Updated: Province launches Northern Policy Institute

The province has created the Northern Policy Institute, an initiative of the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario designed to provide Northerners with more input into government decisions that affect the North.
The institute will be guided by special advisors, Lakehead University president Dr. Brian Stevenson and Laurentian University president Dominic Giroux, who were appointed to guide the implementation of the Northern Growth Plan.
It will be based out of the two universities and work will be done with Northern post-secondary institutions and research organizations.
"The Northern Policy Institute's mandate complements the themes of the Growth Plan and sets the tone for a collaborative, evidence-based multi-sector approach engaging public and private sector partners to conduct research,” Stevenson said in a news release. “The institute will provide a Northern perspective, grounded in quality research to guide the policy development and economic decisions of governments, communities, business and industry.”
Input from First Nations leadership will be an important part of the institute's work. The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund allocated $5 million over the Labour Day weekend to set up the institute.
Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce president Harold Wilson, who criticized the government in August for the 18-month delay in actually implementing the institute, greeted the news with blue-sky optimism.

“The positive part is they’ve made the announcement, they’ve put it squarely in the court of the two (university) presidents and now we’re going to be meeting with them to talk about how this is going to roll out.”
Ten people will be selected to serve on an advisory committee.
The criteria to select those people wasn't revealed, but he is satisfied the university presidents will have a say.
“We know that there’s a report that details a lot of this. We know that the two presidents have been working pretty hard and we intend to follow up on details of how this thing can be the best that it needs to be.”
The search is on for a chief executive officer for the institute, who will oversee the preparation of a five-year business plan.
Wilson said the institute was never intended to be a lobby group and he expects it to be more multi-faceted than simply helping the government gauge its progress on the Northern Growth Plan.
“It is a mechanism for advocacy groups, like a local chamber or individual municipalities, the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, to be able to tap into the institute to help us do the solid investigation, the economic impact analysis, whatever we need, to give us the best positions, the strongest arguments and effective ammunition to bring forward to government.”
One issue he would like the institute tackle immediately is the province’s controversial Endangered Species Act in advising the government on ways to maximize forestry’s economic development or
mitigate the negative consequences of government legislation.”