Maybe, just maybe, folk in Queen’s Park are awakening to the fact that Ontario extends beyond the bounds of the Golden Horseshoe, let alone Steeles Avenue in Greater Toronto. Mention was made in the Ontario Government’s speech from the throne about northern Ontario development in McGuinty’s next few months of government. The Globe and Mail on March 9th referred to the intent to “create plans for exploiting the untapped potential of the province’s natural resources in the north.” indicating that the government “is open to business just as pressure is growing to open up the northern wilderness.”

Unfortunately previous governments have pretty well tied up most of the forest lands of the north, allocating them to forest industries in perpetuity. Apparently they plan to develop chromite mining farther north, ignoring the fact that forest lands could at least provide similar or greater prosperity if tenure was reallocated to people.

On a trip through north-western Ontario, I visited a harvested upland site where the coniferous trees had been cut for pulpwood. For over a couple of hours my feet never touched the ground. The residual forest of white birch had been knocked down. The local MNR forester was contemplating selling white birch logs in southern Ontario, sending the waste wood south by rail.

The potential for building a biodiesel industry appears enormous. A company in the Ottawa valley has been converting low value hardwood to cellulosic biofuel. It may not be feasible to ship hardwood from Red Lake to supply urban industry, but it certainly appears feasible to create the processing facilities in the north, sending fuel by tanker to support the trucking industry.

Another article, “Budget ‘walks away’ from renewable energy, environmentalist says” in the Globe and Mail, March 11th bemoaning the fact the federal budget contained no new energy programs to make Canada more self sufficient. It quoted a Canadian executive of Arise Technologies of Kitchener whose company was actively involved in development of photovoltaic cells in Germany. The German government was paying 50% of the cost of establishing a Canadian company there. Mr. McLellan noted that Germany was providing 280,000 jobs in the field of renewable energy.

Apparently the American government is investing 14 times as much funds than in Canada, on a per capita basis. Spain is reliant on wind energy for about 40% of their electrical energy on windy days. Canada is being left in the wake of initiatives of other countries.

Canada is fortunate in having an abundance of water power. In an article published earlier, overview data was provided noting that Canada was able to generate 60% of our electricity from hydro electric facilities. Jim Prentice, our federal minister of the environment has stated that in fact we are able to supply 73% of our energy needs from renewable sources. Yet apparently we are still dependent on 16% of our electrical needs from coal fired generation and another 16% on nuclear production. Politicians are still promoting the development of new nuclear stations and dirty energy from the tar sands while Canada sits on this vast northern resource base.

Nationally, Canada is fiddling while Rome is burning. However provincial politicians in our major provinces appear to be starting to look ahead and at least thinking about developing more means of providing clean energy. With such development comes the possibility of providing large scale employment to replace the thousands of jobs lost in the automotive industry.

There is no better place to start repairing our crippled economy than to look toward the vast natural resources of northern Canada. We’ve barely touched the true potential of our northern forest lands. There is far more commercial value in growing other products from forest lands than just news paper and 2 x 4s, There is space for settling people and providing jobs for many living in our over populated world. There is need to provide employment for the highly unemployed native community. And we have been searching for decades for means to boost the economy of so many of our single industry towns of the north.

Canada’s future development has the potential to provide a glowing example of prosperity to the world of the future.