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[UPDATE: HAPPY APRIL FOOLS' DAY!! Peterborough, we love you just the way you are.]

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DEVELOPING... Multiple sources have confirmed to PTBOCanada.com that the City of Peterborough and City of Oshawa are in serious preliminary talks to merge.

Peterborough has had a longstanding friendly feud with our neighbours up the 115, mainly stemming from the rivalry between our junior hockey franchises the Peterborough Petes and Oshawa Generals. But sources tell us this merger would actully make sense for a lot of reasons.

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First off, it would make the commute up the 115 into Oshawa much more bearable knowing that Oshawa is now part of us. Sources tell us that putting our resources together will create a "Supercity" of sorts, creating more jobs as we compete against the GTA.

Some of the other factors sources cite regarding the merger:

- mimicking the Toronto city combination
- creating an "All-star" Petes/Generals team that always goes deep in the playoffs
- wanting to speed up Go Train link between cities
- combined populations could create a tax break
- the possibility of bringing in an expansion NHL team
- Combining GE and GM forces. They would become "GEM".

Under the terms of the city merger, sources tell us Oshawa would agree to use our 705 area code and become in effect part of the Kawarthas and "cottage country" rather than the Durham region. This would also give Oshawa access to Little Lake and the Otonabee River, and in turn Peterborough would have access to the Lake Ontario shoreline. Trent University already has a campus in Oshawa so this will make make Trent's campus much larger, and extend the reach of Head of the Trent.

Sources tell us the name of the combined city will be either "Oshborough" or "Petershawa" and that there will be an online vote using the hashtag #NameOurNewCity to decide on the name. The new city logo will then be created by a design firm in Bowmanville or Kirby to avoid bias in the design from a Peterborough or Oshawa firm.

Both Peterborough Mayor Bennett and Oshawa Mayor Henry refused to comment on the possible merger when asked yesterday, saying "No comment", before heading into closed door meetings.

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