Northern Economist 2.0
Saturday 9 November 2013
Follow My Postings on Worthwhile Canadian Initiative
Thank you for your interest in Northern Economist 2.0. I recently finished a sabbatical and have been directing my research activity more into my interests in economic history, health economics and public policy issues which leaves less time for analysis of the northern Ontario economy. I have also been doing some public policy research on public finance issues with the Fraser Institute. A visit to my Google Scholar page will provide you with background on the work I have been doing in areas like health expenditure determinants, wealth inequality and public policy in general. You are also welcome to visit my department web page at Lakehead University where I post materials related to my presentations. If you are interested in continuing to read my blog material on economic policy and analysis with a focus on Canadian public policy issues, please visit my postings on Worthwhile Canadian Initiative. As well, my old Northern Economist postings are still currently available here on the old Shaw Webspace site until March 2017. After that, the main content will still be avilable in an archive site I have set up which I am calling Northern Economist 1.0 (Archive). All the best. Livio.
Friday 31 August 2012
Northern Policy Institute Finally Announced!
Today, the Northern Policy Institute was finally announced by the
Ontario government simultaneously at Laurentian and Lakehead Universities with
the news that the institute will be jointly housed at Lakehead and Laurentian
with a 10 member board overseeing the operation and with the search currently
underway for a CEO. This is a process
that has been a long time in the making starting from the original North
Superior Planning Board Report in 2007 on a policy institute for Northwestern
Ontario and then the morphing of the concept into a pan-northern institute
through the 2008 Rosehart Report and then the 2011 Northern Ontario Growth
Plan. The idea of a policy institute definitely caught the interest of the provincial government given that during this long interim it provided 5 million dollars to University of Toronto to fund the Mowat Centre in 2010 - a public policy institute to research issues from an Ontario perspective.
According to the press release:
The
institute, an independent, not-for-profit organization, will monitor the
implementation of the Growth
Plan for Northern Ontario and make provincial policy recommendations for
the region. It will work with northern municipalities, post-secondary
institutions, research groups, Aboriginal organizations, francophone groups and
industry to set priorities and directions for northern development.
This is very good news for Northern Ontario as it provides
the recognition that there needs to be research and policy analysis on
economic, social and business issues in the North. The Presidents of both Lakehead and
Laurentian are to be commended for their work leading up to today’s
announcements as are many of the local community leaders and politicians who
devoted time to what at many times seemed to be a byzantine task with no end in
sight.
Having followed the Northern Ontario economy and regional
economic development policy for over twenty years and researching and commenting
on issues affecting the region, it is reassuring personally for me to know that
in a sense it will be possible to pass on the torch and finally move on
confident in the knowledge that there will finally be the commitment of
resources for the study of Northern Ontario issues. Despite popular perception (even at the
university where I work), as an academic economist, research and public commentary on northern
Ontario or the Thunder Bay economy was never my main area of academic interest. My fields are public finance and economic
history and “northern” work took much time away from those endeavors. While I enjoyed interacting with the local
media and was always treated very well and fairly by all, this activity also
took a great deal of time in the sense that it often meant completely
interrupting your train of thought. Over
the last while, I have been devoting more time to interests in health economics
and economic history and less to the North and so the actual operationalization
of the institute comes at a good time.
I was born and raised in Northern Ontario and as an academic
I made the sustained effort to apply my skills and knowledge to local and
regional public policy because I felt it was important to give something back
to the community and there was so little analysis of northern Ontario issues. Over the years, many
have thanked me for this work via conversations and personal notes whether it
was for columns in the Chronicle-Journal, interviews on TBT or CBC Radio and
most recently for my blogging on Northern Economist. Of course, in the process I also irritated a great many people. I do not apologize for that. Politicians and society’s leaders need to
realize that true university academics are passionate and committed researchers who speak their
minds and not cheerleaders to be trotted out as a pretty backdrop at a moments
notice for the pet issue of the day.
Those politicians who think academics should simply provide blanket endorsements
for government actions and policies reveal just how little respect they have
for knowledge and education and the people employed in those fields.
As for the future of the Northern Policy Institute (NPI), I
would be remiss as an academic in not offering a final frank and honest
assessment. It is a great idea
and concept but the fact that its role will be to “monitor the implementation
of the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario” in essence undermines both its
independence and its effectiveness as an advocate for the region. Of course, these are just the words of a
press release and the reality will be in implementation but the board of the NPI
needs ensure that the institute sets its own research and policy agenda in
terms of collecting data on economic, social and business issues that reflect
the region’s priorities. If it is
simply a mouthpiece to support the latest government policy initiative in the
North, then what is the point?
That’s all folks!
For additional blog postings on public policy and economics, visit my material on Worthwhile Canadian Initiative. You will be able to continue to access Northern Economist 2.0 postings on this blog as well as my previous material at the old Northern Economist site for the next while.
For additional blog postings on public policy and economics, visit my material on Worthwhile Canadian Initiative. You will be able to continue to access Northern Economist 2.0 postings on this blog as well as my previous material at the old Northern Economist site for the next while.
Sunday 26 August 2012
Google Trends: Plan Nord Versus Northern Ontario Growth Plan
Google Trends is a quick and popular way to assess the
importance of ideas, events and trends by looking at the results of people’s
web searches. If the searches for
something are trending up, it is suggestive that it is growing in
importance. One way of assessing
the impact of northern economic development in Ontario at least as a concept
that has seized the imagination is to conduct a Google Trends search. In
particular, it is interesting to see what the impact of two northern
development plans has been – The Northern Ontario Growth Plan and the Quebec
Plan Nord. I put in
“northern Ontario growth plan” and “plan nord” for trends in the “region” Canada
over the period all years (2004 to 2012) into Google Trends and downloaded the
results. I then graphed the results for the 2011 to 2012 period (See Figure)
The Northern Ontario Growth Plan was released in March 2011
while the Plan Nord was released a little later in May of the same year. The Google Trends plot is not the
number of searches but rather an index of the number of searches for a term to
the average number of searches for the term over the time period. For example, if there is a value in the
graph of 5; this means that traffic is 5 times the average for the time
period. As a result, it is a relative measure showing whether something is trending
up or down. The results were
intriguing in that they reveal enough activity to show a rising trend in the
wake of the release of the Plan Nord.
However, there was so little interest in the Northern Growth Plan that
it did not generate enough activity to even register a trend.
This is not the same as saying the Plan Nord will be a
success and the Northern Growth Plan will not. What it is saying is that the Plan Nord seems to have
generated a lot more interest on the web whereas the Northern Ontario Growth Plan
has not. The fact that the Plan
Nord has generated so much interest could simply be better marketing but that
in itself would tell you something about how the Quebec government values its
northern development plan. Or, it
could be that people are more interested in Quebec’s northern development than
Ontario’s. However, it one truly believes
that large groups of people on average are very forward looking and very smart,
it also means they may see more potential in the Quebec
Plan than the Ontario Plan.
Whatever way you look at it, it would appear that the Northern Ontario
Growth Plan does not look very credible.
Google Trends has spoken.
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