Why So Many Canadians Live In This Tiny Area: The Golden Horseshoe
Вставка
- Опубліковано 22 сер 2024
- 📝 Substack: geographybygeo...
🌎 Podcast: www.spreaker.c... or @WiGPod
🌳 Linktree: linktr.ee/geog...
Canada is the second largest country in the world when it comes to area. Despite this, over one quarter of all Canadians live in an area that makes up less than 1% of all land. This region has been dubbed Canada's "Golden Horseshoe" since the middle of the 1950s. Here's why so many Canadians have decided to make the Golden Horseshoe their home.
Photos and videos come from Pexels, Pixabay. Attribution below:
Aric Shelby
Braeson Holland
Deeana Arts
Harrison Haines
Mhiya G
Patrick Tomasso
Rhys Abel
Rolan Muradov
Taryn Elliott
Tom Fisk
We Star Money
The fact that Canada doesn't have High Speed Rail between Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City is astounding. They are almost on a straight line.
Population size doesn't make the cost/benefit case.
@@rawnature8148 That's a BS North American talking point. Plenty of population in the Windsor/Detroit to Quebec City corridor.
Highspeed trains don't service every dinky town in-between major population centers.
@@mbogucki1 how many people travel between the four cities regularly? Between Quebec city and Montreal yes. Between the others not enough to justify the cost.
@@rawnature8148 I would say probably more people travel between Toronto/Montreal than between Montreal/Quebec City.
@@hkmarhk note the word regularly.
It's so weird that some countries have buildings with almost as many people as Nunavut which is 5 times bigger than France. The population distribution of Canada makes it a really deceiving country when looking at it on a map.
also check out where the mountain ranges are in Canada - they tended to limit population between the "horsehoe" and the plains.
What 'population' in Canada? They actually close down schools because there are no children.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver what do you mean?
@@captainblando Canada's birth rate has been non-existent since 1960.
@@charlolel I hear Canadian women complaining about immigrants when these same women have no intention of having children and raising families.
In Detroit you drive south to get to Canada
Same as some parts of new hampshire, minnesota, maine, and alaska
I grew up in the Golden Horseshoe back in the day and there were so many high-paying factory jobs they had a hard time keeping young guys in school. Many would quit at 16, take a factory job, buy a Mustang and get all the high-school girls (drats). Also, back then you could stay at a factory job your whole working life and retire with a decent pension.
Back when I lived in NY I spent a lot of time exploring the Golden Horseshoe region. The view of the Niagara Escarpment is always impressive from the QEW.
I visited Canada specifically Niagara falls and Toronto. Driving from NF to Toronto I noticed how populated the whole region actually is. In the QEW the traffic was heavy for the entire 80+ miles. Then arriving Toronto is another big traffic jam lol.
I’ve only ever lived in the greater Toronto area, with my family being in Niagara (where I live now). To me, that volume of traffic is normal. I’ve been thinking of moving elsewhere due to my career and cost of living, and there aren’t many options. Toronto? Expensive. Rent is at least 1800 for a single person. Vancouver? More expensive than Toronto. Montreal? Je ne parlis francais… makes getting a job harder. Calgary seems like the only other decent option for a city, but that costs thousands to move cross country. Anywhere else seems desolate, even Calgary seems isolated to me, having grown up in the GTA.
@@orangeradishneo Is Niagara Falls in the Canadian side affordable to make a living? How's the job market and pay overall?
We knew you were coming.
@@orangeradishneo moved recently to sudbury, personally love it apart from family and growing up my life in Niagara region. Sucks driving the 4+hour drive back. Apart from that, I like it.
It will become the second largest metro in NA in about 25 years. By far the fastest growing.
I'm a Yank from west Lake Erie who has spent a ton of time in the area and you forgot the Tomato Capital of Canada, Leamington. If you stay away from Toronto, the people of this area are fantastic and it is a wonderful destination. And, I say this as one who has travelled from coast to coast of Canada. Good job!
Leamington is a different world for us GTAers
True, Toronto sucks. It has it's good points but overall it sucks. It used to be a better city because the people used to be better. Calgary has the best people in Canada among the big cites. Most Canadians do not like Toronto!
As a longtime resident in this area, I enjoyed your pronunciation of some of our regional municipalities.😂
Doofrin? LOL
He got flummoxed a little by Dufferin....it was kind of funny
@@montyollie another one was "Petersborough" LOL
Norfuck!
@@mbstone99 Oshawa is were we went in the early 70s . I hear it is huge now .
What is stunning to me, who grew up in the Syracuse area, is the great affluence of the Golden Horseshoe area compared to the long-declining and depressed Upstate NY rust belt. Literally a short drive “right around the lake.”
A consequence of NY long being dominated by “downstate” NYC politicians and corruption, but stunning nonetheless as one drives and experiences it.
Hamilton is pretty rust belt-esque though
As a downstate guy I didn’t realize how much of a shithole upstate ny was. I genuinely thought parts looked like a third world country. I don’t blame upstaters for wanting to break off from the state because right now your area is very poor and underdeveloped
Lol I’m from Syracuse, I’ve heard there’s been a bit of a resurgence at least business wise. I know they’ve got that Micron microchip plant that’s supposed to be the biggest in the world that a lot of people are riding on I guess. Doubt it’ll really effect much unless it brings more business to Syracuse
And the effects in Canada are very similar to the political phenomenon you're describing in NY state. While "water," and agriculture are good explanations for the population growth 100 years ago, those reasons are basically irrelevant since at least the 80s. However, the political power is also heavily concentrated in Southern Ontario and Southern Quebec as is the vast majority of the manufacturing sector. They vote for politicians that preserve this core of power. Because there is no decentralization of power like the Federal system in the US, the other provinces have a good amount of difficulty keeping up. WFH has changed the dynamic somewhat, but anyone displaced from GTA will be replaced by an immigrant.
The main reason the Golden Horseshoe is so relatively prosperous and fast growing is because Canada has no sunbelt to draw people south. Also, all rust belt states are quite depressed despite not having NYC within them.
To be clear, a lot of it has to do with the soil up north being too thin, and the growing season too short to sustain agriculture. As the glaciers pushed south, they scraped away a lot of the topsoil toward the south. You can't viably have much settlement without food.
Yup, it is for this reason that northern Ontario and northern Quebec are so sparsely populated.
