I am not the least bit savvy when it comes to finding antiquated legislation when I am limited to a Google search hoping for something to pop up because a quick trip to the archives would involve a long trip and airfare. That which eludes me is from 1899 and is the piece of legislation that regards the Ontario-Manitoba Boundary Dispute, settling the present boundary between the two provinces.
Mayors from Kenora and Fort Francis, and other influential people in Northwestern Ontario have for a while now wanted to separate from Ontario and join Manitoba, taking with them Kenora and Rainy River districts, most likely with exception to the eastern half of the Patricia Portion which was added to Ontario and thus Kenora District in 1912. Their argument of neglect is not all that far off from the truth, if it is off at all. Being part of Northern Ontario their neglect only strengthens the resolve of those in the north who want to separate from their southern masters.
Near English River time changes from the over-sized Eastern Time Zone to the Central Time Zone, still within Thunder Bay District. Eastern Time should end just west of Kapuskasing and just east of Elliot Lake, slicing Manitoulin Island down the middle and meeting up with the Canada-U.S. border that runs between Ontario and Michigan down the centre of Lake Huron (Windsor, ON actually lies within the solar time zone that is associated with Central Time). The only reason why Eastern Time stretches so far west, well beyond where it should end and from there affecting every time zone in Canada by shifting each ever more west than it should be, is so that 'Ontario' can substantiate it's claim over Northwestern Ontario. Ontario was formed in 1867 and much to the surprise of many southerners, Thunder Bay was already part of it, in fact the entire Canadian portion of the Great Lakes Watershed made up the province in those early years.
Everywhere outside of the Canada's and the Maritimes at the time belonged to the British Crown in one form or the other. As pieces were handed over to the guardianship of Ottawa, new provinces were created and some expanded. When it came to the land between the original Red River Colony (Manitoba) and the Great Lakes Watershed (Ontario), both provinces had a claim over it. As today, and even more so then, Canada was controlled by the 'Laurentian Pact': Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal. The odds were stacked against Manitoba's claim: a small outpost (as everywhere in the Dominion was seen in those days), made up of a formerly rebellious Metis populous, yet untamed Aboriginals, pioneering farmers, rail workers, and the lowly and distanced mercantile class, all together were fewer in number than those of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands that made up the bulk of Parliament and thus the majority of decisions made in favour of.
In large part the early settlers of new provinces or colonies west of the Great Lakes were emigrants of southern Ontario and the St. Lawrence region of Quebec. If they were not reporting back to the 'motherland', sending back revenue, representing the larger companies based in Toronto and Montreal, then they were somehow branded as traitors to the provinces they had left, abandoning those lands for opportunities that were no longer available to them (two people cannot farm the same piece of land). Regardless of whether these new Manitobans were on the side of Ontarians or not, they're requests, claims, issues, regardless of how factual they were, fell on deaf ears. How could their claim be more important than that of mighty and egocentric Ontario's?
Nothing is more important in Ontario, and some like to think Canada, than what matters to the those who live within 50 km of Hwy 401. Although the highway did not exist in 1899, the corridor did and the same mentality was thriving just as it does today. Ontario gaining Northwestern Ontario beyond the Great Lakes Watershed is nothing more than greed and the hubris of the south. It has nothing to do with logistics, it has nothing to do with Northwestern Ontario being geographically part of the Canadian Shield and Manitoba (then) being mainly Prairie. What that decision all boils down to, is that Ontario wanted it, and therefore got it.
It's not as if Ontario can service Northwestern Ontario any better than Manitoba could/can, it is evident that they can't, as most southerners don't know and seem to be afraid of what's north of Orillia (some with money have discovered Muskoka, but hardly a comparison of distance between Huntsville and Kenora from Toronto). If we are going to discuss distance, it is over 1300 km from the front steps of Queen's Park to downtown Kenora, while it is not quite 200 km from that same spot to the front steps of the Manitoba Legislative Building (the differences from Fort Francis to Winnipeg and Toronto do not make the latter's case any stronger).
Distance aside, the difference in legislative representation is astonishing. While Manitoba has 57 seats in its Legislative Assembly, each representing just over 21,000 people, Ontario's has 107 each representing over 120,000. That's nearly 6 times more! (Granted, Ontario's number of MPP's based on the same representation would be 612). If Kenora and Rainy River districts were to join Manitoba, they'd have 3 and 1 seats respectively, that's more than the 1 they currently share at Queen's Park (with a few exceptions that really don't make a difference). Would their issues be heard in a Manitoba legislative assembly more so than their current level of just registering enough for a beep now and then on the 'care-scale' of southern politicians? I'd like to think so.
Am I advocating for Northwestern Ontario to secede from Ontario and join Manitoba as Eastern Manitoba? Absolutely not. Am I now suggesting that Northwestern Ontario is in a tough-luck situation that they cannot get out of? Absolutely not. So then what am I advocating? As I always have, that Northern Ontario needs to secede from Ontario and become the 11th province of Confederation.
