I think I live in the stupidest town in Canada

[Ninmecu]

I come from a little shithole called "Hawkesbury Ontario". Its current administration has, allegedly, mismanaged our budgetary funds for the next year and misplaced 1.3million dollars. Fair enough, shit happens. What is its initial idea for a cost saving measure? Oh, I don't know, let's just SHUT DOWN THE ONE PUBLIC POOL IN A 50KM RADIUS DURING THE SUMMER MONTHS, sounds grand. In fact, the idea is so great that the mayor is quoted as saying(Paraphrased because it's originaly in french.) "We hope that this measure will save us about 100,000$, it's a hard choice to make because health is so important to us."


As a bit of back story to explain why that is such a monumental piece of idiocy, I'll elaborate. The average income in this down is below 40k annually. The entertainment venues in this town are, (At least) 5 bars, 1 bowling alley(poorly managed and way out of the center of town) and a number of parks, with a few "wading pools" here and there. If you're thinking "Well that's what you get for living in a small town" according to Wiki, we're a population of (roughly) 10,400 people since 2011 census report. So not huge, but by no means warranting such a poor spread. Our downtown is downtrodden and looks like it jumped right out of the 60's, all of our stores are slowly migrating OUT of town, it's becoming a real cesspool. The chief import in this town is Weed, followed by child parents. And they decide "Oh let's kill the one place kids can go during summer vacation and let them do...stuff."

Source if anyone is interested(Or can read French)

Spoiler

http://www.radio-canada.ca/regions/ottawa/2013/12/13/012-piscine-hawkesbury-fermeture-temporaire.shtml

 

[Ryotknife]

not to rain on your parade but:

A. you guys are right next to a river, and not to far from the Saint Lawrence River which is a good fishing location.

B. Cornwall and Massena are not far away

C. you have just as much entertain as Potsdam, NY where I went to college, and they have 17,000 people

D. Most downtowns of small towns look like they are from the 60's.

 

[Ninmecu]

not to rain on your parade but:

A. you guys are right next to a river, and not to far from the Saint Lawrence River which is a good fishing location.

B. Cornwall and Massena are not far away

C. you have just as much entertain as Potsdam, NY where I went to college, and they have 17,000 people

D. Most downtowns of small towns look like they are from the 60's.

Cornwalls an hours drive away, Masena can't be visited without a passport these days and that's even further.

The River(In our part of it) is rather polluted, we've got a heavy supply of factories in the region that weren't really well monitored regarding environmental hazards.

C. I'm still allowed to vent and feel slighted, I'm from a low income family and I'm stuck here for the foreseeable future(As in at least the next 6 months.)

D. It's not simply the downtown is gaudy and ugly, it's more to do with the fact that because the municipal government doesn't care enough to fix it or give the owners incentive to improve it, instead they're sending it all off to the outskirts of town and killing the local forestry.

Honestly, it's more to just get it off my chest at how stupid it is. The river, like I said, is not very safe to swim in, both because of the pollution but also because it's got some very strong flow at times, the beach is about a 20 minute drive in either direction (One of which requires a provincial pass). It feels like it's a reserve for white people. I almost wish I lived ON my family's reserve instead of here.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

This is why I'm dead set on becoming Canadian.

If the biggest problem in your town is that they closed a swimming pool... Wanna come and live in NY? Where our jackass mayor decides to sin tax everything, say we can't buy large sodas, and now is trying to ban E-Cigs indoors? Not to mention the taxes...

 

[TehCookie]

I come from a bigger shithole called Flint. The city is bankrupt and owes over 10 million dollars, there's a 17% unemployment rate, the mayor is a criminal (like everyone else in the city so no one cares) and it's the most dangerous city in America. Be thankful for the little things, like not having dead bodies dumped in your river all the time. If you've heard stories of Detroit, Flint is pretty much the same only smaller.

You can always look for someplace worse and be glad you're not them. Even if I have to look to the 3rd world to find someplace worse.

Spoiler: I know this is an old newspaper but it still cracks me up.

Though not nearly as much as one that said, "Man stabbed in eye socket scared to death."

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I come from a small Irish village that is currently being overrun with windfarms because the planning legislation never bothered to limit the number of wind turbines an area can become saturated with. In fact it says that you should build them all in the one area to reduce overall visual pollution throughout the country.

Nevermind the fact we are in a designated "Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" with half a dozen other conservation areas dotted around the hills, or that our TV and mobile phone signals have plummeted to near unusable levels, or the people living within 2 miles of the farms getting sleep deprivation because they are so damn noisy. Or the house prices dropping by a third. Or the huge lorries carting crap back and forth up the mountains that they have to shut all the roads down for hours at a time to let through.

Nope. And they're building more wind turbines, and more wind farms. Because they can.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Hey, at least you have a pool...

Try living in Saskatchewan where the closest place to go swimming is a river 2 hours away and the recreation in town includes only sports and the hotel bar. I've also been to plenty of towns that look like their downtown is locked in the 1920-30 era. I think it looks kinda neat but the way the towns are made out there tend to be similar and dull.

Thank god for video games!

 

[Allar]

Hey, at least you have a pool...