It actually is possible to grow crops that far north -- just look at the canola grown in east-central Alberta.
There simply isn't enough topsoil.
I live in Central BC 450kms from the USA border.
I got a large greenhouse. The soil is rocky and clayie. Because I'm up on a mountian plateau. I dig up the ground and take all the rocks out. Than take the dirt and mix it with planting soil and manure soil. Then I put the mixture into the whole I dug. This is were I plant.
Last year was my first year. My tomatoes did amazing. My potatoes also did amazing. I planted a bunch of pillennials aswell. Pillennials dont normally produce well the first year or two. But I did get some blue barriers, strawberries, Saskatoon berries, and grapes.
This year I'm expanding the area I'm planting inside my greenhouse. Its 36ft long by 8 ft wide by 8ft high. I plan to get 50lb to 100lbs of potatoes out of the ground. Dozen jars of tomatoes if not more. As I'm going to be canning allot of what I grow and dont eat right away. The canned goods will be used during the 5 month long winter.
Yup, the Shield is pretty barren. It doesn’t help that a lot of mining goes on up north, further damaging the land’s arability.
and that is changing, as climate changes permafrost, the real trick is to get the right deciduous plants to cover the ground in leaves, and we will see something else potentially in the way of topsoil... for now, indoor growing is becoming a solution for more settlement as more food becomes locally produced. The north has been getting better for settling for a long time, and now we can shift into high gear!
Canada is mostly a barren wasteland. Don't even look outside Golden Horseshoe for signs of civilization
I must call out a big mistake here: The first Europeans to settle there were French Canadians, Fort Niagara was a famous strongplace that was built by the French. The area had been settled by French colonists for over 100 years before the American revolution. It is true however that the influx of loyalists from the 13 colonies was so great compared to the French speaking population that overnight they got diluted.
I don't think he is forgetting who arrived first, I think he meant the first huge influx of people migrating into the area almost all at once. For almost a couple hundred years, you had dribs and drabs joining Quebec and Montreal and Detroit/La Petite Cote (pre-Windsor). That was nothing like the enormous influx of Loyalists that left the Thirteen Colonies, and they were in tens of thousands flooding in.
@@AntoniusReginaldus It definitely was the biggest influx but the way it was said is actually bothersome because it's misleading...
How can French Canadians “settle” there when they were born there? You mean the French were the first ones to settle there in sufficient numbers.
@@EliF-ge5bu Yes
There was no significant settling of French-Canadians in what's now Southern Ontario before the arrival of the Loyalists. There was the odd trading post or Catholic mission, and that was almost it. The one Catholic parish was in what's now Windsor, where there was a tiny settlement.
We don’t just have warm summers here in Canada. We have HOT AND HUMID summers where it can get up to 40°C with humidity, especially in the Golden Horseshoe.
Try Central Illinois. Last July was so hot and humid I declared it uninhabitable. You have to wrap a towel around the lawn mower handle just to hold on to it through your sweat. Was using bath towels on my car seats too. If this keeps up I'm going to need to buy an air-conditioned spacesuit just for yard work!
@@c.rutherford LMAO😂
Montreal and southern Quebec/eastern Ontario, too, have hot and humid summers, at least almost as much so as the Golden Horseshoe.
Hottest of all is the BC interior. Routinely hits 40-42 in summer and set a record of 49 a couple years ago.
@@BrianBaileyedtech That's dry heat, but still...
I grew up in Mississauga, the city immediately west of Toronto in the Peel Region, and I loved it. Sure it was a little car dependent being a classic Suburbia, but it was still awesome living next to one of the most important cities in the world. Now I live outside of the GTA in London, ON, the largest city in Southwest Ontario
I grew up in Scarborough/Markham but now I'm far away on Northern Van Island.
Fake London as NotJustBikes puts it.
The Forest City, eh?
@@coldlakealta4043 Yes, the Forest city
Mississauga is lame but they got some hoods lol
Same as Australia. More than 25% of Australians live within 3 hours drive of downtown Sydney.
Idk the percentage exactly, but the VAST majority of Canadians live along the St Lawrence River into Lake Ontario (Southern Ontario) which is really interesting because that's where "Canada" basically was two and three hundred years when European settlers arrived. Even though the nation expanded westward and acquired the Prarie provinces, most of Canadians still live in that initial Laurentain area
Ok. Quebec had a highly settled area along the St. Lawrence by the 1750s; but southern Ontario (including the Toronto area) wasn't systematically settled by Europeans until after the US war of 1776. Only after that, the British started surveying and settling the various counties. (Here in St. Catharines, the survey was in 1788.)
"Vast majority" is an exaggeration. It's more like a slim majority. Ontario and Quebec together have about 24.1 million people out of the Canadian total of 39.5 million (Statistics Canada current estimate). That's 61%.
But the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence area is only home to ~20 million of those, since southwestern Ontario, northern Ontario and northern Quebec are home to at least a few million. So it's probably somewhere around 50-52%.
@@dixonpinfold2582 Northern Ontario - 780,000. Northern Quebec - 44,000. No food up there!
@@wendigo53 I didn't want to go into pinpoint detail, but there is also a zone between northern Ontario (traditionally defined as the area north of Lake Nipissing) and the Golden Horseshoe. Likewise in Quebec, there are zones not properly regarded as either the St. Lawrence valley or northern Quebec. The point is that there are not far from about 2 million people combined in the two provinces who live away from the southern regions, even if not all of them are typically regarded as part of "the north."
In any case, it doesn't matter whether food is grown in a given area. If there is an economic reason for people to live somewhere, then food can and will be shipped in. If you need examples in order to understand this, consider places like Norway, Las Vegas and the Persian Gulf States, which simply import a lot of food from elsewhere.
Local self-sufficiency in food was more an issue a lifetime or more ago.
@@wendigo53No, but plenty of gold and other minerals!
As someone that grew up not to far outside of this region (Grey Bruce Counties) it's crazy how quick it can go from the the very rural and agricultural region I grew up in to heavy city traffic an hour or two east, like two separate worlds. I grew up thinking I lived in the middle of no where when Toronto, the biggest city in Canada, was only two hours away. I guess that's what happens when you rarely travel outside of your region!
On the other hand, it's crazy now to see the amount of tourists we get from Toronto that think our life outside of the big city is something from another planet. :)
A few years ago I went on a bike ride around Lake Ontario. The difference between the Ontario and NY sides is astounding.
