Thunder Bay, Sudbury and Ontario: More Crime Trends

  

Well, with so much data available in the recent releases of crime data from statistics Canada, another crime post is definitely in order especially as a way to mark the end of the civic holiday long weekend.  This time, a focus on Thunder Bay and Greater Sudbury with respect to trends over time given they are northern Ontario’s two largest metropolitan centers, along with a comparison to Ontario as a whole to put things in perspective.  Figure 1a presents the 2025 rates for both all-criminal code incidents (excluding traffic violations) as well as the violent crime rate for Thunder Bay, Greater Sudbury, and Ontario.  As Figure 1a shows, Thunder Bay is definitely experiencing higher police reported crime rates than either Greater Sudbury or Ontario as a whole. 

 

In 2025, Thunder Bay’s crime rate was 8,374 crimes per 100,000 population compared to 4,706 per 100,000 for Greater Sudbury and 4,297 per 100,000 for Ontario.  Thunder Bay’s crime rate in 2025 was 95 percent greater than Ontario and 10 percent more than Greater Sudbury.  In terms of violent crime, Thunder Bay’s rate was 2,249 per 100,000 compared to 1,177 for Greater Sudbury and 1,078 for Ontario. Violent crime in Thunder Bay in 2025 was109 percent greater than the Ontario rate whereas Greater Sudbury was 9 percent more. 

As well, Figure 1b shows the homicide rate in Thunder Bay for 2025 was 6.1 per 100,000 while in Sudbury it was 4.1 per 100,000 and only 1.3 per 100,000 in Ontario as a whole.  Needless to say, crime rates in Thunder Bay and Sudbury are above the rates for Ontario as a whole but Thunder Bay in general is double the Ontario rate while Sudbury is only about 10 percent more.  However, in terms of homicides, both cities were well above the Ontario rate in 2025 with Thunder Bay 369 percent greater than Ontario as a whole and Sudbury 215 percent greater.

Figure 2 presents a dual scale chart for Ontario with total crimes and violent crimes per 100,000 on the left vertical axis and the homicide rate per 100,000 on the right.  Observations for the three series are plotted from 1998 to 2025 with a linear trend fitted to each series.  If one looks at the three raw series, crime rates including violent crimes and homicides generally declined from 1998 to about 2014 and then started to rise.  Over that period, the crime rate in Ontario went from 7,019 per 100,000 to 3,549 per 100,000 while the violent crime rate declined from 1,222 to 789.  Homicides also fell from 1.4 to 1.2 per 100,000. However, since then, all have increased with the crime rate in 2025 reaching 4,297 per 100,000, violent crime reaching 1,078 and the homicide rate up to 1.3 per 100,000.  In terms of an overall trend, violent crime and total crime rates over the 1998 to 2025 period still trend downwards but the homicide rate in Ontario now shows a rising long-term trend.

 

Figures 3 and 4 present parallel charts for Thunder Bay and Greater Sudbury.  Both cities follow patterns similar to the rest of the province in that overall crime and violent crime rates decline from 1998 to 2014 and then start to rise with the overall linear trend being downward for the overall 1998 to 2025 period.  Both also show noticeable rising homicide rates over the long term and declining overall crime rates when a linear trend is fitted to the 1998 to 2025 data. In the case of violent crime over the 1998 to 2025 period, Thunder Bay shows a declining violent crime rate when the linear trend is fitted while Greater Sudbury shows a gently rising violent crime rate trend.

 

 

Nevertheless, crime is a matter of both level and trend when making comparisons so Figures 5 and 6 focus on the two most serious categories –violent crimes and homicides – to compare Thunder Bay, Greater Sudbury, and Ontario more directly.  Figure 5 presents the violent crime rates and shows that Thunder Bay and Ontario do indeed trend down while Greater Sudbury trends up over the 1998 to 2025 period.  However, when one looks at the gap between Thunder Bay, Sudbury and Ontario, based on the trends, it will be the end of the 21st century when Thunder Bay matches Sudbury’s violent crime rate while it looks like it will always be double the Ontario rate. 

 

 

Things look somewhat worse when it comes to the homicide rate (see figure 6).  Both Thunder Bay and Greater Sudbury have seen a major spike in their homicide rates since 2020 which has pulled their trend lines upwards.  However, Thunder Bay is definitely in a class of its own with a level of homicides as well as an upward trajectory that makes the homicide rates in Greater Sudbury and Ontario look modest by comparison.  However, it was not always so. Up until 2008, while homicide rates in both Greater Sudbury and Thunder Bay fluctuated around the Ontario numbers, they tended to parallel each other. Indeed, for the 1998 to 2008 period, the average annual homicide rate (per 100,000 population) in Thunder Bay was 1.4, Greater Sudbury 1.4, and for Ontario it was 1.5.  For the 2015 to 2025 period, the average homicide rate in Thunder Bay was 6.1 while for Greater Sudbury it was 2.2 and for Ontario 1.6.

