[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

Between 2011 and 2016, the population of northern Ontario grew slightly by 0.6 per cent between 2011 and 2016. Its share of provincial population fell to 5.8 per cent from 6.0 per cent in 2011.
https://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/economy/demographics/census/cenhi16-1.html

Between 2006 and 2011, the population of northern Ontario decreased by 1.4 per cent between 2006 and 2011. Its share of provincial population fell to 6.0 per cent from 6.5 per cent in 2006.
https://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/economy/demographics/census/cenhi11-1.html

But despite there being less people to pay for northern highways in Ontario today than there were in 2006, there are more four-lane divided highways up north and leading to the north than there were 14 years ago.

There is more highway construction in the south because that's where the growth is happening. Probably not shockingly, the province spends most of its tax revenue in areas where the people paying the taxes actually live.

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Please convince the man that royalties from resource extraction alone aren't enough for Northern Ontario to sustain itself if it's to secede from the rest of Ontario. (If what I just wrote is true, that is.) Thanks in advance.

If we're to extend Highway 417 to SSM, it seems appropriate to put most sections along Lake Huron Shore on new alignment. Then we can put a toll on it and ban trucks from the current Highway 17 (local delivery excepted) to recurpurate costs for rock blasting.

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It may look like north v south at first, but careful examination will tell a slightly more complicated story. What about Kitchener - Guelph Expressway? What about Morriston - Puslinch Bypass? What about Essex - Leamington Highway? What about Brant Road (known as Brantford Highway in Cambridge)? People in SWO have been waiting for decades for those too.
Then there's also the Bradford Bypass because the traffic lights on Green Lane (East Gwillimbury) aren't well synchronized...

Let's say that all money the province collects stays within the Region/District/RM,etc. Sudbury and Timmins would have better highways than Toronto. The Resource sector is what keeps the province in the black.