Yep, US side is falling apart, Canadian side is rich.
Just like Detroit and Windsor
If Toronto and Southern Ontario were part of the United States, then those parts - along with the Great Lakes rust belt (Rochester NY to Milwaukee) - would also be falling apart. Toronto would basically be just another Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc.
@@yodorob But they aren’t and Canadians don’t want to be Americans, so that is why Toronto is the fastest growing city in North america.
@@BrianBaileyedtech Exactly! Though various US Sunbelt cities like Austin, Texas, are growing at just as fast rates as Toronto if not faster.
Yeah but how golden for how long? We're opening up the Greenbelt so that we, or more correctly, the government can get more easy money from development fees, and developers/government supporters, can also make money on building over that important farmland, especially if they do it with urban sprawl. And Ontarians love this, because they keep voting for a government that values money over farmland, social cohesion, etc.
There's still millions of acres available for farming in Ontario, buttercup. Stop the alarmism.
Fun fact: Edmonton is the northern most city in North America with a population of 1 million people (metro)
Go Oilers.
@@normangoldstuck8107 go AVS!
I read somewhere it's the northern most in the world for its population
@@CortexNewsService Whoever told you that is wrong. Moscow is slightly further north than Edmonton, and has a much larger population.
Fun fact Grand Prairie is further north (even though the population is like at 67k 🥲)
I wouldn’t call winters in the Golden Horeshoe cold, they are mild due to the proximity to Lake Ontario. It heats up during the summer and retains that heat through winter.
Due to the Urban Heat Island Effect, in summer, the region experiences many days where it feels like up to 40° Celsius with the humidity.
But it isnt 40 Celsius and it is cold so your whole comment is redundant
@@JaKingScomez As someone who's from Algeria and now live in Montréal, I can guarantee that the humid summer days of Eastern Canada are very intense.
And relatively to Québec where I live currently, winter in Ontario is very warm. They barely get any snow.
So your whole comment is useless, as you're talking about something you clearly don't understand, which is pathetic.
@@PG-3462 Sounds like you're speaking about something you don't quite understand. Winters in Southern Ontario are cold not 'warm relative to Quebec'. I was born and raised. Saying we barely get any snow makes no sense either. How the fuck would you know?
@@PG-3462 no matter which way you try and explain yourself doesnt change the fact that you are wrong. Toronto is about as cold as Helsinki. Toronto is freezing. The winters are 100% cold theres no debate
still cold by Vancouver standards, but so are most places
Be careful, you're saying too many nice things about the Toronto area, people in BC and Alberta are going to get very upset! 😆
Our only concern in Alberta is the trees leaning so far east that they may fall over. The cause of this phenomenon? Toronto sucks (of course)😏😏🤠
People in BC have an irrational hatred of Toronto. Torontonians don't even know Vancouver exists in Canada.
Vancouver seems to be that part of Canada forgot to wipe after a 💩
@@BrianBaileyedtech thus the hatred. They love attention.
@@vicckiss5655 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
please do a video on why Tokyo is the world's most populated city
and another one on why Mongolia is the sparsely populated country.
I lived Tokyo for several years. It has a perfect location, that’s why.
It's the most populous city because more people live there than anywhere else. Hope that helps!
@@isocarboxazid😂😅
Respect for proper pronunciation of Toronto.
What about Dufferin though? Dooferin?
Tronnuh.
Toe Ron dough? Really
@@vicckiss5655 He does in fact pronounce it the way native-born educated Torontonians do (doctors, lawyers, professors, bankers, etc.): _ter-ON-to,_ with the second 't' enunciated as softly as possible.
@@dixonpinfold2582 so it may as well just be tur. Ahn oh. ....... 💩💩💩👍🤣. It's fun to have some play on words freind
i lived in Edmonton for several years. It is quite a bit further north than 100 miles from the US border and has over 1,000,000 people.
sure, but Edmonton is the exception, not the rule.
I'm not about to do the math but I would be interested to know the percentage of Canadians who do not live within 100 miles of the US border who live in Edmonton.
Lol... missed that one.
Edmonton is 550 Km from the U.S border.
@@dannyhightower911 Oil is a good incentive to go further north.
One thing to keep in mind about Agriculture . The Lakes are Heat Sinks . For 200 years the area close to the Lakes were filled with Orchards . Damage from Frost in Spring and Fall was less of a worry because of the Lake . Vineyards cropped up later for the same Reason . It is a big Micro climate ? In the Summer when its hot we drive North of the Ridge and the Temp drops a few Degrees and is very nice when You get to the Lake Shore .
The same around Lake Michigan in SW region of state Michigan and northern part of Indiana. That region so called Michiana.
You do?
Not sure what you mean by “relatively warm summers”, it’s hot and humid.
Some facts for people who hear that most of Canadians live just 100 miles from the border, which probably makes them think that the rest of Canada is inhabitable. There are towns all over Canada, very few in the North, but still. And major cities like Calgary and Edmonton are north of this zone also, 171 miles and 371 miles respectively. So yeah, it gets colder norther you go, but you can live there.
Yep and it gets up to 90 degrees in the Yukon in summer….
Canada is an "Exporting nation," where 88% of ALL produced goods are exported out of Canada, and only 12% are retained for sale within Canada, for Canadians.
@Not Expat Joe Nope.
The region is like an island when you see how Lake Erie and Ontario are to the south and Lake Simcoe + Lake Huron to the north and west.
... and cut off on the east by the Niagara River. We call it the Niagara peninsula.
I live in the golden horseshoe and this video was very interesting and informative. 👍
Québec has left the chat…
Walk faster Quebec, Alberta is behind you and trying to not barf.
Hi. Guy in Toronto here. This is one of the greatest explainer videos on this topic I've ever seen! Great job!! :D
Consider me a new subscriber to your channel!!! :D
cool finally a video on where I grew up, the industrialized core of Canada
20 years and counting in Etobicoke 😎
east york for just over two decades here ✌
You like it?
I live in the so called golden horseshoe . The urban spread is too much . Farm land is being wrecked to put up houses. There is so much of Canada that can not be farmed not all of it in the far north . Most of it is on the Canadian shield. That is where the new houses should be built there and north of there.
