# Worst town/city in Canada? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 6, 2007, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123 "2007-02-06T20:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2007, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/81 "2007-02-15T23:08:23Z")
A lot are commuting to Alberta now. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2007, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/82 "2007-02-15T23:37:27Z")
[QUOTE=Muffin] It’s quite a dilema – the problem can’t be fixed unless kids move to the city for education and economic opportunities, but moving kids to the city causes the problem. [/QUOTE] Well, the problem before was that the children were essentially kidnapped. What I’m proposing doesn’t involve stealing children from their families. ---
**Author:** ![Queuing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Queuing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queuing)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2007, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/83 "2007-02-16T17:53:38Z")
[QUOTE=Muffin] I think a lot of the problem is that there is no simple solution. There are a lot of people with their hearts in the right place, but there is no obvious course of action to take. [/QUOTE] Maybe, but there is no simple solution to global warming, the environment and the Kyoto protocol, yet (if polls are to be believed) this is going to be one of the most important issues in the next election. The level of difficulty of solving the problem doesn’t seem to matter, actually caring about the problem does. And we just don’t. ---
**Author:** ![ex-shwa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f14d63/32.png) [@ex-shwa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ex-shwa)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/84 "2012-09-16T06:54:10Z")
> [@Queuing](#): > > Oshawa stinks. The people are dirty and a bunch of skids. The downtown is dirty, the businesses are generally garbage (for the few that actually exist), the “beach” has dead fish all over it, and the city councils idea of sprucing the place up is to paint the fire hydrants something ‘fun’. k so i completely agree with what this person is saying. i’ve lived in many towns and for the last 4 years i’ve been stuck in south oshawa. the first year i was here i got used to hearing gunshots and police sirens (no exaggeration) and met a 12 year old drug dealer. i’ve seen parents full out hand their kids drugs and alcohol just to get rid of them. if you have kids i wouldnt suggest moving to oshawa unless you want to see your daughter working her own corner as a proste-tot (a prostitute under the age of 18). i’ve seen these things with my own eyes and can tell you there is no exageration in what i say and thats exactly why im moving out of oshawa in a coupla days and i am never comin back thank heavens! ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/85 "2012-09-16T08:35:42Z")
> [@Foldup\_Rabbit](#): > > I’d put in Dryden, Ontario. > > It’s a tiny town about halfway between Winnipeg and Thunder Bay. Pretty hopeless place. Not much to do; high unemployment; trains running smack through the middle all day and night. The best part? I’m not sure if the town grew up around the pulp mill or the pulp mill was built after the town grew up; either way, the pulp mill is in the middle of the downtown core at the end of the main street. Nothing I loved more than waking up to the smell of rotting eggs. They have an A&W beside the bus station. Its not all bad. (That was always where I stopped for lunch when I did the Winnipeg-Thunder Bay drive. I gave up on great dining experiences on that run ages ago) But no, in general Dryden in pretty nasty, as are most of the northen ontario mill towns. Longlac is pretty nasty, it was boring when I lived there as a child in the 1970s (one CBC station, a very small library in a converted trailer home) but lately it is pretty scary. I believe it was the first town in “the Region” to get its own [OATC](http://oatc.ca/) (methadone clinic) mainly for rampant oxycontin use. Stores only stock the shelves two items deep due to rampant theft. I don’t get the hate-on for Winnipeg. I like it. Yeah it has nasty areas but so do most cities. Vancouver has beautiful scenery with some terrible rampant poverty and homelessness issues and it is hard to make friends here. In Winnipeg it was hard to go somewhere and not make friends. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/86 "2012-09-16T09:01:24Z")
oh damn a zombie thread. I knew all these arguments had been made before… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/87 "2012-09-16T09:05:47Z")
> [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](#): > > oh damn a zombie thread. I knew all these arguments had been made before… 🙂 Yeah… the proste-tots working the mean streets of Oshawa probably weren’t even born when this thread was started. sorry ---
**Author:** ![kbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4491bb/32.png) [@kbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kbear)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/88 "2012-09-16T10:56:45Z")
This might be a zombie thread but man, it was depressing reading. When people ask me why I don’t move back to Canada, I’ll just point them here. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/89 "2012-09-16T13:26:21Z")
I’m curious as to whether any progress has been made in the Indian communities. I wish **ex-shwa** the best of luck; her (?) tale is new. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/90 "2012-09-16T17:05:23Z")
