OTTAWA — Bryon Mott has time on his hands, and maybe on his side.

The 28-year-old lost his job at the Electro-Motive plant earlier this month, along with everyone else he worked with at the facility in London, Ont.

Mott isn't ready to leave London, but he has heard from friends out West trying to lure him out of Ontario and toward the promise of steady work.

"It's not something we haven't thought of in the last three years," Mott said.

"My wife is born and raised in London. It's not something for me that would happen right away. I'm a young guy. I have other options."

If he ever decides to go, Mott will join a growing number of people who have left Ontario, a pattern of migration that has slowed growth in the country's largest province, resulting in the lowest growth rate Ontario has experienced in the past quarter century.

Between 2006 and 2011, Ontario's population grew by 5.7 per cent, according to census data released Wednesday, lower than the national average of 6.6 per cent.

"What it (the numbers) doesn't show is the dire straits Ontario is really in. The deficit in Ontario isn't a result of Liberal spending or whatever partisan crap you want to say," Mott said.

"It's a result of a lack of good-paying jobs."

The decline in growth in Ontario is largely a result of its inability to lure new immigrants away from neighbouring provinces, the loss of residents leaving to other provinces and territories, all pushed by an economy that has slowed down since the global recession began in 2008, according to Statistics Canada.

The economic impact to the province's manufacturing sector was on display on Feb. 3 when Progress Rail, a U.S.-based subsidiary of Caterpillar Inc., closed the Electro-Motive plant's doors following unsuccessful contract negotiations.

More than 450 workers lost their jobs at the plant, following their lockout on Jan. 1 and after they rejected a new collective agreement that would have cut wages for some workers from $35 an hour to $18 an hour.

Mott said he knows of welders from the factory that have moved out of Ontario, heading West to earn more than $40 per hour for their labour.

"I know that the money is there," Mott said.

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce, which represents 60,000 businesses in the province, sees the dip in the economy and declining population growth as one issue. All the economic trends in the province, such as a faltering manufacturing sector, are related to population trends, said Angie Brennand, the chamber's vice-president of policy and government relations.

"Ontario is really facing a turning point in its economic history," she said.

But percentages are one thing. Volume is another and Ontario still has plenty of it.

Between 2006 and 2011, Ontario added more than 691,000 new citizens — just less than double the number of new citizens added to Quebec and Alberta, respectively, Nos. 2 and 3 in provincial growth by sheer numbers.

The province's population now stands at more than 12.8 million, the only province in the country with more than 10 million residents.

As well, Ontario's share of the country's population was at 38.4 per cent in 2011, more than the western provinces (30.7 per cent), Quebec (23.6 per cent) and the Atlantic provinces (seven per cent).

Numbers aside, Brennand still sees a need to position Ontario back on top. Among the suggestions to turn around the declining growth — and the economy — are delving into a resource-rich area of northern Ontario, known as the "Ring of Fire."

According to the Ontario government, the area stretching west of James Bay has one of the key ingredients needed to make stainless steel — chromite.

The economic benefits could be a boon for local First Nations communities, if the area is heavily mined.

Taking a page out of the West's boom, Brennand said, tapping those resources should attract more newcomers to Ontario.

"At the end of the day, if we can usher in Ontario's next great economic era that will in turn, bring people and jobs to Ontario," she said. "That will result in some pretty strong population numbers."

Mott says he's ready to stick around to see the economic turnaround.

"I can always adapt and survive," Mott said. "Even though I take a hit right now, I'll continue to make myself more attractive with more education and I'll climb my way back up the ladder."

jpress@postmedia.com

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