Yes, we need to densify existing urban areas and stop building McMansions on prime farm land
@@sizor3ds We don't need to densify urban areas. We need to stop immigration. The immigrants to Toronto are killing the golden horse shoe by skyrocketing the cost of living and destroying the values that made this country worth living in. I moved back to Niagara after being in Hamilton for a decade. It looks like a third world country now.
Yeah go ahead you move up their yourself and see how great it is. The weather sucks, the bugs suck, the whole environment sucks. Plus have fun building a metropolis of 5 million people in a place that’s as bad as that area. Wow that would be brutal construction. Plus you try moving 5 million people up their and you would lose 5 million people to emigration.
No one wants to live in the middle of nowhere.
You need jobs, not just houses in the middle of nowhere.
Historically, new towns in the north were born from some significant business setting up. Unfortunately, the time for that has mostly passed.
Hi Geoff, great video!
Video suggestion: What if Canada/US was divided by West/East instead of North/South. How would these countries compair in terms population, economy, culture, time zone and size.
Thank you!
That sounds dope hope to see it
That would be very interesting! As a Western Canadian (Albertan) I think culturally we are more similar to people in Montana, Colorado, even Washington than Eastern Canadians. I know most Ontario’s think of themselves as “in the middle”. People in the West consider anything east of Manitoba “eastern”.
That would make more sense. Even more so: 1 big North American country or at least a EU-like area.
@@dougpatterson7494 Canada's population distribution is very similar to the U.S (higher where there is a diverse food supply and good transport options). Across the country, trade patterns are north-south: Ontario's trade is 85% with USA, and 15% with other provinces and countries. The "Golden Horseshoe" benefits from southern Ontario's large and diverse agricultural industry (biggest by dollar value of any province); and proximity to the highly populated US states in the Great Lakes region. Toronto's growth really snowballed in 1977, when a separatist government was elected in Quebec, and many national companies moved their headquarters from Montreal to Toronto.
@@dougpatterson7494 The diving line is a bit east than that... (I live in NW Ontario where we are only Ontarians by name, completely ignored and unsupported/unappreciated by Toronto)... I think the line is at Thunder Bay, the western shore of Lake Superior.
The geography of Toronto for sure explained part of why it's the most populous city in Canada, but main reason is political. Until the 1960s Montreal was the biggest city and the economic center of Canada. But with the rise of the Quebec separatist movement, most companies and anglophone community moved to Toronto. and only 1976 Toronto passed Montreal as the biggest city, the year the Parti Québecois took power. If it wasn't for that, Montreal would probably still be the biggest Metropolitan region, but we'll never know
Excellent point and accurate, I personally love Montreal and maybe one day live there
The ascendency of Toronto began in the 50's; it was helped by the situation in Quebec but it was inevitable by that time.
@@bobbbxxx i don’t think it was that obvious in the 50s. The 50s were a period of great economic boom for Montreal. And it was a period of political stability for Quebec with Union Nationale in power that was nationalist but very pro business
@@vince8520 It was post-war so every city in Canada boomed during the '50s. Apparently the economic shift began happening earlier than people now realize, but it was quite low-key. Toronto was growing at a faster rate than Montréal in the 50s so it was inevitable. There is no question that the politics in Quebec changed things drastically and rapidly; and then Toronto really took off and has never looked back. It would be really interesting to see what Montreal would be like today if things have happened differently. Certainly in the 1920s it looked like it was headed for great things. St James Street, which is now Rue St Jacques, was very beautiful and was the Wall Street of Canada. It really took a nosedive in proceeding generations, but in the last generation has started to come back with some nice hotels, but that area of Old Montreal is very quiet in the winter time. It's still missing a bit of a spark however. Hopefully someday it will be livelier
@@vince8520 You cannot discount the prevailing sentiment from the rest of Canada bristling at all the Federal money going to Quebec while that province was so busily denigrating everything "Anglais" in origin. That started long before those pivotal events like De-Gualle and his Vive Quebec Libre rudeness, the seeming embracing of the FLQ by your grassroots Quebecer as "patriots" rather than the immoral thugs they quite obviously were. All this long before Parizeau and his "racist'" anti immigrant "pur lain" crap. There wre very obvious signs of Quebec holding a very anti-Canadian attitude long before the 1960's and those institutions continuing to fly in the face of that lost favour with your blue collar Canadian due to it.
DOOFERIN. lmao that pronunciation was brutal. think "duff beer" from the simpsons then add the last 2 sylables
In the 19th Century Montreal emerged as the largest city in Canada (taking over from Quebec City). this was due to the construction of the Lachine Canal, that generated power and attracted industry. Also Montreal was always the center of Canada's fur industry, and capital from the fur industry financed much of Canada's earliest industry.
Toronto began to take over from Montreal after the Second World War. This was largely because of the emergence in the early 20th century of heavy manufacturing, especially of steel, automobiles, household appliances and industrial machinery In the Ohio-Great Lakes region of the USA. After the Second World War, Canadian governments encouraged American industries to open branch plants in Canada, and for many the closest location was Southern Ontario. When the USA and Canada signed the Auto Pact in the early 1960s, the automotive industry experienced rapid growth in Southern Ontario, with Ford and GM having their largest plants on either side of Toronto in Oakville and Oshawa.
The financial sector also began slowly moving away from Montreal to Toronto after the war, but in the 1970s Quebec's language laws caused much of the financial sector to move from Montreal to Toronto, cementing Toronto's dominance. By the 1980s, Toronto had overtaken Montreal in population, and today Greater Toronto has about 50% more people that Greater Montreal. If you consider the entire Golden Horseshoe around the west end of Lake Ontario (the arc of cities from Niagara Falls to Oshawa), the population is around 8 million, which is about the same as for Greater Chicago, and double that of Montreal.
now gm closing plants left and irght
Yet, I think you forgot to mention the 2 most important factors that help Toronto and the golden horseshoe take over drastically from Montreal and the province of Quebec in general : 1- the final opening of the St-Lawrence seaway, and therefore 2- the fact that the province of Ontario is by far the most politically and economically favoured province in the federation, since it's beginning, and maybe prior, perhaps the most favoured British colony in North America when it was Upper-Canada or Western part of the United-Canada.
The divestment in Quebec caused by separatists saved Montreal from over development and excessive immigration, both of which have turned Toronto into a cesspool.
