Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.  

Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research and Development at Laurentian University. drobinson@laurentian.ca 

Premier Brad Wall is proud of Saskatchewan. The province is booming. Migration from other provinces is up 40 per cent —people are streaming in from places like Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta. The province is even planning a jobs mission to Ireland to recruit workers.

But here is a question. Is our premier proud of Northern Ontario? Is anyone proud? In fact, is there anyone to be proud?

Saskatchewan, with about 33 per cent more people than Northern Ontario, and with only 80 per cent of the area of Northern Ontario, is managed by 58 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). In efficient Northern Ontario, we make do with 10 MPPs. And 10 per cent of a premier.

But if Ontario is so efficient, why is Saskatchewan doing so well by comparison? Read the rest of this entry »

Ron Grech is a reporter for The Daily Press, the city of Timmins newspaper. Contact the writer at  rgrech@thedailypress.ca

Northerners will continue to be disappointed by government decisions as long as they don’t have full control of their energy and natural resources.

That was the key message conveyed by a Northern economist who spoke prior to the all-candidates meeting hosted by the Timmins Chamber of Commerce at O’Gorman High School Wednesday night.

Dr. David Robinson suggested the most important question local candidates should be asked is: “How are you going to give us real control of our own space and our own resources?”

Robinson, who is director of the Institute for Northern Ontario Research and Development at Laurentian University was invited by the Timmins chamber as part of its Ask The Expert series of seminars. Read the rest of this entry »

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.  Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research and Development at Laurentian University. drobinson@laurentian.ca 

The Dark Age begins in less than 10 years. Sometime before 2021, southern Ontario will begin rolling brownouts and plant closures. It will happen in the summer because Torontonians really need their air conditioners. It will happen because no one wants to pay full cost for power. And it will kill jobs.

By 2021, Ontario’s demand for electricity will have outrun supply. Shortages that began before 2002 were hidden when the recession cut manufacturing jobs. As the economy recovers, and the population of southern Ontario grows, a gap will open up between demand and supply. Energy conservation and repairing old nuclear plants will help, but won’t fill that gap.

Why should Northerners care? Because northern rivers will be poured into the gap. Because the price of electricity will be so high that jobs will be lost in Northern Ontario. Because even though demand for northern wood, metal water and power is rising, Northern Ontario will continue to stagnate.

Most of the hydroelectric capacity in Northern Ontario has been already been developed. Read the rest of this entry »

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.  Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research and Development at Laurentian University. drobinson@laurentian.ca His column was published in the October, 2010 issue.

We all wonder why some resource-rich regions like Alberta and Saskatchewan do so much better than other resource-rich regions like Northern Ontario.  And why do some boreal regions, like Sweden, Norway and Finland become rich, creative powerhouses while young people flee others – like Northern Ontario? – David Robinson

Are you old enough to remember Van Morrison’s “Days Like This”? The song has a wonderful line about days when “all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they fit.” It was one of those days when I stumbled on a study from Harvard that answered some questions about Northern Ontario for me.

We all wonder why some resource-rich regions like Alberta and Saskatchewan do so much better than other resource-rich regions like Northern Ontario. And why some communities without resources – think of Singapore and Denmark, and Holland – do well and others basically go nowhere. And why do some boreal regions, like Sweden, Norway and Finland become rich, creative powerhouses while young people flee others – like Northern Ontario?

Now I know some people think Northern Ontario is doing pretty well – and we darned well should be. We are in the early stages of the biggest worldwide resource boom ever. Treading water in this economy is probably easier than sinking. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. David Robinson drobinson@laurentian.ca is an economist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada. His column was originally published in July issue of Northern Ontario Business. Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

I genuinely like politicians. The ones I know are all smart people with good people skills. Some of them even buy me lunch.

It bothers me when a politician I like pushes a policy that I know is dumb. I absolutely cringe when the provincial conservative leader Tim Hudak and provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath talk about the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST).

As an economist, I know that the HST is a good idea. The Provincial Sales Tax (PST) is out of date, costly to operate, badly designed and it penalizes jobs in Ontario. The PST has all the virtues of a car engine with a ruptured head-gasket, a broken valve and cracked exhaust manifold. It might still run, but it is noisy, stinky and inefficient.

Let me be clear about this: the vast majority of economists support combining the federal and provincial sales taxes. We are so sure that a bunch of Canada’s most respected economists produced an open letter saying they “strongly support implementation of the HST,” because “it will promote investment, jobs, and higher wages.” One leading tax analyst showed harmonization in B.C. will create 113,000 new jobs by the end of the decade; Ontario is three times as big and has relatively more manufacturing. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. David Robinson is an economist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada. His column was originally published in May 2010 issue of Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal a magazine that showcases the mining expertise of North Bay, Timmins and Sudbury.  drobinson@laurentian.ca

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

One way to get attention in the mining world is to mention the Ring of Fire. Apparently, it doesn’t matter whether your column is really about the Ring of Fire. Just mention this new wonder of the world and you get noticed.

