The State of the North

The State of the North conference hosted by the Northern Policy Institute was held in Timmins from September 27-28 with much of the discussion focusing on reversing the north's economic decline.   Charles Cirtwill, President of the Northern Policy Institute sent out the slides of his presentation with an invitation to share and today's post reproduces a few of those slides.  Figures 1-2 present some GDP estimates by sector for the Northwest and the Northeast of Ontario while Figures 3-5 present non-residential building permits for assorted northern Ontario districts.

With the growth plan for northern Ontario at its five year anniversary, some taking stock of the trends is in order and in general, the trends since the late 1990s are not terribly pretty. (For my own take on evaluating the Growth Plan, see here.) GDP is relatively flat in all sectors and across both the Northwest and the Northeast.  One exception appears to be construction though much of that is being driven by institutional activity - namely, government. Trade (wholesale and retail) is also up a bit as is activity being driven by professional and scientific services.  Building permits are generally down with some of the districts marked by noticeable declines since 2009.

















All in all, not the greatest news.  On the bright side, population growth is actually up a bit in some of the districts - Manitoulin, Parry Sound and Kenora. The presentation ends on a bright note that despite decline, northern Ontario has assets it can use such as higher employment rates for youth, higher median incomes for immigrants and a young and growing indigenous population.

Next year's conference is in North Bay.