Pictures of Canada - Images du Canada.

[Ülev]

[Ülev]

[The Lawspeaker]

[The Lawspeaker]

Toronto is a pretty city, and has some weird areas too! For this video, we drove into Toronto after crossing into Canada near the Port Huron border crossing in Michigan, and then drove across the vast Canadian farmland areas into the city of Toronto. Toronto’s weather was WAY warmer than usual. On this day, it was 33 degrees Fahrenheit. It snowed lightly for the several days we were in Toronto, but it never got below 23 degrees at night. Typically, this time of year, it’s closer to 17’. Toronto sits at the edge of Lake Ontario. Everyone we talked to said they couldn’t remember the last time Lake Ontario wasn’t frozen. We’ll begin the driving tour of Toronto. But we’ll preface it by drawing whatever generalizations we could surmise after three days in Canada’s largest city. It’s very modern, clean and diverse. All over downtown are newish looking condos, which dominate the Toronto skyline. We only saw one police officer the entire time we walked the city, and outside of a few sketchy homeless people - I saw no problems to speak of. We also spent a lot of time staring out the window at Toronto’s crown jewel, the CN tower. This building is 1800 feet tall, and every hour, it goes through a rapid light transition show which lasts for close to 10 minutes. We’ll begin this driving tour of Toronto on King Street in the center of downtown, and then drive the perimeter. We saw Front Street, on the far south side of downtown Toronto, which abuts Lake Ontario on the right. Toronto’s population is very diverse. Nearly half the population is considered European. About a third of the population is Asian, and 10% are black. According to the official census numbers, only 1% of the population is Arab, but that number seems very low according to numbers I saw on the ground. Perhaps they are not long term residents. Toronto’s overall population is close to 3 million people, putting it just about the same size of Chicago - our third largest city here in the US. Toronto is a very walkable downtown, evident by the look of its residents. While two-thirds of all Canadian residents are considered at least overweight, here in Toronto, you hardly ever saw someone overweight. This is the financial district in Toronto, where most of the large business offices are located. Half of the largest companies in the entire country are located in this one district alone. Toronto is home to the Canadian headquarters of many large banking and technology companies, including Apple, Coke, Citibank, Google, McDonalds, Microsoft and Intel. Now, we’re going to make a left and head west into old Chinatown, located towards the northern end of the metro downtown area. Toronto has many Chinatowns, but this one is old Chinatown. Which makes it better Chinatown. While on a stroll in Chinatown one evening, I made three purchases: a selfie stick which I would later use to film this drive, a candy bar from a seedy shop which was surprisingly very easy to obtain, and dim sum. Dinner took place at Dim Sum King on Dundas Street. It was very good and I ordered too much. I wound up putting a dumpling in my pocket for later. While at Dim Sum, I also spotted a fellow social media superstar, an Asian Tik Tok star named Kinda Korean, which would also be a great name for a Korean BBQ food truck. Canada is actually officially a bilingual country, with English and French the official languages. Some of the first European settlers here were French, and the French culture still impacts Canada today. While here, I also tried poutine, a French dish which consists of gravy, cheese, and French fries. Now, we’ll take a turn into the Kensington Market neighborhood of Toronto. Kensington Market is a walkable bohemian neighbourhood that draws artists and tourists to its indie shops, vintage boutiques and arts spaces. The Market is also home to a wide array of speciality grocers, bakeries and cheese shops. Hipsters frequent trendy bars, cafes and international restaurants that range from casual to fine dining. Students and families populate Victorian houses along tree-lined streets. That was borrowed from Wikipedia. Now, one final street we’ll visit is Queen Street West. Which goes west to east through the heart of downtown Toronto. Queen Elizabeth is still the Queen of Canada. Canada is both a constitutional monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy with the Queen as the head of state. Canada was once a colony of Britain, but unlike many of England’s other colonies, Canada never experienced a sharp, clean break with the motherland. Though Canada now has full political independence from the U.K., the British monarchy is still part of the Canadian political system to this day. As such, technically Queen Elizabeth owns like 90% of all Canadian land. And, a lot of the money here in Toronto has Queen Elizabeth on it.

[The Lawspeaker]

I love taking the train, but taking the train in Canada is difficult. This video explains what it's like to take the train in Ontario, Canada, and some of the history behind why it's so painful.

[Ülev]

[The Lawspeaker]

I'm pretty persistent, but I'd have given up for sure.

[The Lawspeaker]

Toronto's CN Tower was the world's tallest freestanding building for more than three decades, and Canadian witnessed a surprising amount of drama during its construction phase.

