It’s invisible even from the loftiest cranes perched on the skyscraping towers of Bay St., never mind from the cloisters of Queen’s Park, but out beyond the reaches of Greater Toronto there is a second Ontario. It makes up a little less than half the population of Canada’s most populous province, and far more than half its land mass – and it is ailing.
Concentrated in southwestern cities like Windsor, Sarnia and London, but spanning any part of the province that once relied on manufacturing jobs, this is our very own Rust Belt.
Its suffering is etched in beleaguered downtowns: the boarded-up storefronts, the payday lenders, the oxygen tanks and mobility scooters, the discarded needles.
It’s a landscape many Ontarians are only dimly aware of. To make it more vivid, The Globe and Mail recently explored the Ontario Rust Belt in a feature report that highlighted just how dramatically Toronto’s economic fortunes have surged past those of the rest of the province.
Consider that, in the past decade, 80 per cent of the jobs created in Ontario went to the Toronto area, with another 10 per cent going to Ottawa, leaving a tiny slice for parts of the province not buoyed by government or finance.
In London, the effective capital of southwestern Ontario, just 61 per cent of the working-age population is in the labour force (either employed or looking for work). That’s down from nearly 70 per cent 15 years ago. London’s median household income, meanwhile, was higher than Kingston’s in 2005, but was more than $6,000 lower by 2015.
This economic and social crisis might have been expected to dominate the Ontario election campaign, or at least make a prominent appearance, especially in a contest between the Trumpian populist Doug Ford and the Hamilton-bred union booster Andrea Horwath. But with the race about halfway through and ballots being cast on June 7, the Rust Belt has scarcely featured.
Perhaps party leaders have been too focussed on swing voters in the Toronto suburbs, who have a separate host of issues to worry about, from housing affordability to the cost of fuel and electricity, that get most of the attention.
Provincial politicians also surely realize there’s only so much they can do. Some of the smartest solutions, like reforming our express-entry system to encourage foreign students to settle in southwestern Ontario (proposed by the economist Mike Moffatt), are in the hands of Ottawa.
More broadly, the decline of the province’s manufacturing base is a structural problem tied to a long period of strength for the loonie, freer North American trade, automation and the rise of China. A premier can’t control any of that.
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing the provincial government can do.
The first thing, and the hardest, is to be honest about the unlikelihood of returning to a manufacturing economy. The factory jobs are not coming back, certainly not in anywhere near the numbers to which southwestern Ontario was once accustomed.
The next thing is charting a course toward a modern economy for the Rust Belt – one based in health care, education and technology. The region has a head start: Many of its worst-hit communities, like St. Catharines, London and (further northeast) Peterborough contain excellent universities that can serve as seedbeds for this transition.
The experience of Canadian and American cities that have made that transition suggest a few ways regional governments can spur it along. Floating capital to startups, funding downtown regeneration to lure top workers, encouraging local universities to commercialize research, and tax credits for developers who build in neglected spots have helped in places like Waterloo and Grand Rapids, Mich.
These aren’t policies that make for great slogans. Worse, from a politician’s perspective, they represent the end of a way of life. Ontario’s factory towns have to evolve; the new economy won’t feature men and women manufacturing the iconic products of the past, like cars and Corn Flakes.
The imagery of any techy renaissance will be less homespun. Modern Rust Belt success stories look like Diply, the London-based firm that produces viral web content. More power to them, but even Diego Rivera, who painted Detroit in all its pomp, would struggle to make a mural out of that.
Still, there has to be a future for post-industrial Ontario – the well-being of millions depends on it. Sadly, it’s a future virtually no one on the campaign trail is talking about.