Taken over the long run, Thunder Bay has always had generally higher crime rates than Ontario as a whole and the gap has been fairly consistent.  However, its reputation as Ontario’s “murder city” is a relatively recent phenomenon. Thunder Bay’s average homicide rates were not out of line with the rest of the province prior to 2008 and it has only been since then that homicide rates in Thunder Bay have soared. It is indeed an interesting question as to what factors are responsible for the increase since 2008.  What is it about the post 2008 period that makes that year in Thunder Bay such a break with the past when it comes to homicides? Sudbury has seen a similar type of spike in homicide rates since 2015 though it remains to be seen if that new upward trend will continue.  Given that this is a municipal election year in Ontario, these numbers should be an interesting focus for debate.

Crime, Ontario and Thunder Bay

  

Statistics Canada released the police reported crime statistics for Canada in 2025 last week and the overall trends were a decline in both the conventional Crime Rate (CR) as well as the Crime Severity Index (CSI).  According to Statistics Canada, in 2025 the national CSI dropped by 5 percent while the CR declined by 2 percent.  In other words, both the number of crimes per 100,000 population (excluding traffic violations) fell as well as the seriousness of those crimes. Relative to their historic peak in the early 1990s, crime rates are still down dramatically though they are up from 2015 which marks the start of a reversal of the long-term downward trend. However, since 2023, both crime severity and crime rates appear to have declined.

Ontario reflects the national trends with crime severity in 2025 down 6 percent from the year previous (though still up 12 percent from 2015) and the crime rate down 4 percent from the previous year but up 20 percent from 2015.  The Ontario numbers vary when its major CMAs are examined with quite a few CMAs up while others are down.  However, the largest cities – Toronto and Ottawa – are both down and they of course affect the provincial totals dramatically given together they account for well over half of Ontario’s population.  As for northern Ontario CMAs – Greater Sudbury in 2025 saw a 2 percent decline in its CSI but a 3 percent increase in its crime rate while Thunder Bay saw a 3 percent increase in its CSI and an 18 percent rise in its crime rate – the largest increases across Canada’s 41 CMAs. However, Thunder Bay did not have the highest total crime rate in the country as that dubious distinction went to Chilliwack, B.C. (at 11,455 crimes per 100,000) while Thunder Bay was a bit further down the list in 6th place (after Kamloops, Red Deer, Nanaimo and Kelowna) at 8,373 crimes per 100,000.

Comparing Thunder Bay to the other major Ontario CMAs is done in Figure 1 and Thunder Bay definitely stands out when compared to other Ontario cities.  Thunder Bay is first at 8,374 crimes per 100,000 with Peterborough second at 5,386.  At the bottom are Toronto and Barrie at 3,950 and 3,777 respectively.  In terms of growth (Figure 2), about half of Ontario CMAs saw their crime rates decline and the other half saw an increase.  Thunder Bay is not only growing in terms of population, housing, construction and retail but also unfortunately with respect to crime.  Thunder Bay saw the largest increase at 18 percent followed by Brantford at 10 percent and then London at 7 percent.  Toronto and Windsor saw the largest declines at 5 percent and 10 percent respectively. 

 

 

A logical question is what policing resources are available to these Ontario cities to fight crime and Figure 3 presents police officers per 100,000 using data from Statistics Canada (TABLE 35100077).  Here it should be noted that the crime figures correspond to CMAs, whereas the police statistics are for municipal police services whose boundaries may not exactly correspond with the CMA boundaries. Nevertheless, the rankings proceed and here Thunder Bay is again at the top of the rankings of these Ontario municipal forces with 197 police officers per 100,000 in 2025. Next highest is Windsor at 172 followed by Toronto at 171.  At the bottom of the rankings are London, Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge (Waterloo Region Police) at 143, 135 and 118 officers per 100,000 respectively. Thunder Bay has the highest crime rate across major Ontario cities and it has the highest policing resources per capita.

 

However, Figure 4 looks at the policing resources in a somewhat different way.  It looks at the growth in police officers per 100,000 and does so between 2023 and 2025 (because Statistics Canada’s annual data does not have an entry for 2024). Here the numbers show that while the majority of Ontario municipal police forces saw growth in police officers per 100,000 – about one third did not.  Those showing a decline are Sudbury, Windsor, Kingston, Thunder Bay and Brantford. Of these five cities showing a decline in policing resources per capita, four also saw an increase in crime rates in 2025 with the exception being Windsor.

 

So, is there a relationship between policing resources and crime?  Simple correlations between police numbers and crime rates are probably not the best way to evaluate this type of relationship and a regression approach where confounding factors like demographics, community income and land area are considered are better.  Some might argue that wealthier communities with better socio-economic conditions can both afford more police as well as have the determinants for lower crime rates.  Some might argue that more police simply means more crime gets reported and could paradoxically result in a positive relationship between crime rates and policing. Nevertheless, it can be done simply and Figures 5 and 6 are presented together because they show an interesting feature of the data when you plot the crime rate against the number of police officers.  

