The Green Party understands that Northern Ontario faces a unique set of challenges because of the mounting pressures of international competition on the supply-side of natural resource economics, particularly in the forest sector. The Green Party acknowledges that the resource sector will remain an important factor in the Northern economy. However the North must diversify its economy to retain its workforce and standard of living, It could so through an aggressive pursuit of secondary and tertiary manufacturing opportunities to create “value added” products, and by capitalizing on the tourism opportunities that lie in its inherent natural beauty.

The Green Party also understands that climate change will impact Northern communities more severely than those in other regions, and that Ontario must act now to ensure the people living in this region are provided with additional assistance to adapt to this environmental reality.

To achieve these goals, the Green Party of Ontario will:

■ Invest $90 million in health and well-being, including $20 million to get healthier fresh food into remote communities and to promote local market gardening; $35 million to locate more health care and social services workers in remote communities; $20 million for further development of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine’s outreach programming; and $15 million to bring the Northern Health Travel Grant benefits into line with those in the rest of the province.

■ Inject $180 million into economic development initiatives, including $95 million for innovation centres and as seed money and incentives to encourage the development of secondary and tertiary resource processing and manufacturing industries, including non-timber forest resources; $20 million each to support mineral exploration, local food storage and processing facilities, and new forest industry energy generating capacity; $20 million for further expansion of high-speed Internet access; and $5 million towards promoting Northern tourism.

■ Allocate $55 million to environmental issues, including $25 million for development of Northern-located renewable energy technologies; and $10 million each for researching the effects of climate change on forest ecosystems, subsidies for the higher costs (distance factors, smaller communities) of a comprehensive Northern recycling program, and the enhancement of a Northern landscapes protected-areas program.

■ Invest $45 million in education, including $20 million for centres of excellence associated with Northern universities and colleges; $15 million for continuing education outreach; and $5 million each for local entrepreneurial training, for programs that promote community youth involvement and regionally appropriate outdoor education programs such as canoeing, winter camping, etc., and to compensate for the higher Northern cost/student of elementary and high school recreation programs.

■ Invest $45 million in the general well-being of communities and citizens, including $20 million as seed money for urban parks, community beautification and waterfront development enhancement projects; $10 million for vehicle-access recreation; $5 million for remote recreation opportunities; and $10 million for cultural activities and programming.

■ Inject $25 million towards improving regional transportation linkages, including $15 million for passenger rail and $10 million assistance for community airport programs.

■ Apply $50 million to the higher per capita costs of Northern infrastructure work to offset the increased expense of dealing with bedrock, frost and smaller scale and remote projects.

■ Invest $5 million to fund periodic travel of the District Courts to outlying communities.