Small northern Ont. towns still struggling to recover from 2008 financial crash, study shows

Small towns and rural communities in Ontario are still clamouring to recover jobs and populations after 2008's financial crisis, according to a recent study from the Fraser Institute.

The study shows that while cities around the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) were quicker to recover between 2008 and 2019, smaller communities are still struggling.

"Smaller towns and rural areas lost about 10 per cent of their jobs, since the Great Recession," said Steve Lafleur, a senior policy analyst at the Fraser Institute.

"That's a huge decline and it's really something that ... we need to pay more attention to because these are significant parts of the province."

Uneven job growth in Ontario

Many GTA cities saw a job growth rate of around 20 per cent over 11 years, according to the study. That's higher than the national average of around 12 per cent.

Meanwhile, Sudbury only saw a three per cent job recovery.

Northern College in Timmins studied population decline involving 'working age' people in the north last year, which can have a correlation with job decline.

It showed that out of 11 Ontario districts that lost at least two per cent of their working age population between 2011 and 2016, seven were from the northern region.

The northern districts impacted by working age population decreases include:

• Sudbury - Down 7 per cent
• Rainy River - Down 5 per cent
• Algoma - Down 4 per cent
• Cochrane - Down 3.5 per cent
• Timiskaming –Down 3 per cent
• Parry Sound - Down 2 per cent
• Manitoulin – Down 2 per cent

The north slow to recover

Northern College's president, Audrey Penner, noted that the entire province was affected by the 2008 recession but that northern communities, in particular, have been slower to recover.

There are many factors leading to persistent job and working age population decline, she said. For example, towns reliant on industry -- such as mining -- feel economic impacts the hardest, those who leave town for work choosing not to return and immigrants picking city centres over smaller communities.

This is not all to blame on the recession, Penner said, but it's a more apparent issue amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and one that requires a coordinated and well-thought-out plan.

"There's no one sector that can fix this," she said.

"Post-secondary can't go off and fix it, industry can't go off and fix it. We need to work together. We need to work together with community partners, as well."

Initiatives like the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot have been effective at attracting workers, Penner said, adding that her college has been proactive about enrolling international students and encouraging them to live and work in the north.

Though the president of the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM), Danny Whalen, said the provincial government also needs to provide more incentives to businesses and workers to lure them out of large city centres.

Potential for growth, success

The northern region has plenty of space to accommodate a series of small businesses, Whalen said, including at industrial parks that the province helped finance.

"The municipalities that are successful, if you look at what's created their success, it's small, 10 to 15-employee businesses, but they have a whole bunch of them," Whalen said.

"All of the services are available in the north, so we just need the province to realize that."

Lafleur, however, said communities should be wary of thinking that bringing one major employer to town will solve their problems. If an issue arises with that employer, he said, it could put a local economy in jeopardy.

Northern communities currently do not have the infrastructure to accommodate many large businesses of 100-plus employees, Whalen said, which is why cultivating smaller businesses will be more sustainable.

The Cochrane District has major potential ahead with the series of rare mineral mining projects coming to the area, said Penner. That offers a huge opportunity to capitalize on job growth, infrastructure development and get the local economy booming.

"(We can) get the resources, the people and the bodies," Penner said, "but if everyone's willing and there's that collaborative effort, that's what will make it work and we'll be very successful, I know."