 

Figure 5 plots the crime rate per 100,000 for all the Ontario CMAs against the number the number of police officers per 100,000 and the correlation is positive when a linear trend is fitted. However, that trend is heavily influenced by one observation in the northeast corner of the chart which "pulls" the line upward.  That is Thunder Bay.  If you remove Thunder Bay and redraw the chart with linear trend (Figure 6) you get the more conventional result that more police officers per capita are correlated with lower crime rates.  Thunder Bay is what one can refer to as an “outlier”.  It is not like the others.

Of course, it might be that using levels is not the way to do such a comparison and what might be better is to plot the recent growth in the crime rate against the recent growth in police officers per 100,000.  This is done in Figure 7 and the result is (including Thunder Bay) more conventional and in line with the expectation that if the number of police officers per 100,000 population is growing, the crime rate should see lower growth rates or even declines. Thunder Bay in this chart is in the northwest quadrant with a decline in per capita police resources in 2025 and an increase in crime rates.

 

Still, Thunder Bay even if its recent policing resources per capita have declined, nevertheless has the most police officers per capita of the Ontario cities in this comparison.  Does this mean there is an efficiency or effectiveness problem? Again, one way to look at this is to take the statistics and compute the reported crimes per police officer.  Figure 8 does this and the ranking shows that Thunder Bay has the third highest reported crimes per police officer of these Ontario cities.  In other words, there are a lot of crimes being reported by the police.  If one wants to use crimes reported per police officer as a productivity or effectiveness measure, then the Thunder Bay Police Service is one of the most “productive or effective” in Ontario.  They are catching a lot of crime.

 

What does this mean for crime in Thunder Bay?  Why are crime rates in Thunder Bay so high despite having one of the largest police forces in per capita terms?  It is because Thunder Bay simply has a lot of crime and it is getting worse and overwhelming the resources available.  If one may hypothesize, Thunder Bay is indeed unique in some of the economic and social forces that have shaped its past and continue to shape its future.  It is located at the crossroads of the country which means it is a transport node not only for grain, potash and transport trucks but also for criminals and criminal activity. 

In terms of social elements, Thunder Bay is a community that has always had a frontier edge and that includes an element of independence that can often border on lawlessness.  While it is true that Canadian cities have all become a bit more lawless in the wake of the COVID pandemic, Thunder Bay seems further along the path when compared to even the GTA. Lawlessness progresses in degrees.  Not following parking bylaws for snow removal or walking your dog across other people’s lawns is the start and suggests a lack of concern for others and the public good.  Indulging in rolling stops at stop signs, speeding and then running a red light is the next step.   I have seen vehicles doing U-turns on the Thunder Bay expressway seemingly oblivious to other traffic.  Increased theft in stores is yet another progression and then there is the infiltration of Thunder Bay by increased numbers of drug dealers coming from Toronto due to it being both a captive and lucrative market in its own right as well as a gateway to northern reserves.  Then comes the litany of domestic abuse and household violence largely springing from drug and alcohol abuse which also consumes police resources.

The police in Thunder Bay are essentially being overwhelmed.  They are being asked to solve not only Thunder Bay’s crime and social problems – which are substantial in their own right - but to deal with a wider range of provincial and national crime trends due to Thunder Bay’s location as a transport crossroads. Do you want to see crime rates in Thunder Bay come down?  Additional resources from the O.P.P. and the R.C.M.P need to be deployed outside the city limits along the highways leading to the city as well as the airport, port and railyards.   Sniffer dogs going through luggage at the airport and a more visible police presence there is needed.  There should be a lot more “seat belt” checks and “speeding enforcements” on the 11/17 and Highway 61 corridors leading to the city as well as more transport truck “safety inspections.”

It is not just the resource available but how they are deployed and used.  Moreover, crime fighting requires cooperation across jurisdictions and better coordination of efforts between the assorted policing levels.  Thunder Bay’s crime rate can be reduced but given the national and regional spillovers of the problem both into and out of Thunder Bay, it is not just the responsibility of the Thunder Bay Police Service.  In some ways, Thunder Bay’s role as a transport choke point is both the source of its crime problems and can facilitate its potential solution. At least, that is what the numbers are telling me.

Is Ontario Spending Up to the Task of Managing Forest Fires?

  

The current wildfire season with its apocalyptic scenes from northern Ontario communities and the spread of smoke throughout the province has sparked debate about the adequacy of both the Ontario and federal government response.  The federal government has apparently finally been asked by the Ontario government for assistance with evacuations of affected communities.  While it seems odd that the federal government must be asked, apparently natural resources are a provincial responsibility though one might venture that the environmental impact on air quality can easily justify federal participation given that the environment is seen as a shared responsibility.  They have intervened in provincial jurisdictions such as health and social welfare (for example child care, dental, and pharmacare plans) where the provincial prerogative is stronger.

