Duane Hicks
The new Growth Plan for Northern Ontario, released Friday, is being roundly criticized for failing to propose any clear actions to help the region.
“It should have been called the ‘Stunted Growth Plan’ because there’s literally nothing there,” local MPP Howard Hampton charged in an interview Friday.
“After four years of delay and lots of talk, they bring out this thing today,” he noted.
“I think most people were expecting an action plan: ‘Here’s what we’re going to do create some jobs, here’s [the] timeline, here’s how many jobs we think we can create.’
“Instead, we get what amounts to more talk and more delay. There’s no plan here,” slammed Hampton, who also is the NDP’s critic for agriculture and food, natural resources, public infrastructure renewal, and economic development and trade.
Hampton dismissed the plan as “pre-election communications.”
“There’s no plan here. There’s no action plan,” he argued. “The only consultation that was held was a consultation about words—not about an action plan, but a consultation about words.
“That’s all we’re getting is more words. I would call it the ‘Stunted Growth Plan,’” he reiterated.
Hampton indicated what he’d like to see in an action plan for Northern Ontario.
“I’ll tell you what I think should be done. We’ve witnessed the loss of all kinds of processing and manufacturing jobs from one of end of Northern Ontario to the other over that last six or seven years.
“The latest one was Cliff Natural Resources who want to operate a chromite mine in the ‘Ring of Fire,’ but they said three weeks ago that while they would mine the chromite in the ‘Ring of Fire,’ they have a hard time seeing why they would set up a processing plant in Northern Ontario because the cost of hydro is too high,” Hampton remarked.
“We’ve had paper mill after paper mill close because they said, ‘The hydro’s too expensive for us to operate a mill here. We’re take the wood fibre and we’ll process it into paper somewhere else,’” he added.
“What I was expecting today was an announcement that the government was going to do something about hydro rates, so that we could start to process and manufacture again, and start to reclaim some of the jobs that have been lost.”
Hampton’s not the only one criticizing the growth plan.
Randy Hillier, the PC party critic for northern development, mines and forestry, said “the growth plan will do nothing to stem the tide of a northern recession that the Liberals have created.”
“With scores of damaging Liberal policies already put in place by the government over the past two years, it’s tough to see how the addition of a northern think-tank is going to help create prosperity in Northern Ontario,” Hillier said in a press release.
“Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals raised energy prices, flubbed the Mining Act reforms, cut off 50 percent of the north from all development with Bill 191, and decimated the forestry industry,” he charged.
“What’s left for a policy institute to do?” he wondered.
Hillier cited a Conference Board of Canada report released last week which showed Northern Ontario had the second-worst growth of any region in Canada, and high energy prices have driven jobs from Northern Ontario, where industries such as mining and forestry are energy intensive.
“Dalton McGuinty’s mining and forestry policies were essentially written by downtown Toronto environmental lobbyists,” Hillier noted.
“That’s why we’ve lost over 60 timber mills and over 40,000 forestry jobs. That’s why Ontario has fallen from the best jurisdiction in the world for mining to 20th place.
“This document is lacking in specifics, but northerners have been very specific: they want jobs, and a government which listens. Right now, they have neither,” Hillier added.
“The Liberals have turned Northern Ontario into a have-not region of a have-not province.”
But the McGuinty government is saying the 25-year Growth Plan for Northern Ontario “will help create a stronger, more diverse, and sustainable northern economy,” was “developed with northerners for northerners,” and “will guide decision-making and investment planning in the region,” according to a press release issued Friday.
“We’ve harnessed the resourcefulness and the entrepreneurial spirit of northerners to develop a Growth Plan for Northern Ontario that will help make the northern economy innovative, robust, and competitive,” Northern Development, Mines and Forestry minister Michael Gravelle said in the release.
“This growth plan will guide our government and future governments’ decision-making and investments across Northern Ontario over the next 25 years,” echoed Infrastructure minister Bob Chiarelli.
“This plan builds upon substantial investments that our government has already made in Northern Ontario, which supports a skilled workforce, world-class resources, leading-edge technology, and modern infrastructure,” he added.
“This plan is built on the input and ideas of northerners themselves, and it will help ensure the development of northern communities as places where people will want to live, work, and play for future generations,” noted Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Bill Mauro.
“The ambitious vision of the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario will be achieved through the collective efforts of all northern partners interested in thriving and competing in the global economy,” noted Municipal Affairs and Housing minister Rick Bartolucci.
Meanwhile, the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association welcomed the introduction of the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario as a significant step forward on the long journey towards a more prosperous and diversified region.
The 25-year plan establishes a strategic framework, and sets out policies and actions for how the Ontario government will engage, support, and work with northern communities, businesses, aboriginal communities, and public-sector partners.
“NOMA members have been enthusiastic participants in the development of the Northern Growth Plan through a great number of meetings and discussions over the three-and-a-half year process,” president Ron Nelson said in a release issued Friday.
“We welcome the release of the plan and are pleased to see that many of our recommendations have been included in the final document.”
Nelson said NOMA is especially pleased to see the establishment of a Northern Policy Institute.
“It is vital that public policy for the north is developed in the north,” he stressed.
“We will continue to work with the ministry to ensure that the needs of the northwest are addressed as decisions are made regarding the operating structure and physical location of the Institute,” he added.
To read a full copy of the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario, visit www.placestogrow.ca
