BY KELLY LOUISEIZE
Northern Ontario Business
A relationship with Forintek Canada Corp. is considered the missing link needed to help Kenora area local businesses and entrepreneurs bring value-added ideas to fruition.
Grant Carlson, economic development officer with the Lake of the Woods Business Incentive Corp., met with provincial ministers and representatives from Forintek to begin the process of introducing expertise on value-added manufacturing in Kenora, and the North.
Local businesses, municipal government, and entrepreneurs met in 2003 to brainstorm ideas in the secondary wood products industry. From toothpicks to pre-manufactured houses, over 100 possibilities were tabled. Now, the city is turning to Forintek, a non-profit public-private institution focused on the value-added wood industry, for expertise required to help channel ideas into viable businesses.
“We don’t have the expertise in town to flush out (ideas) and the mills don’t have enough time to do it, so Forintek is considered the missing link,” Carlson says.
Many factors are affecting the development of a value-added industry, two of which are funding challenges and expertise. If the Kenora region can eliminate one of the factors, then business owners may be able to realize some of their ideas, Carlson says.
A joint proposal is being written to bring two representatives to the North, one in Kenora and the other in Hearst. Details on the project are in the making, however, the proposal calls for a budget of $400,000 annually for each region for three years in order to bring both representatives to the North, says Gerald Beaulieu, manager of research and value-added wood products for Forintek in the eastern division.
The funding will provide salary, travel, studies in research, seminars and bring experts in the field of value added from across Canada. Beaulieu is expecting the provincial and federal government to invest $250,000 each, while the communities and Forintek will allocate $50,000 and $140,000 respectively.
The same strategy has been tried and tested in Quebec with positive results. For the first time in 10 years Quebec’s value-added exports exceeded the primary industry in 2002. It has increased more than 400 per cent in the last 10 years and has created employment opportunities throughout the province. Investing in technologies and research made the initiative prosper, Beaulieu says, “but we had to put a lot of money into value-added technologies and research to develop the industry.”
“If you put value-added plants in Ontario, at least you will create five to 10 times more jobs than the primary industry.” Beaulieu explains.
His plan is to develop a strategy with two main components: to investigate general interests related to value-added products and to optimize technology transfer opportunities.