As well, the constitution also maintains a role for the federal government in maintaining peace, order and good government and one might think wildfires would qualify.  And then there is the federal role with respect to Indigenous peoples which should also be a reason for federal intervention in remote communities.  One wonders if earlier federal intervention might have been of assistance in the harrowing escape of the Namaygoosisagagun First Nation which was essentially left on its own. 

However, given that the provinces are expected to take the lead in such matters, the question arises as to whether in Ontario the resources allocated to natural resources and forest fire/wildfire suppression in general are sufficient.  One would expect that the Ontario government makes decisions about how much to plan on spending based on evidence available, though naturally if the fire season worsens, it would “upscale” the expenditures and response.  The evidence available consists of past forest fire seasons and Figure 1 uses data from Canada’s National Forestry Data Base and Natural Resources Canada and recent media releases  to plot Ontario’s total number of forest fires from all causes as well as the area burned in hectares for the 2018 to 2026 (as of July 16^th) period.

 

The results show that both the number of fires and the hectares burned fluctuate substantially from year to year.  A peak year was 2021 which saw 1,206 fires from all causes and 784,564 hectares consumed. However, what is quite interesting is that when linear trends are fitted to the data, the number of actual fires has been declining on average. Yet, the number of hectares burned has been trending upwards.  What this seems to suggest is that since 2018, on average, the number of incidents that the provincial emergency fire response needs to respond to has been declining which one suspects means that one can be more conservative in terms of the dollar amounts budgeted.  However, the severity and intensity of the fires have been increasing quite dramatically which would indicate a need for more resources.

 

Figure 2 uses data from Ontario Budgets to plot two series.  First, the total allocation for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry since 2018 as well as the allocation divided by population to obtain the amount per capita.   As well, both series are in real dollars deflated using the Consumer Price Index for Ontario (Statistics Canada) with 2026 set as the base year.  Again, the allocations fluctuate from year to year but in real dollars, the total allocation has been trending upwards – more resources for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.  However, when adjusted for both inflation and population, the real per capita allocation has been flat. In other words, spending growth on the ministry has on average not exceeded the combination of both population growth and inflation.

 

Of greater interest is the subset of spending on emergency firefighting and that is provided in Figure 3 both in total as well as per capita, and again in 2026 dollars.  Both series fluctuate substantially as they reflect the severity of that year’s fire season.  As well, keep in mind that the 2026-27 numbers are budget estimates presented before the onset of this year’s fire season and are likely to be revised upwards substantially.  Nevertheless, real total emergency firefighting based on the numbers available since 2018 has trended down slightly from just over $200 million (2026 dollars) to just below $200 million.  Meanwhile, real per capita spending has trended down more noticeably from just under $15 dollars per Ontarian (in 2026 dollars) in 2018 to just over $11 dollars per person at present.

While the number of forest and wildfires has been trending downward – which might create an incentive to plan for spending less with upscaling when necessary – the severity of the fires in terms of the land area consumed has been growing substantially.  Increased severity of the fire season in terms of impact necessitates a more robust upfront long-term allocation of resources.  One should not wait for a northern Ontario tragedy like the 1909 Cobalt Fire (which destroyed half the town of 6,000 people and left half the population homeless) or the 1922 Temiskaming Fire (43 killed) or the Great Porcupine Fire of 1911 which killed 70 people or the 1916 Matheson/Iroquois Falls/Cochrane Fires (which killed an estimated 223 people).  The Matheson Fire led to the establishment of Forest Protection Branch of the Department of Lands, Forests and Mines which evolved into the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. We should not wait for events of similar scale before deciding to overhaul the fire management system and how we deal with the growing intensity of wildfires.

The Finances of the University: Lakehead 2026 Edition

  

Universities in Ontario have been feeling somewhat more upbeat this year in the wake of provincial government measures to bolster the sector. After years of essentially starving the sector with a tuition cut and freeze as well as a continued freeze in operating grant funding, 2026 saw the announcement of combined measures totalling nearly $6.4 billion (at least according to the government’s accounting) to make the sector more sustainable.  Not least of which was a move to finally allow universities to once again begin increasing tuition rates on domestic students by up to 2 percent a year.  While this will likely not make up the revenue drop from the decline in international students, it is also being accompanied by increases in base funding to the system.

The government finally moved on the university sector funding issue because quite frankly the sector was at the end of its rope. However, even with the new funding which has pulled the sector back from the “abyss”  it remains that in the end it is not so much a rebuild as a halt to deepening the financial pit. Even with the funding, universities remain in austerity mode and with many continuing in deficit mode, they will still be making cuts.  And all this will be in the face of what is anticipated to be rising demand and a projection that nearly one million additional university educated workers will be needed in Ontario between 2026 and 2035. This is not a surprise given that since 2018, Ontario has added nearly two million people largely through immigration and immigrants being younger on average than the general population have children who will be seeking education. On top of this, a massive retirement boom is coming meaning numerous vacancies will need to be filled.

