After a rather lengthy absence from the Opinion page of this newspaper, I was very pleased to see the return of Prof. Livio Di Matteo’s commentary Another Plan For The North (March 12). I felt inspired and impressed by his knowledge and understanding of all things economic/political in Northwestern Ontario.
I sensed a difference in tone in Di Matteo’s latest commentary. Is frustration or even cynicism creeping in as he ponders almost 50 years of southern political Band-Aid concoctions for treating Northwestern Ontario ailments?
I too have found it hard not to be cynical as we face a daunting task of reinventing our economic future.
Let me share a few stories.
In northern Iowa four years ago, weather forced us to find early accommodation for the night. Just off I35 we found a small casino/hotel that was brand new, clean and with reasonable room rates. The casino was about the size of ours in Thunder Bay.
The lady at the desk proudly explained that the casino was locally owned by the tiny town close by and all the revenue after taxes was directed to fund local projects and infrastructure. One project allocation was that every local student was eligible to receive $6,000 (soon to be raised to $7,000) while attending college full time. Talk about innovative thinking!
Then I thought of our casino where more than 95 per cent of almost all locally-sourced spending revenue goes to Toronto and less than 5 per cent stays here. Somehow our present deal with the Ontario government doesn’t look so good.
A few years ago I picked up a slick, glossy, full-colour tourism magazine produced by the Ontario Tourism Partnership Corporation (OTMPC) as a new, effective way to market tourism throughout all of Ontario. As I flipped through the pages I realized there was not a single mention of Thunder Bay. In fact there was no coverage at all west of Sault Ste. Marie!
Everyone from Wawa west to the Manitoba border soon demanded an explanation. A representative from the corporation apologized and admitted to the omission as an error. Error? How can one omit more than half of the province and call it a simple error?
Then there was a comment by a Ministry of Transportation spokesman on our local CBC radio news broadcast about the ever-present, ongoing subject of a divided Trans-Canada Highway through Northwestern Ontario. I shall never forget the spokesman’s brain-cramp comment (and I quote it at as accurately as I can recall): “A divided highway is not necessarily safer . . .” I wonder what he was smoking that day about 10 years ago.
Historically, Ontario has been the economic engine of the entire country — the biggest by population, richest, and most powerful. Yet Ontario is the only province in Canada that does not have a divided highway through it.
Di Matteo’s intelligent commentary talks about regional government. What I take from his comments is that Queen’s Park is too far away, too ignorant of our needs, cannot and never will politically prioritize N.W.O. needs relative to the populous south and that we need and must have much more control over our own future.
We do have some interesting options:
• Regional government status;
• A separate province;
• Create/reincarnate a Northern/Northwestern political party;
• Join Manitoba;
• Investigate them all (with lots of publicity) to instill concern at Queen’s Park as in: “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
What we do know is that the existing political structure, regardless of party, is not working nor will it ever work. Regardless of the toe-the-line smoke-and-mirrors claims of progress in N.W.O., our middle class is being killed.
But, we have some powerful options given lessons learned from our First Nations’ rejections of the status quo and their successes in being heard. The Ring of Fire is a trump card that we should play with tenacity and conviction for our exclusive benefit.
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