Timid proposals not a solution.What do you say when political leaders propose timid steps in the right direction? Should we pat them on the back for being right or chuck them out for being 15 years behind their competitors in Quebec? The final reports of the Smart Growth panels for northeastern and northwestern Ontario Northwestern Ontario is the region within the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north and west of Lake Superior, and west of Hudson Bay and James Bay. It includes most of subarctic Ontario. are pointing in the right direction. They recommend making the western end of the province into a "Cluster of Excellence" for forestry and forest products. The northeast panel proposes a "Region of Excellence" for mining products and services. These are old ideas, but good ones. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] How old are the ideas? Look up the speeches by Premier David Peterson David Robert Peterson, PC (born December 28, 1943 in Toronto, Ontario) was the twentieth Premier of the Province of Ontario, Canada, from June 26, 1985 to October 1, 1990. He was the first Liberal premier of Ontario in 42 years. on July 30, 1986. Peterson was already acting on the theory of cluster development Cluster development (or cluster initiative) is the economic development of business clusters. The cluster concept has rapidly attracted attention from governments, consultants, and academics since it was first proposed in 1990 by Michael Porter. when he moved the Ontario Geological Survey The term geological survey can be used to describe both the conduct of a survey for geological purposes and an institution holding geological information. A geological survey to Sudbury in the 1980s. Or look at the aluminum cluster that the Province of Quebec has been building in Chicoutimi for the last 15 years. One project alone has saved Alcan $1.9 million a year. Another project led to increases in productivity of between 15 and 20 percent. In Ontario the panel for the northeast timidly proposed that the province establish one forestry research chair and one mining research chair. The northwest panel was even more timid, proposing a single chair for the most important forestry region in the province. What is a research chair? Most university faculties are teachers first. They may spend a third of their time on research on any topic they choose. An industrial research chair is a university position dedicated researching industry needs. The person holding a chair does less teaching and more targeted research. To put the Smart Growth proposals in perspective, Alcan and the senior governments created the first research chair for the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi in 1990. There are now three research centres, three industrial chairs, a high-tech centre, an experimental smelting smelting, in metallurgy, any process of melting or fusion, especially to extract a metal from its ore. Smelting processes vary in detail depending on the nature of the ore and the metal involved, but they are typified in the use of the blast furnace. centre, and a metallurgy development training centre. Here we are, 13 years after Quebec swung into action, talking about getting started. Forestry is a 14 billion-dollar industry concentrated in northwestern Ontario. Metal mining produces another $3.5 billion, almost all in Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is the part of the province of Ontario which lies north of Lake Huron (including Georgian Bay), the French River and Lake Nipissing. Northern Ontario has a land area of 802,000 km² (310,000 mi²) and constitutes 87% of the land area of Ontario, although it . Add exploration, milling, smelting, machinery and services, and an array of secondary products and you have two massive northern industries. Instead of one research chair for each industry, we should be shooting for 20 within five years. Twenty permanent endowed en·dow tr.v. en·dowed, en·dow·ing, en·dows 1. To provide with property, income, or a source of income. 2. a. research positions are probably the minimum required to have a really significant impact on job creation. If 20 research chairs for the forestry industry gave us a 10 per cent increase in the value of output, the payoff would be $1.4 billion per year. An increase of even one per cent in the annual growth rate of the mining supply and services industry would create thousands of jobs. Technological change guarantees mining and forestry will require fewer and fewer people, and that less and less of the resource wealth will stay in the North. The only way the North can grow is by developing the secondary industries related to mining and forestry. Increasingly, industry follows public-sector investments. The software industry blossomed around military contracts and research universities. Biotech develops around major hospitals and research universities. Space technology is rooted in universities and military aviation. If the province fails to invest, the North will stagnate stag·nate intr.v. stag·nat·ed, stag·nat·ing, stag·nates To be or become stagnant. [Latin st . Northern development based on forestry and mining ultimately depends on building world-class research universities in northern cities. In practice, that means making Lakehead University Lakehead University, at Thunder Bay, Ont., Canada; founded 1946 as Lakehead Technical Institute. It achieved university status in 1965. Lakehead has faculties of arts and science, business, education, engineering, forestry, library and information studies, nursing, the forestry capital of eastern Canada Eastern Canada (also the Eastern provinces) is the region of Canada generally considered to be east of Manitoba, consisting of the following provinces:
Will the province act on even the timid recommendations put forward by the panels? If history is any guide, the province will spend some money, make some announcements and change almost nothing. What should we do? Our political leaders are pointing in the right direction, but they want to take very small steps. So small that in five years Ontario will be even farther behind Quebec and the competing U.S. states. They have put key ideas on the table, and we should thank them for that. They have gone on to make laughably inadequate proposals. If we follow their advice we will fall far short of our potential. Timid leadership could be worse than no leadership. Dr. David Robinson David Robinson or Dave Robinson is a name shared by the following individuals:
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