FORT FRANCES—Following up on the inaugural community summit held here back in January, 2005, a second one is slated for Tuesday, March 6—with the focus again being on various issues affecting Rainy River District.
Times publisher Jim Cumming, who is organizing the summit along with Fort Frances Coun. Tannis Drysdale (with input from Mayor Roy Avis), said Monday that all district leaders and business owners are highly encouraged to attend, regardless of whether or not they attended the first one.
“Too often we get caught up in the day-to-day routine and what’s happening in our vicinity, and don’t pay attention to what’s happening around us that may impact on us,” Cumming remarked.
“What we hope to bring everybody’s attention to is what’s impacting on us, why they’re impacting on us, and how we go about lessening the impact or giving it a bump if it’s a positive impact,” he added.
“How do I take advantage of this to do better? Where might new opportunities come from?
“It’s also a time to exchange ideas with people from across the district,” Cumming noted.
The summit also will be an opportunity to look at how things have changed for the district over the past two years.
“We’ll be supplying everybody with a copy of the documents from the 2005 summit and then looking at what’s happened since that point. Things have moved forward,” said Cumming.
“For instance, we have a very active agricultural community out there that [is] changing the way food distribution works to increase local food distribution.
“[The Rainy River Future Development Corp.] is in the process of hiring a person for three years to help develop the agricultural economy of the district,” he added.
“So it’s moved forward from ‘We have to work on this’ at the last summit to actually being implemented.”
In a second example, Cumming noted the 2005 summit called for a district immigration study, which has since been completed.
“In terms of tourism, we identified some needs to promote and develop things, and the North Western Ontario Tourism Association has become very active in destination marketing, developing websites to make crossing into Canada easier, and educating border officials to make the experience of coming through Canada Customs more pleasant,” he explained.
Another area discussed in 2005, which has developed since, is alternative fuels.
“Although [a bio-mass boiler] was not identified as an opportunity at the time, it was identified that there was waste wood,” said Cumming. “And now Abitibi is looking at this as an alternative to providing energy at the mill.
“We can’t say it was a direct benefit of the summit, but [Abitibi] did recognize there was an opportunity there and took advantage of it,” he remarked.
Cumming noted it also was recognized at the 2005 summit that the forest industry was in trouble at that time. Shortly thereafter, the Town of Fort Frances got on board and supported a forest industry initiative with the provincial and federal governments.
Cumming said the main areas of focus at this summit will be tourism, forestry, and agricultural, but related topics like infrastructure, health care, and education undoubtedly will come up.
This summit also will feature “an entirely different set of speakers” from the first one, he added.
“We’re bringing in people who may have a different world view of what’s happening rather than a localized one,” he explained.
The summit, being held at La Place Rendez-Vous, will kick off at 8:30 a.m. with keynote speaker Prof. Mark Partridge, an economics professor and the chair of rural-urban policy at Ohio State University.
He’s also the former Canada Research chair in the New Rural economy at the University of Saskatchewan.
Prof. Partridge has made dozens of speeches and presentations on broad economic and demographic trends, as well as on public policy, and published more than 60 papers—ranking him among the top 1,000 economists in the world.
He’s also currently the lead investigator on an Infrastructure Canada grant to examine rural-urban interactions and the role of infrastructure.
While the lineup of speakers still is being confirmed, it’s expected there will be a representative from the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union to talk about the forestry crisis, as well as a speaker on the value of local agricultural distribution networks.
Hopefully, a representative from the research department of tourism from the University of Minnesota also will be on hand here.
The summit also will feature a focused and facilitated planning session, where attendees will work together in break-out groups to discuss priorities and actions.
“We’ll see what we can get out of it—see what people think the district should be working on,” said Cumming.
“There are no instant solutions,” he warned. “There are concepts or ideas that you can work towards to create opportunities to change and enhance things.”
Those interested in attending the summit are encouraged to contact the RRFDC (274-3276) or the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce (274-5773) to register.
The registration fee is $20, which includes lunch.
Fort Frances Times
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