【正文】 Canadian regional development experience is useful to look at for two reasons: ? Canada has been trying to promote regional development as long or longer that most other countries in the world. ? Canada is the only country in the world that has a constitutional mitment to trying to achieve equality of opportunity in all regions of the country. Canada can be divided into four principal regions: ? the Atlantic Region (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island) ? Central Canada (Quebec and Ontario) ? the Prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta) ? British Columbia Often, Quebec and Ontario are considered separately and most federal programs are, in fact, operated on a provincial basis, ., each province is considered separately. This happens largely for political reasons. Historically, the two regions of Canada that have been below the national average per capita ine are the Atlantic Region and the Prairies. More recently, Alberta and Saskatchewan have both been growing significantly so that they are no longer below the national average and Newfoundland has also moved up significantly. In all three cases, this has happened primarily because these provinces have significant natural resources whose prices have been rising. Both Alberta and Newfoundland have oil and natural gas and Saskatchewan has oil and potash. So the four provinces that continue to lag behind the country as a whole are ? Nova Scotia ? New Brunswick ? Manitoba ? Prince Edward Island It is also important to note that there are major areas within some of the other provinces that also lag behind. Much of rural Quebec, which is also the most francophone part of Quebec, Northern Ontario, Northern British Columbia are just a few examples. What this demonstrates is why the definition of a region is so important. If we are going to pursue a policy to try to eliminate regional disparities, it is very important to agree in advance on what our definition of a region is going to be. If we defi