Say goodbye to North-Western Ontario?

[cacruden]

Moving to Manitoba?

By JOYANNE PURSAGA, STAFF REPORTER

Several Ontario communities are peering west at Manitoba for power and stability.

Fort Frances, Ont., Coun. Tannis Drysdale is recruiting volunteers to research whether shifting the provincial boundary east could reverse economic decline in Northwestern Ontario.

"Our option of staying here is not good," said Drysdale of the town located at the shores of the Rainy River near the Canada-U.S. border. "We're losing population and our industries are falling apart."

She's seeking new members to join the Central Canada Public Policy Research Trust, which will investigate the idea.

The councillor believes large-scale paper mill cuts in her region, such as Abitibi-Consolidated Inc.'s Kenora closure in 2005, are putting several small communities at risk of collapse.

And she said her home province is ignoring the trend and the area's few provincially elected politicians have little influence in Toronto.

"In Northwestern Ontario we have three MPPs (members of provincial parliament) in a legislature of 103, so it's quite easy to brush that off," said Drysdale.

NOT THAT FAR-FETCHED

She said moving the border east of Thunder Bay could raise the region's number of provincial representatives to 11 members in Manitoba's 57-member legislative assembly.

And Drysdale said securing federal approval to change the provincial border may not be that far-fetched.

"I guess it sounds ridiculous and impossible, but just a few short years ago a new territory was formed," she said.

Fort Frances is not the first Ontario community to seek refuge in Manitoba.

Kenora Mayor David Canfield went public with his desire to join the keystone province last year, citing high energy costs and other forestry losses.

He said mill closures in Kenora during the past year left at least 400 people out of work.

Canfield has already signed on as Central Canada's Kenora District Municipal Association representative.

He said Ontario's "one-size-fits-all" style of governance simply doesn't work.

"People are very upset," said Canfield. "When you start wiping out communities, how does the government expect them to respond?"

But Canfield stressed he isn't necessarily pushing to join Manitoba.

"I always have wanted to be part of Ontario," said Canfield. "But the bottom line is what's going on now is not working. We need more control of our destiny."

Michael Gravelle, MPP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, agreed the province must act to bolster the region.

But Gravelle said joining Manitoba isn't the answer.

"As challenging as the times are now, there are still a number of benefits that come from being part of a province as economically wealthy as Ontario," he said. "Yes, we have three MPPs, but I think our voice is being heard."

 

[bizorky]

That's kind of funny.

Why do some people seem to forget about all the economic development programs that have been set up in the past to aid the north? And do they really believe that Manitoba is some kind of land of milk and honey? Cheap electricity? Manitoba will have to build the dams first and then expensive hydro lines will have to be built. None of that will be cheap.


If one pokes around, it is easy to see that the forestry industry is under pressure all around. For example, there is simply too much paper-making capacity, and recent massive purchases of new machinery have actually made many facilities very efficient. These means that there is an over-abundance of paper mills with high output.

 

[samplain]

Ive driven from TBay area into Winnipeg and I got a small sense of similarity, except it just seems to get absolutely flat as soon as you cross into Manitoba.

That said, this article is coming from the Winnipeg Sun.

 

[Ed007Toronto]

The internet is cutting into newspaper classified sales. This is the fault of Toronto?

 

[rbtaylor]

The internet is cutting into newspaper classified sales. This is the fault of Toronto?

Well, yes actually.
Technology advancement and innovation tends to be driven best by the largest cities (that's what made them largest in the first place).

If all Canadian towns and cities had populations of 10k or less, you can be fairly sure that the internet would not be very prominent in Canada.

Then again, there would not be very high demand for paper either since office work would be minimal.

 

[ganjavih]

Prediction: these little towns join Manitoba and remain dirt poor.

 

[Canuck 36]

My crystal ball says "Welcome to the concepts of urbanization and globalization".

Should the Canadian government prop up communities and industries that are dying, or should our focus be on positioning our cities and people to compete in new global realities?

My heart goes out to these people, I'm sorry to see their jobs and way of life vanish, but to me a struggle against such changes are futile, and efforts best put forth in other areas.

 

[unimaginative2]

Look...Northern Ontario is not a cluster of little towns. It has close to a million people, and its resource industries are some of Canada's biggest export earners. Toronto's entire financial services industry was built on financing the Northern Ontario mining industry. I don't think it's unreasonable that we owe them a little bit.

As for Northwestern Ontario joining Manitoba...well, it's an interesting idea. They'd certainly play a much more important role in Manitoba, and feel much less at the extreme periphery. Their economy has commonalities with that of Manitoba. On a practical note, they would save a fortune on electricity (and in turn save a number of jobs) if they could switch over to Manitoba Hydro. Finally, anything to reduce the population of Ontario and increase the population of other provinces is probably a good idea for regional balance. Of course there are drawbacks: Ontario has much more money to support them through difficult times, they shouldn't have to feel left out here and they won't if we make more efforts to have them feel included, and as much as anything, their history is with us in Ontario.

 

[bizorky]

^We "owe" them? I think I understand the gist of your statement, but I would think the proper phrasing would be that we "share" with them.

While Toronto's financial sector was, in part, built on financing Northern Ontario, such a statement begs the question as to why that financial sector was, and is, in Toronto. Without the good fortune of having those natural resources there in the first place, there would not have been that type of investment or development at all.

As for owing the north, there have been a number of expensive initiatives on the part of the government over the decades to invest in northern economic development. Many of those initiatives have been criticised as being too little. However, when $100 million is invested in the north, it is like investing over a billion in the southern portions of the province, which is something quite rare. maybe its time to look beyond the traditional industries of the past.

The part that annoys me is the attitude that the north is being "neglected" by the "south." Just because the resource economies are not as lucrative as they once were, and just because certain industries can no longer be sustained due to broader economic change, it does not mean the north is being neglected.