Unit 1 Geo Grade 9

What are the main divisions of Ontario

Northern Ontario: Northwestern and Northeastern Ontario

Southern Ontario: Central, Eastern, Southwestern, and the Golden Horseshoe.

What is unique about the population in the two divisions of Ontario?

Northern Ontario only contains less than 5% of Ontario’s population while Southern Ontario contains the remainder of the population (around 96%).

What is the Golden Horseshoe

The Golden Horseshoe is a region in Southern Ontario. The Golden Horseshoe is the most densely populated and industrialized in Canada making it the fastest growing region. The Golden Horseshoe stretches across major urban areas such as Toronto, Niagara, Hamilton, York, Peel, etc. They have a population of approximately 8.87 million people and account for over 21% of Canada’s population and 55% of Ontario’s population.

What is the GGH

The Greater Golden Horseshoe is a huge urban area that wraps the western end of Lake Ontario. It is home to around 9 million people and stretches through Niagara in the south, through Hamilton and Toronto, and up to Barrie and Oshawa.

What is the GTA

The Metropolitan for Toronto is the GTA: it is defined as the central city of Toronto and the four regional municipalities that surround it. Durham, York, Peel, and Halton.

What is a metropolitan area and three examples

A very large city plus nearby towns, suburbs, and rural areas that are closely connected to the main city through shopping, work, and other services. A metropolitan area must have a core of at least 100,000 people. GTA, GMA, GVA

How is a city determined?

A city is determined by whether or not they have 15,000 people located there but the municipality still has to apply to become a city.

What is the Greenbelt?  Where is it located?  What makes this area unique?

The Greenbelt is a protected area with over 2 million acres of land. Located in Southern Ontario, it wraps around the northern and western ends of the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The Greenbelt is unique because it is protected from urban sprawl meaning that no towns can spread into the greenbelt. It also contains farmlands, forests, wetlands, grasslands.

Why is the Greenbelt important for people, and animals?

The greenbelt offers them a protection refuge from development and urban sprawl into that area. It provides clean air and water and recreational activities

What kind of a country is Canada, why?

Canada is a developed country because they have low unemployment, diverse industrial economies, they have a very high standard of living, slower population growth due to less children, they use most of the worlds resources but produce most of the pollution, and they have strong social support systems for our citizens.

What is a developed country

A developed country is at the highest social and economic level, they have higher than average incomes, they have low poverty and low unemployment, they have diverse industrial economies, became developed through industry and manufacturing, have the highest standard of living and many luxuries, 20% of the world’s population live in these countries, slower population growth due to less children, use most of the world’s resources but produce most of the pollution, and have strong social support systems for the citizens. Examples of Developed countries include Canada, USA

What is a developing country

Developing countries have the lowest social and economic level, they have higher levels of poverty, they have less developed industries, and their economies  are dominated by primary industries, especially agriculture. They do this to feed themselves and to sell as cash crops. The service sector is poorly developed, citizens earn little money and so do not pay taxes and because of this the government has little money for health care, education, and economic development. They usually rely on foreign aid for such things, they have a growing population because many people have children meaning many more people will have children, and will have only a small percentage of wealthy people in the country. Two examples are Bolivia and Nigeria

What is a newly industrialized country

Newly industrialized countries are countries going through a change toward development, taking many years to do so. The development is through technology which causes a change in the economy and in the lifestyle of the people to try and become more developed. They rely less on agriculture and have fewer children. Countries at this level include: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS).

How do we measure poverty and quality of life around the world?

We measure poverty and quality of life around the world with HDI factors which basically sum up the most important categories of the quality of life in a country. The countries are also ranked in order of best to worst by an average of their placement in each category.

Six factors of the HDI and characteristics of each

• Life Expectancy: how long people can hope to live or expect to live, the higher the life expectancy, the richer the country.

• GDP: Gross Domestic Product, used to measure the country’s wealth, the total value of goods and services per person in a nation’s economy

• Population Growth: the typical rate at which the country’s population grows

• Food Supply: Measured in calories available per person in a country.

• Education Level: Measured by literacy rate.

• Physician Rate: Measured by the number of physicians per 1000 people (typically).

What is a high score?  What is a low score?

A high score means that they rank high among the world and are developed, a low score means that they are developing countries.

• How is HDI connected to development?

It gives information about these main categories and how they can improve on the categories that they are ranked low on. For instance, take the GDP per capita category, if this category ranks high in comparison to other countries, it means that the people of that country make a lot of money by working their job. However, if a country ranks low in this category, their people are not making enough money to support their necessities, especially in countries that have low job opportunities.

What is the hunger in Nunavut issue

In Nunavut, they are struggling with food insecurity as they cannot afford food because of multiple reasons.

Why is hunger in Nunavut important?

It affects a good amount of people, especially Indigenous peoples. But it also isn’t just for a whole territory to be collectively going through a problem with starvation as such.

• Why is Hunger a challenge for people living in the north?

Nunavut is so far north, that there are little to no food retailers. To help with this, many residents in Nunavut result in ordering food for transportation. This already raises the price of the food by around 30%. The cold also affects this price because most people aren’t willing to take liberty of such a job, making the job much more scarce, and even more expensive. Additionally, to the problem of Nunavut being very far north, they also have to be able to fund gas prices, which raise the price even more.

• What is being done to help prevent and solve this situation in the North?

The government launched a program named the Nutrition North Program to provide food subsides for certain foods in an attempt to improve affordability and accessibility in Nunavut. Locals are also taking the issue into their own hands by sharing advice online on what to buy, cheaper alternatives, and different retailers that sell certain food items for a smaller price. There was also a school program that has a few students make lunch for the rest of the school, some students even take extra for siblings and other meals.

• What is foreign aid?

Refers to any type of assistance that one country voluntarily transfers to another. This can take the form of a gift, grant, or loan. Foreign aid can be money, food, supplies, and services such as humanitarian aid and military assistance.

• Why give foreign aid?

To try to improve the living conditions of less fortunate people, as a concern for the millions people that are far poorer than other countries, disparities in living standards are so great and far beyond the control of poor people that more well off countries feel obligated to help. Many people in developing countries are hungry, homeless, and poor, but benefit from foreign aid. Countries experiencing war and conflict also benefit from foreign aid.

• ODA – official development assistance - who is this?

It is another way of saying foreign aid, it is the flow of official financing administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as the main objective.

• 2 types of ODA – bilateral and multilateral - differences between the ODA

1. Bilateral Aid - Direct country to country aid, accounts for almost half of all Canadian aid supporting more than 90 countries, usually provided in goods and services, including wheat, flour, railway locomotives and parts, equipment for hydroelectric generation and transmission, fertilize, seeds, and farm implements and personnel to serve as advisers or instructors.

2. Multilateral aid - foreign aid given in money and flows from Canada to international organizations, which decide their own activities.

• Where does foreign aid come from

Foreign aid is provided from countries who want to help for the better of countries around them and also organizations that act as a donation place for the foreign aid cause. Countries can give money to these organizations for them to give money to poor countries.

• Top 3 donors (for foreign aid)

The USA, European Comission, Germany

• Advantages and disadvantages of foreign aid?

It is seen as a band aid solution with no real long term benefits meaning that it doesn’t last for long. Poverty traps such as disease, civil conflict, poor infrastructure, corrupt governments financing for war and stealing vaccines and drugs stopping any real developments from occuring. Unable to fix broken tools or machines for intensive agriculture. Large surges of money reduce the local current on the world market. Rebuild after natural or war related disasters, provide medical training and medicine, improve clean water supplies.