@@randomrazr Are they? GM Oshawa was resurrected from the dead a few years ago, the CAMI plant in Ingersoll is building EV delivery vans, and a few weeks ago GM announced their St Catharines engine and transmission plant will have a future building EV drive units. GM, Ford, Stellantis, etc are dumping billions of dollars into their Ontario operations to build EV's and such.
As a former Oshawa resident I was surprised GM brought that plant back from the dead, considering the company had spent the last 30 years constantly downsizing their Oshawa operations, and every few years giving it last-minute reprieves with decisions to keep it open for a few more years coming in at the 11th hour.
@@eldeluxo
Oh god, we've got a live one!
The Golden Horseshoe sounds like a casino in Pahrump.
Your videos inspired me to start my own channel, I love your videos!
What will that channel be about??
I’m a Brit that currently lives in the Golden Horseshoe - Canada will build north in the next few decades. Climate change isn’t a disaster for some places, seemingly! Lot of opportunity for the Country.
There already is quite a bit to build on in developed areas well north of the 49th parallel. The rest of Canada is not one vast hinterland. Expansion should be easier becasue of that existing development. 🙂
We should offer extra 'immigration points' to applicants who agree to live their first decade in Canada outside of this Golden Horseshoe.
Unfortunately, for purely political reasons, Trudeau won't do that. And the Charter of Rights prevents the government from compelling immigrants to settle in less populated areas, so that's not an option.
I live in the Niagara region (closer to Lake Ontario), and our winters are getting very mild and hardly any snow. This past winter, when places like NYC or Vancouver were getting hammered with snow and cold, it was nearly always above 0°C with green grass.
While preferring smaller areas with less people, I do enjoy living here. Despite the issues I find things like transit is still the best with the most promise in the future, plus my city is so compact I can get around on bike easily.
People, in any country, tend to live close to a water source, wether it’s a coastline, river or lake. The bulk of the settlers in Canada, who came in by boat, settled close to the great lakes and the St.Lawrence river and the fertile surrounding lands.
If you look at the US, for example, the bulk of the population hugs the coasts, the great lakes and the river systems.
I live in the Golden Horseshoe - in Toronto, it's a great place to be. The quality of life is excellent, it's clean, safe, there's plenty of fresh water, electricity, the roads are well paved, there's parks, there's lots of jobs. It's the best part of North America to live in.
You must not be riding the TTC lately
Lol what!?! Crime is insane, house prices are terrible, old Toronto smells like urine all the time, there’s garbage everywhere and electricity rates are some of the highest in the world.
I’ll have what you’re smoking.
@@Huckster2367Well said!
Very impressive that you pronounced Toronto like us natives!
But he tripped up on 'Dooferin'..."Dufferin"...
@@stephensaines7100 How do you even get doo from duff
"Locals" you mean.
@@Humulator That's how he pronounces it. Ask him.
@@rampantmutt9119 native: a person born in a specified place or associated with a place by birth, whether subsequently resident there or not.
I don't live there. I always wondered why. I've asked both of my parents and they both shrudder and say "you wouldn't wanna"
Sounds like a typical suburban response lol. Big cities are vibrant and fun. Been living in Toronto for 15 years and only ever had to drive my car a handful of times. Everything is walkable with restaurants, grocery stores, pubs, butchers, cafes, and parks. Parks are full of people eating drinking playing music and games every night in the summer. It’s a whole vibe people don’t understand. Outsiders always say “Traffic” as if Torontonians can relate. Only people driving are people trying to get back to Milton or Brampton. We ride the subway and streetcars and walk since everything is close by. There’s a neighborhood for any type of living.
I left southern Ontario for alberta and never looked back. I bought a house in Calgary for 1/3rd of the price.
Toronto over passed Montreal as Canadian biggest city only abou50 years ago, before that Montreal was the biggest, and the 2nd biggest French speaking city in the world after Paris.
I live on the border of the Horseshoe (across Lake Ontario in Rochester). We always heard the saying that "Canada is a country 6000 miles long and 100 miles wide." WAY too cold there, man. And that's from someone who lives next to Buffalo.
Literally the same weather as Rochester. Did you think before you posted?!
@@BrianBaileyedtech Apparently you didn't. Of course the 100-mile-long strip is livable. It's the gigantic part north of this strip that isn't.
@@JohnDoe-et8th Bullshit. The prairies are well over 100 miles north of the border. Ever heard of Yukon Gold potatoes? Over 1000 km north of the us border. I have been to every Canadian province, territory and US state. Have you been out of mom’s basement?Rookie.
@@JohnDoe-et8th I also worked at CFS Alert, the worlds most northerly permanently inhabited settlement, twice. Apparently it’s inhabitable at the very top of Ellesmere island, because I am still alive. I win.
Toronto gets way less snow than both Rochester & Buffalo, though!
I'm surprise he didn't include Southwestern Ontario. The population there is just as large, if not larger than the area he included north of Toronto.
I'm sure the area from Windsor to London is very dense, being the southernmost point in Canada.
When talking about the reason this area succeeded, you really could have focused on Toronto, and needed to say the name. Toronto succeeded hugely, which overflowed to the rest.
Disagree. I was born and raised in Hamilton and prior to what is now known as the "GTHA" LOL it was GTA and Hamilton always had its own thing going on. We were steeltown, full of factory jobs. Then when they left, we became Toronto's bedroom community. But Toronto's overflow NEVER came as far as Hamilton until MAYBE the 2010s.
Halton resident here; can confirm, Canada is Definitely a place. 👍
Ouch at the pronunciation of Dufferin as "Doo-fer-in". It's almost unnatural to accidentally say it that way for an English speaker... but the other 99% of your video was great :)
Peterborough “Peter’s borough”
Haldimand-Norfolk was wrong but most people out of the region also say it wrong. Haul-de-min
As a former resident of the Niagara region I can attest to the abundance of the Golden Horseshoe and it’s a beautiful area that is missed by myself very much…thanks for this.
As a lifelong resident of southern Ontario I have never in my life heard of the Golden Horseshoe having been extended to the Kawartha's, Waterloo, Northumberland, Barrie, Guelph, et al. Your map even shows it reaching the shore of Georgian Bay. That itself is a capital WTF? The wikipedia page has an image right at the top, the area in red shows the CORE area, that is the Golden Horseshoe. Starts about Oshawa, then heads west, mostly following the 401 corridor, then continuing around the western side of Lake Ontario and around to Niagara Falls. Whoever added that "extended" or Greater Golden Horseshoe is living in a fantasy world. Now 25% of the country probably does live in that extended boundary, but that is a boundary that is completely made up and has never been referred to as the Golden Horseshoe..
