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Time for Northern Ontario to Separate?


  

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They didn't split the states up - they united existing colonies into states.

Notice the first early states in the east were much smaller jurisdictions compared to the one's that got bigger further west and later in time. What's up with that?

Were the divisions along colonial ethnic or perhaps native territorial lines, watershed or bio-geoclimatic or bio-regional divisions or population density? Was it greed for wealth or power or just more convenient for map-makers that shaped things later on? Did people in the west lobby for larger states or people in the east? Was there an advantage to western folks or did the eastern states feel disadvantaged in some way?

I know we hear a lot about smaller states/provinces getting more representation than they 'deserve' so if you can't beat them why not join them? I've long thought Vancouver Island would make a dandy province if not a country in it's own right. I'm convinced we could manage our fisheries a hell of a lot better from hear than anyone in Ottawa ever could.

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No time to read the whole thread but-I was born raised north of North Bay and lived there until age 20-relatives still live there.

There is nothing in that frozen shithole to interest anyone economically or socially.

It's a wasteland of Brobdingnagian proportions with no redeeming values of any kind and the idea of separation is a joke-there isn't enough money in the whole place to pay for heating a hockey rink unless they can somehow talk the Feds into ponying up the dough.

I take it living in Northern Ontario wasn't a pleasant experience for you? Did it require therapy to get over?

However, I think you missed the mark a little when you say there is nothing in northern Ontario to interest anyone economically or socially.

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It will also require the full and unfettered consultation with First Nations and other aboriginal groups.

Bingo.

Those are the people who control the North. I also like Argus's suggesting of eastern Ontario separating.

Our provinces are way too big. Too much daddy gov't getting too much money from everyone and handing out to cricket clubs and ethnic events and Tamil fund-raising.

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Notice the first early states in the east were much smaller jurisdictions compared to the one's that got bigger further west and later in time. What's up with that?

Were the divisions along colonial ethnic or perhaps native territorial lines, watershed or bio-geoclimatic or bio-regional divisions or population density? Was it greed for wealth or power or just more convenient for map-makers that shaped things later on? Did people in the west lobby for larger states or people in the east? Was there an advantage to western folks or did the eastern states feel disadvantaged in some way?

I know we hear a lot about smaller states/provinces getting more representation than they 'deserve' so if you can't beat them why not join them? I've long thought Vancouver Island would make a dandy province if not a country in it's own right. I'm convinced we could manage our fisheries a hell of a lot better from hear than anyone in Ottawa ever could.

That's a lot of questions. How you divide up the place isn't as important as how well it's managed. Mike Harris forced Toronto to amalgamate, thinking that it would make the place run better (or, if you're cynical he did it to screw up Toronto for a generation ) but it didn't work.

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Our provinces are way too big. Too much daddy gov't getting too much money from everyone and handing out to cricket clubs and ethnic events and Tamil fund-raising.

So having more provinces will mean more governments, more duplication and more overhead. You should really go away and think about things for a long time, or just ask questions here rather than posting without consideration.

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No time to read the whole thread but-I was born raised north of North Bay and lived there until age 20-relatives still live there.

There is nothing in that frozen shithole to interest anyone economically or socially.

It's a wasteland of Brobdingnagian proportions with no redeeming values of any kind and the idea of separation is a joke-there isn't enough money in the whole place to pay for heating a hockey rink unless they can somehow talk the Feds into ponying up the dough.

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So having more provinces will mean more governments, more duplication and more overhead. You should really go away and think about things for a long time, or just ask questions here rather than posting without consideration.

Michael, don't be to quick to take a simple look at having more or less governments. That's how Harris failed!

I've watched two major examples in my life. The first was in the 70's when Hamilton and its suburbs formed what was called Regional government. It was an extra layer of municipal government that was supposed to manage common problems and resources, like plowing, street building and maintenance, police and fire services and so on.

The second was the actual amalgamation during Harris' term of Hamilton and its suburbs into one big city.

