Northern Ontario - Politics

Politics

Although Progressive Conservative candidates have been elected in Northern Ontario from time to time, the region has been one of the weakest areas in all of Canada for both the PCs and their federal successor, the Conservative Party. In part due to the region's significant dependence on government investment, the Liberal Party has traditionally taken the majority of the region's seats at both the federal and provincial levels. The New Democrats also have a significant base of support here, thanks to the region's history of labour unionism, support from First Nations communities, and the personal popularity of local NDP figures.

Mike Harris, the Conservative premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002, represented the Northern Ontario riding of Nipissing. However, Harris himself was the only Conservative candidate elected in a true Northern Ontario riding in either the 1995 election or the 1999 election. (If the definition of Northern Ontario is extended to include the Parry Sound District, then Harris was joined by Ernie Eves in Parry Sound—Muskoka. Following Eves' retirement from politics, Norm Miller — currently the Official Opposition critic for Northern Development and Mines — was also elected in Parry Sound—Muskoka in a by-election in 2001, and was re-elected in the 2003 and 2007 elections.

Former Ontario New Democratic Party leader Howard Hampton also represented a Northern Ontario riding, Kenora—Rainy River, in the Ontario Legislative Assembly. The riding of Algoma East was represented federally by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson from 1948 to 1968. William Hearst, premier of Ontario from 1914 to 1919, represented the riding of Sault Ste. Marie.

In the 2008 federal election, the New Democratic Party won nearly every seat in the region, with the exception of Nipissing—Timiskaming, which was retained by its Liberal incumbent Anthony Rota, and Kenora, which was won by Conservative Greg Rickford. This sweep included several seats which were formerly seen as Liberal strongholds, including Sudbury, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, Thunder Bay—Rainy River and Thunder Bay—Superior North. However, the strong support for the NDP in most parts of Northern Ontario tends to be more labour-populist in nature. The region can, in fact, be quite socially conservative in some respects, especially in the southern border parts of the region. The northern and northeastern areas are generally more progressive, due to the high concentration of First Nations and the high Franco-Ontarian population, which are generally quite liberal.

Major political issues in recent years have included the economic health of the region, the extension of Highway 400 from Parry Sound to Sudbury, issues pertaining to the quality and availability of health care services, mining development in the Ring of Fire region around McFaulds Lake, and a controversial but now-defunct plan to ship Toronto's garbage to the Adams Mine, an abandoned open pit mine in Kirkland Lake.

In the redistribution of provincial electoral districts prior to the 2007 election, the province retained the existing electoral district boundaries in Northern Ontario, rather than adjusting them to correspond to federal electoral district boundaries as was done in the southern part of the province. Without this change, the region would have lost one Member of Provincial Parliament.

Due to the region's relatively sparse population, federal and provincial electoral districts in the region are almost all extremely large geographically. Federally, the electoral district of Sudbury is the only one that is comparable in size to an electoral district in Southern Ontario, while at the other extreme the districts of Kenora and Timmins—James Bay are both geographically larger than the entire United Kingdom. One consequence of this, for example, is that a politician who represents a Northern Ontario riding in the Canadian House of Commons or the Legislative Assembly of Ontario must typically maintain a much higher budget for travel and office expenses than one who represents a small urban district does.