Separating from Ontario talked about at RRDMA meeting

Ken Johnston
Editor

How would being part of Manitoba benefit Northwestern Ontario? Well that is a question Fort Frances Town Councillor Tannis Drysdale raised at the Rainy River District Municipal Association’s (RRDMA) annual meeting on Saturday in Bergland.
Drysdale said she first started to think about moving the Manitoba border east in the fall of 2004 when she listened to a speaker talk about the depopulation of Northwestern Ontario. “He said without any mitigating factors the population here would be zero in 25 years.” She thought that would never happen. “There would always be paper mills, tourist camps and farming here.” But lately the massive cuts at regional mills have had her thinking otherwise.
But getting little or no interest in the demise of the region from the provincial government, which is based in Toronto, she feels something has to be done to stop the trend. Having only three MPPs in the parliament really leaves NWO with little if any influence on provincial policies.
She said a study on moving the Manitoba border east of Thunder Bay would see the region get 11 MPPs in a house of 57. Hence having considerably more influence.
Drysdale also pointed to the fact that the Manitoba premier is proactive when it comes to losing major employers in communities. “When The Pas mill was closing (losing 227 jobs) the Premier went there and asked what it would take to keep it open. The next day it was announced the mill would stay open. We could not even get an audience with the Premier when Dryden closed losing 350 jobs.”
While she does not have all the answers as to what moving the boundary would mean she said, “We have a responsibility to safeguard what is special in Northern Ontario.”
She asked for volunteers to sit on the newly created Central Canada Public Policy Research Trust, which is looking at the boundary move.