How do we fix Canada's "population void"?

[ssiguy]

new Brunswick has been a province since Confederation and has some lovely country without being so completely isolated and hard to get at but it's population has moved much in a generation and is on the slow decline.

As far as rural areas in Southern Ontario, there are many that are very close to Toronto or London that have much more moderate climates, real estate is dirt cheap, lovely country and nicer old towns and yet are shrinking as well. Chatham/Kent has one of the mildest climates in the country and is right on the 401, has lovely beaches, is sandwiched between 2 lakes, is beyond cheap, close to Windsor/London, on the VIA rail Corridor, has a rich history, and a lot of vacant and isolated land and yet it's population is shrinking.

There are many such places in populace Ontario such as Huron County and Halimand/Norfolk.

The situation you are describing is in no way unique to Northern Ontario but is happening across the country in most rural areas.

[theman23]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

^You are very very wrong. This is the entrance to the rural Milton I speak of: homes surrounding areas like Rattle Snake Point/Appleby Line, Twiss Rd, between First and Sixth Line Nassagaweya from Derry Road up to 30 Side Road: absolute driver's paradise if you're into exploring the best rural farmland within 30-40 minutes of Bay Street.

Thanks!

[theman23]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

I'm sure there are many reasons why (and since I've never been through there I can't really give many); but I wonder if one reason might be a lack of national focus.

If it was its own province with say Thunder Bay as its Capital, then NOON would get mentioned more often; it would become its own entity in the National consciousness. People would be learning of it as a Province in school and learning specifically what it has to offer and so forth. Plus any provincial division map of Canada would now be showing it by itself, with a Star over Thunder Bay. As a province it becomes a distinct entity in the National subconscious.

As it is right now, it is absolutely dwarfed by Southern Ontario/Toronto/Golden Horseshoe/Ottawa and everything around them. It never gets any focus since all eyes are to the south. When people think of moving to Ontario, they usually think of moving to those Urban centres. Hell, I suspect a lot of people have no real concept of just how big NOON is; they envision it as just a chunk of land between Toronto and Manitoba that you get through quick.

So basically, my own feel is that people don't think to move up there, because it isn't really seen as a destination; people don't see it separate from the Toronto Megalopolis, and ultimately never consider it.

Northern Ontario is about as large as New Brunswick. As far as presence in the national conscious goes, I think its about the same.

I lived for about a month in Sudbury. It's a beautiful area in the summer, but you can't help but get over how isolated you are. And I don't just mean from the GTHA - Timmins and the Soo are 3+ hours away, North Bay is 2. Thunder Bay is 11(!!!!). I'd rather just live in Barrie and make the trip up to the French river on weekends if I fancied.

And this all leads to my second point - from a delivery of services and infrastructure standpoint, it doesn't make any sense for us to have more people living in Northern Ontario.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by theman23

Northern Ontario is about as large as New Brunswick. As far as presence in the national conscious goes, I think its about the same.

Northern Ontario is over 10x as large as New Brunswick.
802,378.67 km2
vs.
72,908 km2

They both have about the same population though 732,914 for Northern Ontario vs. 751,171 for New Brunswick.

[FFX-ME]

Why hasn't Canada ever implemented a second, targetted, immigration program. So that on top of the 1/4M immigrants we take in (which uselessly get funneled into the 3 big cities) we could accept another 100,000 immigrants that could only settle here if they agreed to live in areas that need people (maritimes, northern Ontatio, Prairies)

[Innsertnamehere]

thing is that those areas dont need people.. they need jobs.

[MolsonExport]

How do you propose forcing people to stay in a particular locale, especially places with fewer prospects or supporting fellow ethnic community members? And why? Just so we can say are population is more dispersed/denser? Who cares?

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Northern Ontario is over 10x as large as New Brunswick.
802,378.67 km2
vs.
72,908 km2

They both have about the same population though 732,914 for Northern Ontario vs. 751,171 for New Brunswick.

That's semi misleading, most of northern ontario is all along the thunder bay timmins corridor.

The arctic regions of the province are far more isolated.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

How do you propose forcing people to stay in a particular locale, especially places with fewer prospects or supporting fellow ethnic community members? And why? Just so we can say are population is more dispersed/denser? Who cares?

And how would one do so without violating the mobility rights of permanent residents under the Charter?

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

thing is that those areas dont need people.. they need jobs.

Jobs come with people. Those areas need people. Only in Canada do people have the attitude that you can't take people if there are no jobs. Everywhere else they would say there are no jobs because there are no people.

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

And how would one do so without violating the mobility rights of permanent residents under the Charter?

People on the targeted program could be on a 2 year probationary period, if they are still living in an area of demand after 2 years they are granted permanent citizenship. We don't need to force them to stay there but usually, once people are settled down, they don't move.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

Jobs come with people. Those areas need people. Only in Canada do people have the attitude that you can't take people if there are no jobs. Everywhere else they would say there are no jobs because there are no people.

