One by one I’ve seen them go. They are the children of southwestern Ontario, but now with our regional economy shaking, Alberta beckons. In the small little town of Dresden where I hail, I can think of at least ten families that blazed that Alberta trail.
Alberta is a great place; I even made it out there myself last December. However, I didn’t stay. –40 Degrees didn’t agree with me especially in early December. Nonetheless, the draw of all that oil money was palatable.
Needless to say we’ve all heard about Alberta. In fact it seems Saskatchewan is starting to get all the press now. They are calling it the “Saskaboom”, as Saskatchewan seems to be on the verge of their very own tar sands development. As one Alberta car dealer told me in the summer of 2007, “you know the tar sands don’t end at the border, Saskatchewan’s turn is next.”
Of course my question is when is it “southwestern Ontario’s turn?” You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that our home region is suffering both an economic and human capital meltdown. Every soul that leaves for Alberta is one more asset, which is lost. With news last Monday that Windsor will be losing 1400 manufacturing jobs because of the closure of the GM transmission plant, it just got worse.
The Windsor plant is a staple of the southwestern Ontario economy. It’s been around for 45 years but in a couple more, it won’t exist. Gone will be those 1400 jobs but even worse are those spin off jobs that supply the southwestern Ontario automotive economy. It might be the sexy thing to write about the big plant closings but when you add up all the little ones, which employ 29 people, it only makes it harder.
To make matters worse, the southwestern Ontario economy stands out like a sore thumb. For instance the national unemployment rate sits at 6.1% up a bit from a few months ago when it stood at 5.8%. However, Windsor’s unemployment rate is over 8% with many job seekers already on the short list for Alberta. At the same time many economists and our own finance minister are crowing that the Canadian economy is showing its resilience. Too bad the same couldn’t be said for southwestern Ontario.
It wouldn’t be fair to say everything about southwestern Ontario is turning bad. The one redeeming feature of the southwestern Ontario economy is agriculture. For crop producers within southwestern Ontario, it’s like Disneyland. Prices are double for corn and soybean prices are easily 40% more than the last few years. Wheat prices have been crazy but they have backed down over the last several months. Needless to say, many of these farmers have past due bills to pay, but the southwestern Ontario agricultural economy is strong.
In the face of our problems in southwestern Ontario I think it interesting the comments made by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty last week. He spoke last week to the Economic Club of Toronto. There he said Canadian banks are well-capitalized, the housing market here is more solid, more Canadians are working now than ever before, and Canada is one of the few countries in the world with sound public pension plans, he said, adding that new employment figures that came out on Friday were “promising.” (Globe and Mail)
He made mention that Canadians had being shielded from some of the higher inflationary pressures because of the high value of the Canadian dollar. He also made the point that even though the Canadian manufacturing base is shrinking; employment gains through other economic sectors are making up for it. In other words people are moving from the East to the West. Albert and Saskatchewan are taking up lots of slack.
It might make for good economic headlines nationally but back here in southwestern Ontario it’s a dog’s breakfast. Even thought agriculture is part of our base, manufacturing is still our lifeblood. The interesting part is Ontario has all the political power in this country. From a political standpoint, you’d think there would be pressure on the government to stop the economic bleeding. However, from Flaherty’s comments, that doesn’t seem to be on his radar.
Needless to say there is a huge border infrastructure project proposed by the federal and provincial governments about to go through an environmental assessment. That will surely create jobs and foster greater economic opportunity for Windsor and greater southwestern Ontario. The hard part though is getting through our current problems. Yes, the Canadian economy is doing well. However, there is a certain sting to being on the wrong end of the stick. Needless to say, at least for the moment that’s where we sit.