We've all "been there, done that".

• Position: NEWS

It's mid September and I'm standing in the Michipicoten Memorial Community Centre in Wawa watching a half-dozen young children go through their early hockey season workouts. Only four short years ago, I would have been watching 30 or so Junior "B" hockey players tearing the ice up in a bid to make the Champion Wawa Travellers Junior "B" Hockey Club. Only one short year ago, I would have been watching 20 younger children moving through their workouts. Not today. Today, due to a massive downturn in the economy and a loss of population, the building is almost empty; a few dedicated parents and children are using the available ice time. This scene, I am sure, is repeating itself in many small communities across Northern Ontario and it will not get any better in the near future, if ever.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

While the good people that live in small town Northern Ontario continue to live in the above noted reality, a Federal Election Campaign continues. This campaign is no normal campaign, it is a campaign of convenience called by a Prime Minister who senses a majority government that will enable him to impose his polices, unopposed policies by the way, that will do no good for Northern Ontario.

At this point in the campaign, Northern Ontario has not even registered. If it ever does register, it most certainly will not include the small towns across the North that are dying a slow death. We have not been visited by any of the leaders and by my accounts our drastic situation has not even been mentioned. Premier McGuinty has done a better job of bringing forth our plight in this campaign: how sad. I suspect at some...