Through all this flux and financial challenge, some universities have managed to do better than expected this year financially and while one always expects University of Toronto to do relatively well and balance its budget, Lakehead is also expecting to balance its budget for the 2026/27 fiscal year.  Lakehead appears to be holding its own quite well in attracting targeted government funding for new initiatives whether they be a STEM Campus in Barrie or a new veterinary school, on top of the coming increases in both government base finding as well as higher tuition fees on domestic students.  Lakehead indeed was fortunate in not being as dependent on international undergraduates for its international student enrolment as some other universities. 

This comes on top of a relatively strong long-term financial performance because of its gradual transformation away from being a university for northwestern Ontario to a regional multi-campus Ontario university.  Indeed, Lakehead with its three campuses of Thunder Bay, Orillia and Barrie in one university has become the holy trinity of universities.  The Barrie campus will bring special financial blessings as it is in the center of a compact CMA population of 250,000 meaning that ultimately its enrolment may even eclipse that of the Thunder Bay campus.  This will all build on a rather successful tradition of prudent long-term financial management and soundness as documented below. The data for the subsequent charts come from historical Institutional Statistics Books accumulated for the 2000 to 2011 period (eg. Institutional Statistics Book 2001/02) as well as annual university financial statements.

Figure 1 plots revenues, expenditures and deficits annually from 2000 to 2025.  From revenues and expenditures of just under $80 million annually in 2000, by 2025, Lakehead’s revenues had grown to $246 million and expenditures to $231 million. In 2025, Lakehead ran a surplus of $15.4 million which followed 2024 with a surplus of $7.6 million.  Indeed, Lakehead has usually managed to run surpluses with deficits being incurred in only 6 of the last 26 fiscal years with an accumulated surplus since 2000 of $89.7 million. 

 

 

The biggest deficit was of course pandemic induced in 2021-22 but surpluses have grown every year since. As a result, long term debt has gradually been whittled down as Figure 2 illustrates.  There was a surge in university long-term debt during the 2000 to 2006 period as the Orillia expansion was started and new buildings such as the ATAC constructed on campus.  Long-term debt peaked in 2012 at $115 million and by 2025 had declined to $94 billion.  

 

 

The major revenue drivers during this period have been the duo of government operating grants and student tuition revenue as illustrated in Figure 3.  However, government operating grants were essentially flat between 2012 and 2024 at just over $60 million but then surged from $61 million in 2024 to $69.5 million in 2025. They have nevertheless declined from a peak of 41 percent of university revenues in 2012 to 28 percent in 2025.  Meanwhile, tuition revenues, reflecting the rise in international students, have grown quite steadily both as a share of revenues as well as in total.  Indeed, in 2025, at $102 million, tuition fees accounted for 42 percent of Lakehead University total revenues.  Other revenues aside from operating grants and tuition which together account for 70 percent of university revenues include income from investments, ancillary fees and revenues (e.g., Parking) and restricted government grants and funds.

 

 

Of course, the reason we are all here at Lakehead is because of the students and no exposition of university finances would be complete without looking at the trends in enrollment. Figure 4 plots total enrollment at Lakehead (headcount of both full and part time students) from 2001 to 2025.  There was rapid growth from 2001 to 2011 that saw enrolment rise by about 40 percent.  Enrollment then levelled off for nearly a decade but has begun to grow since 2022 and now sits at a headcount of just over 9,000 spread out as it is across three campuses.  It remains that over this period there has been a decline in the share of Thunder Bay campus undergraduate enrollment which has been made up by graduate enrollment across all the campuses and undergraduate enrolment in Orillia in particular. 

 

 

In the end, the university has managed to grow its enrolment in a particularly challenging demographic environment given until recently stagnant population growth in the region. Part of its financial management has also involved restraining costs.  In this regard, Lakehead has been assisted by two factors.  First, the total full time faculty complement has remained relatively stable since 2010 while enrolment has risen reflecting more intensive human resource use.  In that year, there were just over 300 full time faculty appointments at Lakehead and in 2025, there were also just over 300 full time faculty appointments.  While the number of full-time faculty has remained essentially fixed since 2010, total headcount enrollment has grown nearly 14 percent and as a result the average student headcount to full time faculty ratio grown from approximately 25 per faculty member to 31. 

Second, there was the impact of Ontario’s Bill C-124 which was brought in in 2019 capping salary increases at 1 percent in the broader public sector and was in effect until 2024.  Low salary growth rates combined with stable faculty numbers is an effective cost management tool and the fruit is borne out by the charts provided here.  Lakehead has managed to grow its revenues faster than costs over a sustained long-term period that has seen balanced budgets or surpluses in three quarters of the fiscal years since 2000.  It has also expanded its infrastructure to encompass three campuses to recruit more students while at the same time gradually reducing its long-term debt from a pronounced peak.   In a tough and competitive environment, Lakehead has managed to thrive, and its financial state is a success story that should be celebrated.