> [@kbear](#): > > This might be a zombie thread but man, it was depressing reading. When people ask me why I don’t move back to Canada, I’ll just point them here. In London I saw a woman being ushered out of a Rolls by her chauffeur. She daintily stepped over an unconscious man on the sidewalk — who appeared to be homeless — as she made her way into Harrod’s. The worst town in Canada, at least PR-wise, brings to mind Alberta’s Eckville that may still be home to [**Jim Keegstra**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keegstra), a white supremacist and activist in the Social Credit Party (that ran Alberta for decades) who taught his students that the Holocaust didn’t happen. I considered a get-rich-quick scheme of opening a barber shop in Eckville and calling it Hair Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/91 "2012-09-16T17:21:11Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > I’m curious as to whether any progress has been made in the Indian communities.\ As far as I can tell, nope. ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/92 "2012-09-16T18:02:09Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > No shout-outs for Moose Jaw yet? It is officially my birthplace, and a really super place to be from. If you’re a retired farmer (like 90% of its population), I’m sure it’s a very nice, quiet, not ever changing in any way like modernizing or cleaning up place to die. I would say the best thing about Moose Jaw is that it is on the #1 highway, so you don’t have to go out of your way to see it. > > I could also argue that Calgary is developing into a real crappy place to live. I’ll give it a couple of years; it could turn into a real hellhole. We will always have the mountains to run off to but it sure isn’t quite the nice little city it used to be is it? On the other hand there is much more going on culturally than there was twenty years ago. The traffic and terrible drivers are only going to get worse but it is not nearly the redneck mono-cultural cow-fest it once was. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/93 "2012-09-16T22:44:22Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > I’m curious as to whether any progress has been made in the Indian communities. Not really. [Attawapiskat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attawapiskat) [Kashechewan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashechewan_First_Nation) just to name some of the more prominent problems in my little corner of Canada. Well used to be, until March. Isolation, poverty, poor drinking water, rampant mould, suidice, third world living conditions. In Canada. Today. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/94 "2012-09-17T04:30:15Z")
> [@FluffyBob](#): > > We will always have the mountains to run off to but it sure isn’t quite the nice little city it used to be is it? On the other hand there is much more going on culturally than there was twenty years ago. The traffic and terrible drivers are only going to get worse but it is not nearly the redneck mono-cultural cow-fest it once was. It was interesting to read my post from five years ago - I still don’t really want to live in Calgary, but I still can’t figure out where I’d rather live. The traffic and terrible drivers have indeed gotten much, much worse - that’s kind of the reason I want to leave here - I just don’t want to do this traffic thing any more. Hey, once the oil dries up, I figure everyone will leave and we’ll be back to a much smaller city again! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/95 "2012-09-17T05:14:39Z")
I read some of each link. It’s very bleak. Conditions on the Native American reservations here in the US are deplorable, too. For a time, aboriginies(?) in Australia weren’t considered people. It seems that indigenous people are segregrated to their detriment, whether from guilt or greed. There’s a lot of emotion involved in these situations ☹ and rightly so, but even just speaking economically, it isn’t working for either side. Not for the people living in Third World conditions and not as much for those who made it such, no matter what the general belief. Aren’t there enough “great minds” to work some of this out? Isn’t there a way to implement transitions that could be, even minimally, accepted by all? Change can become the norm in time, and include respect and observation for all peoples histories while enabling real independence. IMHO we need to do better. Education and employment shouldn’t be a pipe dream. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/96 "2012-09-17T17:06:19Z")
I agree with all of that, **Becky** , but we’ve kind of created a situation where the politicians are as paralyzed as the general population. No politician is going to touch a hot button issue where she recommends changes to native conditions, even if they would be beneficial in the long run. ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/97 "2012-09-17T19:15:53Z")
Calgary resident chiming in to say that Winnipeg sucks. BRUTAL winters (probably the worst of all the large cities) and not much to do. Also, TONS of mosquitos. To be fair, I’ve only spent a few days there, so maybe I missed some awesome stuff. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/98 "2012-09-18T17:29:46Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > IMHO we need to do better. Education and employment shouldn’t be a pipe dream. Education and employment aren’t a pipe dream. Education and employment _on remote reserves_ is a pipe dream. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/99 "2012-09-18T19:28:10Z")
> [@Kid\_A](#): > > IWhere to start with Windsor? > > The crumbling automotive plants and the above-average unemployment. Out of my graduating class of 10 environmental engineers, 50% of them have moved away for a job because if you don’t want to work in Detroit, you’re not going to find a job. The downtown strip has 30+ bars and that’s the extent of the Windsor nightlife. Good luck trying to find something else to do. The area around the university is pathetic and without a car you’re cutoff from the rest of the city, it’s a 30 minute walk to anything half-decent with respect to a grocery store or restaurant. The pollution from Detroit stinks and the 19 year olds who cross the border to drink aren’t worth the trouble. They should shut the border if you’re under 25 for weekends. > > This thread should’ve been around last summer, I would have had more complaints. I hated my time in Windsor and would never go back. Windsor exists to provide bars for 19 & 20 year-old Detroiters. Until recently, it also provided the closest legal gambling. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123/100 "2012-09-19T20:48:17Z")
I have never been there but if you would like a nice case of mesothelioma, try living in Asbestos, QC. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-town-city-in-canada/391123.md?page=4)