Duane Hicks
In these hard economic times, Natural Resources minister Donna Cansfield, Northern Development and Mines minister Michael Gravelle, Tourism minister Monique Smith, and Municipal Affairs and Housing minister Jim Watson all vowed Friday that they are doing what they can to help regional municipalities cope now and pave the way for a more prosperous future.
On hand for a “bear pit” session during the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association’s annual general meeting and conference at the Memorial Sports Centre, Gravelle announced his ministry will begin helping out municipalities even more in the near future by helping them pay for their one-third of the cost of projects under the “Build Canada” fund.
“If you apply for projects that would be eligible under the present criteria of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, through ‘Build Canada,’ and I think the intake is coming up May 1 . . . what we will do is invite you to make an application for us to fund 50 percent of your one-third.
“In other words, it would be an opportunity for you, when you make the application, [to] apply to the Heritage Fund to pay for the 50 percent of the third you would be required,” he explained.
“There are also other opportunities potentially, whereby in hardship cases, and God knows many of you can make that argument, we can, as they did previously with COMRIF, go to a 90-10 format,” added Gravelle, noting municipalities will receive formal letters regarding this very soon.
Gravelle said the current economic climate reflects how vital the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario will be (the draft plan for which will be presented this June or July).
“We recognize this economic blueprint, this vision for Northwestern Ontario, is even more important now than perhaps it ever was, and it may shape our future in an incredibly significant way,” he noted.
“There will be very much short-term implications, as well, that are positive in terms of informing the government of Ontario that northerners, who are creators of the Northern Growth Plan, who will decide what’s in the Northern Growth Plan, will inform our government, and governments to come, of the investments that we believe are the right ones to make in Northern Ontario.
“We are going to make sure this is a growth plan that work for all the north,” Gravelle pledged. “Smaller communities, urban centres, that perhaps is our challenge, but we’re determined to do so.”
Gravelle also said the modernized Mining Act legislation is pretty close to being introduced.
“It’s been a remarkable consultation process, with the stakeholders from the mining side, the municipalities, and from our aboriginal, Métis, and Inuit people, as well,” he noted. “The consultations have wrapped up, we’re pretty close, so within a couple of weeks you can expect the introduction of the legislation.
“We know how important it is, with this piece of legislation, we get it right,” he stressed. “We understand how crucial that is, and indeed, we believe we have done so.
“Again, you’ll see the results of that in a couple of weeks.
“There will be a lot more work to be done once we introduce the act, there will be a second reading, debate, there will likely be public consultations,” he conceded.
“We’ll look forward to your thoughts and comments once we have the introduction.”
Watson, meanwhile, said Ontario is spending a record amount of infrastructure money in the province right now. In its recent 2009 budget, it was announced Ontario will spend $27.5 billion on roads, schools, and transit over the next two years in an effort to create more than 300,000 jobs.
The federal government has pitched in another $5 billion for a total of $32.5 billion for projects in Ontario.
Referring to the Provincial-Municipal Fiscal and Service Delivery Review, Watson also noted the province plans to gradually “upload” funding for drug benefits, the Ontario Disability Support Program, Ontario Works, and court security and prisoner transportation costs from municipalities in coming years, which will save them a minimum net $1.5 billion.
Fort Frances will save a net $300,000 after the uploading.
“I know many of you would like to see the uploading move faster, we’d like to see that, too,” Watson said. “But when the premier set this up, he said there had to be a consensus report and it had to be affordable to both orders of government.
“There’s no sense in us having our own reports that would end up collecting dust,” he stressed. “We wanted to make sure we all got something out of it.”
Watson also said the recent budget allocated $622 million, which will be matched by the federal government, for affordable housing.
“We have to make sure we have safe, clean, affordable housing for our fellow citizens in our communities and we have put a record amount of money into affordable housing,” he remarked.
“We are determined to ensure that money we have put in the budget, that’s going to be matched by the federal government, gets out the door so we don’t lose it. We don’t want to see that money go to other provinces,” he vowed.
For her part, Cansfield said the economy is worse than anyone would have anticipated only a year ago, with newspapers closing shop, the U.S. housing market collapsing, and the forestry industry in transition.
“I don’t know if we’ve seen the end of it or if there’s still more to come, to be honest with you, but the commitment you need to know is we are not walking away from this,” Cansfield pledged. “We recognize this as a challenge, and the most significant challenge is, yes, to the corporations, but really to the employees, to their families, to their future.
“We must have due diligence in ensuring, from my perspective, that we can weather these storms far better in the future than we have in the past.
“The forestry sector will survive, but it will not look the same. It will be quite different,” Cansfield warned. “But what we must do, what we are doing, is bringing in the value-added market.”
Cansfield said there have been charges the province hasn’t done enough to support the forestry industry, but that’s not true.
“Abitibi alone received $150 million from us. We supported that company,” she noted. “The $20 million we put right here in Fort Frances toward the biomass, into the new boiler system.
“We have been with them as they started to make their transition.
“The challenge they’ve got in Abitibi’s case is their entire global market has collapsed and they owe $6 billion, and their creditors are calling it in and they haven’t got a product to sell around the world.
“They will emerge,” she stressed. “They will just be different, and they will be smaller. But it also may, in fact, open up other opportunities.”
Cansfield said the emerging bio-economy, specifically biofibre, focuses on using technology to market the “unmarketable tree,” such as slash in the forest.
“When I talk about looking at this differently, obviously, there’s pelletization, and that’s in sync with Ontario Power Generation switching over Atikokan to 25 percent pellets and hopefully others down the line,” she noted.
“But we’re also looking at the trees for essential oils, insecticides, pesticides, for heaven’s sake clothes, car doors.
“The tree is not the same as it was because technology has changed, research has changed, and it’s working,” she lauded.
New companies are starting up in the bio-economy, Cansfield said, “because we’re ‘greener’ than we used to be, we’re thinking differently, and we’re opening up the dollars to support it.”
Cansfield said the province has put together a $350-million loan guarantee for companies pursuing these new types of projects, which already has generated $600 million in new business.
The province also has a “prosperity fund,” where a company presents a business plan and the province may provide a financial commitment up front—giving the company three years to get its backers, wood supply, and other details lined up knowing they have backing from the province.
“We’re moving forward. It’s a chance to do things differently, and if ever there was an opportunity, it’s now,” stressed Cansfield, adding her ministry will continue to work with municipalities.
“The bottom line is the MNR is here to help you,” she vowed. “We haven’t abandoned you, never have.”
Smith, meanwhile, said tourism definitely is an economic driver for Ontario. In 2007, tourists spent $22 billion in the province, and the industry is responsible for 300,000 direct and indirect jobs in Ontario.
“We are very committed to working with our partners to continue to improve our sector across the province, and particularly up here in the north and in Northwestern Ontario,” she noted.
In the last six months, Smith was in Thunder Bay to launch the Northern Tourism Marketing Plan, which will see the province partner with the federal government to invest $2.3 million over the next five years to market Northern Ontario, particularly hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation.
In the 2009 provincial budget, Dwight Duncan earmarked $40 million for destination marketing, which will be come online next year with the advent of the harmonized sales tax (HST).
The ministry also will spend $11 million in “Celebrate Ontario” funds this year to support community events, including the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship.
