Torontonians (DiMano now being a notable exception) and think Murdoch is quite wrong. Toronto is a cultural and economic driver of this great province. Without it we in rural Ontario would be much poorer and not just in monetary terms.
Hog Town is as Hog Town does.
I grew up in Northern Ontario and can attest to the fact that TO is hated just as much there as the CoU is in BC. Interestingly I thought you had to get at least north of Parry Sound before the real hatred for Hog Town shows up.
Yeah, much south of that, and you've got all the Torontonians on vacation and transplanted Torontonian retirees. :D
How I wish other babblers would stop suggesting using Alberta as a dumping grounds for their waste (toxic and otherwise). Then again, from what I have read about Central Canada... "shipping it out" seems to be their solution for most waste management issues.
Coyote(s) attacked a man last night in Dundalk, Ontario (Southern Grey County). It was likely one captured from Toronto and the release in the Grey County.
Yeah, my friend from Dundalk had it on her facebook page.
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2494060
"The man, not realizing the animal was wild, approached it and was bitten in the face. The animal left the property, entering the woods," a police new release said.
The Coyote "problem" certainly isn't a rural/urban issue. A woman and her dog were attacked here last year, around Spettigue's pond-- my childhood backyard-- which is very much inside London.
The problem is us. There's a newish animal in the neighborhood, and we have to learn a few things. The Coyotes already have thier shit together. Here's one rule: Don't lead with your face when approaching a dog, known or unknown.
I'm not sure how Torontonians are to blame for coyotes...where does that come from?
I can see how trapping them and then releasing them in a rural area could be considered dumping them somewhere. But I don't really get what else you can do. It's a bad thing to release wild animals back into the wild? You can be sure that the coyotes weren't born in Toronto, so obviously we're not just creating coyotes to plague rural folks with.
What's the solution? Kill them?
I saw a documentary awhile back that said that one of their survival strategies is that they breed at a far faster rate with more pups when they feel threatened in their environment. If they are not being hunted and have enough food they stop breeding as often and have fewer pups. Seems the best strategy is to learn to live with them and make sure there is better food for them than your cat or little dog. Eradicating them while not only morally reprehensible apparently doesn't ever work well and has potentially worse unforeseen outcomes..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzB0UL5qV18