Delegates at the Think North Summit in Thunder Bay returned to their home communities with their heads swimming with ideas on how to build a stronger, greener, sustainable and more prosperous future for the North.
The Feb. 2-3 event at the Valhalla Inn, co-hosted by Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle and Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman, was the premiere event of the provincial government’s Growth Plan for Northern Ontario. “We have now reached our Think North Summit,” said Gravelle in his introductory remarks, adding, “This event is a critical step that will help us bring together many elements of our draft Growth Plan.” Ten technical tables and 13 regional dialogue sessions were previously held across the North, covering many socio-economic issues. Three more technical sessions are scheduled for March.
The Think North Summit was also an opportunity for over 400 leaders from business, education, First Nations, health, research and government to mix and mingle, and share ideas in a large forum in formulating a 25-year economic blueprint for the region. The Summit was also provided via webcast to major northern cities and remote communities across the North.
The entertaining and intellectually stimulating event featured Canadian and international speakers from the United States, Finland and Australia with presentations on how to succeed in the global economy by building a sustainable regional economy.
Ministers Smitherman and Gravelle expressed gratitude to northerners for their enthusiasm, energy and passion in making a contribution to this planning process.
The government has promised the Growth Plan will be legislated into action under the province's Places to Grow Act. Based on northerners' input, a draft plan will be released this spring for public review. The final plan will be released later this year.
The Growth Plan for Northern Ontario will chart a new economic direction for the North. It will be an action-oriented blueprint for developing a more innovative economy. It will strengthen northern communities and First Nations, and it will provide northerners and our youth with an exciting, vibrant place to live, to work and to raise our families.
Gravelle, Smitherman and the keynote speakers cautioned against falling into the trap of copying the winning formula or best practices of a successful region and expecting to replicate success. "It has to be homemade from the best materials we can find within ourselves," said Gravelle.
Michael Gallis, a leading American regional development strategist, delivered a big picture outlook of how the new global economy is altering traditional trading patterns.
With China and Asia poised to be the world's largest economy by 2050, Gallis said it is important for resource-rich Northern Ontarians to know that trading block only produces about one-third of what it consumes.
In this global economic landscape, he said, the North is positioned near two massive trade corridors coming from the east and west coasts into Ontario, Quebec and the U.S. Northeast, one of the most financially wealthy regions in the world.
Northerners must be pro-active and find a way to increase their visibility and recognition. Infrastructure will become very important, said Gallis.
Delegates heard how two countries in crisis charted new directions with collaborative public-private efforts and new partnerships.
Paavo Löppönen, the Academy of Finland's director of Foresight and Development, spoke about how his country dug itself out of an economic crisis, and 18 per cent unemployment in the early 1990s, with a knowledge-based political strategy of applied research and through a financing organization called Tekes. The direction called for Finland to change from a resource-intensive model to a knowledge-intensive one. Northern Ontario has a vast storehouse of natural assets working in its favour, but must maximize its profits per kilogram of resources, he said. "It is possible to turn crisis into opportunity," said Löppönen, but cautioned northerners against directly copying another country's "success recipe."
The Fraser Institute's Fred McMahon spoke about the revival of Ireland's devastated economy in the late 1990s, in part, because of the desire of its trade unions to make the country a more profitable place to do business. A united labour front offered concessions through a wage moderation policy that resulted in one of the greatest growth of real wages in Ireland's history.
Getting entire communities to think about wealth creation is what attracts outside investment, said McMahon, who called corporate and capital taxes the biggest hindrances to growth. All government regulation must be simple, transparent and inexpensive. "A business licence delayed is a business denied."
Successful rural communities are ones that are receptive to change, since innovation can take place anywhere....with the help of a good broadband pipeline, said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington DC-based technology think-tank.
Places like Silicon Valley, California do well because they continuously re-invent themselves on a regular basis, with an "open-minded model, not a silo mentality."
Rural areas and their laid-back lifestyles have popular appeal and offer opportunities for "mobile companies" provided there is the right IT infrastructure.
For example, Jet Blue reservation agents work from their homes, emblematic of the opportunity for rural people with skills and an Internet connection. Atkinson said governments can take the lead by moving civil servant jobs -- not requiring face-to-face interaction -- to rural areas.
Tapping into the enormous wealth potential of Canada's natural assets and its fastest growing population was the topic of British Columbia and Aboriginal businessman Calvin Helin. The president/CEO of the Eagle Group of Companies spoke of the need to break the government "welfare trap" that's created a cycle of dependency and plunged Aboriginal communities into poverty and despair. Welfare and transfer payments only served to wipe out 1,000 years of First Nations social evolution and tribal inter-dependence, said Helin.
The way forward resides within the Aboriginal community through self-reliance with private sector and non-government sources of revenue. "If you don't have a strategy, you become the object of someone else's strategy."
To Helin, it's about the "need for a psychological payoff for hard work."
Only an honest national dialogue involving Aboriginal people can unleash the land's tremendous natural assets to create wealth for all. He is heartened by a huge groundswell from Aboriginals seeking change and an emerging class of educated and energetic young leaders who can make this happen.
A much anticipated speaker was Australian Peter Kenyon, author of Good Enough Never Is, whose inspirational business stories from rural Australia and New Zealand brought gales of laughter and applause from the audience.
Kenyon emphasized communities must rebuild from within, starting with young leaders in the 25 to 35-age bracket who are the drivers in most business start-ups. A successful regional growth plan means encouraging people to act entrepreneurial and getting back to the basics of old-fashioned customer service.
Kenyon, who called negative people "deviants" who "should be taxed," said creating vibrant, healthy communities means adopting a positive mindset and a mantra that says this is the place to be.
"We should be talking the place up, instead of talking it down."
To mayors, he encouraged them to be "idea and opportunity obsessive" by actively engaging people and soliciting them for economic development ideas.
"Instead of waiting for the cavalry to arrive, it's got to come from within."
Creating urban environments of "liveability" come from cities that are open to change and new technology, said Glen Murray, president/CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute.
He cited the former rust belt city of Pittsburgh as an example of how an open-minded community re-packaged itself from a steeltown into a bio-industrial corridor and hub of higher learning.
Murray said city councils can feel pressured to serve the needs of aging baby boomers at the expense of creating "authentic" communities with a sense of "buzz" for younger generations.
As Winnipeg mayor from 1998-2004, he cut or froze taxes every year while overseeing the restoration of the downtown through sound planning, tax incentives and private-sector partnerships that resulted in some stunning, cutting-edge architecture and innovative uses for old buildings.
It's about building culturally rich buildings that generate a return on investment, said Murray.
"The public sector has to take leadership in a dead downtown," create the conditions for investment, then step out.
The day concluded with a leaders roundtable represented by Patricia Lang, president of Confederation College, Tom Vair executive director of Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre, Michael Atkins, president of Laurentian Media Group, Marianne Berube, executive director of Ontario Wood Works, and grand chief Stan Louttit (Mushkegowuk Council)
For more information about the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario, visit www.placestogrow.ca
