Northern Ontario Separation and Alienation

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NORTH BAY – While a decades-old separatist party has been recently revived with a new name and new leader, its platform remains the same – giving the people of Northern Ontario a voice at Queen’s Park.

Trevor Holliday, from North Bay, has been voted in as the official party leader for the newly re-branded Northern Ontario Party (NOP). Earlier this year, Holliday launched an online petition calling for Northern Ontario to become its own province. When more than 4,000 supporters backed his position, he decided to take things one step further and register the NOP with Elections Ontario at the end of last month.

“It was a big shock for me because I went from just wanting to see what people’s thoughts were with the petition; I was wondering if I was on my own with that thought and then a huge following came along,” Holliday recalled. “The feedback has just been amazing. People have come out from everywhere saying, ‘You’re giving us a voice.’ So this is why I’m doing this.”

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http://www.thesudburystar.com/

An online petition has evolved into a political calling for Callander’s Trevor Holliday. The Ontario Northland motor coach driver dipped his toes into provincial politics in January when he launched a petition calling for Northern Ontario independence.

And now, eight months later, Holliday is leading the newly minted Northern Ontario Party, which plans to field a slate of candidates in the next election. “Politics was not even on my mind. It was foreign to me,” says Holliday, who previously had little interest in government. But he’s been propelled by the response to his petition, which has garnered more than 4,000 supporters and a fair bit of media attention.

He started the petition, calling for the North to become its own province, after hearing first-hand accounts as a motor coach driver from passengers about their health care and transportation woes.

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http://www.thesudburystar.com/

This week, The Star asked its readers about autonomy and sovereignty in Northern Ontario. We wanted to know: Would you like to see Northern Ontario get more powers to run its affairs and develop its economy?

Online, 67 per cent of respondents (344 votes) said yes, while 11 per cent of voters (55 votes) said no. Twenty per cent of voters (101 votes) advocated for the separation of the North from the rest of the province, while two per cent of respondents (17 votes) said they were not sure.

Likening northern separation to the Quebec referendum, one female caller noted that more power would be great, but added Northern Ontario should remain a part of the province. “Yes, we are the largest city in Northern Ontario, but don’t even think of separation. Leave that to Quebec,” she said.

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http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Doug Millroy is th editor emeritus of The Sault Star.

In my late teens I used to espouse the thought to anyone who would listen that Northern Ontario, because of its size, natural resources and seeming neglect by those in power in the south, should look toward becoming a separate province.

Being from Dryden, in the far northwestern part of the province, I naturally saw the seat of power as being in Fort William or Port Arthur, the forerunners of what is now Thunder Bay. It is an idea that over the years — actually not all that many years — I dropped as being senseless, but it remained viable in the minds of many others, surfacing every so often.

For instance, in January, Trevor Holliday launched an online petition calling for independence for the North, picking up from where the 1970s’ Northern Ontario Heritage Party and other Northern Ontario separatist movements left off.

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http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Northern Ontario is little more than a colony of the rest of the province, with little or no control over its economy or its progress, a new report says.

The report, prepared by the Northern Policy Institute, also argues there are alternative governance models for the region that could give Northern Ontario more control over its destiny and economic development.

David Robinson, a Laurentian University economics professor, says Northern Ontario has the size and the economic resources to easily become a province. However, he writes in his report, Revolution or Devolution?: How Northern Ontario Should be Governed, that political barriers stand in the way of Northern Ontario independence.

So, instead of independence, he suggests devolution, where the provincial legislature grants the region more autonomy. Robinson says devolution is already a key pillar of Canada’s Northern Strategy at the federal level.

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http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com/

It is amazing the issues that transcend geographical boundaries and distance. Take for example dissatisfied constituents calling for separation from their current political body.

For example, in January, the prospect of Northern Ontario separatism was raised again by Trevor Holliday from Callander. Ontario. His frustrations of having to travel long distances to see a doctor and feeling unrepresented at Queen’s Park led him to push the idea to create the Province of Northern Ontario — which he defined as Algoma, Manitoulin & Kapaskasing, Kenora, Nickle Belt, Nipissing & Timiskaming, Parry Sound & Muskoka, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Rainy River, Thunder Bay Superior North and Timmins James Bay — in a change.org petition.

Holliday’s petition has gained 3,835 supporters since he initiated it Jan. 1.

Of course, this is not a new idea. It has recirculated several times since the early 1970s.

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http://www.thesudburystar.com/

A grassroots movement to make Northern Ontario an independent province is gathering steam. An online petition launched this month has collected more than 670 names.

Trevor Holliday, who launched the petition, said his goal is similar to that of the 1970s’ Northern Ontario Heritage Party and other Northern Ontario separatist movements: To divide the province in two and treat Northern and southern Ontario as separate entities.

“I would want Northern Ontario to become its own province. That way it can be run by the people of the North for the people of the North, so that all the money from the North isn’t taken and given to the south and then we’re just left to whittle away.”

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