OPINION — Separate northern status advocated

Territorial status for northern Ontario would mean northerners would be able to revive their mining and forestry industries.

The multiple use of land would have to be the basis for any resource policy. I have been advocating the separation of northern and southern Ontario for years but I also realize it will remain a dream as long as many northerners are content to let politicians and bureaucrats in Queen’s Park and Ottawa control every facet of their lives.

These are the northerners who say, “Territorial status won’t work because we need to obtain money from somewhere and taxes are high enough already.” I firmly believe we do have the economic base in the North to stand on our own feet.

Any student of history will confirm that northern Ontario was always intended by Great Britain to be a separate territory. As late as 1906, maps showed the North as the District of Keewatin.

It was in 1912 that Ontario doubled in size from 200,000 to its present 412,582 square miles. Its northern lands were known as “New Ontario.” The colonial yoke of the British was merely replaced with colonial status within Ontario. From our hydroelectric sites to our fresh water, and from our lumber to our minerals, the south took in millions and returned thousands of dollars.

The fallacy that Canada can get along without mining, forestry and other resource-based industries has been perpetuated by successive governments to the point that it is now accepted as fact.

Grains, forest products, metals, minerals, oil, gas, textiles and chemicals are expected to provide Canada with a combined surplus of $40 billion this year, up from $35 billion in 1991. Northern Ontario doesn’t have all these resources, but it has a lot of them.

The three main industries of northern Ontario are mining, forestry and tourism. All three are handicapped by neglect, indifference and bad planning by present and past governments.

It is no secret that wealth generated by these three industries helps to maintain the high Canadian standard of living. But what would the standard be in northern Ontario if the tax benefits remained there?

Would not many of the problems faced daily by our aboriginal friends on their reserves and in our communities be solved? Would we not be able to restore our railway network, which we need to move our natural resources to markets and to open up new areas to exploration and development?

While mining, forestry and tourism are producing income, their potential has hardly been tapped.

The investment climate is less attractive in Canada than it is in other nations. In the global economy, money flows around the world at the push of a computer button. If foreign — and Canadian — investors cannot make a dollar here and can earn a higher rate of return somewhere else, then they will do just that.

We need investment incentives and environmental laws which allow resource industries to deliver their full potential while protecting their base and the environment so that future generations may benefit.

As a territory, we would have the power to utilize our railway system as an economic development tool, before all the tracks are lifted in the North. We would set freight rates to help our basic industries remain competitive. As a territory, we would develop power sites and set electricity rates to create long-term stability. As a territory, we would negotiate an agreement with the aboriginals for land tenure.

Transportation, electrical rates and security of land title are three of the most important reasons for the decline in mining in northern Ontario and the flight of mining companies to Latin America.

The many problems of northern Ontario cannot be resolved without political power being returned to the hands of its residents. Only the residents, therefore, can shape the events required to bring about an improvement in their lot.

— The writer, a native northerner and prospector, lives in Timmins, Ont.