That notion is often exaggerated, undesirable population demographics are brutal for the development of pretty much any industry.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by Stryker

That's semi misleading, most of northern ontario is all along the thunder bay timmins corridor.

The arctic regions of the province are far more isolated.

I suppose it depends on who you ask. Ontario can be broken down to many parts or regions but generally it's just three, Northern Central and Southern. Northern Ontario by all accounts goes from Tamagami in the east to Thunder Bay and Manitoba on the west.

It's largest towns being Timmins, North Bay, Sudbury, and Thunder Bay.

[vid]

Holy 🞵🞵🞵🞵 this is really bizarre.

OK, First of all, no one refers to this region as "NOON". It's Northern Ontario. If you need to abbreviate it, we use "The North" but you can say "NO". We won't get mad at that.

The principal regions of Northern Ontario are not "Northern, Central and Southern". They're Northwestern, Northeastern and the Far North.

Largest cities: Sudbury (160k), Thunder Bay (130k), Sault Ste Marie (80k), North Bay (65k) and Timmins (43k).

Our population corridor isn't "Thunder Bay-Timmins". While at the same latitude, there is virtually no population centres along that axis and it ignores the other three cities in the region. The real "corridor" is from Kenora to North Bay, along Highway 17, and it does follow a roughly straight line, and Timmins is an outlier (it's on Highway 101, which bridges Highways 11 and 17 in the North East).

And while the "Arctic" (they're subarctic) regions are isolated, they certainly factor into the region's population. Over 40,000 people live up there, that's a sizeable percentage of our populations. You could create another Timmins if you put them all together in one place.

Trivia: when you consider that Thunder Bay and Sudbury are both made up of multiple cities amalgamated in the second half of the previous century, and if you consider Port Arthur to be separate from Fort William, and Sudbury and New Sudbury and all the other villages to be separate communities themselves, then the largest population centre in Northern Ontario is Sault Ste. Marie. It's also the oldest and most central, so it makes a logical choice for capital if we ever do split up. Thunder Bay has the best building to convert into a legislature, though.

[Procrastinational]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

Jobs come with people. Those areas need people. Only in Canada do people have the attitude that you can't take people if there are no jobs. Everywhere else they would say there are no jobs because there are no people.

That's really only the case with services industries. There is no guarantee that higher paying jobs will come with people. Doesn't strike me that people would move on mass to Northern Ontario to make minimum wage working at Tim Hortons or Walmart.

Fort McMurray is a good example. If you want people to move to more northern, isolated areas, there had better be good wages.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by vid

Holy 🞵🞵🞵🞵 this is really bizarre.

OK, First of all, no one refers to this region as "NOON". It's Northern Ontario. If you need to abbreviate it, we use "The North" but you can say "NO". We won't get mad at that.

The principal regions of Northern Ontario are not "Northern, Central and Southern". They're Northwestern, Northeastern and the Far North.

Largest cities: Sudbury (160k), Thunder Bay (130k), Sault Ste Marie (80k), North Bay (65k) and Timmins (43k).

Our population corridor isn't "Thunder Bay-Timmins". While at the same latitude, there is virtually no population centres along that axis and it ignores the other three cities in the region. The real "corridor" is from Kenora to North Bay, along Highway 17, and it does follow a roughly straight line, and Timmins is an outlier (it's on Highway 101, which bridges Highways 11 and 17 in the North East).

And while the "Arctic" (they're subarctic) regions are isolated, they certainly factor into the region's population. Over 40,000 people live up there, that's a sizeable percentage of our populations. You could create another Timmins if you put them all together in one place.

Trivia: when you consider that Thunder Bay and Sudbury are both made up of multiple cities amalgamated in the second half of the previous century, and if you consider Port Arthur to be separate from Fort William, and Sudbury and New Sudbury and all the other villages to be separate communities themselves, then the largest population centre in Northern Ontario is Sault Ste. Marie. It's also the oldest and most central, so it makes a logical choice for capital if we ever do split up. Thunder Bay has the best building to convert into a legislature, though.

Thanks Vid for telling it like it is!!!

And I have to add that people ARE moving to Northern Ontario. There are in fact many employment opportunities here. Timmins can't find enough people to work in stores and restaurants. And look at unemployment data for Northern Ontario. The unemployment rate is the lowest it has been here in my lifetime.

But the reality is as well that many towns are struggling and dying. It's the cities that are doing well. But that isn't unique just to our region.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by theman23

And this all leads to my second point - from a delivery of services and infrastructure standpoint, it doesn't make any sense for us to have more people living in Northern Ontario.

Do explain that more please!

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

I'm sure there are many reasons why (and since I've never been through there I can't really give many); but I wonder if one reason might be a lack of national focus.

If it was its own province with say Thunder Bay as its Capital, then NOON would get mentioned more often; it would become its own entity in the National consciousness. People would be learning of it as a Province in school and learning specifically what it has to offer and so forth. Plus any provincial division map of Canada would now be showing it by itself, with a Star over Thunder Bay. As a province it becomes a distinct entity in the National subconscious.