Ontario Regions, The Trade War and Employment

  

In a recent post in which I dealt with how the trade war had impacted Canada in 2025, I covered several indicators including employment and noted that all in all Canada was not impacted in as dire a way as originally forecast when President Trump began to levy his tariffs. As discussed, Canada saw an employment increase of 134,000 jobs in 2025 notwithstanding that it also shed about 50,000 in manufacturing. This is a national number and the impact of the trade war like all things economic in the Canadian federation can be expected to vary regionally.  Indeed, as a recent report from RBC Economics showed, the average effective tariff rate on exports to the United States is under 4 percent but it is highest in Ontario and Quebec exceeding 6 percent while Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island with fewer affected industries are at the other end with less than 1% rates.

Ontario is exported oriented towards the United States and manufacturing intensive especially focused on auto parts and production.  Yet, even within Ontario, manufacturing intensity and export orientation varies across the province so one would expect different parts of Ontario to have been hit differently with respect to employment losses.  Figure 1 uses monthly employment level by Ontario economic region to calculate each month’s job loss or gain in 2025 and then tally them up and used to generate percent growth for 2025.  For 2025, Ontario saw 71,500 jobs created which is down from 2024 at 127,600 calculated using the same methodology. Based on employment in December 2024, Ontario saw a 0.9 percent increase in employment in 2025. 

 

The results by economic region show that in 2025, only two of Ontario’s 11 economic regions saw a decline in total employment.  Kingston-Pembroke saw a drop of 3.8 percent in employment while Ottawa saw a 5 percent drop in 2025.  These two economic regions covering Eastern Ontario were likely hit disproportionately not so much by the trade war but by cuts to the federal civil service. The remainder of the province saw percent increases ranging from a high of 6 percent for Northwestern Ontario (6,200 jobs created) to a low of 0.6 percent for Kitchener-Waterloo-Barrie (5,000 jobs created).  The Hamilton-Niagara region saw 1.7 percent growth (13,800 jobs created) while Toronto saw 1.5 percent employment growth (nearly 60,000 jobs).  Given the concentration of steel and auto manufacturing in Hamilton-Niagara and Windsor-Sarnia, manufacturing jobs losses there were obviously counteracted by employment creation in other sectors.

Of course, the real question is whether this trend of employment growth will continue.  For the first quarter of 2026, Ontario has seen its employment decline by 1.6 percent - that is, nearly 130,000 jobs.  Of course, the first quarter often sees employment losses in the aftermath of holiday season spending so a more apt comparison would be to see what the first quarter of 2025 was like.  In 2025, the January to March period saw a 0.3 percent decline – about 21,000 jobs lost. The year is still young, but it appears the first quarter of 2026 has been a much more difficult period than either the first quarter of 2025 or even the first quarter of 2024 which saw employment decline by about 60,000 jobs (a 0.8 percent decline). If this is the case, 2026 may be the year the trade war comes home to fully roost in Ontario.

Applications Growing at Ontario Universities

  

Fall 2026 may see a bumper crop of undergraduates at most Ontario universities given the recent application statistics from the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre. As of April 8, 2026, there were 600,912 applications from Ontario Secondary School Students (OSSS) and 205,044 applications from All Other Applicants (AOA) (a mix of out of province, mature students and international applicants) for a total of 805,956 applications.  Applications from OSSS were up 2.2 percent from last year while AOAs were up 9.1 percent suggesting that some measure of recovery is underway in terms of international students applications.  Of course, these are the number of applications, and one can apply to multiple universities.  If one looks simply at the number of applications, total applicants in the 2025 cycle totalled 159,310 whereas for 2026 the individuals total 168,919 for an increase of 6 percent. The growth in individuals applying is even more pronounced when it comes to AOAs which have grown 12.4 percent as opposed to 2.3 percent for OSSS.

Figure 1 plots the ranked percentage change in undergraduate applications by Ontario Secondary School Students by institution. The largest increases (not shown here due to scaling issues) were for Université de l’Ontario Français (166.7 percent) and Université de Hearst (11.1 percent).  However, there were only a total of 20 applications to Hearst and 88 to l’Ontario Francais. Notwithstanding these two, the fastest growing OSSS applications were for Nipissing (9.9 percent), Western-Huron (8.5 percent), Guelph (8.2 percent) and Lakehead (6.3 percent).  There were also declines in applications with the largest being OCAD (-9.9 percent), Western-Kings (-9.7 percent), Algoma (-8.2 percent) and Waterloo (-3.5 percent).  It should be noted that application increases and declines do not necessarily automatically translate into enrolment changes as with each applicant making three or four applications, what matters is the conversion rate of applications into bums in seats.  As well, even with a decline of 1 percent, a university like U of T should have no problem filling up its ffirst-year entry slots given it has received over 68,000 applications and first year intake is about 17,000 students.

