Population, Structure, and Employment in Northern Ontario: Expansion and Decline in a Hinterland-Colonial Region, 1871-2021

ISBN-13: 9780776641676 / Angielski

David Leadbeater;Pierre Anctil;Tomasz Mrozewski

Opis

The study provides an overview of major long-term population, employment, and urban concentration trends since 1871in the region now called "Northern Ontario" (or "Nord de l'Ontario"). Based on original historical tables, the study discusses patterns of change at not only Northern Ontario regional level relative to Southern Ontario but also the district and community levels. Further, the study critically examines employment-population ratios, unemployment, and economic dependency, particularly for recent decades of decline since the 1970s, and it questions narrowly demographic explanations of population decline. Attention is given to the misuse and variety of dependency ratios in understanding Northern demographic conditions. The study's perspective is Northern Ontario as a hinterland-colonial region, and that colonial conditions are foundational in comprehending the development of Northern Ontario. Though deeply experienced by Indigenous peoples, the settler-colonial structure of Northern Ontario's development plays little explicit analytical role in official government discussions and policy. This "moose in the room" - hinterland-colonial conditions - deserves much greater attention. The present study contributes in terms of original tables on Indigenous relative to settler populations, treaty and reserve areas, and provincially controlled "unorganized territories." As well, it looks at colonial biases in the census data as a contribution towards decolonizing changes in official statistics.