The Northern Policy Institute recently released a report comparing growth in northern Ontario to other northern regions – including Nunavut, Alaska, Siberia, Scandanavia and even Iceland. Study author David MacKinnon says there is a lot we can learn:

He says we have the second largest northern region in the world … and we should look beyond comparisons to southern Ontario. He points to Iceland as an expample and how they have come back from financial catatastrophe to see an increase of 35% in tourism, while we remain stagnant.

He says modern technology makes geographic isolation a non factor:

At the sametime he doesn’t buy into the notion that northern Ontario is being exploited by the south. There’s been no comprensive study on the matter – which is surprising:

He says the Ontario government and StatsCan could put together such a study at relatively low cost.