Are we there yet?

February 19, 2026 · 0 Comments

by SHERALYN ROMAN

Much like an eight-year-old in the back seat of the longest car ride ever, Canadians are just about done.

We’re screaming into the void, “Are we there yet?” “There” is spring. “There” is where a moment of respite arrives just in the nick of time, before many of us actually do make good on the threat to “lose our ever-loving minds” due to the sheer volume of snow, and beyond frigid temperatures that have pegged this winter as one of the worst ever.”

“There” is our just reward for enduring the marathon that is winter, and “there” can’t come soon enough.

It’s about this time of year, I think, that many of us start to feel the same way. We’re proud Canadians, sure, and even more so right now as the Olympics help to remind us of all that is good about our country, and how, as a nation, we can’t help but feel pride seeing our athletes on the podium while the national anthem plays.

But the fact is, we’re pooped. Even those of you who like snow because you ski, or snowmobile, or ice fish, must surely agree that you are tired of shovelling it and/or slipping on ice.

Don’t even get me started on trying to scale the mountains of piled-up sludge in grocery store parking lots as we try to push a buggy with perennially locked wheels through the build-up.

Also, unrelated and who am I to judge, but ice-fishing? Sitting outside, in the freezing cold, over a hole in the ice, hoping for a “bite” as you endure biting wind? Sounds frigid, futile and frustrating to me!

I’m so fed up with trying to put a “brave” face on winter that I’ve caught myself on those rare days when the sun is actually shining practically pouncing on neighbours during my morning dog walk saying inane things like, “at least it’s sunny out today!” as if this is some kind of a balm to our mutually defeated spirits.

As if the sun suddenly makes winter more bearable. I mean, it does, but barely.

For perspective, you know where else it’s sunny? The Bahamas. Jamaica. Probably Curacao. Literally any place south of the 30th parallel.

I’d rather be there. Probably you would too.

I feel, at least for me, that this winter has been longer than ever, not just because of the sheer volume of snow and the particularly bitter cold days, but because there’s just so darn much happening in Caledon right now that seems to echo the weather.

Winter temperatures are frostbitten and frigid, much like the current temperature of the relationships on council and its perennial 5-4 vote-splitting pattern.

Winter is demoralizing, much like the behaviour of the current integrity commissioner and the ongoing battle with certain members of council.

Winter weather is wreaking havoc on the land, much like proposed blasting quarries; threats to groundwater, threatened lakes, and the threatened extinction of brook trout will wreak havoc across Caledon.

Finally (and only because I have to stop somewhere, but I could just as easily go on and on) winter is dismal and dark, making travel treacherous, adding to the already hazardous road conditions residents face each and every day as we navigate around gravel trucks, illegal truck yards and the sheer volume of trucks travelling routes like Highway #50 south of Mayfield Rd. every day.

Oh yes, and on that note, decimating what’s left of Caledon’s farmland to build a highway to nowhere won’t solve that particular issue.

Unlike winter, which will end, and probably sooner than later, I’m less optimistic that the many issues facing Caledon and its residents will resolve anytime soon. Are we “there” yet? It depends on what we’re talking about.

Yes, spring is just around the corner and brighter days are ahead weather-wise, but for Caledon?

Like that famous early 1990s movie, we might be facing an endless Groundhog Day; one issue after another continuing to rear its ugly head up over the snowbanks, casting shadows that will loom large and long over the Caledon landscape.

Shadows that not even the 2026 municipal election might be able to dispel.

*Oh the irony! I just finished typing this column and checked the weather. A “high impact storm system is set to arrive in the GTA.” As Charlie Brown might say, “Good Grief!”