Muffin, I’m curious. How well does the Ontario MTO keep the roads clear in your area? Can you get from, say, T-Bay to Marathon on 17 in winter, typically?
The CanaDoper Café (2012 edition of The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread.)
The Conservatives won’t be getting my vote so long as their MPs keep pushing to stop abortion. This spring a Conservative MP (Woodworth) tried to criminalize abortion by way of changing the Criminal Code definition a human being. Now another Conservative MP (Vellacott) has given a Jubilee Medal to a couple of anti-abortion protester who keep getting locked up for harassing people.
Isn’t abortion a federal responsibility? (Or not, because we really have no abortion law?)
FWIW, there are a lot of people here in southern Alberta who believe that our MP has little to no credibility, as he claims a “Ph.D. in law”, when you and I (and other Canadian lawyers) know there is no such degree. But not all voters would agree with you and I. Apparently, such a degree exists in Utah, where he got it. How do we convince local voters that our MP’s “degree” (scary quotes, because it doesn’t exist in Canada) is a sham; and that being Mormon means nothing in the Canadian political sphere?
I’m not sure if it’s the same thing, but the University of Alberta, Queens University, and the University of Victoria all offer Ph.D. programs in law.
ETA: If it’s Jim Hillyer, he seems to have gone to an unaccredited school, so I’m guessing it’s not quite the same thing.
Jim Hillyer does not have any law degree recognized by a Canadian law society or a court in Alberta. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, does he have a license to practice in Alberta. He’s selling a bill of goods to the people of Alberta.
Hell, I have a law degree from the University of Alberta and a license to practice from the Law Society of Alberta. I worked hard for my degree; I also worked hard to pass the bar. I am ashamed that this shamster (i.e. Jim Hillyer) holds himself out as some kind of lawyer when he is clearly not.
If the sun is shining, it is a magical drive. If it is snowing more than just flurries, you can expect one or more road closures on 17 along the North Shore. It closes often enough that I keep a mattress and a winter camping kit in the back of my vehicle – comfort first in all things, eh wot. When it closes, I just go for a ski or stretch out and snuggle up in down for a good read or a nap.
Nipigon to Marathon, and Montreal River are the sections that are most frequently closed. When it snows more than just flurries, the road usually closes. (For example, the day I made the snowy owl, the road was closed in three places.) The closures are usually from trucks crashing, for there are a lot of bad truck drivers who go too fast – they are used to flat, straight multiple lane highways, rather than the up-down-around-up-down-around of the north shore – or who think that they can make it up the hills (it’s freaky when you have to dodge a transport sliding backwards). In bad storms, the police wisely close the highway pre-emptively, until the visibility improves, for there are times when you literally can not see more than a few feet in front of yourself.
The provincial highway report (on-line and telephone) is pretty good at identifying closed sections, but awful at reporting when the sections are re-opened. The best bet is to call the local Ontario Provincial Police detachment.
The quality of plowing and sanding went down when the province privatized winter maintenance. Different contractors maintain different sections, and some are significantly worse than others. These days in some sections you can expect windshield breaking stones rather than sand, and hours between plows.
Even once the road has been plowed and sanded, it often is still too slick with compressed and glazed snow that vehicles that travel too fast skid out of their lane. (For personal vehicles, Bridgestone Blizzak and Goodyear Wrangler tires are pretty good for this stuff at low speed using four wheel drive. Don’t even consider using all season tires or two wheel drive on this stuff.) The problem is that some cross-country truckers don’t slow down when on the hard-pack, so even after the worst of a storm is over, they will keep sliding off the road or into oncoming vehicles. When there is a crash on the highway, it often closes, and there are no alternate routes.
As a medical procedure, it is provincial, but the feds can criminalize it or any other medical procedure any time they want.
Word.
Thanks for the information. In addition to reminding me that I should not try to drive to Toronto in winter, you’ve also reinforced my decision to get better tires for my car. Again, thanks! 
Took me almost an hour to get into work today. It wouldn’t have been that bad except a train started crossing in front of me and I got stuck behind a city truck of guys dumping out signs and sandbags for the work on the tracks that is supposed to happen during evenings later this week. (Ha!)
I could practically spit and hit my turnoff from where I was stuck! Gah! I hate winter driving.
I also still need to get the winters on. It’s not a big deal, since I have rims now thanks to Beertje, I just need either him to come over or myself to quit being lazy.
I’ll put in a plug for Kal-Tire here - I’ve bought two sets of tires and now a set of rims from them, and they are a very good business to deal with - their prices rival Walmart, their counter guys are friendly and knowledgeable, and they make every effort to go above and beyond in service. It sounds like it’s too late for this now, but for the future, if you buy your snow tires and your rims from them, they’ll put them on and take them off for you for no charge.
I don’t work today, but yesterday’s drive to work was a nightmare (my exact words at one point were, “Oh My Fucking God!”). The last six blocks or so on smaller side streets were a skating rink - I could have laced up my skates and skated down them. I do have my snow tires on, but they’re not magic - you still can’t stop on a dime on ice. I only got tailgated by one vehicle as I was driving on the sheer ice - a schoolbus. :mad: Today I’m not driving at all - I’m going for a long walk in the snow.
Yes, the rest of my family is still stuck in traffic. It has taken them two hours to do a drive that normally takes 10 minutes.
And once my poor husband drops the girl off at school, (an hour late) then the boy off at daycare he gets to come take me to a funeral. Which I will probably be late for, despite leaving an hour and a half of travel time for something that should take twenty minutes…
The winters came with the car, the all seasons at Costco. I’ll keep that in mind for next time though. The only problem I’ve had with Kaltire is finding my car unlocked in their lot when I go to pick it up because apparently a manual lock is so hard to figure out.
If you do drive, take Highway 11 (flatter, straighter, further from the lake’s storms) unless the weather on 17 is good.
Oh my God - walking uphill in four inches of snow is frigging HARD! Remind my why I go for three hour walks in crappy weather?
To make you thirsty for a nice hot toddy?
Ooh, there’s an idea! A nice hot bubblebath would also work.
“The church is near,
but the road is icy.
The bar is far away,
but I will walk carefully.”
— Russian proverb
“A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there’s more conversation.” — William Blake
Wildrose leader: “Let them eat rotten meat.”
She’s straying to the left, what with this sudden benevolence.