Now it seemed like common sense that having one big government body instead of a bunch of smaller ones would be more efficient. Why have a handful of police chiefs instead of just one? Wouldn't a larger body need only a smaller amount of bureaucrats? Wouldn't a common snow plowing department need a few less supervisors and even actual plows?

Of course, nothing like that actually happened. We kept ALL the civil servants we had before and hired some more! We kept all the former city halls. Under regional government we kept all the police and fire chiefs. The overhead went up, not down! Cost savings were never realized.

Because different areas had different needs we saw many silly decisions made, such as a leaf sucking machine going down country roads! We saw expensive equipment needed in a suburb area sold off because some inner city bureaucrat who had never saw the need for it in his balliwick saw no problem with dumping such for some quick money, then having to buy new equipment for much more cost.

The examples are too numerous to count. The bitterness has never gone away between the suburbs and the inner city. It can't, really. The problem is that there are NO success stories! For the suburbs, taxes went up and services went down because of having fewer governments.

If the new larger government could point to at least a couple of areas where citizens paid less and/or received better service then there would be some grudging acceptance but that has never been the case. With only negatives and no positives it becomes a mission of futility for politicians to try to get everyone within the new larger boundary to feel a sense of unity and civic pride. Every time such feelings do spring up some service gets eliminated or reduced, some tax is increased.

So having MORE governments tends to be more efficient! This at first seems contrary to common sense but a bit of reflection makes things more clear. All governments tend to lack common sense! What's more, the larger a bureaucracy the more intelligence seems to be reduced. Bureaucracies have no interest in greater efficiencies if it means reducing their own size. Actually, they have no interest in efficiency at all. They merely pretend to care for political reasons.

There's an old maxim that intelligence is a mathematical constant you divide by the number of people in a group. So if you increase the size of a bureaucracy the individual intelligence level gets lowered!

Having more provincial governments would mean that the accompanying bureaucracy could focus on a smaller area of interest, giving it more and better attention.

Just my humble opinion, but real world examples tend to support it!

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So having MORE governments tends to be more efficient! This at first seems contrary to common sense but a bit of reflection makes things more clear. All governments tend to lack common sense! What's more, the larger a bureaucracy the more intelligence seems to be reduced. Bureaucracies have no interest in greater efficiencies if it means reducing their own size. Actually, they have no interest in efficiency at all. They merely pretend to care for political reasons.

Yes, and no. (This is likely a reason why Harris was, and always will be, a rube and a duffer who was utterly unable to understand how large organizations work.)

The questions are of governance, and of change. Change will always cost more in the short term, as departments have to ramp-up and eventually start eliminating duplication of services. In the medium term, they should start to become more efficient.

However, this didn't happen because governments aren't overseen by people who understand large organizations. Those people are... actually making money running large organizations. Instead you have Harrises, Rob Fords and Bob Raes and McGuintys - loudmouths and lawyers - mismanaging things.

In the long term, organizations mushroom and continue to grow like fungus.

There's an old maxim that intelligence is a mathematical constant you divide by the number of people in a group. So if you increase the size of a bureaucracy the individual intelligence level gets lowered!

Having more provincial governments would mean that the accompanying bureaucracy could focus on a smaller area of interest, giving it more and better attention.

Just my humble opinion, but real world examples tend to support it!

The best idea would be to publish all organization charts online, including what each department does (general list of duties, plus a list of actual outputs WITH numbers) and their costs.

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The best idea would be to publish all organization charts online, including what each department does (general list of duties, plus a list of actual outputs WITH numbers) and their costs.

I wish I could agree with you but I don't think that would help, Michael.

You see, bureaucrats have no shame!

Post their failings all you want. They don't care. They've got a union!

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I wish I could agree with you but I don't think that would help, Michael.

You see, bureaucrats have no shame!

Post their failings all you want. They don't care. They've got a union!

A lot of the time the managers aren't in a union. And the public has no idea what people do and where the money goes.

I think it would help.

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