I am far too proud to use such a sleazy technique, but the Ring of Fire (three mentions so far) is an enormous opportunity for the mining supply and services sector.  In fact, the Ring of Fire offers a chance to move Northern Ontario’s mining supply and services sector to a new level.

Cliffs Natural Resources intends to process as much as 800,000 tons of chromite annually, which would place the company in fifth place among producing countries – between Russia and Brazil. Production at that rate could continue for a hundred years. At 2007 prices, the annual value would exceed $250 million. Current prices are lower but expected to rise as demand for stainless steel surges.

For the province, developing the Ring of Fire will produce a huge building boom. It will provide jobs for miners and for the 1,200 people in three small First Nation communities: Webequie, Neskantaga and Marten Falls.  Since these are fly-in communities, the new mines will have to pay for all-weather roads and a rail line. Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research at Laurentian University. robinson@laurentian.ca This column was originally published in the May, 2010 edition of Northern Ontario Business

The Growth Plan for Northern Ontario is based on a simple prediction. The majority of communities in Northern Ontario will continue to decline. Behind that prediction is an economic analysis that says the forests of Northern Ontario will provide fewer and fewer good jobs.

The analysis is convincing. The forest industry must cut costs to compete. There will be fewer mills. Mills will be more automated. Jobs will vanish. The wood industry is trying to respond. It has created organizations to develop new technologies, new products and new markets. FPInnovations, which was created in 2007, now claims to be “the world’s largest private not-for-profit forest-sector research institute.

” Wood WORKS!”, a program led by the Canadian Wood Council is campaigning to make wood the main building material for all types of construction. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. David Robinson drobinson@laurentian.ca is an economist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada. His column was originally published in Northern Ontario Business.

The year 1990 was the high point in development planning for the North. The most dramatic and successful initiatives came from a southerner, David Peterson.

Peterson was elected in 1985. He immediately created a new Ministry of Northern Affairs and Mines. He appointed himself minister and went to work. He moved the Ministry of Northern Development and the Ontario Geological Survey to the North. This was the most effective single development decision of the last 30 years. Then the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Act was passed in 1990. And that was the year the voters threw Peterson out. Not much has happened since.

Leonard Cohen must have been thinking of this wild affair when he sang: Read the rest of this entry »

David Robinson is an Economist at Sudbury’s Laurentian University drobinson@laurentian.ca

Outer space has more than its share of miners and no mining suppliers. I wonder how they do it.

You may not have noticed, but the highest grossing movie in history was a mining movie. Technical support for the industry was provided by the military. The mining industry lost. The supply industry didn’t even show. The movie was Avatar.

Sci-fi fans know that one of the main activities in outer space is mining. There are stories about asteroid mining, lunar mining, mining on Mars and on planets half a galaxy away. Mining provides a reason to be in space. Mining supplies everything you need to live in space.

Mining supplies water, precious metals, helium 3 for energy and exotic jewels to drive the most unlikely plots. Mining technology is used to blow up asteroids headed for Earth. There are claim jumpers in space and whole underdeveloped worlds run by cruel mining companies. Mining in space is something the sci-fi writers take seriously. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. David Robinson - Laurentian University Economist

 Dr. David Robinson is an economist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada. His column was originally published in Northern Ontario Business.

Harper has adopted the coalition budget. He will spend up to $30 billion to moderate the recession that he recently discovered. That is $895.66 for each man, woman and child in Canada. Northern Ontario has 678,900 of Canada’s 33,495,032 citizens. Our share of the stimulus package is $563 million. We should make sure it is well spent.

Economic stimulus is not about bailing out companies by giving them money. It is about helping businesses survive by stimulating demand. That’s why there is so much emphasis on  infrastructure projects. Infrastructure usually means roads, and other public works. Infrastructure projects put the construction industry to work. The construction industry hires unemployed workers. Since supplies are generally bought locally, infrastructure projects boost the local economy.

Tax cuts, on the other hand, are a very poor way to help Northern Ontario. If you give every Northerner $895, a lot of it would be spent on consumer goods. Canada imports consumer goods, so a tax cut goes almost directly to foreign producers. The Harper-Flaherty GST cut was terrific for our trading partners.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. David Robinson - Laurentian University Economics Professor

The Institute of Northern Ontario Research and Development (INORD)

Copper Cliff, Ontario
December 4, 2008

HOW I GOT INTO THIS

Let me start by telling how this speech got its title. A few months ago I was asked what I would talk about. We had a stock market commotion going on, a Canadian election underway, and an American election too. So I said I could either use the speech that I used two years ago, or I could wait until the dust settled.