It is called the greater Golden Horseshoe and it most assuredly exists.
Aw I was happy to see my hometown (Barrie) included. It was nice to be somewhere other then "an hour north if Toronto."
Nicely done! 😃
I loved Canada when we went to visit family and friends. Life in the North was laid back compared to the US. I am hoping to retire there one day with my fiancée.
Dont do it... too expensive.
@@geftiler2112It's far less expensive the further north you go!
As a Canadian born in Edmonton, Alberta, and having lived primarily in Alberta and BC, travelled more south than East, and when I did travel to Toronto, I felt very sad seeing how flat the world is out there... I need my mountains, and as a BC southern Interior resident, we have packed valleys and empty mountain tops. could use transit solutions for sure since our Greyhound Bus is gone for good... Okanagan could use some help, as Kelowna is super busy while Penticton is a pocket of business in a sea of mellowness... Traffic can be the worst with so few roads because of the lakes and mountains, and it is too beautiful in this province for many of us to leave ;)
Around here, we call the Niagara Escarpment 'the mountain'. 100ish feet of limestone cliff. Looks amazing when the leaves change. Then very depressing for the next 6 or so months.
Hi from Edmonton!
Definitely agree. Totally different world!
This is a great video. I have learned a lot. Thank you.
Tokyo?
I live in the Golden Horseshoe, but it's being squandered by politicians. According to Macleans, Canada, especially Toronto, is now starting to resemble California, and along with that is all the problems of California. Yikes.
AKA: A Liberal hellhole.
Canadian here ….. while most Canadians live close to the border, the best and brightest of us life further north 😂
Smart move!
The best and brightest left Canada for better opportunities.
@@sexygeek8996 I don't think so.
@@bobbbxxx Look at how many Canadian university graduates (Science, Engineering, Medicine, etc. ... not Artsy junk) go the United States to work because the pay is much higher. Taxes and expenses are lower also.
@@sexygeek8996 The USA has made it difficult for highly skilled workers to get there. Canada has made it easy. The "Best and Brightest" aren't only people born in Canada.
Props for saying Toronto Correctly!
The problem with that blue band across the country makes it seam like Canadians are spread all along it, which is not true. A majority of Canadians live in urban centres that are close to the US border. No one says 100% of the people in Netherlands live within 100 km of the borders with Europe. More than 40% Americans live on the coasts, that's more than 127 million people. Let's also draw big blues lines down each coastline. The reason I bring this up, is this statistic (of Canadians living this close the border) is seen as some kind of failure or problem with Canada.
golden horseshoe losing so much fertile farmland suburbs and supermakrets
There's enough fertile soil in the rest of Southern Ontario to keep you fed for the next 10 generations. Sheesh.
You sure did your homework Geoff. Great vid! Very informative. Pleasant format. I learned a few new things and I've been living in Toronto for 40 years. BTW, you pronounce Toronto like a local. Like it should be. T'ronno
It’s because of Tonawanda. More than a quarter of all Canadians want to live as close to Tonawanda as possible. This is why Hamilton is the most desirable and most envied major-ish city in Canada.
I bought my Honda in Tonawanda ; )
are there a ton of wandas in tonawanda?
In my memory Australia is the 6th largest country and 63th largest population. Yet over 70% live close to the coast and over 70% live on just 2% of land. And whats shocking: Canada and even Russia is more dense than Iceland.
About 40% of Australians live in two cities - Sydney and Melbourne.
The winters may still be mild but it'll get more snow than ever, and the summers are getting hotter and hotter. Not comfortable!
Aprox 50% of the canadian population lives within 150 miles of the usa border. Actually the st lawrence valley was settled far far before lower Ontario (upper canada). The reason lower canada and the st lawrence valley were settled is because the land is arable and not part of the canadian shield
The numbers I've seen is 90% of Canadians live within 100miles of the US border
Canadians are so obsessed with America they want to live as close to us as possible
@@cmbakerxx they love us
@@millevenon5853 you're right. Obsessed with the sun ☀️🤽♂️
@@millevenon5853 No, as close to the equator as possible. It's about the climate and agriculture.
Another reason: The great exodus from Quebec and specifically Montreal beginning in the mid-1960s with the advent of modern-day Quebec French nationalism which destroyed the economic vitality of Montreal. Pre 1966, Montreal was the economic engine and dynamic centre of Canada, with most of the head offices of major corporations being located in Montreal.
Montreal had very bad leadership after that. Its population has barely been doing any progress as an equal number of people moves in (mostly clueless immigrants) and moves out (mostly fed up residents).
We are closer to Toronto than New York City & would rather go there if it was not for border problems lately !
I watch this channel because this is what the fisherman from ocarina of time would look like
If the Great Lakes did such wonders for the Golden Horseshoe (in terms of climate, agriculture & economy), Why they did nothing for Buffalo & Detroit?
It's a different story. They did have a golden age and things went all hairy because of racial issues in the United States.
The effect the lakes have on the climate are very different for Toronto and Buffalo. Toronto barely gets snow compared to Buffalo that gets absolutely dumped on
NY gets more snow because the wind comes from north to south dumping all the snow there
Different forms of government, for one. Eg Cities can’t go bankrupt in Canada, but they can & do in the US.
But they did, for over a century. Check out the splendid old public buildings, hotels, office towers and private mansions in Buffalo, Detroit and Cleveland. It was only after the mid-1960s that things in those places went, uh, south.
You are somewhat mistaken. The Golden Horseshoe is merely the perimeter of what is The Centre of the Universe.
in short, from a Canadian: its too cold to live farther up north
Can you please do an episode on Canadian Shield?
Montreal used to be the largest city in Canada for a long while, until Quebec decided "we want to be french-only" and started pushing out banks and companies and anglophones in the late 1960s and early 1970s... so, by 1976, Toronto surpassed Montreal and has been pulling away from it, population wise, ever since. Oops! :P
True. The tensions ramped up in the late 1960s, peaking in the 1970-76 period. So by the 1976 census Toronto had caught up: both Toronto and Montreal had 2.8 million people (including suburbs). Now it's 6.7 million and 4.4 million respectively.
