Cornwall Ontario – So I was chatting with a friend who’s nearly 80 and she’s planning to sell her home and leave Cornwall.  She shared a few more of her friends were leaving too.
Another friend in her 40’s shared that she’s moving to Ottawa and then shares that she has about a half dozen friends leaving.
A young family on social media excitedly share how they’re moving to Oshawa.  Think about that. How bad is Cornwall when you get excited about Oshawa?
So I started to make notes of people leaving and sadly stopped as I reached the forty mark.
That’s a lot of people, even anecdotally for a city the size of Cornwall.
The biggest issues shared when I queried people were the facts that the culture and population of Cornwall simply weren’t really accepting, and that there was not enough going on.
Locals seem to be the worst at trashing Cornwall with many heading out of Cornwall to shop or even go out for a night. With Montreal, Ottawa, and the US border so close it’s easy to get out of town.
Since the loss of the Lift Off Balloon event the city has been sliding down the slope faster than other communities in the region.  All one has to do is look at the deflated Real Estate market to also see indicators of the problems plaguing Cornwall.
Once source shared that factors in the Amazon and Giant Tiger distribution centres not coming to Cornwall, which is supposed to be a distribution capital, are the poor interactions with city management and a lack of people in the employment pool, especially if you have to have no criminal records like most DC jobs.  The pay of most DC jobs also isn’t enough to attract people to move to Cornwall.
Young people have already been leaving as there are no real good jobs available other than in government services for the most part and many of them require bilingualism. For example how many Quebecers work for the Eastern Ontario Health Unit?
What happens essentially is that people don’t want to bang their head’s against Cornwall Ontario’s corruption.  One person shared that she applied for two jobs locally and that the person hired clearly had been a cronyism situation as they clearly had no qualifications for the position.
One cited Lori Greer as an example who parlayed some clique love into a gig at the Agape Centre which resulted in getting the gig running the United Way (total clique board) which failed to reach its funding goals under her watch and was embarrassed by its Italian Night fundraiser, to now having a great job with the Cornwall Police Service which will include benefits and pension. That sadly is typical of Cornwall political machine.
To someone with qualifications watching from the outside and facing little to no job options that’s usually enough to want to move.
Another cited the Chad Kilger hiring by the fire service which the person alleged resulted in qualified candidates taking jobs with out of town services thus losing talent locally in favor of a son of the mayor at the time.
With Cornwall Hydro now charging more for 1000kw of power than Hydro One the city lost its advantage there too thanks to the Ed Lumley inspired plan to sell its own power company to Enbridge over 25 years ago. Enbridge then flipped it for a tidy profit to Fortis who essentially are selling Quebec power to Cornwall residents for nearly THREE TIMES what residents in Quebec pay for the exact same power.  The cash and control of its own power far has exceeded the paltry amount the city earned from the sale.
The tax levy has gone up nearly 20% each of the last two terms of council and the weak offering this term clearly shows no hope for improvement. In fact it should get worse due to infrastructure needs and wasteful spending under CAO Maureen Adams.
One source close to City Hall said that it’d be a miracle if the tax hike for this year was under 5%.
The city has also just initiated what could be a foolhardy and extremely expensive lawsuit with MPAC over its evaluations which  have cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
CAO Maureen Adams is also refusing to provide how much cash she’s pumping into BLG, the high priced Ottawa law firm the city uses and clearly council doesn’t have an appetite to ask that question either which shadow purchasing old banks and spending consulting fees with plans to spend $6M to renovate it into an art centre.
Clearly the wheels have fallen off.
Are there solutions?  Yes, but clearly the political will to do so isn’t there with people choosing to move rather than deal with the corruption, ignorance, and insanity of the way this city is being run.
Loading ...Are you thinking of moving too? Please post your comments below or send your story to info@cornwallfreenews.com
I can’t even start. People move all the time. And if anyone thought we had a shot at the Amazon DC they need to have their heads examined. It’s a fact of life; people move from cities and towns all the time for different reasons. The reasons given here could be used to varying degrees for any other city or town in Canada.