Try living in Saskatchewan where the closest place to go swimming is a river 2 hours away and the recreation in town includes only sports and the hotel bar. I've also been to plenty of towns that look like their downtown is locked in the 1920-30 era. I think it looks kinda neat but the way the towns are made out there tend to be similar and dull.

Thank god for video games!

Don't forget the cold. The horrendous, constant, bitter cold. Also you had a hotel bar? You must have lived in one of those fancy, upscale towns in rural Saskatchewan. I bet you even had running water.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Don't forget the cold. The horrendous, constant, bitter cold. Also you had a hotel bar? You must have lived in one of those fancy, upscale towns in rural Saskatchewan. I bet you even had running water.

Huh, never noticed the cold. Some people seem to think it's inhospitable back there.

We had running water but mostly because of our well. XP

 

[revjor]

Your mayor doesn't smoke crack and put out hits on people. You have a ways to go before you can take the "stupidest" trophy.

 

[Clowndoe]

This doesn't make anyone stupid (well, except the people responsible after mesothelioma was discovered), but let's not forget that there's a town in Quebec called Asbestos. That sounds like a great place to live (at a certain time).

 

[skywolfblue]

Looking at Google maps, there are dozens of lakes just a few miles north. None of them are swim-able?

I come from a bigger shithole called Flint. The city is bankrupt and owes over 10 million dollars, there's a 17% unemployment rate, the mayor is a criminal (like everyone else in the city so no one cares) and it's the most dangerous city in America. Be thankful for the little things, like not having dead bodies dumped in your river all the time. If you've heard stories of Detroit, Flint is pretty much the same only smaller.

You can always look for someplace worse and be glad you're not them. Even if I have to look to the 3rd world to find someplace worse.

Spoiler: I know this is an old newspaper but it still cracks me up.

Though not nearly as much as one that said, "Man stabbed in eye socket scared to death."

Yikes! That paper is both funny and extraordinarily depressing at the same time.

 

[Launcelot111]

My county treasurer got sent to jail for sending half a million dollars in tax revenue to her boyfriend in Nigeria. Our biggest industry is staffing the women's prison across the river, and we just got our first fast food restaurant a couple years back (a Hardee's...)

My favorite storylines that I've ever seen in our town's paper can be summarized as follows:

Day 1: "There's a delightful spot at this one place down by the river where, at low tide, catfish will get stuck in little tidepools and you can grab them with your bare hands. It's truly one of the area's hidden gems."

Day 2: "OK, who the hell went down to the spot by the river last night and beat a bunch of catfish to death with a stick?"

 

[Erttheking]

I live in a fairly big town with some really nice places to eat, just built a brand new and nice school and frankly I just love living here...I messed up the formula didn't I?

 

[TheIceQueen]

"Hawkesbury" sure is a weird way to spell "Toronto." If your mayor closing the pool down your biggest problem, I'd be rather thankful.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Quite frankly I don't think that's anything to the prospective art capital of Canada. We just christened our city with yet another beautiful work of art [http://globalnews.ca/news/890505/pricey-sculpture-nicknamed-the-big-o-raises-ire-of-taxpayers/]. I remember seeing an advertisement on the train that said "In 10 years 90% of its citizens will admit that Calgary is a beautiful city. Public art". Well, we're off to an excellent start...

 

[Sir Pootis]

I come from a bigger shithole called Flint. The city is bankrupt and owes over 10 million dollars, there's a 17% unemployment rate, the mayor is a criminal (like everyone else in the city so no one cares) and it's the most dangerous city in America. Be thankful for the little things, like not having dead bodies dumped in your river all the time. If you've heard stories of Detroit, Flint is pretty much the same only smaller.

You can always look for someplace worse and be glad you're not them. Even if I have to look to the 3rd world to find someplace worse.

Spoiler: I know this is an old newspaper but it still cracks me up.

Though not nearly as much as one that said, "Man stabbed in eye socket scared to death."

Jesus Christ, I've never heard of Flint until now, but if I was you, my first action would be to get the hell out of Flint.

OT: Um, Swimming pool shut down? That doesn't seem like such a big deal, and I'm in Australia, where there's nothing but shit weather permanently. Considering you're on a gaming forum, is it safe to assume you have some games to play to kill time?

 

[Ninmecu]

To your Torontonians, I said "town" not "Fucking Toronto Canada's Shithole since Mayor Coke Man." I'm just peeved that they say with one hand "We want our children to grow up happily and healthily" and with the other "Oh we'll just shut down the only decent swimming location in the area during SUMMER." This town has a big drug trade problem, insane property taxes(I don't understand why the lots in this town are worth so damn much, they're mostly shit. If it weren't for my dad owning a few I'd be in a one room deal with paper thin walls and communal everything paying 500 bucks a month.) Like I said, I hate this shithole and I can't wait to leave.


Like I said, I just really needed to vent at how moronic this place can be at times. And I've lived in smaller towns with more to do, I miss Lancaster ;-;

 

[TehCookie]

Yikes! That paper is both funny and extraordinarily depressing at the same time.

I could probably make a blog of all the hilarious headlines from here.

Spoiler: This one is more recent.