Dr. David Robinson

Kathleen Wynne made her first serious mistake in dealing with Northern Ontario even before she became premier. Asked wheth­er she supported regional government for the North, she said no. She said she didn’t want to support Northern separation.

Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” It is interesting to think about how Henry would have run Northern Ontario’s forest tenure reform.

As minister of northern development and mines, Rick Bartolucci has published the most important development map of Northern Ontario. It isn’t a map of what he is doing, or even what he plans to do-this map shows what others have stopped doing.

Did you ever wonder what a Northerner is, deep down in the southern mind? Image matters in politics. Why else would Mr. Harper spend millions to destroy the image of Liberal leaders? If you can’t control your image, you can’t control your future.

There is an economic number that is giving me nightmares. I stumbled on the number in an article by Bill McKibben in Rolling Stone in July. He got it from a London research organization called Carbon Tracker Initiative.

The Ministry of Finance has produced the real Northern Growth Plan Ontario. It is called the “Ontario Population Projections Update.” This is the document that will direct most planning decisions for the province.

As an economist I don’t make predictions about climate change. I do try to understand what climate change means for the economy, though, because I need to know where the climate is going to make predictions about the Northern economy.

Last month I talked about Christmas presents for politicians. Here is another: Perverse Cities by Pamela Blais, is the perfect gift for your local council member. The book has a great subtitle: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy and Urban Sprawl.

Tip the globe so you are looking down on the North Pole. It is surrounded by seven countries. The Northern Rim Countries (NORCs), are the USA, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Greenland and Canada.

Say Jeff Rubin is right. Say energy prices go through the roof. Will it really be the “end of growth” as Rubin claims? Jeff Rubin was once the chief economist at CIBC World Markets.