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Cornwall, Ontario

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Cornwall.
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Cornwall.

Cornwall (2001 population 45,640, metropolitan population 57,581) [link] is a city in southeastern Ontario, Canada and seat of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry United Counties, Ontario, located on the St. Lawrence River, as well as Highway 401 near the Ontario-Quebec border. It is approximately 100 kilometres south-east from Ottawa, Canada's capital, via Highways 417 and 138, and 100 km west of Montreal, Quebec's largest metropolis.

Cornwall is becoming a bigger and more multicultural city and they make approximately 1.6% of the city's population. Cornwall is also becoming known as a "microcosm of Canada" as it has a large francophone population, a growing immigrant population and is located next to Akwesasne, a Mohawk reservation.

History

The city was first settled in 1784 by United Empire Loyalists escaping the American Revolution from New York. First named New Johnstown, Cornwall was renamed for Prince George, the Duke of Cornwall. West of Cornwall, several small communities along the St. Lawrence River, now known as The Lost Villages, were permanently flooded in 1958 by the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, to make way for the massive hydroelectric dam at the western end of the city. Cornwall Collegiate and Vocational School (CCVS) was one of the first schools in Canada, and now hosts grade 11 and 12 students. CCVS will celebrate 200 years of providing quality education to the youth of Cornwall and area. To commemorate this accomplishment as the longest serving high school in Upper Canada, CCVS will be hosting a reunion from Friday, June 30 to Sunday, July 2, 2006.

Economy

Cornwall is a port-of-entry into Canada, and is connected to Massena, New York, USA via the Seaway International Bridge.

Cornwall was once home to a thriving cotton processing industry that waned in the 1960s. This was one of the first places to have electricity in Canada. Domtar, a Quebec-based company has run a paper mill in the city for close to one-hundred years. Once employing nearly 1500 Cornwallites, its workforce dwindled to 400 in 2006 and permanently closed on March 31, 2006. Cornwall's major employer is now Supply Chain Management which operates a Wal-mart distribution center for Eastern Canada with close to 1000 employees. Cornwall also has one of the oldest jails in Canada, which is a new tourist attraction since being restored.

The economy has had its ups and downs since the 1980s. The city was rocked with a recession in the early 1990's, however recent years have seen positive economic growth and lower than average unemployment rates in the city. Most recently, however, the city's long time industrial leader, Domtar, closed operations.

The city's economic development efforts are bolstered by Team Cornwall, a group of local goodwill ambassadors.

With the economic downturn, many of Cornwall's urban problems have become much more pronounced. A serious drug/IV problem in the troubled east end of the city has caused the provincial government to open a methadone clinic near the heart of the infected neighbourhood. 

The area is also home to the Akwesasne reserve which recently has been linked to massive smuggling operations across the U.S./Canada border. The level of illegal activity in the area has also led to the proliferation of many organized crime organizations in and around the city. High levels of trafficking of illegal materials, drugs, and cigarettes led the RCMP to locate a large district operation in the city in 2005. 


These problems have doomed the Cornwall area to claim one of the highest murder rates in the nation on a per-capita basis. With five homicides in 2004 and four homicides in 2005, Cornwall's murder rate per capita is 11.3 per 100,000 people. For comparison, Toronto had 78 murders in 2005 for a murder rate per capita of 3.1 per 100,000 people.



Government


Cornwall's mayor is currently Phil Poirier. The Cornwall area is in the electoral district of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, which is represented by provincial MPP Jim Brownell (Liberal), and federally by MP Guy Lauzon (Conservative).



Sports


Cornwall has been home to a variety of sports teams. Cornwall has had a Memorial Cup winning team in the QMJHL (Cornwall Royals), an AHL franchise (Cornwall Aces), and many other defunct senior teams. Currently, Cornwall has a very successful Junior A team in the Cornwall Colts, and an equally successful Quebec Senior team in the Cornwall Comets. Cornwall currently has three arenas and has plans to build a multi-pad icerink. Cornwall has a sports hall of fame as well.



Notable people


Some of the more famous people to hail from the Cornwall area include:



Media



Radio





Television





Print


The city's main daily newspaper is the Cornwall Standard Freeholder, owned by Osprey Media.



External links

















 




From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.















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