Click, click, click. I guess it works, eh?
‘Nuff said.
Hugger perhaps you’re confused about the Amazon HQ2 and the DC. We most certainly should’ve had a shot for the DC. We have at least one site ready to roll.
A viewer emailed in this comment:
No I didn’t mix up the DC and HQ2. If Walmart can’t fill their jobs how could Amazon expect to fill 1,000+ jobs in a city of about 47,000? Or over 2% of the population. People may have thought we had a shot at the DC but if you look at what was required and what could be delivered did we have a realistic shot? No!!
i heard walmart logistics didn,t want these other logistic centres because they would lose a lot of there workers.
I don’t know Hugger. Tweed doesn’t seem to have any problems getting people to come to Smiths Falls to work and they only have about 9,000 people and much more limited housing.
Tweed has a small, specialized labour force compared to an Amazon DC. We could discuss this until the cows fly over the moon. Two different views that are not wrong, just different perspectives of how we see it.
Hugger with all due respect please check your facts. Tweed has expanded past the old Hershey Chocolate factory. From their linked in page:
Company size
501-1,000 employees
I’d love to if I had access to the same resources. I can only say what I can find.
I went through both of their websites and could find no info on the size of their workforce.
She’s a town in decline for sure; what with all the Saudi students at Nav Canada leaving Cornwall, and that on the heels of all the Chinese chopper pilot students that left last spring when their course went belly up.
It’s the kinda stuff ya don’t read about in “Choose Cornwall” (i.e. the Clique/Peters vanity rag published by a town that’s on it’s last spin ’round the drain).
My family and I moved out of Cornwall 13 years ago. We will never move back. We move to PG, BC where we have made a new life. My children have grown now and have many more options to a better life. In Cornwall, we could not give them the comforts of life, as could not get decent wages for being certified tradeperson. We struggled to put food on the table and pay rent. We needed to break the cycle.
If Cornwall is such a bad place to live maybe you should pack your bags and leave as well. You would be doing Cornwall a huge favor.
Cornwall is a great place as is, if…
– you have a municipal, provincial or federal government job
– you have a nice pension from the above
– you are content with living in your cozy enclave and blind to the rest of the community
– you can afford to travel to Ottawa, Montreal, etc, for the real amenities
– you don’t give a rat’s ass about the next generation
– you won’t miss your kids
Royal Lepage report says 40% of Ontario boomers are willing to move to a new city / location. Lots of interesting tidbits in the report and it sheds light on the article written by Admin yesterday.
https://www.royallepage.ca/en/realestate/news/more-than-1-4-million-boomers-across-canada-expect-to-buy-a-home-in-the-next-five-years/
I too want to leave Cornwall . Am a senior @ age 57. Been back to Cornwall in 2006. Still find hard to fit into its chosen culture. I did live here previously from 1983-1991. A Sneaky Petes worker. 1990-1991 was a college student for Nursing Assistance. Left college before finishing last month of it. Me and my son moved to Ingleside. Cornwall when we moved in 2006 my son disliked it. He moved.
Trying to follow some comments is like trying to catch the dry end of a wet willie.
What would you recommend newcomers to do in order to help integrate better?
My wife and I moved to cornwall 5yrs ago from the uk, and have regreted it, it’s unfriendly,low class people with no manners, jobs are low paid and any good jobs are given To family and friends over qualified people, were hoping to move next year to Brockville and I can’t wait,
Cornwall it’s self isn’t a bad place! It the people that live there, high crime and drug abuse, the bearded woman are overweight, toothless and covered in tattoos, the men are not much different sporting a ponytail and can hardly string a sentence together, my advice is, if you can avoid and you won’t be disappointed,
Marc which part of the UK are you from?
There’s one of my pet peeves….painting everyone with the same wide brush.
ARRGGGHHHH!!!!!