And now Toronto looks like New Delhi! Very progressive and brave! Toronto is pronounced ਟੋਰਾਂਟੋ
I guess this explains why Canada is better known for its mining & oil industry than agriculture. It also explains why everyone who visits Canada visits Toronto and then to a lesser extent Montreal.
And it's weird that most tourists go to Toronto because it's far from being the most beautiful place in Canada
@@PG-3462 Toronto has the most things to do wether it’s rural or urban. Other cities in other provinces can’t deny this it’s factual
@@kdub_a2s368 You can't go skiing nor mountain biking in proper locations, so I would personally say that Ontario is pretty boring, but that's just me.
And anything you can find in Toronto, you'll find something similar in Montréal. Tell me one thing there is in Toronto that we don't have in Montréal, or even in Québec city
@@PG-3462 The rest can be said of most places in the world. Both Toronto and Montreal are great cities, but different.
One thing Toronto has that Montreal doesn't is an overpriced hockey team though 🤣🏒
Most tourists don't want to prepare a survival kit to travel. Which is almost required if you leave the corridor.
Canadian settlement has to do mostly with transportation. Canadians today live exactly where most inhabitants of the country always lived - along the coasts, the lake shores, the riverbanks, and the confluences of rivers. The settlement pattern just happens to be close to the modern border with the U.S. The border is actually quite irrelevant. Or not.
Growing up in the 60s they called it the fruitbelt, not many orchards now, they’ve plowed them under for homes featuring garage.
It's still the "fruit" belt if you know what I mean.
So the sum it up, the 25% are huddling there for warmth? .....and to drink together in bars? :)
It’s partially due to the Great Lakes allowing for easy access to fresh water for drinking, industrial, and agricultural uses and the St. Lawrence allowing for easy access to the Atlantic Ocean. The land around the Golden Horseshoe is also some of the most fertile in the world and it’s just logistically easier to live close to where the food is being grown.
@@JollyOldCanuck Sorry, was just trying to restate what's in the video in an overly simplistic and hopefully humorous way.....guess I failed. Canada is a cool place and look forwarding to visiting it more! Just left the comment to feed the algorithm so this video does better on YT.
I keep from everywhere people say "Oh Canada is the 2nd largest country in the world and could easily support hundreds of millions of inhabitants ...". And probably why our government opens the gates of immigration. The reality is that this is a very nearsighted thought. Like he said 98%(or more the vast majority) live within 100 miles of the border with the USA. So it's irrelevant how big the country is. Actual livable size is probably closer to Spain or France. And this is why imo our highways are probably busier than probably most US highways. Because there is just 1(Transcanada hwy) to cross the entire country and again everything is crammed down South. Canada always disappoints except on paper lol.
Again with the "livable" nonsense flying in the face of all those citizens of various other places on the planet with more population than Canada that are far colder and inhospitable. C,mon now not everyone want's to live in warmer climes with their house needing to be tied down to prevent it showing up 100 miles away after one of the thousands of storm events. Deadly snakes co-habiting your bedroom with you. Floods, earthquakes natural disasters of all kinds so frequently happening you cannot get house insurance for all the most commo of them. Or better yet, how many deaths in Canada are temperature related such as droughts or famines versus those in those other warm utopias people seem willing to discount all the other negatives of living there.
Those people should take a drive coast-to-coast (if that even possible). They'll realize how savage Canadian lands are. The few productive spots in the are already full.
I got fed up with Toronto pollution , rat race and Trudeau and left for BC .... back in 1981
best day of your life
@@coldlakealta4043 Northern Van Isle is way better. TO has turned into NWO/WEF Dystopia. its not even Canada anymore ...
I do not live in the blue zone , and it is so frustrating that the blue zone people make all the rules
Yeah, we fully understand how frustrating it must be to have some sanity running the show while you're unable to force vote the Fed requirement for everyone to own at least four sled dogs, keep a clydesdale to get tow the hay wagon of kids to the one room school house 20 miles away, and still have out door privy's parked right next to your drinking well.
Bru star represents the chest thumping of the average 'Toronto guy' - some un self aware cartoon character from the 1980's. Their teeth grinding community pride is just hilarious. Go away little rod.
Majority usually rules.
Their other option is to live with polar bears, haha don't blame them.
You would have to move some little extra 3 thousand kilometers north for that... but ok
If you were to take into account the livable area of a country, Canada wouldn't even be in the top 50 largest countries. Same as Russia.
Cant imagine if the 49th parallel was really where the entire Canadian border actually ended, then the entire horseshoe region would be attached to the US. Its so interesting it wasnt cut off when they were mapping it.
The global lines of latitude, known as the parallels, are indeed parallel
The 49th parallel is only the western border, eastern Canada is as far south as 41 degrees, same as northern California.
I got to rep my home city. Edmonton's better
Anywhere is better than Toronto.
Best part of Toronto is the seat on a 737-800 while you’re leaving the airport
At what?
the best view of the GTA is in your rearview mirror
Canadians are so obsessed with America they want to live as close to us as possible.
Americans are so obsessed with Canada they founded their country right next to it.
Honestly it is partly because of the climate that is most similar to the usa. More north and really harsh winters. In toronto, snow is rarely more than a meter high, in many places in canada, as tall as a house.
A lot of Canadians cities are way older then America…
@@rsswd Canada (except Quebec) is basically similar to USA in culture and language (English). Rest don't know much, cheers from Salt Lake City.
@@Victor-xk9db America was founded before Canada
The term "livable" used in the context with which you've used it to describe the Golden Horseshoe perhaps unintentionally makes a mockery of all those people living in even colder places, some having far more population than Canada.
Bravo! Most of the Canadian agricultural output is from the western provinces. There is no shortage of fresh water in any region of Canada that I know of. Shortsighted national political leadership and a legacy of lazy, 'play-it-safe' business leadership explains the 'Golden Clump.' There is no scarcity of food production and fresh water availability in the four western provinces, so these are falsely cited as limiters/bottlenecks to development.
Most of Canada has a subarctic climate reaching way more south than in Europe. More akin to Siberia.
