TORONTO - Taxes and fees collected from resource companies in northern Ontario should stay there, New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton said Monday as he announced a pre-election plan to shift an extra $400 million to the province's north.
Even though the northern economy is contending with massive job losses and unique geographical challenges that impact business, the government has long squeezed the struggling region for every penny it can, Hampton said.
Instead, it's time northern Ontario was rewarded for its contributions to the economy and allowed to keep the proceeds from levies on mining profits, the harvest of Crown timber and hydroelectric power -- taxes and fees that aren't charged elsewhere in the province, he said.
"Toronto doesn't pay resource revenues, Windsor doesn't pay resource revenues, Kingston doesn't pay resource revenues,'' Hampton said. "By and large, most of southern Ontario does not pay any resource revenues at all.''
"People are saying this revenue is badly needed in this region.''
Northern Ontario has lost more than 11,000 forestry jobs since the Liberals took office in 2003, Hampton argued -- lost wages that amount to about a billion dollars a year that's no longer being fed into local economies.
Minister of Natural Resources David Ramsay dismissed the NDP's plan as laughable and predicted voters wouldn't buy into it because "people aren't stupid and people know the work the McGuinty government has done.''
"We pour millions of more dollars into northern Ontario than ever leaves the north, and (the NDP) should know that,'' Ramsay said.
"They make it seem like all the money's coming out and nothing's going in when it's the exact reverse.''
Ramsay said the province's mining profits tax brought in about $46 million last year, less than what the government funnelled into northern Ontario from provincial park camping fees.
And of the $65 million a year that the Crown timber charge generates, the majority of that money goes towards forest renewal, Ramsay said.
He also disputed the NDP's job-loss numbers and said the total is actually closer to 7,000, once temporary layoffs are taken into account.
Conservative critic Norm Miller didn't criticize the NDP's strategy, but instead talked up leader John Tory's alternative, which would do away with a tax on diamond mining, move about 10 per cent of the government's workforce to offices up north and invest in northern education.
A new research and development strategy at northern colleges and universities could eventually be worth $100 million, according to the Conservative platform.
Hampton, who represents the northern Ontario riding of Kenora-Rainy River, said Monday's announcement is only part of his overall election strategy for northern Ontario and is "just the beginning, not the end.''
"We felt this issue is so fundamental that this would be the first piece we would announce,'' he said.
Hampton also said some of the $400 million in extra funding could go toward forming partnerships with aboriginal communities to establish a resource-revenue sharing plan.
"The best of the minerals and mining and forest-sector opportunities are now north of the 51st parallel, which is inhabited almost totally by First Nations,'' he said.
"They've indicated a prerequisite to any discussions about forestry development, or mining development, or water power development, is a revenue-sharing strategy.''
