The provincial government made a fresh series of funding announcements for Northern Ontario companies this week.
Funding from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund is earmarked for economic development initiatives.
Below is a selection of recipients and their allotments:
- $7 million toward health-care training for 500 people in the North through programming developed by Northern College in Timmins. Participants will receive up to $3,000 to cover expenses while they complete the training, while employers will receive up to $1,000 toward the cost each work placement. Programs include support service worker, personal support worker (PSWs), food service worker, and personal support worker assistant;
- $1.5 million to Flosonics, a Sudbury-based medical technology company, toward a manufacturing facility to build the company's FloPatch, a wireless blood monitoring system;
- $1,122,702 to Rogers Crop Enterprises Inc. to establish a grain and oilseed farm, creating six jobs. The farm will produce crops like wheat, barley, oats, peas, canola and hemp and will sell wood harvested from the land clearing activities;
- $1 million to the Northeast Community Network to install 1,824 acres of tile drainage, resulting in higher crop yields and benefitting eight producers;
- $1 million for Science North in Sudbury to expand visitor experiences in northwestern Ontario. That includes a new 33,750-square-foot facility in Thunder Bay, as well as a 4,000-square-foot expansion of the Lake of the Woods Discovery Centre in Kenora;
- $455,400 to the Corporation of the Town of Kapuskasing to renovate the Sports Palace, a year-round, multi-use recreational and community space and cornerstone of the community;
- $400,000 to Caron Equipment Inc. a civil engineering firm specializing in mine site preparation and material handling, including land clearing and road construction. The company will purchase four rock haul trucks to expand its fleet and fulfill a contract with IAMGOLD at the Côté Gold Mine near Gogama. The fleet expansion also enables Caron Equipment to bid on future contract tenders for mineral development projects progressing to the mine development stage.
- $400,000 to GreenFirst Forest Products Inc. to upgrade equipment and infrastructure at its newsprint mill in Kapuskasing, creating 45 full-time jobs and ensuring the facility can continue to play a critical role in the forestry supply chain;
- $319,800 to the Northeast Community Network to create a business plan to develop and market 1.2 million acres of underutilized, privately held land for agricultural uses;
- $295,928 to Tisdale Mechanical Contracting Ltd., which offers services including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, sheet metal fabrication and electrical. The company will renovate its facility and purchase equipment to increase warehouse storage space and begin manufacturing a variety of duct systems to meet the mining sector demand for customized ventilation solutions;
- $295,275 for the Town of Hearst to replace the Rene Fontaine Municipal Airport in-ground fuel system with an above-ground fuel tank and dispensing unit to ensure continued and uninterrupted fuel availability to aircraft using the airport;
- $206,092 for Shawn Lecours Logging Ltd. — a logging and forest road construction company — to purchase equipment to expand operations and reduce wood waste and environmental impacts;
- $200,000 to O’Briens Butcher’s Market to establish the business, buy equipment and make building improvements. The Market will fill a need for locally processed meats and resell produce from local farmers, creating five jobs;
- $57,250 to establish Tecnor Business Solutions Inc. — a custom software development service provider for small and mid-size companies;
- $48,375 for the Town of Hearst; development of three-year francophone tourism;
- $39,729 for the Town of Hearst for an industrial community improvement plan;
- $35,808 for I.C.S. (Lacroix) Lumber Inc. — a wood pellets producer — to purchase equipment to increase its production capacity and expand operations.
A full list of the projects that have been funded through the NOHFC since 2018 is available for viewing here.