Its only that way because Britain basically threw away the land they controlled between Vancouver BC and Vancouver WAshington in 1846. See, Vancouver across from Portland, Oregon used to be Fort Vancouver and by an 1818 treaty all land north of the Columbia River used to be Canada & all land south considered American territory. This was due to the fact American squatters were arriving at Fort Vancouver in larger numbers than British, Canadians, or even immigrants from Europe & the British Army could handle. With little support from London & American squatters arriving more & more to Fort Vancouver to send letters home to New England (via London & COD!🙄) & buying out supplies like nails & saws to build homes, the British at the Fort didn’t know what to do with all these land seekers who arrived seeking some stupid mythical land called Oregon, hungry, ill & in desperate needs, the British decided to place them a bit south of Fort Vancouver in an area called the Willamette Valley where they could be stored away from the Fort but close enough to keep a watchful eye upon. Because, ya know, they’re Americans. God only knows what kind of shenanigans they will try to pull off. But the growth to “Oregon Country” or “Columbia Territory” that the British called it, continued & some even traveled north to settle illegally around the Puget Sound region known today as the megalopolis Seattle, Tacoma, Everett region of Washington State. A piece of prime real estate with an American population of 4,000,000 people today with another 3,500,000 scattered around the regions north or west of the Columbia River border established by a gentlemens agreement in 1818. A region of huge farming potential in the Yakima Valley to the Okanogan/Lake Chelan/Wenatchee Valley regions of today which were already defined as British in 1818, but for some stupid reason London was afraid a new American President was going to take all the western land of Canada in an act of war for which James K Polk had campaigned to do as he ran for President. Known in American history as “54-40 or Fight” where Polk wanted the undecided borders between the USA & Canada to reflect the 54th parallel & the British wanted the 40th parallel. America NEVER would have gone to war it had its eye on Texas & California not friken Oregon 🤣! BUT the western border was already defined as the Columbia River but Britain totally fuc-ed that up by allowing some so-called monarch from Europe to use the 49th parallel instead which defines our border today. Queen Victoria was only 27 at the time & ill prepared to take on Polk who wasn’t even reelected & never would have had Congressional support to declare WAR against Britain as he almost immediately declared war against Mexico to help the self-declared Nation of Texas win their war against Mexico simply because they didn’t want to do any farming, they were lazy sob’s & wanted slavery instead which was both illegal in Canada & Mexico. In fact there were already Americans arriving to Oregon loaded up with their own slaves & Fort Vancouver had a problem with THAT too!
If you add in the metro population of the Vancouver/Victoria BC region today with what Queen Victoria threw away back in 1846 this region of British Columbia wouldn’t even have to of defined itself as “British”. That name only comes from after the fact the British sawed off the southern end of the Columbia Territory tirning the southern region into American Columbia & the northern region into British Columbia. Make sense? It sure does. But those nasty America s wanted nothing at all to do with that name so those idiots in Washington DC renamed it all Washington, but only after they carved Oregon out from it because that really was all they really wanted. And they can keep it too. The area north of the
Columbia River would be a far more populated region today & an economic power greater than that so-called horse shoe back east. Keep in mind the industries which sprouted starting with Weyerhaeuser, then Nordstrom, Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, & don’t forget McCaw cellular who started todays powerful cellular industry today owned by AT&T and also T•mobile 2 of the 3 largest cell companies throughout North America with a dynamic population of at least 10,000,000 people in this region which is today called CASCADIA …which include 2 multi-trillion dollar corporations: Microsoft & Amazon who have literally changed the world.
All of that simply thrown away over a bluff of war against an inexperienced Queen. We aren’t talking billions we are talking TRILLIONS 😭If Queen Victoria knew then what the Cascadia Region today would be she would have gone to War & kept Oregon as a consolation prize & kept her 40th parallel as the border between us & would be enjoying free oil from most of North Dakota too!
Something to think about, Canada. That’s what you get for trusting the British on building a nation. You’re probably lucky the Russians didn’t soak up what Polk allowed you to keep by playing that popular game of the time “chicken”.
Ahhh, the blight on Canada which is Toronto.
Never so true a sentence!
spoken by the denizens of nowhere
Cry
@@yoshi3294 Why is Toronto killing its poor?
It seems you have misspelled "Alberta" somehow.
Not only is the soil actually good for farming, but there's literally no other soil around bc of the Canadian shield. Agriculture is basically impossible in the eastern half of the country bc it's all rock
Simple, it’s because it’s the Florida of Canada!
It’s like South Korea. Half the country lives in or within and hour from Seoul.
This really is not that crazy if you think about it. Canada has a smaller population than California, so that area is probably similar in size and population to LA county.
settlers occupy what is now toronto, because the indigenous groups were avoiding them due to disease.
So basically York Toronto became Toronto just like Lutetia Parisiōrum became Paris. Native tribe name was preffered over overused city name.
Living in Southern Ontario just outside the golden horseshoe things have changed in terms of the climate the past couple of decades. The summers are quite hot and humid now, air conditioning is a must from June through to October. Winters aren't nearly as cold and there isn't the amount of snow we used to get in the '70's and 80's. Hell I rarely even put on a winter coat anymore and I work outside all year long.
Great video. Pretty solid. Pronunciations were pretty accurate aside from Dufferin. Even nailed Missisauga. Not many Americans get that. They say mississ augWA. ANyways. Weather doesn't get to bad closer to Toronto. Doen'st really get that cold. You have a few days where you get into the minus twenties. But it's not uncommon to be 12C at any point in winter. It hovers asround zero. Summers can be extremely hot and muggy and can feel like 40+ quite often. HEavy snow around Niagara and north of York region intot the northern sommuniteis like Barrie which can get hit pertty hard with snow storms. Toronto. Not so much. I good portion of the winter there can be no snow.
And Americans can never pronounce Regina, the city that rhymes with fun!
D-OO-fferin. 😂 That's great. Gotta remember that. 😂
The snow squalls....
Drove past Toronto a few times on the 401. Looked at it and thought, nope, nothing to see here and kept on driving
I remember being on the 401 as a kid when the 401 was a 4/6 lane northern bypass highway and about the only thing north of the highway was Aeroquay One, the original Terminal One, then called Toronto International Airport after having been known as Milton Airport since the late 1930s to the late 1950s. Looking south of the highway, all I recall seeing was a sea of suburban roofs "decorated" with tall TV antennae-I assume the target stations were in Buffalo and perhaps Rochester.
Lmao! You'd make a great tour-guide. Write a book about your travels. 🤣🤣🤣