The Lives and Deaths of Cities

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Pretty sure people visit NYC more, though Toronto which was long seen as boring here (as per the Charlebois song) has a somewhat better reputation than it used to for being an interesting place.

I mean, if you have a choice between the Big Apple and the Big Smoke and the distance is the same, which do you choose?

My kids and their friends have never been to Toronto together other than on school trips. It's not really a "thing" for young Quebecers to go to Toronto. It's more common to go to Montreal (if you're not from there), Quebec City or NYC. Or somewhere a lot further afield.

In terms of studies, Toronto also isn't a big destination for Quebec (francophones) either. Though neither is NYC. Members of Quebec's anglophone minority do go study in the Rest of Canada and the US more than francophones, though.

Quebec francophones if they study outside Quebec very predominantly go to the University of Ottawa which is a bilingual institution. (You can actually study there and still live right across the river in Quebec. One of my kids is at the U of Ottawa right now this morning.)

Do we have any travel and traffic statistics that support your contention? Cause I look at Toronto-Montreal being one of the busiest air travel city pairs on the continent. And Montreal or Quebec City to New York or Boston isn't close.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Canada prides itself on being different from (and better than) the US, but here it's just exactly the same. That strange disinterest in trains is just bizarre.

Nope. It's worse. The US has high speed rail. Acela.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Do we have any travel and traffic statistics that support your contention? Cause I look at Toronto-Montreal being one of the busiest air travel city pairs on the continent. And Montreal or Quebec City to New York or Boston isn't close.

I think we all know what most of those air trips are for.

Add to it that train options — and the highway is choked and parking — at both ends of the trip.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Yeah, and that educational requirement was very controversial among Montreal anglos, and was characterized as an illiberal measure. Are we even in disagreement here?

Is public education being in the official language of the state illiberal now?

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Is public education being in the official language of the state illiberal now?

Edit: I'm not following. Are we talking about English or French? I am talking about the gradual closing of the loopholes that permitted Montreal anglophones and allophones, including immigrants, to have their children educated in English. The measures blocking these paths were absolutely described as illiberal by their opponents at the time.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

My point, precisely. It's understandable that Québec sovereignists like PQ or mild-nationalists like CAQ would not be too keen on a line tying Montréal closer to Toronto, but you'd think the Liberals and the federal government would be very keen on building such a line to reaffirm the "unity" of the country.

PS: The PQ should propose a Montréal-NYC high-speed line, just for the LOLs.

A sovereign Quebec would still benefit from having more efficient physical links to the rest of Canada. Canada would almost certainly become its largest trading partner.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Is public education being in the official language of the state illiberal now?

"An" official language of the state would be more accurate.

And while English education definitely isn't illegal in Quebec, Canadians do seem to have problems with the concept of language territoriality, as applied in several other countries like Switzerland and Belgium. (Where a language's co-official status with others may still mean that it's not officially used much in certain parts of the country, notably in public education.)

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Though he eventually landed in Paris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9w2ev6vkik

The problem with Americans is they simply cannot listen to anything other than English-speaking singers (except for small non-English niches). So if you don't sing in English, you cannot make it in America unfortunately. Even Edith Piaf was confined to some select scenes in NYC, never made it beyond. And Charles Trénet had to go to Québec.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I think there's real limits to this idea. The smaller the market the lower down the value chain its industry, Unless there's genuine industrial strategy to manage and benefit industrial and talent development. You seem this in Canada at large, where we have to Duchy really hard to win manufacturing. Plenty of interest in just extracting resources here though. A substantially smaller country would have an even higher hill to climb. And that's before considering major Canadian corporations that either base substantial operations or HQs in Quebec that benefit from Canada's size or protectionism. I doubt Montreal's aerospace sector or airlines would be the same size after separation.

It's been mentioned before that Montreal actually doesn't seem to benefit that much economically from being the second city in Canada, at least not as much as you'd think considering that it's not that far from Toronto geographically and population-wise, and that it's generally cheaper.

I don't think that that many corporations that aren't owned by Québécois OR required by post-privatization legislation to have a Montreal head office (think Air Canada or CN Rail) are headquartered in Quebec these days.

A huge chunk of corporations that aren't owned or controlled by people you might consider Québécois (note I'd consider people like the Saputo family Québécois obviously) already left Montreal for other parts of Canada. There are some residual ones still here of course but perhaps most notably almost no emerging Canadian corporations are being established in Quebec - unless of course they are controlled by Québécois.

Which is normal to some degree - a large share of Toronto's economy originates with Toronto and Ontario people, but people or groups of people from other parts of the ROC still establish corporations in Toronto or the GTA. They don't generally do that in Montreal or Quebec.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Do we have any travel and traffic statistics that support your contention? Cause I look at Toronto-Montreal being one of the busiest air travel city pairs on the continent. And Montreal or Quebec City to New York or Boston isn't close.

Do you have the stats for Toronto-Montréal? I have them for NYC-Montréal and Boston-Montréal (although many people may choose to drive, especially to go to Boston, which is the closest of the 3 cities by car).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Nope. It's worse. The US has high speed rail. Acela.

Sorry, European reaction.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Zeej

A sovereign Quebec would still benefit from having more efficient physical links to the rest of Canada. Canada would almost certainly become its largest trading partner.

