Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Nipissing—Timiskaming

Formed in 2003 by joining the old Nipissing riding to the southern part of Timiskaming—Cochrane, this district reaches from the farm country south of Lake Nipissing north through the Timiskaming District. North Bay, with roughly 54,000 residents at the 2006 census, holds most of the population; beyond it the riding takes in Callander, Powassan, Bonfield, East Ferris, Nipissing First Nation and the town of Mattawa on the Ottawa River, then continues north through Temagami and Latchford to Cobalt and Temiskaming Shores. From Mattawa northward the Ottawa River and Lake Timiskaming form the boundary with Quebec.

Candidates

Anthony Rota (Liberal) — Rota was the two-term incumbent and one of the few Liberals left in northern Ontario. Born in North Bay in 1961, he holds a political science degree from Wilfrid Laurier University, a finance diploma from Algonquin College and an MBA from the University of Ottawa, and is fluent in English, French, Italian and Spanish. Before politics he was Ontario regional manager for the Industrial Research Assistance Program and worked with the Canadian Technology Network in Ottawa. He sat on North Bay council between 1994 and 1997 and chaired its planning and economic development committee, then took the Liberal nomination here on the second ballot in early 2004, won the seat that June and held it in 2006. In opposition he chaired the Liberal caucus and spoke for the party on FedNor, Ottawa's economic development agency for the north.

Joe Sinicrope (Conservative) — Sinicrope was a North Bay lawyer. He had contested the riding's Liberal nomination in 2004, losing to Rota, and returned four years later as the Conservative candidate.

Dianna Allen (NDP) — Allen was self-employed and lived in Parry Sound.

Craig Bridges (Green Party) — A teacher from North Bay, Bridges ran for the Greens.

Andrew Moulden, a physician from Etobicoke, stood for the Canadian Action Party.

About the Riding

North Bay works as the service capital for a large and thinly populated hinterland, with health care, education, government and retail supplying most of the jobs. Canadian Forces Base North Bay, home to 22 Wing and the Canadian side of NORAD's air defence operations, is among the largest employers; in 2006 the wing moved its operations out of the underground complex blasted into the Canadian Shield in the 1960s and into a new building above ground, and decisions about the base and its future are taken in Ottawa. Nipissing University and Canadore College share a campus on the escarpment above the city. The Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, whose rail and bus network ties the region together, maintains major shops in North Bay.

The riding's other half is resource country, and it was hurting. The northern forest industry had been in its worst stretch in living memory through 2007 and 2008, squeezed at once by a Canadian dollar near parity, American duties under the softwood lumber agreement and the disappearance of United States housing demand. Mill shutdowns rippled out through logging contractors and trucking firms in the smaller towns, and federal support for the sector was a recurring demand from candidates of every stripe.

Mining still matters in the Timiskaming District, where Cobalt's silver rush of the early 1900s built the towns that remain, and exploration had picked up with commodity prices. The clay belt around Temiskaming Shores supports dairy, beef and field crops, unusual this far north, and gives the riding a farm constituency alongside its resource workers. Tourism and outfitting fill in seasonal work on the lakes and in Temagami's old-growth pine country.

Funding for northern infrastructure and economic development, the long-gun registry and base operations rounded out the local federal agenda.