Survivor? We Call It Camping ~ Canadian Thread #5

Re: Survivor? We Call It Camping - Canadian Thread #5

school closures are frequent over here on the east coast. I can remember when in high school and well...just going to school in general, for at least 2-4 snows days each winter. In 2001, we had a record snow fall, and almost every second day in January, EVERYTHING was closed due to a storm.

I worked 5 minutes away from home and one storm ended up being a huge snow squall (a 2-fer storm in one), literally snowing in part of the road, on my route home...it took me 2 hours to get home that night.

Ice storms here, I don't think, are as frequent as somewhere like Ontario and Quebec. They must be freaky!

Re: Survivor? We Call It Camping - Canadian Thread #5

Eastern Ontario and Quebec got hit with a major ice storm a few years ago. Was that in 2003? Here in the Toronto area we may get one a year. We did get a good one one year at Easter and boy was it messy. I hate freezing rain. Give me snow any day. It's easier to drive in, walk through, and generally deal with on a day to day bases.

Yes Ducky some parts of Canada do close the schools because of snow. The teachers have to get home :lol: In all seriousness it's usually the school buses that aren't running. The schools stay open for kids that do make it in. The storm we had in 1999 most of the city of Toronto was closed as a way to help clean up the roads. There wasn't that much snow when you consider what can fall in Eastern Canada but a lot fell in a very short time and the snow plows couldn't keep up with the snow.

Re: Survivor? We Call It Camping - Canadian Thread #5

Jacquie said:
Yes Ducky some parts of Canada do close the schools because of snow. The teachers have to get home :lol: In all seriousness it's usually the school buses that aren't running. The schools stay open for kids that do make it in. The storm we had in 1999 most of the city of Toronto was closed as a way to help clean up the roads. There wasn't that much snow when you consider what can fall in Eastern Canada but a lot fell in a very short time and the snow plows couldn't keep up with the snow.

Click to expand...

Here (even I live middle of nowhere) roads are cleared pretty fast - of course erm... like Canadian cities are biiiiiiit bigger places than our cities :lol:

I remember that when it's about -33c or so - schoolbuses indeed have trouble to run (and it's evil to wait the bus)

Re: Canadian Thread #5

Hey everyone! I'm sure none of you remember me, I've been MIA from this thread since my intro post, and MIA from the board since before the summer. . . .

Anyway, just curious what my fellow Ontarians think of yesterday's election results.
I was personally undecided, but I couldn't not vote so I went with a party I knew wouldn't win anyway.
I don't know how I feel about a Liberal majority again . . . I find it insane that they have almost 3/4 of the seats though! It's crazy!

Re: Canadian Thread #5

They close schools in Canada because of snow?

Click to expand...

Well they've never closed it here in Brandon :lol: But there are sure times that I wish they would! I always walk to the university.

Re: Canadian Thread #5

im fine with the liberals being in. i didnt care who went in as long as it wasnt the conservatives! :lol: so i voted for the party that would most likely defeat them. its kind of bad when only two parties really have a chance. i would never vote conservative for anything though, but when they said they were going to fund religious schools that was the nail in their coffin for me. even my mother (who is religious) wouldnt vote for them on that reason. too bad the green party didnt have a chance, they would have taken away catholic school. as a person whos been to both catholic and public schools, id be in huge favour of that.


ah snow days. ive had two since being in university. one was more of an ice day and it was worse the day before, but i had a midterm so i didnt care they closed the school! it was funny the day it happened, to watch people walking across the grass that didnt know about the ice, then theyd hit the sidewalk and it was over :lol: yes, im evil and laugh at people who fall.

another time they closed the school in the middle of the day, they got about 2 feet of snow in an hour, the wind was awful, and it was unsafe to drive or walk in that weather. i was mad that no one came to tell us the school was closed, so my whole class stood in front of the lab until someone went after the prof...

Re: Survivor? We Call It Camping - Canadian Thread #5

DaWacko said:
They close schools in Canada because of snow?

Click to expand...

Not in my city. It was -50C here a couple of years ago and the school stayed open. Except the buses wouldn't start so they said "If you can get a ride..." :lol:

allmaple said
im fine with the liberals being in. i didnt care who went in as long as it wasnt the conservatives! :lol: so i voted for the party that would most likely defeat them. its kind of bad when only two parties really have a chance.

Click to expand...

Yeah it's never really good when you know there's only two possibles than can come out in the end. I remember in social studies a few years back, we were supposed to research a party that could 'theoretically' win and it couldn't be Conservative or Liberal. Half my class picked the Marijuana party.

Eh, I'm Conservative but it doesn't much matter to me who comes out on top in the elections. I think both the Liberals and Conservatives have good ideas for what they want even though none of them ever keep half the promises they make. As long as we don't all crash and burn, I'm happy. :lol:

Re: Canadian Thread #5

They have cancelled school here in the past when there's barely been an inch of snow. The Seattle area is worse when it comes to panicking over the snowfall though :lol:

Re: Canadian Thread #5

The school buses are totally different though. They are SUCH WIMPS. It never effects me because I walk to school, but it does affect my sister. They cancel the buses even if there's a little bit of slush. It's truly pathetic.