 

Figure 2 plots the ranked percentage change for the All-Other Applicants category and here the largest increases are Hearst, Algoma, Toronto and Carleton, while declines only affected Nipissing (-3.8 percent) and Western King’s (-17.5 percent). Finally, Figure 3 plots the percentage changes in total university undergraduate application statistics. While L’Ontario Francais and Hearst are at the top here, their extremely low application totals effectively move us to the next top performer which is Guelph at 8.6 percent followed by Western-Huron (8.1 percent), Queen’s (7.7 percent), Carleton (7.5 percent) and then Nipissing and Lakehead at 7.5 percent and 7.3 percent respectively.  Declines mark Trent, Windsor, Waterloo, OCAD and Western-Kings.  

 

As noted, while the number of application statistics are important, the conversion to bums in seats is more important and the chief indicator there is whether the application is a first, second or third choice and those statistics do not appear to have been posted yet.   However, what is important is that the growth in applications this year has been quite good despite the challenges.  The total number of applicants is up 6 percent even though the provincial government announced the end of the tuition freeze and a reorientation of the Ontario Student Assistance Program towards loans as opposed to grants. However, the Ontario economy has slowed considerably, and post-secondary attendance tends to rise during tougher economic times.  The ultimate test is not the number of applications, but what actual enrolment will be come September. Still, it looks a lot better than one might have expected.

Ontario’s 2026 Budget: Facing Economic Challenges

  

Ontario's Premier Ford seems to have grown more theatrical over time in his public pronouncements whether of the economic nature or otherwise.  There is also a preoccupation with the announcement of large infrastructure initiatives with many targeted to the GTA area the latest of which is the move to extend the runways at Billy Bishop Airport to accommodate jets.  This is all understandable given the buffeting that the Ontario economy has taken in the wake of the Trump Tariffs and the effect on Ontario exports and the auto sector in particular and the rising unhappiness and dissatisfaction of the Ontario public.  And yet, despite diversionary theatrics and announcements, the challenges facing Ontario are not going away.

There are numerous challenges facing Ontario as Thursday’s budget approaches and they can be divided into short and long term.  On the immediate front, Ontario has seen a decline in employment and a rise in unemployment rates because of the continuing fall out from the trade and tariff dispute with the United States.  There is the continuing challenge of health care as families have difficulty accessing timely physician and hospital services.   And of course there is the cost of housing which has not been helped by Ontario’s inability to boost housing starts which as one report has noted is an Ontario rather than Canadian problem per se.  Then there are the public finances which in the short term have seen continued deficits and despite pledges that the budget will be balanced by 2027, is looking increasingly unlikely.  Over the longer term, Ontario faces a productivity problem best illustrated by real per capita GDP which is essentially unchanged from 2018 and a net debt problem which the province’s Financial Accountability Office estimates will reach $548 billion by 2029-30.

 

 

The best way to summarize the economic challenges facing Ontario is through a few charts.  Figure 1 starts off with a long-term view of Ontario’s real per capita GDP and the growth rates over time.  The takeaway here is that over the long run, the growth rate of real per capita GDP has trended downwards.  More serious from the Ontario Premier’s point of view, real per capita GDP in Ontario has essentially been stagnant since 2019.  In that year, real per capita GDP ($2017) was $59,681 and in 2025 it was $60,052.  If one factors out the pandemic drop and rebound of 2020 and 2021 – real per capita GDP in Ontario since 2018 has grown at 0.4 percent annually. It’s 0.3 percent annually if you factor in the two pandemic years.  Ontario is essentially amidst a lost decade in terms of per person income growth – it just has not been labelled that yet given that Ontario is also amidst a lost decade when it comes to an effective political opposition.

 

 

The slowing of the Ontario economy has been especially noticeable in rising rates of unemployment and those rates while up across the province, have been quite noticeable in the GTA where half of Ontario’s population and employment resides. Figure 2 plots the monthly unemployment rate sin Ontario for the province and by economic region since 2016.  Again, taking away the pandemic spike, they were on the decline until early 2023 and have since started to rise.  In the GTA, the unemployment rate was just over 5 percent in early 2023 and rose to reach 9.5 percent by September of 2025.  It has since subsided a bit but is still at 7.6 percent.  That is the third highest rate of Ontario’s 11 economic regions as illustrated in Figure 3.  Having many unhappy voters concentrated in such a large vote rich area is not good news. 

 

 

The deteriorating employment situation is further illustrated in Figure 4 which plots the change in employment for Ontario and its 11 economic regions both over the course of the last 12 months – February 2025 to February 2026 and more recently since July 2025. While Ontario since February 2025 is only down 7400 jobs, if you look at where employment has gone from the summer peak, the drop has been about 150,000 jobs.  The largest drops in absolute numbers have been Ottawa (-46,400), Toronto (-24,600), Kitchener-Waterloo-Barrie (-40,600) and Hamilton-Niagara (-37,300).  