I obviously made the wrong choice. I had no ideas of the interesting and surprising twists that that a parliamentary system can provide. We have a temporary resolution as of 11:45 this morning that seems to tell us the government is likely to abandon the contractionary policies announced last week by Finance Minister Flaherty. The government will be forced to adopt a program much closer to that proposed by the opposition parties that make up the “Coalition.” That is good news for Sudbury, I would argue, and it brings Canadian policy in line with our industrialized partners.

When I came through the door today I had not yet heard of the reorganization announced by the city’s largest employer. Vale confirmed it will close its Copper Cliff South mine for an “undetermined period.” The company’s Voisey’s Bay mine in Newfoundland, which ships nickel to facilities in Sudbury for processing, will be shut down during the entire month of July. The company also put off the development of its Copper Cliff Deep project, deferring the expenditure of $138-million (U.S.) for at least a year.

Vale had announced on Wednesday it is laying off 1,300 workers and putting 5,500 more on paid leave. Layoffs by Vale, one of Brazil’s two leading companies along with state oil company Petrobras are being taken as evidence that emerging markets have not ”decoupled” from the US as some economists hoped.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. David Robinson - Laurentian University Economics Professor

drobinson@laurentian.ca

For an economist, these are interesting times. The accumulating American triple deficit – on trade, the government budget and household spending – finally caught up with the people who live by lending. We get to see the most vehemently capitalist governments nationalizing banks and supporting the value of vast pools of imaginary assets. We even get to watch executives leaping off tall buildings with their golden parachutes.

For the mining industry and industry suppliers, the times are more than just interesting. Economic growth is utterly dependent on what the mining sector produces, and good times in the mining sector depend on economic growth.

The question on everybody’s mind as this column goes to press is whether the lunatics in the financial sector have actually pushed the world economy off the tracks. They have done it before.

The most common view out in the infosphere is that a world recession is almost inevitable. The majority of guesses say it could last six months to two years. There are a few who think the world will end, and a few who think that unprecedented co-operation among governments will have unprecedented results.

No one really believes that the long run story has changed. The BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India and China – still have the population, the potential and the momentum they had when Goldman Sachs identified them in 2001. They have been driving world growth, with help from the American consumer. Those BRIC consumers are just getting going.

Rio Tinto chief executive Tom Albanese reminded shareholders in October that China’s economy is driven far more by industrialization and urbanization than by exports to the USA. The company expects demand in China to strengthen across a range of Rio Tinto products.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. David Robinson - Laurentian University Economics Professor

Dr. David Robinson

Mining supply and service companies don’t normally own gold mines, but there are gold mines out there for companies that are looking. With mining booming and commentators expecting the good times to last, some innovations are getting long-overdue attention. Others are still waiting for the right company, or the right innovator to stumble across them.  It is a good time to go prospecting.

To position your company for the long run, you might want to look at some of the wilder prospects right now.  The trick is to figure out where to look. If it were easy, everyone would be rich. Strong prices and sustained demand are making a lot of our companies rich, in fact, but there are still some pretty interesting properties to stake. Here are a few hints.

 Think about boots, for example. Everyone wears boots. Anyone who has spent a day on his feet at a mine site knows that boots aren’t perfect. The way to make money on boots is to find a way to make boots increase productivity, reduce injuries, and minimize time lost. But how?

The gold mine is probably in custom orthotics. Bad boots hurt workers and cost companies money. Custom insoles reduce fatigue, backache and stress on the knees. Fatigue causes accidents and backache calls for prescription drugs and time off.  Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. David Robinson - Laurentian University Economics Professor

Scott Tiffin is a Canadian who lives in Chile. For the last five years he has been Director of Research and International Relations at the Universidad Alfonso Ibanez in Santiago, one of the best business schools in Latin America. Scott is an expert on entrepreneurship. He wants to help Chileans develop a dynamic mining supply sector, so last week Scott came to Sudbury to steal our ideas.

Scott especially wants to know how universities help resource sector businesses grow. He will look at Chilean, Canadian and Finnish or Australian examples to identify “best practices’’ that can be used to promote Chilean development.

The visit uncovered a few surprises: one Laurentian University Economics professor just back from Chile where he talked about how the supply and service sector developed, a team from the Faculty of Management collaborating with Chilean researchers to study small firms in the mining sector, and a couple of engineers just back from giving a course in Antofagasta. They didn’t know about each other’s work.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. David Robinson - Laurentian University Economics Professor

Knowing how things work used to be the key to industrial success. Today, you have to know how things change. At the national level and in industry, innovation is the secret ingredient for success. Countries that innovate will grow wealthy. Companies with the best methods and the best technologies will grow. That’s the new gospel.

That’s why governments are looking for the magic policy to accelerate innovation and commercialization of new technologies. That’s why the mining supply and service sector is the key to the future of mining.

 There has been a flood of research on innovation systems. Researchers have focused on the ends of the supply chain – on research institutions and final users. Acting on that research, policy makers created a Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) at Laurentian University to bring mining companies and university researchers together.

Read the rest of this entry »