The decline of the West.

AuthorRobinson, David
PositionEconomically Speaking

Common Voice Northwest is worrying about the decline of the West. Not the decline of western civilization predicted by historian Oswald Spengler in 1918. Not even the decline of the U.S.A. heralded by Donald Trump. Common Voice is worrying about the population decline in the northeast.

The poster for the Common Voice conference in September said, "We are destined to see a significant reduction each year in the number of residents available to work in our businesses, industries, institutions and governments." Between the 1996 census and the 2011 census the population fell by more than 8 per cent. The provincial Ministry of Finance expects the decline to continue for at least 20 years.

Only the northwest is projected to grow and that only slightly. It will have a small effect. The Kenora district may be almost as big as Sweden, but it has a population smaller than North Bay. Forty per cent of the population self-identifies as Aboriginal. North of the Albany, the old Patricia District consists almost entirely of remote First Nations communities accessible only by floatplane or winter road. Birthrates are relatively high in this area, which explains the projected population growth.

That projected population boost may be an illusion. Stats Canada assumes that birthrates in the district will not change. Birthrates fall with increased education levels and especially with higher female education rates. Education rates among women in Kenora are notably higher than among men and are rising.

The Kenora District illustrates the most significant challenge for the northwest: building a genuinely equal and integrated bicultural society. Of the major cities in Canada, only Winnipeg has a higher proportion of citizens with an Aboriginal identity than Thunder Bay. Statistics Canada predicts that by 2036, the Aboriginal population of the city will be about 15 per cent of the total population, up from 8 per cent. The city will add 5,000 to 8,000 people of Aboriginal descent and will lose about the same number of non-Aboriginal descent. Thunder Bay will be the regional capital for Aboriginals.

The city's influence in the North, including the Ring of Fire, depends entirely on how influential the city's Aboriginal population becomes. The Ring of Fire is technically in the northwest only because of an accident of history. It is likely to end more strongly linked to the northeast than the northwest as the transportation...

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