 

 

So, come Thursday, many Ontarians will be looking at what the government might do to alleviate the economic hardship that is afflicting Ontario.  Will there be long run measures to boost productivity and the supply side of the economy that ultimately will raise incomes, and reduce unemployment and inflation, or will Ontario continue with short term measures that grab political attention or temporarily alleviate cost of living through demand side boosts that boost inflation further. Stay tuned.

When Will Highway 1 Through Northwestern Ontario Be Fixed?

  

It has been a grim start to 2026 on the roads and highways of Northwestern Ontario with 11 deaths recorded so far,aggravated in part by the harsh winter conditions we have experienced this year.  This has once again prompted regional leaders to call for improvements to the 11 and 17 highway corridors with either more four-laning or a two plus one system (a three-lane highway configuration where the middle lane changes direction every two to five kilometres for passing).  The bottleneck at the Nipigon bridge is especially problematic given that both highways converge at that point.  Of course, the stretch between Nipigon and Shabaqua has gradually been widened to four lanes in spots, but the process has been underway for over twenty years, and substantial portions remain to be completed. 

On top of that, the amount of traffic has increased substantially particularly with respect to transport trucks.  The increase in traffic comes with demographic changes as older drivers have been retiring and it seems there is a plethora of new drivers with a lot less experience driving two lane highways.  Traffic is only going to increase given that east-west traffic appears to have increased in the wake of American tariffs and to that can be added a future where nuclear waste shipments will be trucked to Ignace which is going to be the designated nuclear waste repository for all of Canada.

Of course, the call for highway improvements in the region has been as ubiquitous and lonely as the haunting calls of the loon.  Annual meetings of NOMA and other regional gatherings invariably issue a call for highway improvements with the case for what is perceived by many in the region to be a piece of critical national infrastructure falling on deaf ears. And there have been opinion pieces and reports often in national venues making the case for an improved national highway system through northern Ontario but again they seem to have been only of limited impact.  Even the Rosehart Report in 2008 noted that “For at least three decades, the residents of Northwestern Ontario have requested four-laning of the main highway from the Manitoba border to Southern Ontario (Highway 17)” which means that really this has been going on for half a century and yet here we are.

Northwestern Ontario is a vital zone of transit between the east and west of Canada and the case can certainly be made that as part of a resilient national economy and defense strategy, the highways through the region need to be improved.  There is even a case for an extension of Highway 11 over the top of Lake Nipigon to provide as second east-west route independent of the bottleneck at Nipigon.  However, the case for public safety is also an important one and for that one needs top look at the historical record of road and traffic fatalities in Ontario over time as well as a comparison of Northwestern Ontario with the rest of the province.

Figure 1 plots the number of persons injured and persons killed per 100,000 population for all of Ontario from 1931 to 2024 using data obtained from Ontario Road Safety Annual Reports – which incidentally are only preliminary after 2022 and do not offer as detailed a look as previous reports. Nevertheless, the chart shows that there used to be a time when Ontario was smaller in population and yet highway and road carnage was rather high.   

 

Road deaths per 100,000 population were 17 per 100,000 in 1931 and trended upwards to peak in the early 1970s at 24 deaths per 100,000 population.  They then trended downwards because of improvements in automobile safety as well as the passage of seat belt laws in 1976 and 2006.  Despite the increase in Ontario population and higher urban and road use densities, by 2012, motor vehicle deaths per 100,00 population in Ontario bottomed out at about 4 per 100,000 and have remained stable since.

 

Compare now Northwestern Ontario statistics for Kenora, Rainy River and Thunder Bay districts over the last decade with Ontario.  Figure 2 plots motor vehicle collision deaths per 100,000 population for Northwestern Ontario versus Ontario from 2015 to 2024.  The average for the 2015 to 2024 period is 11.3 deaths per 100,000 for Northwestern Ontario versus 4 deaths per 100,000 for Ontario as a whole.  Moreover, while the Ontario numbers have remained largely stable over the period, the ones in Northwestern Ontario exhibit a distinct upward trend when a linear fit is applied.  In other words, things are getting worse. 

 

The deaths in Northwestern Ontario over the 2015 to 2024 period have ranged from a low of 7.8 deaths per 100,000 population in 2016 to a high of 13.8 in 2021.  As for 2026, if deaths continue at the current rate, there could well be 40 deaths this year or about 16 per 100,000 population.  Going back in time for Ontario, the last time there were approximately 16 traffic collision deaths per 100,000 population in Ontario was 1981 – that was nearly half a century ago. Or if you like, Northwestern Ontario road and highway death rates in 2026 will be akin to Ontario in the 1930s. 

So again, we again ask the question.  When will Highway No. 1 through Northwestern Ontario be fixed?  Will we have an answer before 2076?