Touting the concept of a new authority to enable the region to “chart its own course” into the future, the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association released a report on “Enhancing the Economy of Northwestern Ontario” last Friday morning.
“The concept of creating the [Northwestern Ontario Regional Development Authority] came out of months of research and looking at different models that might be effective for Northwestern Ontario,” said Fort Frances Coun. Tannis Drysdale, who also sits on the NOMA board and the Regional Recovery Program Committee (RRPC) responsible for putting together the report.
“We had lots of expert assistance and a broad variety of individuals from trade unions to university professors with backgrounds in economics, and we came up with this concept,” she added.
“I think it’s a unique concept in Canada, perhaps in the world.
“It’s a new way to function,” enthused Coun. Drysdale. “It’s going to be a tremendous amount of work [but] I’m tremendously excited about it.”
The concept of NWORDA would see a broad spectrum of regional representatives working together to identify, promote, and develop economic opportunities in and for Northwestern Ontario.
Coun. Drysdale said she’ll be continuing to work with the RRPC, as NOMA reconstituted it as a working group to develop an implementation strategy for the creation of NWORDA should its creation be broadly supported by key stakeholders across the region.
“It going to be a lot of work, but I hope the benefits make up for that,” she remarked.
NOMA president Michael Power and Ian Angus, chair of the NOMA-led RRPC, officially released the report Friday in Thunder Bay.
“This report has two streams—changes to public policy to enable the northwest to move forward under its own steam, and actions that the northwest itself should take as a means of asserting control over its own future,” said Power, who also is the mayor of Greenstone.
“The key philosophical change that this report represents is that the northwest is no longer going to go cap in hand to the provincial or federal governments asking for handouts,” he added.
“We will take matters into our own hands so that it is the residents of the northwest, not politicians or bureaucrats from Toronto or Ottawa, who are controlling our futures,” Power stressed.
Angus said NWORDA’s role will be “to ensure that, to the best of its ability, and through the co-operation of all of its partners, the people of the northwest become more advantaged than they are today.”
Angus added this new partnership will be built on the credibility of NOMA and the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce (NOACC) in the way they have represented the unique needs of the northwest over many years.”
“As with NOMA and NOACC, this new organization must be focused, must work to ensure that the northwest speaks with a united voice, and must make as its priority the economic health of the region,” he stressed.
At its annual general meeting last spring in Thunder Bay, NOMA decided to embark on a path that was designed to assist the region in recovering from a declining population combined with a major reduction in forestry industry employment.
This path focused on the creation of a Regional Recovery Program Committee, with a mandate to find solutions to the economic crisis Northwestern Ontario faces.
Initially, it was crafted as a way to find solutions that would be implemented by the other orders of government—federal and provincial.
“However, one of the key outcomes of this process is recognition that the northwest will have better success if we find and implement our own solutions,” said Power.
He noted the complex decisions affecting the northwest are best understood and made by those who live here, adding the strongest voice for this region comes through the strength of a consensual union of common interests.
In addition to the concept of NWORDA, the RRPC also identified in the report a number of key areas “where work is necessary to move the economy forward in the region,” some of which require the creation of a task force or committee with a specific mandate.
These include:
•a regional enhancement committee to provide region-wide leadership for community and labour adjustment;
•a task force on energy to examine and develop a regional energy authority;
•a regional health and education task force;
•a Northwestern Ontario highway task force to focus on access to a growing economy;
•a regional tourism council to develop and foster a tourism strategy that would address planning, policy, and product development;
•a Northwestern Ontario research investment and development corporation to provide “a co-ordinated entry point into the knowledge economy by marketing the region as a node for partnerships and immigration”; and
•a Northwestern Ontario Policy Research Institute, which would serve as “an arm’s-length source of policy advice to regional leaders and a repository of knowledge and data on the region.”
The report has been distributed to various stakeholders across the region with a request that they endorse it.
Formal presentations will be made to the three district municipal leagues, starting with the Rainy River District Municipal Association this Saturday (Jan. 27) in Emo.
The report also will provide the key focus of discussion at NOMA’s annual general meeting April 25-28 in Dryden.
The full report is available to the public at www.noma.on.ca
Fort Frances Times
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