Northern Ontario Separation and Alienation – Page 22

Northern political banner flying in the south – by Wayne Snider (Timmins Daily Press – September 20, 2011)

September 20, 2011

The Daily Press, the city of Timmins newspaper. Contact the writer at news@thedailypress.ca.

Northern Ontario Heritage Party fielding three candidates, including one in Toronto

While the Northern Ontario Heritage Party didn’t reach its goal of having candidates in all 11 Northern ridings for this provincial election, it managed to make some progress.

The NOHP has three candidates in the election. Charmaine Romaniuk will represent the party in Kenora-Rainy River and Gerry Courville in Timiskaming-Cochrane.

The biggest surprise is that there will be a NOHP candidate in the heart of Toronto. David Vallance will carry the Northern Ontario banner in the riding of St. Paul. NOHP Leader Ed Deibel said a group in Toronto approached him about fielding a candidate.

“I thought it might not be a bad idea,” he said. “They are closer to all the media based in Southern Ontario, and could get information about Northern Ontario out there.” But having the Toronto group conduct research is a key component to their involvement in Northern politics.

Northern [Ontario] debate the day’s priority – (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal editorial – September 16, 2011)

September 17, 2011

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

THE LIBERALS had to know this was coming. Yet they went ahead in spite of the downside, apparently preferring it to having party leaders debate Northern Ontario issues in Thunder Bay where the Liberals hold both seats. The political blowback is coming hard and fast, and with seven days to go it can only get worse.

Last month, three key regional organizations formally confirmed an invitation to provincial party leaders to debate northern issues at a conference here Sept. 23, in the midst of the provincial election campaign.

The Northwestern Ontario Regional Conference is hosted by the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA), the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce (NOACC) and the Northwestern Ontario Development Network (NODN). It brings together municipal, business and economic development leaders from across the Northwest.

Two of three will be here [Northern Ontario leadership debate] – (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal editorial – September 15, 2011)

September 17, 2011

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

FROM time to time, politicians find themselves in no-win situations. Such was the case for Ontario’s three leading political party leaders when they were invited to participate in an election debate in Thunder Bay on northern issues. Attend and set a precedent that other regions will notice. Refuse and face a backlash from northern voters.

Handlers for Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty, Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak and NDP leader Andrea Horwath did neither of these things at the outset. For weeks following an invitation from the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, the three camps bobbed and weaved, trying to figure out what the others would do while keeping NOMA and northerners waiting.

In the end, it was Horwath who forced the issue. In a letter to NOMA on Tuesday, the NDP leader accepted the invitation. In fact, Horwath had been after her competitors from the start of talks for the televised province-wide leaders debate to have two others outside Toronto, one here in the North. Parties deferred to the TV network consortium which did not offer more than the Toronto forum.

Liberals come out swinging – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 10, 2011)

September 26, 2011September 11, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

For the web’s largest database of articles on the Ring of Fire mining camp, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

The Liberals were the first party to offer a plan for the north and they will expand upon it if they are re-elected Oct. 6, says Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci.

A key component of the Grits’ Forward. Together plan is to make the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. a permanent fixture so future governments can’t abolish it, and to boost the fund from $100 million to $110 million.

It has created more than 16,000 jobs in eight years and will create 4,000 more per year for the next four years if the Grits are re-elected, the Sudbury MPP says. Bartolucci also vowed his party would facilitate at least eight new mines in the next 10 years and provide more family health care to underserviced areas of the province.

The Liberal incumbent was flanked by Nickel Belt Liberal candidate Tony Ryma and Timiskaming-Cochrane Liberal hopeful Denis Bonin at a news conference Friday to unveil the plan.

Bye bye Howie [Hampton] – by Christina Blizzard (Toronto Sun – September 4, 2011)

September 11, 2011

Christina Blizzard is the Queen’s Park columnist for the Toronto Sun, the city’s daily tabloid newspaper. christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca

Around here’s he’s just known as Howie. When Howard Hampton quietly announced last month that he wouldn’t be running in the Oct. 6 election, it caused surprisingly few ripples in the Queen’s Park political pond.

When he stepped down as leader after the 2007 election, many pundits were surprised he stayed on as MPP for Kenora-Rainy River.

In his northern riding, his departure signals a seismic shift in the political tectonics. Hampton is a powerful political force in northwestern Ontario.

As NDP leader, he often fought a long, lonely battle to put northern issues on the government’s agenda. He is the quintessential small-town northern son.

Raised in Fort Frances, a gritty mill town across the border from Minnesota, his father worked in the local pulp mill. His brother still works there.

