Barrie

Barrie is a city southeast of the province of Ontario, Canada. It is located 252 meters above sea level, west of Lake Simcoe and east of Lake Huron, approximately 90 km north of Toronto.

The city has a humid climate, with hot, humid summers and cold winters. In the final months of spring and summer, the Barrie area is known for its strong storms and the funnel cloud that sometimes looks like a tornado, due to its location within a convergence of the breezes coming from Georgian Bay, the Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.

In the winter months, it is the scene of important snowfall, an average of 238 centimetres of snow falls per year, which tend to be north.

In Barrie, there are many factories including Hydro One, a company that provides energy services for Ontario, The Source a retailer of electrical products, a headquarters of the Bank of Montreal, a headquarters of Scotiabank, a Coca-Cola bottling plant and others.

Despite these large companies Barrie has been increasingly perceived as a hotel city for people coming from Toronto, which is about 90 km south of Barrie. Approximately 32% of the employed work force travels outside of Barrie to get employment, while the unemployment figure is only 4%.