Ontario

B

3

Forestry and Fishing

Forests cover 683,000 sq km (264,000 sq mi) of Ontario, or 74 percent of the province. Forestry and timber exports have been central to Ontario’s development since the early 19th century, when the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) cut off British timber supplies in northern Europe. By the mid-19th century, growing American and Canadian needs had added to the demand for Ontario’s timber. The development of the pulp and paper industry in the 20th century spurred growth in Ontario’s forest economy. By 1996, 90,000 people were employed in the industry, producing wood products and pulp and paper and related materials.

About one-half of Ontario’s forest stock is in softwoods that grow in the north, about one-third is mixed forest, and the rest is hardwoods from the south. Spruce, pine, and fir are the leading commercial softwoods. Poplar, birch, and maple are the main commercial hardwoods. Traditionally, the lumber industry was centered in the upper Ottawa Valley, but now sawmills stretch along the southern margin of the Canadian Shield and near the Minnesota border. Wood pulp is the main forestry product, with pulp and paper mills found near power sites all across the shield. There are pulp mills along the northern shore of Lake Superior at Marathon, Terrace Bay, and Nipigon, and another one at Smooth Rock Falls, in eastern Ontario. Paper is made in several areas near the western end of Lake Superior. In western Ontario there are also mills at Fort Frances, Dryden, and Kenora; Kapuskasing and Iroquois Falls are producers in the eastern part of the forest zone.

Ontario’s fishing activity can be divided into commercial fishing and recreational or sport fishing. Although fishing was an important economic activity in the 19th century, the commercial catch is relatively small today. Overfishing, pollution, habitat destruction, and the introduction of predators have greatly reduced catches, although stocks began to revive in the 1990s. A large part of Canada’s freshwater catch comes from Ontario. Lake Erie is the principal fishing area, producing about half of the value of the catch. Perch, smelt, and pickerel are the leading commercial fishes in Lake Erie. Whitefish are taken in Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and Georgian Bay. The major species of fishes caught during recreational fishing are perch, smelt, walleye, and smallmouth bass. Aquaculture, or fish farming, is a growing industry in Ontario. Rainbow trout are the most popular fish at fish farms.

B

4

Mining

Ontario ranks first in Canada for mining, and almost 50,000 Ontarians are employed in the mining industry. Metals mined in the ore-rich Canadian Shield include gold, nickel, copper, zinc, and cobalt. Silver and platinum are also important.

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The mining districts of the Canadian Shield were discovered when work crews penetrated the region while building the transcontinental railway. The large copper deposits of the Sudbury region were first discovered in 1883, and several years later the copper ores were found to contain nickel as well. Sudbury is now one of the world’s most important producers of nickel, and the region also mines gold, silver, cobalt, and platinum.

Gold occurs widely throughout northern Ontario and has been mined since the mid-19th century. One-half of Canada’s gold production comes from Ontario. Iron ore is mined in the Lake Superior region. Ontario is also a major source of magnesium, which is worked on the southeastern margins of the Canadian Shield.

Southern Ontario leads Canada in the production of salt and construction materials such as clay, sand, and gravel. Some gypsum is obtained from the Niagara Escarpment south of Hamilton. Petroleum and natural gas have long been produced south of Lake Huron, and were at one time centered on the aptly named town of Petrolia. There are offshore gas wells along the western edges of Lake Erie.

B

5

Manufacturing

Ontario’s chief economic activity, by a wide margin, is manufacturing. Ontario typically accounts for over one-half of Canada’s national manufacturing output. The manufacturing sector contributed 24 percent of Ontario’s GDP in 1997, and 18 percent of Ontario’s labor force (or over one million people) were employed in some aspect of manufacturing in 2004.

Many factors have contributed to Ontario’s industrial development. The Great Lakes waterway made it convenient to combine iron ore from the Lake Superior region with coal from Pennsylvania in order to produce iron and steel in Ontario. There were excellent natural resources, including minerals, forests, and streams for waterpower. A relatively large population and a skilled labor force also played a part. Proximity to centers of population in the United States provided a convenient export market. However, in the 20th century it was foreign investment in Ontario, particularly by American sources, and the establishment of branch factories, again largely by U.S. businesses, that increased Ontario’s industrial output. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which removed tariffs on imports and exports in Mexico, Canada, and the United States beginning in 1994, also benefited the province’s economy.

Most of Ontario’s manufacturing is concentrated within or near the so-called Golden Horseshoe, which extends around the western end of Lake Ontario from Oshawa through Toronto and Hamilton to the Niagara River. Toronto and its sprawling suburbs form the principal industrial center, and account for almost half of Ontario’s manufacturing establishments. Industries in the Toronto area include food processing and manufacturing machine tools, rubber goods, motor vehicle parts, heavy electrical machinery, agricultural implements, soaps and washing compounds, telecommunications and computer equipment, metal products, furniture, and fixtures.

The chief industry of Ontario is the manufacture of motor vehicles, other transportation equipment, and parts for these machines. Manufacturing is centered at Windsor, Saint Thomas, St. Catharines, Alliston, Oakville, and near Ingersoll, although many component plants exist in the Toronto-Hamilton area. The industry has expanded greatly since the creation of the Canada-United States Automotive Products Agreement (Autopact) of 1965, which removed Canadian import tariffs on cars as long as automakers produced as many cars in Canada as they sold in Canada.

Food and beverage production is varied and widely scattered. Kitchener, an industrial city west of Toronto, has meat-packing plants. Leamington, in the far west near Lake Erie, has canneries. Distilleries and breweries, with a growing number of small, specialist microbreweries, are scattered throughout the more populous parts of southern Ontario. Wineries are chiefly in the Niagara River region. Thunder Bay, with enormous grain storage facilities, also mills flour.

Ontario’s mineral resources are the basis for steelworks at Hamilton and Sault Sainte Marie and metal refineries at Port Colborne and Sudbury. Its timber resources are processed at pulp and paper mills in Thunder Bay and Kenora. Other industries include the manufacture of petroleum products and petrochemicals at Sarnia, textiles and fabricated metals at Brantford and Cambridge, plastic and rubber products at Kitchener, farm implements at St. Catharines, and high-tech and computer goods (including software) in Ottawa and its suburbs and in the Toronto region.

B

6

Services

Services account for more than 70 percent of jobs in present-day Ontario, and almost 4 million people work in service industries. The major service fields in the province are wholesale and retail trade, health care and other social assistance, professional or technical occupations, education, and lodging and food services.

Ontario is a trading economy. Its chief exports are motor vehicles and parts, machinery and mechanical appliances, electrical machinery, non-ferrous metals and related products, and pulp and paper. The top five imports are motor vehicles and parts, machinery and mechanical appliances, electrical machinery, non-ferrous metals and allied products, and scientific, professional, and photographic equipment. Ontario’s largest trading partner within Canada is the province of Québec. Externally the province’s largest trading partner is the United States, receiving the vast majority of Ontario’s total exports. Major international markets outside of the United States include the United Kingdom and Germany.

Tourism is also of major importance in Ontario, and the province has the largest tourist industry in Canada. Most international visitors to Ontario come from the United States (over 30 million in 1997).

C

Infrastructure

Ontario’s infrastructure includes modern multilane highways, international airports, railways, and canals. The province also has an up-to-date and efficient telecommunications network.

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