Is Northern Ontario doomed?

• Author: Robinson, David
• Position: Economically Speaking

Are you having a good day? Ready for a depressing thought? If you aren't, skip to another article. If you recently read Joshua Fischer's blog post "Goodbye to the West," or watched "Decadence: The Decline of the West" on the Smithsonian channel, just quietly close up Northern Ontario business and come back another day.

This column isn't about anything so grand as the course of Western civilization. It just asks a few questions about the future of Northern Ontario. Nothing to get worried about--Northern Ontario will be here long after Trump is gone, NATO collapses and China becomes the leading power in the world.

The real question is, "What will Northern Ontario be like in 50 years?" Bigger and better? Smaller and poorer? Older and Aboriginal? We do have some strong signals about what is coming.

Unfortunately, they are signals that many Northerners don't want to hear. For example, the Ministry of Finance 2016 forecast for Greater Sudbury says that the population of the city in 2041 will be 163,875. That is 513 fewer than in 2015. So why do the engineers for the City of Slightly Smaller Sudbury keep telling their city council to invest in road expansion to accommodate a growing population? It is a mystery, especially for a city that already has more roads per capita than any other city in the province. And more potholes.

People in the rest of the northeast have nothing to gloat about, however. The ministry forecasts 22,000 fewer people in the northeast. People in the northwest can gloat a little: the northwest will gain 3,000 people. The big winner will be Kenora, with an increase of 4,300, but Thunder Bay will gain 1,267. Others will decline.

These forecasts are not engraved in stone--they are guesses. They just happen to be the best available guesses, and are consistent with the most powerful economic trends shaping Canada. All over the world, areas like ours are declining.

Compared to 2008, employment in Northern Ontario has fallen by 7 per cent. The decline is driven by a basic technological fact. As a resource-based economy, we live off the land: we harvest trees and minerals. The land is not getting more productive, but people are getting more efficient. As a result, the demand for labour in the resource sector drops by as much as 4 per cent per year.

During the...