A sovereign Québec should build a- a Montréal-Québec City high-speed line (the 2 cities would be 1 hour 10 minutes apart), and then b- in international partnership, Montréal-Toronto and Montréal-NYC high-speed lines (Boston would be more difficult terrain-wise). That way Montréal would become the center of the North American high-speed rail network, like Paris in Europe, only 2 hours from Manhattan and 2 hours from Toronto.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Edit: I'm not following. Are we talking about English or French? I am talking about the gradual closing of the loopholes that permitted Montreal anglophones and allophones, including immigrants, to have their children educated in English. The measures blocking these paths were absolutely described as illiberal by their opponents at the time.

I was talking about French. It is normal a state would educate people in the official language of the state (in this case French).

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Do you have the stats for Toronto-Montréal? I have them for NYC-Montréal and Boston-Montréal (although many people may choose to drive, especially to go to Boston, which is the closest of the 3 cities by car).

I can't find pax numbers. But just look at the number of flights, trains and buses. I doubt Boston-Montreal or New York-Montreal even comes close. There's nearly 20 flights a day just between Pearson and Dorval airports. And at least another dozen flights a day between Dorval and Billy Bishop. There's at least a half dozen VIA departures per day for Montreal. And there's bus services too which I can't be bothered to count. We're talking about at least 5000 seats every single day between Toronto and Montreal. And that doesn't include driving.

I think some of you are substituting your projections for actual stats.

[thebasketballgeek]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Do we have any travel and traffic statistics that support your contention? Cause I look at Toronto-Montreal being one of the busiest air travel city pairs on the continent. And Montreal or Quebec City to New York or Boston isn't close.

Based on my experience in Rimouski most people would take a road trip to NYC or Boston rather then head to QC and take the plane. Where I teach I asked my students if they’ve visited Toronto and I got 2 hands out of approx 200 students, but for NYC and Boston at least one person in each of my classes have been there. Also, in terms of desirability I assigned a project for my older students (I teach elementary for context) places they want to visit and damn near half my class wanted to go to NYC and not a single student chose Toronto.

Not a huge difference and most likely anecdotal but definitely noticeable.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I can't find pax numbers. But just look at the number of flights, trains and buses. I doubt Boston-Montreal or New York-Montreal even comes close.

There is basically one flight per hour in either direction between Toronto and Montreal.

Those extremely frequent flights basically fill the role of hourly (or even more frequent) trains that you would have between the two biggest cities in a normal (sorry!) country.

They're super busy with business travellers.

[Martin Mtl]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yes, as I mentioned NYC is a popular weekend getaway. So is Boston. Some people go to Toronto as well but not as much as NYC that's for sure.

Though one advantage that Toronto has is that it can be lumped in with Niagara Falls on the same short trip.

Boston has the ocean, Cape Cod is just right there for summer vacations. All my entourage, being family or friends, go to Boston area or New York at least once or twice per year for tourism. But Toronto is much more on their radar as well in recent years, just not as much as are Boston or NY.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

Based on my experience in Rimouski most people would take a road trip to NYC or Boston rather then head to QC and take the plane. Where I teach I asked my students if they’ve visited Toronto and I got 2 hands out of approx 200 students, but for NYC and Boston at least one person in each of my classes have been there. Also, in terms of desirability I assigned a project for my older students (I teach elementary for context) places they want to visit and damn near half my class wanted to go to NYC and not a single student chose Toronto.

Not a huge difference and most likely anecdotal but definitely noticeable.

What people want and what they actually do can be very different. A very rough count tells me just scheduled air and rail services has at least 5000-6000 seats per day in each direction between Toronto and Montreal. If nobody from Quebec ever wants to travel to Toronto who is filling those seats? Are we saying that it's all exclusively Ontarians traveling to Montreal. Come on now.

Like I said, I think a lot of people are projecting here.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

What people want and what they actually do can be very different. A very rough count tells me just scheduled air and rail services has at least 5000-6000 seats per day in each direction between Toronto and Montreal. If nobody from Quebec ever wants to travel to Toronto who is filling those seats? Are we saying that it's all exclusively Ontarians traveling to Montreal. Come on now.

Like I said, I think a lot of people are projecting here.

It's obviously not exclusively Ontarians going to Montreal, but a huge chunk of the passengers on those flights are business travellers from both cities, and others of course are Quebecers from all regions taking connecting flights at Pearson, and probably not spending time visiting Toronto at all.

There are also some Montrealers and Quebecers visiting Toronto for fun, of course.

(I also wonder why someone in Rimouski would visit Toronto if they actually would prefer to visit NYC or Boston? There isn't that much of a cost difference and the travel time is fairly similar. Lack of a passport maybe?)

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

Based on my experience in Rimouski most people would take a road trip to NYC or Boston rather then head to QC and take the plane. Where I teach I asked my students if they’ve visited Toronto and I got 2 hands out of approx 200 students, but for NYC and Boston at least one person in each of my classes have been there. Also, in terms of desirability I assigned a project for my older students (I teach elementary for context) places they want to visit and damn near half my class wanted to go to NYC and not a single student chose Toronto.

Yeah. Even more true from Montréal. It takes as long to drive to Boston from Montréal as it takes to drive from Paris to Strasbourg. Many people prefer to drive to Strasbourg (even though there's a high-speed train that takes only 1 h 45 minutes, but it is expensive, and you're not as free as with a car when you travel by train). So surely many people from Montréal must drive to Boston (especially considering how scenic is that drive though old New England).