Building a foundation for housing, industry and stronger social supports
Kaleb Firth moved to the Rainy River District as a child in 1996 when his father took a job at the Barwick OSB plant. Firth is running for council as an incumbent, having joined council following the resignation of David Kircher in 2024. As the first runner-up in the 2022 election and was invited to join council at that time.
Firth’s background includes a business and education degree from Providence University College and work experience in social services, education and business. He currently operates Northern Sky Solutions, which offers property management services across the district.
Firth said his experience as a Sea Cadet has helped form the basis of his leadership style.
“My leadership foundation was cultivated in my youth through the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets,” he said. “I spent four and a half years in the Sea Cadet movement as a youth, travelling all over the country. I’ve worked in different roles in a lot of the quick-service restaurants, McDonald’s and Boston Pizza. So I’ve learned how to manage people, how to work with people, how to work under stress, how to work quickly and be efficient.”
Firth has also gained an array of volunteer experience with involvement in a number of service organizations including the Lions Club, Kiwanis Club, and minor hockey.
“I reffed for over 11 years, so I’ve always had some form of not just giving back, but connectivity to the community. Most recently, this last winter, I had the privilege of helping the Salvation Army with their kettle campaign, and we were able to raise over $35,000 for the local food bank.”
The need to develop more housing in town is high on Firth’s list of priorities, but he feels that council shouldn’t be involved in the development game.
“Council’s role in this is we’re not a developer, but what we can do is we can set the environment,” he said. “We can set the table and incentivize and create an environment that is pro-development. We don’t have developmental service charges here, unlike a lot of municipalities in eastern Ontario. We do have land available. We do know the obstacles.”
Among those obstacles is the high cost of labour and materials, Firth said, noting that construction on a new housing project at the Shevlin woodyard has suffered from a lack of planning in a reasonable timeframe.
“One of the obstacles that we’re obviously seeing right now in the [Shevlin] woodyard is that we didn’t prepare the land for development. We waited for the door to be knocked on first. Now we’re really hoping that the averaging is going to come down so that the zoning can be approved. We’re at the mercy of the data at the moment.”
Firth also brought a notice of motion earlier in this term of council which resulted in the creation of a new Community Improvement Plan for Fort Frances. The proposed plan is a long-term strategy to encourage housing development, downtown revitalization, business investment and property improvements through a series of grants and incentive programs. It will be up for consideration and approval by the new council, after which the incentive programs could be implemented to support community growth and redevelopment.
Also among Firth’s priorities is the strengthening of social services, which means addressing practical issues such as transportation, childcare and neighbourhood connectivity. Residents facing extra expenses to travel or arrange childcare are less able to participate fully in the community, he said, making it essential to remove those barriers.
“We have no public transit. We have limited daycare and afterschool care for kids. We have a very strong disconnect between the north part of the tracks and the rest of the community. So, if we want to build capacity, we have to start looking in the mirror and saying, ‘Ok, how do we create the environment for change? How do we remove the barriers to make it even easier?’ If I’m in the north end and I have to pay $25 in a cab and $50 to the babysitter… It’s simple math. We have to make things easier.”
Firth also believes that the next four years of council will be critical to bringing new business and industry to town by ensuring that the infrastructure is there to it.
“Whether it’s First Light, whether it’s the battery storage, whether it’s the WBCEC (Wanagekong-Biiwega’iganan Clean Energy Corp.) and [Vancouver fuel tech developer] Highbury with the proposed biofuel plant,” Firth said.
“There are other potential new green energy projects that are coming to light as well because now we’re going to have this new power that’s available. [Fort Frances Power Corp.] is going to need sizable strategic investments that we’re going to have to show courage and willingness to grow to implement some of those assets. Whether we lease those assets to the FFPC, or we gift them or we just partner in building them, we have to position ourselves ready to receive these industries that want to come.
Firth is also in favour of the town creating a foundation that would allow the community to fundraise for a variety of different projects.
“This is the big one that’s been on our strategic plan, which is establishing and launching a community foundation to help raise funds for recreation investments,” Firth said.
“That could help Sunny Cove, it could help a dog park, a BMX bike course and the Eighth St. Trails,” Firth said. “It would be a way we could leverage dollars with other funders. For Make a Splash, we had to generate X amount of money and then [the government] came in with a nice fat cheque. Well, instead of having to do that great big fundraising push, like it’s on steroids, you could say ‘No, we’ve already got that under the mattress.’”
