Despite challenges, the Town of Fort Frances has plenty to be proud of in 2024, and much to look forward to in 2025, according to its mayor.
Fort Frances mayor Andrew Hallikas recently spoke with the Fort Frances Times regarding the ups and downs experienced by the town over the course of the year that was, and what he thinks might be in store for the municipality in the year to come.
While 2024 did have its fair share of challenges and struggles that had to be navigated by council ,staff and administration,. Hallikas noted there were still successes and achievements that should be celebrated and appreciated for helping improve resident’s lives in various ways.
“The municipality itself, the Town of Fort Frances, has operated in a safe, efficient and fiscally responsible manner, delivering really uncountable services,” he said.
“I don’t think how much the services that the municipality provides touches their lives, and it touches the lives of every single person in this community every single day. In spite of many, many challenges, the challenges that everybody face, the town in the past year successfully continued to provide safe, clean drinking water, storm and sanitary sewers, roads and sidewalks, programming and services at our museum, our library, our Sportsplex, our Marina, our community auditorium and the Sister Kennedy Centre. So many people use those, and I often say to people, ‘think of what your life in this community would be like if those things didn’t exist.’”
Hallikas also pointed to the continued upkeep to other town services like the cemeteries, recycling and garbage pickups, sewage and water treatment, policing and emergency services which continued to operate throughout the year, even as they represented challenges like increased financial pressures on the town, or were impacted by ongoing staffing shortages. The town delivered on ice rinks, both indoors and outdoors, walking paths, civil marriage services, ice cream, road resurfacing and repairs, swimming lessons and more, and while Hallikas acknowledged that there have been times that services were disrupted due to things like broken equipment or systems, the town has worked to make repairs as quickly as possible while minimizing the impact they will have on taxpayers.
“Another highlight I want to talk about, and some people might not consider this a highlight, is taxes,” he said.
“Nobody likes paying taxes but taxes are unfortunately a necessary evil, you could say, for living in a civilized society, in a community. The town tries to do everything it can to keep taxes at a low and so in this past year, as we do every year, we apply for every single government grant that we can in an attempt to ease the tax burden on our residents. In this past year we got around $7 million in capital grants. A misnomer that some of our residents have, they think that when we do major projects we use tax dollars for that. We don’t. We couldn’t afford to use tax dollars for that, it would cause the tax burden to go sky-high. So it’s these grants we get that allows the big projects like infrastructure, road resurfacing, renovating buildings and so forth.”
Included among some of those repairs and upgrades paid in part by federal grants in 2024 included work on the 52 Canadians Arena, the replacement of key parts of the ice plant at the rink, comprehensive repair work on the Sportsplex natatorium (pool area), road resurfacing on Sunset Drive and new sidewalks around J.W. Walker and St. Mary, among other projects.
The town also applies for and makes use of operating grants in a similar attempt to ease the burden on local tax ratepayers, which along with working in as fiscally responsible a manner as it can, has resulted in the town remaining debt-free.
Turning to some of the departments and utilities within town borders, Hallikas championed other achievements recognized in 2024. He noted that the Fort Frances Power Corporation (FFPC) had celebrated a milestone 250,000 safe hours worked by its staff to deliver residents some of the lowest electricity rates in the province. The mayor also recognized the corporation for working with the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #29 to hoist hundreds of veteran banners throughout town and down along the riverfront, adding that the hardware used to mount the banners was paid for by FFPC and donated to the Legion.
There have also been less visible, but still significant, achievements made by town staff at the Civic Centre, including increasing transparency with a regular newsletter and increased social media presence, developing new policies for the municipality, streamlining the process to issue marriage licenses and perform weddings at the Civic Centre.
Across these mentioned projects and more, Hallikas touted the victories of staff working in different departments and divisions within the town’s framework who have done their part in making Fort Frances “a great town in a great part of Ontario.”
Heading into 2025, the mayor said he believes good things are in store for the town and its residents, especially as new industries have picked out Fort Frances as a potential site to build brand new technologies and environmentally-friendly projects. Pointing to the recently announced biofuel project led by the Wanagekong-Biiwega’iganan Clean Energy Corporation (WBCEC) in partnership with Highbury Energy Inc., that is expected to be built in the town’s north end by mid-2027, Hallikas said there’s “lots of things to look forward to” in that sector, particularly as the town, along with the rest of the world, continues to face the impacts of climate change.
“[The biofuel refinery] is a project that’s really good for the environment, living in the times we do,” he said.
“I mentioned at [Seven Generations Education Institute] tat I thought it was the perfect project for the times we live in because we’re all faced with global warming. We’re seeing the results right now in California, absolutely, but we see it now in our weather. We’re getting weather anomalies like we haven’t had before and that’s all due to global warming, which is due to carbon dioxide put out into the air, and this process that Highbury has developed decarbonizes fuel, so they’re going to be producing decarbonized fuel that doesn’t harm the environment, and I think that’s outstanding. A real shout out to our local First Nations in working together for that, it’s going to benefit the entire district as its construction goes and then production goes. To me, that’s truly a visionary and groundbreaking project.”
Also in the realm of renewable, environmentally-friendly energy, Hallikas noted the town has been approached by a group interested in building a solar farm and electricity storage facility to help provide more electricity for Ontarian while also working to decarbonize the grid. 2025 will also see the town proceed further down the path of pursuing an electrical microgrid that will help to ensure that the town can power homes, businesses and industry more reliably in the future, which the mayor said could also make the town more attractive to other businesses and industries who rely on that stable supply.
But environmentally projects aren’t the only options on the table this year.
“We’re constantly working on developing the Shevlin woodyard,” Hallikas said.
“That’s a slow process, it takes money and you can’t rush it. It also takes private enterprise to invest in it, and we do have inquiries, people are interested. We want to work on attracting an airline to our airport, for keeping our airline open. That’s very important not only for medical purposes, but for business and industry. We’re constantly cooperating and discussing and talking about affordable housing, we’re willing to partner with anybody. We have people in Columbus place who want to build housing for seniors. The District of Rainy River Services Board, we also talk to them all the time because our housing needs aren’t just the housing needs of our residents, they’re the housing needs almost of the district, because people congregate here for services.”
Hallikas said the town is also keeping its eyes on the challenges it knows are still ahead, including the rising burdens of uncontrollable costs, policing budgets and insurance on municipalities, the cost of living and affordable housing crises for residents, the addictions and mental health emergencies, the lack of volunteers who help to keep organizations running, and staffing shortages that impact businesses and even the municipality itself.
While all of the problems facing the town and its residents can seem insurmountable, Hallikas said he hopes all levels of government will step up to work together in the near future to begin to tackle the underlying issues and begin to make real changes that will benefit everyone.
“It’s a complex problem,” he said.
“It’s going to take an all-government solution. Quite frankly, it’s not something the municipalities can solve on their own. We’re too small. We need the bigger governments, provincial and federal to step up and do more.”
Even in the face of these challenges, however, the mayor said he hopes the people of Fort Frances remember how special the town is, and come together to get things done, much like it has done countless times in the past.
“Hope and optimism,” Hallikas said of his New Year’s message to the people of Fort Frances.
“We’re privileged to live where we are. We have a beautiful community, and so let’s all take pride in where we live, and let’s work together to make it a better place for all of us.”
