Is this really about jobs, development and good health and education services for the North?

Or is this a last-ditch pitch by the Liberals to shore up their fortunes in a part of the province that has felt shunned and ignored for the past seven years?

The Conference Board of Canada released damning figures Thursday that reveal northern Ontario had the second slowest growth in the country — after northern Quebec.

Hard hit by the downturn in forestry and associated manufacturing, from 1999-2008, northern Ontario clocked only a 3% growth rate. Quebec’s was lowest overall at 2.2% — but neighbouring northern Manitoba’s growth rate was 12.2% and southern Ontario came in at 8.5%.

Fuelled by mining, oil and gas, northern Newfoundland and Labrador notched a whopping 63.8% — the highest percentage growth in GDP per capita in the country.

Gravelle refused to discuss details Thursday, but said the document would be, “By northerners, for northerners.

“It’s not a document where Queen’s Park is telling the north what should happen.

“It’s very much a document that will reflect northerners’ priorities,” he said.

That’s a change.

Northerners are tired of having government (a) ignore them or, worse (b) foist on them unpopular programs that sell well with latte-loving eco-babblers in downtown Toronto, but which wreak havoc in the North.

Last year, the government rammed through its Far North Act, over the strenuous objections of northern mayors, chambers of commerce and aboriginal groups who said it will hamper development.

Gravelle would not comment on whether the growth plan will include relief from sky high hydro rates that are threatening to push refining from the ore-rich “Ring of Fire” out of the province.

That happened recently in Timmins, when Xstrata moved its metallurgical site to Quebec, were hydro is cheaper.

Cliff’s Resources is the major developer of chromite in northwestern Ontario and is looking for help building a rail line and infrastructure to the remote site and relief on hydro rates.

Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson says while the economy of the northwest has been decimated, the northeast is not doing so badly.

But you can thank Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi more than Premier Dalton McGuinty for that.

Unrest in the Middle East is causing gold prices to soar. That makes it more economical to expand older mines and open new ones.

“When you’ve got $1,400 (an ounce) gold, you build Detour Lake, you build Northwest, you do these things,” said Bisson, referring to newly opened and expanded gold mines.

“Cliffs and Ring of Fire — it ain’t going to happen unless we deal with the electricity issue and we deal with the infrastructure rail issue,” he said.

Bisson said the government’s done nothing to address these issues so far and the growth plan is mostly about the Liberals’ vulnerability in the north.

With David Ramsay quitting, the Timiskaming Cochrane seat is likely to go NDP. Bill Mauro barely squeaked to victory in Thunder Bay-Atikokan in 2007 and could well lose this time around. Even safe seats like Gravelle’s Thunder Bay-Superior North could be up for grabs.

So is this growth plan really about developing the North?

Or is it all about shoring up Liberal political fortunes in a part of the province they’ve ignored for so long?

christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca Twitter: @ChrizBlizz