Hugger that’s how it works. That’s why it’s important for the majority to hold the minority that give entities a bad name from being encouraged and held accountable.
Sad, but true.
Yes I moved to cornwall 5yrs ago, and have regreted it, the people are unfriendly and low class, extremely racist, cornwall is the sexual assault capital of Canada, its rated number 1 with a 158%, jobs are all low paying, any better paying jobs are given to families and friends, new comers are not welcome, drugs and crime are high,
And I have also seen signs of interbreading,
Cornwall ontario is a dreaded place, drugs and guns are the normal, the people are low educated and have given up on a better life, sexual assault capital of Canada, jobs are low paid sweat houses, good paying jobs are kept between families and friends regardless of education, my wife applied for a few jobs in mental health, she has a masters degree from Concordia university and a bachelor degree,
WOW!!! is all I can say about some comments!!
I very much dislike Cornwall, looking at moving down the road to Brockville or Merrickville next year. The corruption in the city is common knowledge to all. Police that only want sunshine cash and not doing their jobs like drivers going thru red lights, Stops, distracted drivers. City administration running the city with assistant puppets.
There are many property owners doing major work on their properties without permits and building department being advised and doing nothing. Too many useless managers in various departments like Civic Complex etc. All the good jobs going to unqualified people (relatives). Even one councillor saying they have very little say (decisions) as it’s all administration that dictate. Truly we need change
Pete lord knows many of us try. But if the public won’t speak up then nothing will change and Cornwall will stay a “Dirty Town Under a Crooked Bridge”.
Jamie, for cripes sakes, I agree and you’ve been right all along. That’s part of the reason you had made my Cornwall election 2018 dream team. Although I realize you may not agree with some of my other choices of the dream team but many voters would and this is what would have made this election better by viewing it as a real TEAM
You’re a smart man who knows what’s going on in Cornwall, and I’m aware that the sour smell is still around because people are afraid of change. The population is getting older and many see the same names on the ballot that they remember seeing on ballots of past elections. But I wish good people like Diane Shay, Rob Hickley, Mike O’Neil, Jamie Gilcig, Greg Kielig and Korey Kennedy would have run.
The problem Pete is not enough have. Too many don’t realize some of what’s going on. I mean Hugo at the Freeholder still hasn’t run the piece about the City taking on the judgement against myself from the mayor and two councilors privately and now having the city spend more than the cost of the judgment in legal bills to try and collect it. Can you imagine if Ottawa or another city decided to pick up private judgments and use tax dollars as a weapon like this? It’s one thing if it was in the public’s interest and cleared some profit, but it will cost more than the value of the judgment to collect. That’s insanity.
Pete the question is why some on that list and some others you may not even know about that thought about running didn’t.
To run in this election you faced a hostile and corrupt city management. Hostile and corrupt media that are under the cash spell that’s pumped out to them, and then you have the labour block which just showed how corrupt and farcical they are by endorsing Flipper for Mayor this weekend bypassing their usual hypocritical process of candidates filling out their form for endorsement. Essentially the labour block keeps pushing lame candidates who think that it’s ok to raise taxes. At some point the wall is hit, but then what? At a certain point Cornwall stays further off the map and watches communities prosper around it, but the few hundred workers benefitting it and their political monkeys are happy. And the poor taxpayers get raped again and again. This is Cornwall. This is what will happen this election no matter who is elected mayor sadly. It’s going to be a very ugly and dirty four years and there’s sanitizer that can change that.
Me movement!!
The corruption, the drugs, the break and enters, the favoritism for jobs, etc., certain families running the town into the graveyard as usual and I can go on and on and on. Cornwall started its slide since the year of 1959 and hasn’t stopped since then. Cornwall is finished and those who live there now are just waiting to die. Nobody who is young will live there and even the elderly are leaving
WOW!! For not living here someone sure likes to tell us what is going on. Get the moving truck ready Jules is moving back!!