Just as Northwestern Ontario feels it is neglected and shunned by the 20-so MPP's from Toronto alone, so too does Northeastern Ontario, which begins just 200 km's north of their 'gleaming' (yeah, right) metropolis. If by nothing else, both Northwest and Northeast are united in the lack of attention either receives from Toronto. Sure the south is seemingly all fired up about the Ring of Fire (ha!). They are only fired up because of the prospect of mining royalties paying for subways in Toronto, more hospitals for southern cities that already boast more coverage alone than that of any hospital in the north, and even more scandals associated with the state of electricity in the province.
The differences between Northwest and Northeast are clear: 2/3 of the population lives in the Northeast; the Northeast is clearly bilingual...and that's about it. Just as some parts of the Northwest are few and far between for a resident to be found, so too is nearly all of Sudbury District. Just as the Trans-Canada Highway bottlenecks around Kenora and Thunder Bay, two lanes do little to serve the the Trans-Canada from Sault Ste-Marie to North Bay via Sudbury, and Hwy 11 (Trans-Canada as well) between North Bay and Cochrane.
'Ontario' often boasted how it was the economic engine of the country, it only became so by shortchanging the north by stealing its resource royalties to shore up the over-priced and inflated wages of the manufacturing sector of the south. If Ontario once was the economic engine of Canada, then how come it is the province with the least amount of the Trans-Canada Highway to be expanded to a divided freeway style highway? It was more than half a century ago that the TCH came to fruition, and since then lowly-then mighty-now Saskatchewan has completed their stretch of Hwy 1. Aside from Quebec closing the link with New Brunswick, there are very few stretches left that do not have divided highways, and in defence of British Columbia's case, those mountains are a whole lot more difficult to build a divided highway through than the pristine and rugged hills of the north shore of Lake Superior. And really, if Ontario was so mighty it would have conquered this feat long ago.
It's not just about highways, but I do often hear that the longest stretch of road on a coast-to-coast trip across Canada is through Northern Ontario. Granted Ontario is the widest province in an east to west context, but it also had the widest wallet for the longest time. Continuing on this thread, I firmly believe that Ontario's neglect of Northern Ontario has indeed contributed to Western Alienation. While all four Western Provinces have banded together to construct Hwy 1 to a similar if not identical standard, Ontario has done very little to connect the rest of the country to it. But why would they?
One could argue that if Ontario really was 'stealing' the resource royalties and revenue from the north, then they would build better infrastructure to get it faster. I'm not one to believe in conspiracies, but growing up and living in the north and going to school in the south the case for such a conspiracy exists. The mines of the Northern Ontario yield a substantial royalty for their minerals, far more than any southerner can scrape off his fields. If the south was to reinvest the money in the north, it would prove that there is enough to do so, and from that would come the realisation that the agriculture, manufacturing, and service sectors of the south are not as profitable as they are made out to be. In addition to that things like GO Transit, En Routes, all those nice hospitals and new schools would come to an end, and well we just can't have that, a world where the south goes without. So those who are in control will continue down the same course, cutting off their nose to spite their face.
The blame for the current fiscal situation in Ontario is not, in my opinion, to be placed solely on the Great Recession, and a higher Canadian dollar caused by a lower American dollar resulting in the exodus of manufacturing companies in search of cheaper labour, but rather it is the effect of long neglect. Compare Ontario to a body suffering from an infection (don't dig too deeply into the use of words here): if the infection is not cured quickly or when it is first observed, it will spread and eventually consume the whole body. This has happened in Ontario, where as the north was allowed to fester, to become quite possibly the worst of the have-nots had it been its own province while being part of what once was the best of the have's. That is to say Northern Ontario's long neglect has contributed to the downfall of Ontario as a whole, and it is not the fault of the north at all. While resource revenue was gathered by the south and it became infrastructure heavy, the north went without. When the recession hit and the economic realities hit Southern Ontario, there was not enough of the steady flow of northern resource revenue to keep the province going at its former pace and things began to fall apart. When the bottom fell out of the manufacturing sector, Ontario was left with a long mismanaged finance department, that robbed from the poor and gave to the rich. Ontario took what little the north had and shored up the south, yet their isn't enough to go around. However, nothing was said, or heard, because it has always been easier to make Northern Ontario look the poorer, for who is going to complain, it's 3/4 of a million people? How are the voices of under 750,000 to be heard over those of upwards of twelve million?
It is easy to hide the truth when no one is looking for it. It is even easier when you've eliminated all of the opposition, or in the case of Northern Ontario, subjecting the populace to handouts that make them come back for more and convince them they have nothing at all. Those handouts are being stolen right out of the hands of those that generate them, and handed back at a much reduced percentage.
Coming full circle, all those years ago what is now Northwestern Ontario should have been Eastern Manitoba, the royalties from the gold alone would have gone a long way in Manitoba's coffers. Ontario would have done just fine without the gold from places like Red Lake, but only if the province was managed properly, with the interests of all in mind instead of a select portion of the province that lies along the shores of the two most southerly Great Lakes and the highway that runs north of them. One cannot rewrite history but only speculate on what could have been, but to do so would be a foolish endeavour if it were all that he did.
Perhaps one day Northern Ontario will get its due, perhaps it will realise that economic freedom and potential that truly exists within in districts. Perhaps Northern Ontario will see the day when its young do not leave for the job opportunities that its revenues have created in far away cities to the south, or follow the national migration west. Perhaps that day will come, I just hope I'll be able to see it.
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