By Rick Neilson
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Municipal representatives accounted for slightly more than half of the roughly 225 people attending the annual general meeting of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association on April 17-19 in Thunder Bay.
Once the program got underway Thursday morning, Dr. Robert Rosehart, Northwestern Ontario economic facilitator, was the first speaker. He presented his report entitled, “Northwestern Ontario: Preparing For Change.”

Dr. Rosehart, a past president of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, led a review of the northern economy in 1986.
The recommendations he provided then have guided much northern policy, program, and project development, including the suggestion of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and the development of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine.
The current study was initiated because of Northwestern Ontario’s poor economic performance. Over the five-year period from 2001-06, the northwest’s GDP declined 6.7 percent while Northeastern Ontario increased 3.5 percent and the rest of the province rose 13.6 percent.
Northwestern Ontario has 58 percent of Ontario’s land mass. Strategically this region is seen as the part of Canada that joins the other two parts of Canada.
“I am very comfortable that these represent the issues that are out there in Northwestern Ontario,” Dr. Rosehart told NOMA delegates.
The report, which was released in late March, deals with every aspect of the economy and puts forth 47 recommendations, including
•twinning the Trans-Canada Highway;
•an all-weather road study for the far north;
•speeding up the environmental reviews process for mines;
•locating new government jobs in the region;
•forest tenure reform; and
•First Nations economic development capacity.
Only three of the recommendations are specific to agriculture:
1. E-capacity in rural areas
It is recommended that while improvements are underway in terms of high-speed access in some rural areas, in the interim government agencies must realize some types of online form completion are very difficult using anything but high-speed Internet.
Such forms should be tested routinely using low-speed to see how user-friendly they are to rural/northern users.
Alternative strategies for necessary form completion may need to be facilitated in some cases.
2. Abattoir
It is recommended that every consideration be given to the establishment of an appropriately-sized abattoir in the Rainy River District.
3. OMAF biomass research
It is recommended that the University of Guelph agriculture research station in Northwestern Ontario work with the farming community, and the regional pulp and paper industry, to research and pilot new crops for biomass energy projects.
Dr. Rosehart consulted extensively throughout the region but remembers Emo as “the rowdiest meeting of them all.”
The report does not see the abattoir as contributing to growing a prosperous economy, but rather as stabilizing the current one.
The “Preparing for Change” report is all about the economy and does not consider social or environmental impacts.
Dr. Rosehart raised some eyebrows when he suggested that it was fine if people commuted to the oil fields in Alberta as long as they continued to maintain a home and family “. . . and spent most of their money” in Northwestern Ontario.
The complete report is available at the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines’ website.