Northern [Ontario Kenora] riding in transition – by Christina Blizzard (Toronto Sun – September 4, 2011)

September 11, 2011

Christina Blizzard is the Queen’s Park columnist for the Toronto Sun, the city’s daily tabloid newspaper. christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca

Kenora- Rainy River up for grabs since Howard Hampton unexpectedly ended his 24-year political career

KENORA — Husky the Muskie presides over the waterfront in this gloriously beautiful northwestern city on the Lake of the Woods.

The giant fish statue is the place where newlyweds go to get their pictures taken. You have to think Husky was shocked to the gills, like everyone else here, when veteran New Democrat MPP Howard Hampton recently pulled the plug on his 24-year political career.

You even wonder if New Democrats in the former NDP leader’s own Kenora-Rainy River riding were ready for him to hand over the baton. Local Liberals were clearly caught off-guard.

Anthony Leek, the young Emo councillor who’s carrying their banner is certainly sincere, but at 27, hardly brings much by way of a track record to the race.

Northern Chambers of Commerce challenge province’s Far North Act – by The Timmins Daily Press (September 10, 2011)

September 26, 2011September 10, 2011

The Daily Press, the city of Timmins newspaper. Contact the writer at news@thedailypress.ca.

For the web’s largest database of articles on the Ring of Fire mining camp, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

“The Far North Act affects us collectively and
individually, and we want to ensure that it is
carried out in a responsible and inclusive manner
that respects all northern groups – be they
businesses, municipalities or First Nations.”
(Julie Denomme, vice-chair of the Greater Sudbury
Chamber of Commerce)

The province should reconsider how development is handled in Ontario’s Far North if it is to properly serve the region’s communities, First Nations, and business, according to the Chambers of Commerce of Timmins, Sudbury, North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie.

In a joint statement issued Friday, the four chambers agreed that the Far North Act, as passed by the Ontario government in October 2010, fails to consider the needs of those who are most affected by it.

The province’s stated goal of protecting “at least” 50% of the 225,000 square kilometres that make up the Far North was reached without consultation with the region’s First Nations who, through this legislation, are being forced to set aside portions of their land for protection.

Ontario’s Provincial Election and the North: What Is the Issue? – by Livio Di Matteo (September 9, 2011)

September 10, 2011

Livio Di Matteo is Professor of Economics at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Visit his new Economics Blog “Northern Economist” at http://ldimatte.shawwebspace.ca/

“Indeed, the most innovative set of Northern policies ever
proposed in my living memory was the Peterson government of
the 1980s which set forth three planks: the Northern Ontario
Heritage Fund, Northern Health Travel Grants and a program
of decentralization of provincial government offices to the
north. Since then, there has really not been articulated
any similar set of innovative strategic and concrete
nitiatives for the North.” (Livio Di Matteo, Sept/9/2011)

As the provincial election campaign begins, undoubtedly the need to articulate northern issues will be an important one. The conventional wisdom would probably argue that the most important issues are jobs and the economy, followed by health care. A glance at the “northern platforms” of the three parties certainly would suggest that the economy is an important focus and there are indeed some similarities across the three main parties when it comes to the economy.

The New Democratic Party argues the North has been ignored by the provincial government and is pledging “respect for the North. ” Its northern policy wants to hire more doctors for under-serviced communities, remove the HST from home heating and electric bills, cap gas prices, create a Northern Ontario legislative committee to address Northern issues and change laws so mining companies must process their raw materials in the province (incidentally, something similar was done a long time ago in Ontario for logs harvested on Crown lands under the rubric of the Manufacturing Condition).

Failing [Aboriginal] kids in our [Ontario] north – (Toronto Star Editorial – September 10, 2011)

September 10, 2011

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

A coroner’s inquest into a suicide routinely results in recommendations for more accessible, comprehensive and better funded mental health services. Ontario’s examination of the suicides of 16 children on a northern First Nations reserve is no different on that score. It’s Ontario deputy chief coroner Dr. Bert Lauwers’ call for other things — things so basic that they shouldn’t need mentioning — that really make his report stand out.

Access to clean water. Indoor plumbing. A decent school. How can communities without such basic necessities still exist in Ontario? The level of poverty and deprivation in the fly-in community of Pikangikum First Nation, 100 kilometres east of the Manitoba border, is appalling. It helped to create such deep despair that children, like the 12-year-old boy who hanged himself from a poplar tree outside his grandmother’s home and a 16-year-old girl who hanged herself with a shoelace in the laundry room, could see no way forward.

The coroner’s 100 recommendations are not just a blueprint to stem the dramatically high suicide rate of First Nations children and youth in northern Ontario. They are an indictment of the conditions that Ottawa has allowed to persist for far too long.

