Economic development in the northern regions of Canada’s provinces is not only an Ontario issue. Except for perhaps some of the Atlantic provinces (am thinking PEI here), Canada’s provinces all have northern regions which are more rural and remote, and which have often lagged southern regions and metropolises in economic growth and development. Ontario and British Columbia are the focus of this comparison.
Ontario’s north divided into the Northeast and Northwest portions of the province total approximately 800,000 people in population or about 5 percent of the provincial population spread over about 90 percent of the province’s landmass. British Columbia’s north consists of three regions (with their associated major centres in brackets): the North Coast (Prince Rupert), Nechako (Burn’s Lake) and the Northeast (Fort St. John) (though some might consider part of the Cariboo region centred on Prince George as also part of the north). These three regions total about 170,000 in population accounting for about 3 percent of British Columbia’s population spread over about half of its land mass.
Northern BC and Northern Ontario have a lot in common economically given that they have major port cities (Prince Rupert and Thunder Bay), are natural resource intensive with a focus on mining and forestry, are remote from the rest of the province in terms of transport links and accessibility and have in general lagged in economic development from the more developed southern regions. A unique difference on the resource side is the presence of aluminum smelting and liquified natural gas exporting in BC’s north which do not have equivalents in Ontario's north.
A key indicator of economic activity is of course employment growth, and the accompanying figure looks at the growth in total employment in these northern regions for the period 2011 to 2024 using data from Statistics Canada. To start, British Columbia’s employment growth has been more robust than Ontario over this period growing at nearly 31 percent versus Ontario’s 23 percent. When it comes to northern regions, however, Ontario’s north has outperformed BC’s north in employment growth. Total employment in the North Coast and Nechako regions has grown by 4 percent while the BC northeast has declined by 5 percent. Meanwhile, Ontario’s Northeast and Northwest have seen their total employment grow by 6 and 5 percent respectively.
While several reasons could be advanced as to why Ontario’s north has done somewhat better in terms of recent employment growth, a key factor is likely location. Northern Ontario is positioned as a transport corridor for Canada and is a conduit for a lot more trade and commerce going from east to west. Cargo and traffic bound for BC’s north is more targeted and generally going there for either a specific regional need or to exit via Prince Rupert. There is a key difference across the two norths in terms of energy. Northern BC has infrastructure projects underway related to natural gas production and liquified natural exporting underway and these will hopefully generate an uptick in employment growth in the years to come.
However, for the time being, Ontario’s north has the larger critical mass in terms of both total employment and population with larger urban areas than northern British Columbia and has seen the more robust employment growth. Ontario’s north is quite unique when examined nationally as its population tends to dwarf the total populations of most the other provincial norths. Northern Quebec, for example, is an area about the size of Alberta but with barely 50,000 people. Northern Alberta (north of Edmonton) has about 375,000 people, northern Manitoba about 100,000 people and northern Saskatchewan about 40,000 people. Ontario’s north contains a total population pretty much equivalent to all the other provincial norths plus the three territories. It is a more significant region than most of us give it credit.