Speaking about seniors hubby and I will be married 45 years tomorrow. Did I do that? Fitzie would have a good laugh at that one. How time flies – jules has it been that long? Our adult kids wondered how we did it and I told them it helped with my good sense of humor. This morning while at St. Laurent Shopping Centre hubby made donkey noises for me to slow down and where to go in the parking l
Happy Anniversary to you and your hubby Jules. He deserves a special medal. I actually drove right by you today as I was in Ottawa.
Hugger the way hubby talks you never know when the truck will load up for the Cornwall area. Hubby is so mighty skinny after he got sick and just doesn’t eat much at all. Hubby has a doctor’s appointment next Wednesday and my daughter will be with him. It will take some years for hubby to get some weight on because of his age and he is 6 years older than I am and he had pneumo sepsis.
Jules it sounds like Hubby needs some edible marijuana to spark his appetite.
Jamie oh God no – no marijuana. Hubby had one of the drinks that he had when he was in the hospital and it cuts the appetite. It is an energy type of a drink and those are selling fast off the shelves here in Ottawa. We bought more this morning. We were looking around for some fresh veggies and they look horrible but we did buy a head of coliflower. Our daughter will look where she works as w
Jules it sounds like your hubby needs to increase his appetite. Cutting stimulants like caffeine and nicotine are important. Edible or even smokable Marijuana has been proved to show improvement for cancer patients and others needing to stimulate their intake of food.
Jamie when hubby eats he eats like a bird and gives me the rest of his meal or keeps it for later. No wonder I am fat – I eat like a bear. LOL LOL. Hubby is so thin that he can almost fit in my pocket. LOL LOL. Hubby was 2 weeks at the Ottawa General Hospital and we took him home and doing better but he needs to eat. A lot has to do with his age – he is 6 years my senior.
Hey, Joining this discussion a little late. My husband has applied to a job at the hospital in Cornwall, we think he has a good chance of getting it.
Anyway. I come from Orillia, Ontario, which all the residents kind of describe how you guys are describing Cornwall… Teen pregnancies, drugs, bad parts of town, jobs going to families… etc. But I actually loved Orillia……
continued… But just from my research, I’m kind of scared if he gets this job… Is cornwall that bad? Can it be worse than Orillia?
Nico every place has its good and bad. The coolest thing about the real bad in Cornwall is that it’s getting old and shrinking..like a cancer. The old guard and bully culture are dying. What it will be replaced by….that’s up to all of us.
Nico…if you dig deep enough in ANY community you’ll find teen pregnancies, drugs, bad parts of town, jobs going to families… etc. Every community has it’s problems. Bigger cities can hide them a lot better than smaller communities.
Welcome to Cornwall Nico and family.
Jamie I laughed and agree with the person who wrote you the letter about leaving Cornhole. Listen Jamie I was born and raised in that dump of Cornhole and I cannot face anybody with a straight face to tell them where I am originally from. I am literally mighty ashamed of that god forsaken dump. Everybody leaves Cornhole and in all of my 68 years that has never failed. Financial collapse coming
I’m late to the discussion, but I enjoy the comments. I’ve had enough of Cornwall. It’s dullsville. I’m getting older, and I fear I’ll never find a female companion. The town is full of people who live in a bubble and decide to keep to themselves. I feel doomed as a middle-aged, single guy in a town where everyone is spoken for. Looking at moving to Kingston. More people, better jobs.
I would leave if I could . Everything I am always looki g at doing is usually in Ottawa even doctors my family doctor is in ottawa as well
I love my dogs and with all the beautiful land we have we dont even have a dog park
I
Guessing people on council dont understand how much dogs love to play off leash. I see alot of dogs not get walked properly because people dont want to walk there dogs 2 miles to tire them but that’s what alot of big dogs need. . At least in a dog park they could play and socialize. There is just nothing here
The 10 pin bowling g the hot air balloon festival no backyard fires
But bars on every corner ate okay
So yes if I could move to ottawa I would