[The Lawspeaker]

A criticism of Canada's (North America in general) suburban design by a Canadian expat in the Netherlands:

I was always told, growing up, that the suburbs (of Canada) are a good place to raise children. But I've come to appreciate the importance of independence for the a child's development, something that's nearly impossible in today's car-dependent suburbs. It was pretty clear that suburbia was not right for our kids, so we moved to the Netherlands instead.


References and Sources: How to Raise the Happiest Kids in the World
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to...

はじめてのおつかい (Hajimete no Otsukai)
https://www.youtube.com/results?searc...

Child abductions by strangers rare in Canada
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/child-...

Canada among only seven countries to see rise in pedestrian deaths, OECD study reveals
https://financialpost.com/transportat...

Montreal pedestrian deaths at highest level in 6 years
https://globalnews.ca/news/5382380/mo...

Pedestrian fatalities disturbingly high for 2019: Manitoba Public Insurance
https://www.mpi.mb.ca/Pages/nr2019sep...

Toronto appears to have hit a one-year high in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018...

Drivers are killing more pedestrians in Canada every year
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedi...

Pedestrian deaths hit 28-year high, and big vehicles and smartphones are to blame
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/pedes...

Schoolmobiliteit KpVV Dashboard duurzame en slimme mobiliteit
https://kpvvdashboard-15.blogspot.com...

How many Dutch children still go to school by bike? The rise of driving.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/...

Why did our children stop walking to school?
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opini...

Supportive Parents Encourage Child’s Interests In Anything Within 15-Minute Drive
https://local.theonion.com/supportive...

Children driven around too much, Canadian report suggests
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/childr...

Very Superstitious: How Fact-Free Parenting Policies Rob Our Kids of Independence
http://5kids1condo.com/very-superstit...

Car-Free and Carefree in Vancity
http://5kids1condo.com/car-free-and-c...

Kids filing onto their second bus (25 mins) that goes directly to school Adrian Crook
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMBs_...

We Won! Common Sense Prevails in ‘Bus Dad’ Case.
http://5kids1condo.com/we-won-common-...

Legal Age for Leaving Children Unsupervised Across Canada
https://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/p...

How did good parenting become a crime?
https://www.macleans.ca/society/how-d...

The Rugged Road to Learning, 1921 Library and Archives Canada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR9tX...

Cycling to school; Culemborg (Netherlands) BicycleDutch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrQ-d...

Me and my cousin did training and I cut my foot! nachos bikes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaNAq...

0:00 Intro
0:05 There are a lot of kids in the Netherlands
2:01 The empty sidewalks and crazy parents of suburbia
2:57 Eyes on the street
3:49 Road safety
4:41 Car dependency
5:36 Walking and cycling to school and activities
7:19 Changing culture norms and legal action
10:43 Patreon shout-out
10:57 Nachos bikes

[The Lawspeaker]

Ontario Motion Picture Bureau This film advocates the consolidation of rural schools into larger education centers and the use of mass transportation for children attending these new schools. The Rugged Road to Learning dramatizes a day in the life of children who, before consolidation, had to travel through the snowy woods to attend a cold country schoolhouse. Later in the film, a larger, consolidated school encompassing five Ontario country districts is featured favourably. Scenes show happy and lively children who are ready to learn. The use of dramatic scenes to underline a film's message was a common technique by the 1920s. Although this film is far from subtle, it was well understood that "the great mass of the movie public want to be amused and entertained not instructed, and if they are to be educated it must be in a subtle, delicate manner" (Rankin, p. 936). Reference Rankin, Norman S. "With the Edison Players Across the Contintent." Man to Man Magazine. Vol. 6-7 (June 1910 to January 1911), quoted in Peter Morris, Embattled Shadows: A History of Canadian Cinema, 1895-1939. (Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press), p. 91. IDC: 120360.

The film follows the timber industry from logging through to export The sawmill is in Chemainus, this version was built in 1924. At the time the sawmill has owned by the Victoria Lumber Company. It is 1946 that the sawmill came under the control of HR MacMillan. Given this is Chemainus the logging operation is most likely a Victoria Lumber Company show.
2:10 - Spar Tree being made
3:10 - buckers sawing a tree to length
3:16 - steam donkey in operation
3:43 - skidway to the water
4:33 - Logging railway
4:52 - sawmill and log dump
8:10 - ship being loaded
The film was made by the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau
Narration David Gwydyr
Narrator Rupert Caplan
Original source footage at this link: https://youtu.be/lYu6TP9d-tc