Most of Ontario's population lies north of NYS; Lake Ontario is the only Great Lake that doesn't touch a Midwestern state. But SW Ontario feels a fair bit like Michigan while Eastern Ontario lies above a very thinly populated part of NYS. Toronto (half of Ontarians live in the metropolitan area) seems like an outlier altogether - doesn't really seem that "Midwestern" - and obviously given its weight largely defines Ontario as a whole.
To be fair, there aren't really any massive global cities in the Midwest other than Chicago, and Chicago is nowhere near as important in the U.S. as Toronto is. If Cleveland or Buffalo were a NYC-level important city they probably wouldn't be too different aside from the natural peculiarities of each and the obvious differences between each country.
Exactly. Having a global metropolis making up half the population obviously has an impact.
Oh yeah definitely! I guess I just meant that being an exceptionally huge city shouldn't have a bearing on whether or not it should be considered Midwestern--in much the same way that we agreed that DC is southern even though it is very distinct for similar reasons to Toronto.
In any case trying to determine if parts of Canada are Midwestern is a bit silly as Midwesternness in the American context is determined in relation to other areas. It'd be like trying to determine if Vermont belongs in Atlantic Canada or the Maritimes; the categories don't make sense outside of the US context. Obviously there is a high degree of cultural kinship though!
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