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Social Science Demography

Northern Ontario in Historical Statistics, 1871–2021

Expansion, Growth, and Decline in a Hinterland-Colonial Region

by (author) David Leadbeater

contributions by Pat Marcuccio, Charlene Faiella, Tomasz Mrozewski & Caitlin Richer

series edited by Pierre Anctil

Publisher
Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa Press
Initial publish date
Sep 2024
Category
Demography, Social Classes, Statistics
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780776641676
    Publish Date
    Sep 2024
    List Price
    $34.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780776641669
    Publish Date
    Sep 2024
    List Price
    $64.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780776641690
    Publish Date
    Sep 2024
    List Price
    $22.99

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Description

Basé sur des données historiques, Northern Ontario in Historical Statistics, 1871–2021 présente un aperçu des principales tendances démographiques sur une période de 150 ans dans la région appelée aujourd’hui « Nord de l’Ontario ». David Leadbeater et ses collaborateurs comparent le Nord de l’Ontario au Sud de l’Ontario, et recensent les changements observés dans les districts et les comtés. Ils analysent également le taux d’emploi, le chômage, la dépendance économique et la répartition des revenus, en particulier au cours des dernières décennies caractérisées par un déclin depuis les années 1970.
Bien qu’elle ait profondément marqué les peuples autochtones, la structure coloniale du développement du Nord de l’Ontario reste peu considérée dans les discussions et les politiques officielles du gouvernement.
Northern Ontario in Historical Statistics, 1871–2021, vise donc à fournir un contexte à la question coloniale récurrente dans ces territoires ruraux : comment la propriété, le contrôle et l’utilisation de la terre et de ses ressources profitent-ils aux personnes qui y vivent?
Leadbeater et ses collaborateurs accordent une attention particulière aux conditions fondamentales de la colonisation de l’arrière-pays du Nord de l’Ontario, notamment en ce qui concerne les populations autochtones par rapport aux colons, les territoires visés par les traités et les réserves, ainsi que les « territoires non organisés » sous le contrôle provincial. Les biais coloniaux dans les recensements canadiens sont abordés de manière critique dans le but de contribuer à la décolonisation des statistiques officielles.
Cet ouvrage est publié en anglais.

About the authors

David Leadbeater's profile page

Pat Marcuccio's profile page

Charlene Faiella's profile page

Tomasz Mrozewski's profile page

Caitlin Richer's profile page

Pierre Anctil is an award-winning author, a member of the Royal Society of Canada since 2012 and a full professor at the Department of History of the University of Ottawa, where he teaches contemporary Canadian history and Canadian Jewish history. He has written at length on the history of Montreal’s Jewish community and on the current debates on cultural pluralism in Canada. His most recent English-language titles are Jacob Isaac Segal: A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu (2017) and A Reluctant Welcome for Jewish People: Voices in Le Devoir’s Editorials, 1910–1947 (2019), both at the University of Ottawa Press.

Pierre Anctil's profile page

Excerpt: Northern Ontario in Historical Statistics, 1871–2021: Expansion, Growth, and Decline in a Hinterland-Colonial Region (by (author) David Leadbeater; contributions by Pat Marcuccio, Charlene Faiella, Tomasz Mrozewski & Caitlin Richer; series edited by Pierre Anctil)

This study aims to provide an overview of major population, employment, social composition, and urban concentration trends since 1871 in the region now called “Northern Ontario” (or “Nord de l’Ontario” or “Ontario-Nord”). The study pays special attention to the pattern of decline in population and employment that has been occurring in the last several decades not only in aggregate, but also at the district and community levels. The study raises some structural issues of economic development underlying the labour market and distributional disparities described as well as discusses certain measurement issues particularly related to economic dependency.[A1] More detailed analysis of the economic conditions of decline is beyond the present task. Nor is the study focused on immediate policy issues but rather on contributing to a deeper empirical basis for policy discussion. To heighten the importance of the larger trends treated here for policy, the study will refer to some aspects of current dominant policy thinking, such as in the Province’s Growth Plan for Northern Ontario (2011) and some publications of the provincially funded Northern Policy Institute.
The early development of Northern Ontario occurred in the context of a vast Canadian colonial expansion in territory and settlement westward and northward, particularly following Canadian transcontinental railway development from the 1880s. As established at Confederation (1867), the then province of Ontario occupied a smaller territory of about 263, 000 km2 above the St Lawrence River and Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Superior (Map 1). But by 1912, when Ontario’s boundaries reached their current limits, the province had more than tripled its size to over 900, 000 km2, most being through colonial expansion into Northern Ontario.
This territorial and settlement expansion was based mainly in southern Ontario and grew out of its earlier colonization. Northern Ontario came to cover approximately 87 percent of the land area of Ontario (Table 2 data). Typical of settler colonial place-naming patterns, the area was also called “New Ontario” (or “Nouvel-Ontario”) . This study uses the term “Northern Ontario” (or “Nord de l’Ontario”) reflecting more contemporary common terms.
The process of defining the region of Northern Ontario has been a matter of contention. For purposes of the present study, we need to address particularly the issue of the southeastern boundary, which has been imposed in different forms for purposes of governmental administration and programs, and never negotiated with Indigenous peoples. There is wide acceptance that today Northern Ontario includes at least nine territorial districts: Algoma, Cochrane, Kenora, Manitoulin, Nipissing, Rainy River, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, and Timiskaming. For official statistical purposes, these unincorporated districts are also census divisions, except for Sudbury, which has been divided into two census divisions (Sudbury District and Greater Sudbury), thus making ten census divisions (Map 2).[2] This ten-census division definition of Northern Ontario is fairly consistent with much popular discussion which takes the southernmost boundary to be the westward-flowing French River, from its mouth on Lake Huron (Georgian Bay) through to Lake Nipissing then to the eastward-flowing Mattawa River from North Bay through to Mattawa on the Ottawa River.

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