Dear Dalton

Dear Mr. Premier,
The Conference Board of Canada today projected that Manitoba will lead all the other provinces in economic activity in 2008. I live in Kenora, Ontario, about 20 minutes east of the Manitoba border. My daughter and son-in-law moved to Manitoba and while I might be pleased for their prospects, I also have friends, family and colleagues in Kenora, Nipigon, Red Rock, Thunder Bay, Dryden and Atikokan. We on this side of the border have the same renewable water powers, the same skilled labour, similar manufacturing capacity and the same abundance of raw materials from the Boreal Forest and Canadian Shield as Manitoba. We are about the same distance from the Alberta energy powerhouse, (Kenora being closer to Edmonton than it is to Toronto,) yet our unemployment rate is higher than even Ontario's lagging average. Projections for our region are not very hopeful either.
Can you please explain why the Manitoba economy should be red hot and Northwestern Ontario's; -immediately next door, should be in the dumpster?
Like Winnipeg, our urban centers are located on Canada's main economic, communication and transportation corridor. We too have access to the Trans Canada Highway, the Trans Canada Pipeline and both transcontinental rail lines. The main line fibre optic cables and micro-wave transmission systems are pulsing the same amount of digital information past my front door as my western neighbours’, - and at the same speed. This busy location eliminates ‘isolation’ as a possible hindrance and, since our communities are either about the same latitude or closer to the US border than is Portage and Main, it cannot be suggested that our economic malaise has something to do with being 'northern'. Relative to ALL our prospering western neighbours, we are decidedly southern, not 'northern'.
It is worth noting here that Manitoba's cheap hydro-electric power is made possible in significant part by the flooding of thousands of acres of Northwestern Ontario land and the strict regulation of our water flows and levels. Ontario also freely grants Manitoba's largest city the privilege of diverting their municipal water supply from an Ontario lake. In thanks for this privilege, Winnipeg demands that folks on this side of the border abandon the prospect of developing the substantial, proven and pre-existing mining resources in that watershed. For its part, Manitoba is uncharacteristically unfriendly to any suggestion that there might be some fair quid pro quo arrangement to offset the substantial loss to Ontario communities and companies who might legitimately expect to benefit from the development of our historic Ontario mineral resources.
Living here one sees this juxtaposition of contrasting standards and economic prospects and can't help but find it curious. My fellow Western Ontario neighbours and I would deeply appreciate it if you were able to provide just two or three logical and equitable reasons why our communities in this part of Ontario should have to struggle and suffer when, a few short miles away, Manitoba leads the entire country in economic growth. What is Ontario’s government doing, (-or not doing,) differently than Manitoba that is resulting in such dramatically different results on our side of the border?