In regards to the election, I'm not surprised that McGuinty got a majority. I think people voted against Tory for the SOLE REASON of the faith based school thing. I don't think that that many people like the Liberals, I just think they hated the Conservative idea more. And nobody's gonna dare elect the NDP again or the Green Party, so there's really no one else. I mean, let's face it, if the Green Party ever won they'd be so shocked they wouldn't know what to do and the government would crash because they wouldn't be able to get over their surprise at winning to lead it. And as for the NDP, I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but they were campaigning like they already knew they were going to lose. Of course everyone knew that, but they of all people should not be acknowledging it. We never saw them around here much, and when they finally did call us, they did it on THANKSGIVING. Right, because that's a brilliant way to get votes. :lol:

Re: Canadian Thread #5

Well I vote for the Conservatives even though I'm against Tory's idea of faith based schools. There was no way I was going to vote for the Fiberals. Remember those promises from 4 years ago of no new taxes and what does McGuinty do but raises heath taxes I had thought of voting for the Green Party but some of their ideas were just too scary. I do agree with their only having a public school education. If you want any religious schooling you should pay for it.

The only good things that seems to have come out of yesterday's election is McGuinty has lived up to one promise at least. The 3rd Monday of February is now suppose to be our long awaited holiday

It does sound like Tory will not be staying on as leader of the conservatives. Surprise surprise. I wonder who his advisors were on the faith based schools.

Re: Canadian Thread #5

I don't have a problem with funding faith based schools. The only problem I have is that there is such a segregation between the two. If they're going to fund faith based schools, fund public schools too.

Jacquie said
If you want any religious schooling you should pay for it.

Click to expand...

Not quite sure if I understood you correctly (and please correct me if I'm wrong--I'm not trying to open a can of worms) but I went to a Catholic school for 13 years and my parents paid for all of it. Am I right to assume one pays for public schooling as well? Again, I'm not trying to be rude about it--I just might be just way off. :lol: And I really hope the government doesn't mean 'fund the parents' to send their kids. That's just ludicrous.

Faith based schools and public schools are essentially the same except the faith based schools (or at least the ones I've been to) have a morning prayer and religion class as an option. I mean, we still had all the drug dealers, bullies, pep rallies, same Canadian curriculum, stupid theme days etc. In my opinion, there shouldn't be segregation between the two types of schools. I know some may feel strongly about which schools they send their kids to because of their own beliefs, but the schools I was used to were pretty laid back. Only 10% of the school population was christian and the rest were a different denomination or atheist.

Re: Canadian Thread #5

Back in the early to mid 1980's the premier at the time, William Davis, decided that the province would fund Catholic schools as well as public schools. The way things are at the moment if you want to go to a Jewish school you pay for it yourself. If Tory had his way the province would have paid for it. When I was going to school in the 1960's and 70's if you wanted to go to a Catholic School you paid for it. My opinion is that the province should continue to fund Public Education and if you want to send your children to any religious school you should be paying for it.

Re: Canadian Thread #5

^ Yes, but don't you pay for public education too? Or is it paid through taxes? Unless I'm just completely ignorant about it. I just thought no matter where you went to school, you'd be paying for it. I understand if it's somewhere like a Muslim school or Jewish school, there are far less students, making it more private than public, therefore there would be different fees.

So I apologize for my ignorance. :lol: I think I understand what you meant now. I still think they should just fund both. They're both school, they both fall under the Canadian curriculum. Makes it easy.

Re: Survivor? We Call It Camping - Canadian Thread #5

speed_cochrane said:

DaWacko said:
They close schools in Canada because of snow?

Click to expand...

Not in my city. It was -50C here a couple of years ago and the school stayed open. Except the buses wouldn't start so they said "If you can get a ride..." :lol:

Click to expand...

I remember that week. My Dad had to like stop working all week so that he could take me ad my sister to school. I also remember how in about March or April of this year most of my grade 12 class was praying for snow because we had never had a snow day and we wanted to have just one before we graduated.


About the faith school thing, why are some schools really snooty about it? I went to catholic schools my whole life and there were quite a few people in my school who weren't catholic. The reason they were there was because it was also a French school. At my school there never seemed to be a problem if you weren't Catholic. Sure you were forced to go to celebrations and mass and stuff but that could be avoided if you or your parents were really against it, and the kids who did go just sat and daydreamed for an hour or so. I've heard though that in certain public schools kids can't show any signs of their religion(I know things have changed a bit but still) because it may offend other people or something like that? That seems completely ridiculous to me. Living in this day and age how could you have a problem with knowing that someone else believes different things than you do? Whats wrong with letting them do what is important to them?(as long as it is you know appropriate and what not)

Re: Canadian Thread #5

Speed_Cochrane I guess I didn't state it clearly. Yes public and Catholic schooling is paid through taxes that the province collects. Making things easy in a city like Toronto is not easy. There is a large Jewish population here and if they want to go to religious school their parents have to pay for it on top of paying for the taxes that help fund public and Catholic schools. I'm Anglican if my parents had wanted to send me to a religious school they would have had to pay for it and as well pay the taxes. It's not right that one religion should be paid for out of provincial taxes when there are many other religions that have to pay for their own.