As it is right now, it is absolutely dwarfed by Southern Ontario/Toronto/Golden Horseshoe/Ottawa and everything around them. It never gets any focus since all eyes are to the south. When people think of moving to Ontario, they usually think of moving to those Urban centres. Hell, I suspect a lot of people have no real concept of just how big NOON is; they envision it as just a chunk of land between Toronto and Manitoba that you get through quick.

So basically, my own feel is that people don't think to move up there, because it isn't really seen as a destination; people don't see it separate from the Toronto Megalopolis, and ultimately never consider it.

I've always thought that Longlac should be our capital.

[Marshal]

Originally Posted by vid

Holy 🞵🞵🞵🞵 this is really bizarre.

OK, First of all, no one refers to this region as "NOON". It's Northern Ontario. If you need to abbreviate it, we use "The North" but you can say "NO". We won't get mad at that.

The principal regions of Northern Ontario are not "Northern, Central and Southern". They're Northwestern, Northeastern and the Far North.

Largest cities: Sudbury (160k), Thunder Bay (130k), Sault Ste Marie (80k), North Bay (65k) and Timmins (43k).

Our population corridor isn't "Thunder Bay-Timmins". While at the same latitude, there is virtually no population centres along that axis and it ignores the other three cities in the region. The real "corridor" is from Kenora to North Bay, along Highway 17, and it does follow a roughly straight line, and Timmins is an outlier (it's on Highway 101, which bridges Highways 11 and 17 in the North East).

And while the "Arctic" (they're subarctic) regions are isolated, they certainly factor into the region's population. Over 40,000 people live up there, that's a sizeable percentage of our populations. You could create another Timmins if you put them all together in one place.

Trivia: when you consider that Thunder Bay and Sudbury are both made up of multiple cities amalgamated in the second half of the previous century, and if you consider Port Arthur to be separate from Fort William, and Sudbury and New Sudbury and all the other villages to be separate communities themselves, then the largest population centre in Northern Ontario is Sault Ste. Marie. It's also the oldest and most central, so it makes a logical choice for capital if we ever do split up. Thunder Bay has the best building to convert into a legislature, though.

I second Loco101: thanks Vid, I haven't read the whole thread but the characterizations of Northern Ontario have been all over the map, and I mean the wrong map of the wrong planet. I agree with everything you wrote. Its a very good concept/picture of an often misunderstood chunk of the country.

As for the principle discussion: 🞵🞵🞵? Take any settlement or population map of Canada and empty pockets of various sizes will be evident. I mean this without considering the 'true north.' Why would anyone assume that because an area is sparcely populated that there is a problem there, and that the population and economy needs to be larger. What about that huge swath of Quebec that runs across the same latitudes as Northern Ontario? Or, the interior of New Brunswick, Newfoundland, middle Saskatchewan, so many pockets of BC (so many empty valleys), and so on.

There is nothing wrong with a country having a population 'gap' separating large areas of denser settlement. All of the lightly populated areas of Canada are as they should be at this time. If economics dictate, places will grow. Hense, Fort McMurray by means of oil, and maybe soon Prince Rupert by means of LNG. Just because Northern Ontario is located as a landmass which connects the developed East and West, does not privilage it in some National dream to have an even east west spread of the citizenry.

[Marshal]

Originally Posted by jigglysquishy

So I was dicking around on Photoshop and came up with this



to show how the middle of our country is essentially empty. Between Winnipeg and the Golden Horseshoe there are only 250,000 people with more than half being in Thunder Bay.

To ensure the health of our country we need to ensure the health of all our regions. Every region in our country has significant population except for the territories and north-west Ontario. Obviously the territories will be far harder to populate, but north-west Ontario doesn't have the same environmental factors holding back its growth.

I know there are a few users from Thunder Bay here and I'd be interested on what their opinion is.

Promoting growth here would act as a "bridge" of the east and west much like Ottawa acts as a "bridge" between Ontario and Quebec.

Will we ever see a day when northwestern Ontario boasts a large population? How about other seemingly "empty" areas like northeastern Ontario and northern Quebec?

We have all this land prime for settlement and its sitting unused.

Now I have to go to the beginning.

How do we populate such places? We don't. We don't choose where we populate. There are human decisions which play small roles, but the real dictates come from forces we don't control. Plus, this has nothing to do with the health of our country. The bridge we need to link the two halves of our country is a better road, not people, towns and cities. And if Ottawa is a bridge by geography, so is every other place, it just depends on what you define as the parts being linked.

We do not "have all this land prime for settlement, sitting unused." Human use is not the only form. We are one of the luckiest pieces of political geography on the planet. We have populated areas with cities, farms, industry and connecting infrastructure, and we have vast stretches of land that nature still plays a major role. Unused? Please think again?