Rosemarie Ditaranto

Mar. 16/10 

Bill Murdoch says he has been frustrated with the city of Toronto since he has been in politics, which was 30 something years ago. 

Murdoch, a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislature for Bruce-Grey-Owen-Sound said he believes Toronto should become its own province.  

“Every law we seem to make if it’s okay in Toronto it’s okay for the rest of Ontario. I don’t agree with that,” he said.  

Murdoch voiced his discrepancies at a Saturday meeting regarding “risk management” with the federation of Agriculture in Bruce County.  

“  It (risk management) guarantees the producers the cost of production. You know you’ll get back what it takes to produce it,” said Murdoch.  

However, confrontation arose when talk of federal government funding came into play. The “feds” as Murdoch refers to it as, won’t sign on to fund the idea. 

“They (Toronto) want the feds to pay everything and that’s the way Toronto is,” said Murdoch. 

Murdoch added that he believes Queens Park listens to Toronto because they have more pull than rural Ontario.  

“It’s just the frustration of going to Queen’s Park and having everyone sort of dictate to us from Toronto,” said Murdoch.  

“The green belt that’s a Toronto idea, the Niagara escarpment is a Toronto idea we don’t need those things up here,” he added. 

Funding for risk management isn’t Murdoch’s only concern. Coyotes in the area have resorted to eating the sheep and cattle of the county’s farmers and Toronto refuses to place a “bounty” on the animals.

 

Murdoch said that by eliminating Toronto, Northern and rural Ontario would become independent. 

“We would set the rules how we want to do things. We’re not creating a new country just a new province, that’s all,” he said. 

Stuart Green, spokesperson for Mayor David Miller said weighing of the pros and cons would have to be made in a situation such as this. 

“It’s probably not a bad conversation to have. It would take a lot of work to get this kind of thing done,” said Green.  

Murdoch said he believes the mayor is more than interested. 

“I got an email from Mayor Miller saying interesting idea, so maybe Toronto might want to leave us and that would be just so good,” said Murdoch.  

However, Green said that Toronto generates most of the province’s revenue and if you take it out of the equation then where would it leave everybody else? 

 “I quite frankly do believe we can survive in rural Ontario and Northern Ontario without Toronto and Toronto could survive without us,” said Murdoch.  

“But whether or not that’s ever going to happen, well, I don’t know,“ he added.