An Exaggerated Demise

Let us, for a moment, pity poor Ontario.

The litany of affronts, indignities and embarrassments over the last two decades is long and inglorious: free trade agreements foisted upon it, careening business cycles and a roller-coaster dollar, wrenching and radical changes in government, ever-increasing taxes and an end to cheap power, never-ending sporting failure and Olympic disappointment (twice), separatist movements in the north, city-state rumblings from Toronto, mayors who provoked blizzards of national mockery, massive power failures and ice storms and G20 fiascos.

All have ruthlessly descended upon the province and its capital like a series of biblical plagues, not to mention a real plague—SARS—in 2003.

In the last two years, Ontario hit rock bottom. To add insult to injury, in 2008 it was announced that Ontario would qualify for equalization. Then, in the summer of 2009, the auto industry, the province’s industrial cornerstone, went...