Northeastern Ontario Chambers Joint Policy Statement About Far North Act-Bill 191

September 10, 2011

A joint statement by the Timmins Chamber of Commerce, Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce, Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce and North Bay & District Chamber of Commerce on the Far North Act – Bill 191.

The provincial government introduced the Bill 191 for First Reading on June 2, 2009. The Act passed Third Reading on Sept. 23, 2010 and received Royal Assent on Oct. 25, 2010. Its purpose is to permanently protect at least half of Ontario’s Far North for the “sustainable development of natural resources” as well the preservation of biological diversity and ecological processes.

The legislation puts forward a process for community-based land-use planning that will ultimately set aside at least 21% of the province’s total landmass, or half of the Far North’s 450,000 square kilometers, in an interconnected network of protected areas. The region reaches from the Manitoba border in the west to James Bay and Quebec in the east and north along a line several hundred kilometers north of Red Lake, Sioux Lookout, Hearst and Cochrane.

This area contains 24,000 people spread across 34 communities (31 of which are First Nations). It is also host to the socalled “Ring of Fire,” an area of potential significant mineral wealth that includes a world-class deposit of chromite,deposits of nickel and other base and precious metals. It is expected that $1.5 billion will be spent over the next 10 years to develop this area in advance of mineral extraction.

NDP promises respect for Northern Ontarians – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 9, 2011)

September 9, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

If the New Democratic Party is elected in Ontario, it would ensure resources that could be processed here are, it would cut the HST from electricity and home heating bills and encourage 200 doctors to practise in underserviced areas of the province, at least 50 of them in the North.

Northeastern Ontario would also get the positron emission tomography scanner that thousands of northerners have been calling for, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told a partisan crowd at Laurentian University on Thursday.

Those promises and more are contained in the Respect for the North plan Horwath unveiled in Sudbury at her first stop on a northern tour.

It is time Queen’s Park showed respect to the people and the communities of the North, said Horwath, and hers is the party to do it.

Shoe on the other foot for Thunder Bay’s Gravelle – by Adam Radwanski (Globe and Mail – September 9, 2011)

September 26, 2011September 9, 2011

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

For the web’s largest database of articles on the Ring of Fire mining camp, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

THUNDER BAY – For most of his political career, Michael Gravelle has been seen as a fighter for his hometown of Thunder Bay – a little guy, literally and figuratively, standing up to those who would neglect Ontario’s Far North.

This fall, he’s fighting charges that he’s the one doing the neglecting.

Such is the mixed blessing of spending the past four years as Northern Development Minister for a government perceived not to have done enough to develop the region. So what was once one of the safest Liberal seats in the province is now up for grabs, with Mr. Gravelle one of several northern Liberal MPPs fighting for their political lives.

But who the real contenders are in Thunder Bay-Superior North, a sprawling riding that includes half of northwest Ontario’s largest city and some more far-flung communities, is less clear.

Horwath plays to Northern [Ontario] discontent – Anna Mehler Paperny (Globe and Mail – September 9, 2011)

September 9, 2011

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

THUNDER BAY – Over 19 hours and 3,300 kilometres, Andrea Horwath laid out her battle plan for Ontario’s north.

The region was home to some of the closest-fought races of the 2007 election. This year, the parties are going at it again. Their game plan? To duke it out over who is the best champion of a recession-hit region that tends to feel politically disenfranchised and far removed from Queen’s Park.

So Ms. Horwath, campaigning on a platform of average-Joe discontent, has a receptive ear to complaints of neglect.

“We can create a future for the North that creates good jobs. But it won’t happen by sticking with the made-in-Toronto status quo,” she said Thursday. “We are shipping away logs and we are buying back the sawdust. It makes no sense. And we can do better.”

Mill closures will haunt Liberals – by Christina Blizzard (Toronto Sun – September 01, 2011)

September 3, 2011

Christina Blizzard is the Queen’s Park columnist for the Toronto Sun, the city’s daily tabloid newspaper. christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca

THUNDER BAY — The battle in Northern Ontario for the hearts and minds of voters in the Oct. 6 election is being waged on many fronts here.

It’s about forestry and wood allocations. About mining and resources. And the Far North Act, which critics say will strangle development and turn economically-productive forestry and mining areas into parkland.

Thunder Bay-Superior North MPP Mike Gravelle is the Liberals’ Minister of Northern Development. He’s taking flak for making changes to the wood allocation system — the lifeblood of mills.

Like many others, the Buchanan Mill in Atikokan was idled following the housing downturn in the U.S. and was recently put into receivership.