By NICK STEWART
With strong mineral prices spurring all manner of economic activity throughout the area, Timmins is rapidly coming into its own as a growing regional centre for the northeast, according to mayor Tom Laughren.
“We’re the smaller of the five large Northern Ontario cities, but I believe some of the boom that has hit places like Sudbury is now coming to Timmins,” Laughren says.
“When you look at retail activity like Home Depot and the larger Canadian Tire store, that has a lot to do with regionalization, and some of our outlying communities, even as far to the northwest as Hearst, now utilize the city to service their needs.”
Local growth is such that the need for additional hotels in the region is becoming a pressing issue, as people passing through town can have a tough time getting a room without booking in advance, Laughren says. However, preliminary interest in this sector has already been shown from unnamed parties, and Laughren expects that “something is going to happen there.”
As another sign of the city’s general well-being, long-time Timmins airport manager Harley Nikkel points out that flight traffic has increased in all categories since 2006.
In particular, commercial flight movements have increased by more than 2,500 to reach roughly 26,000 takeoffs and landings in 2007. Nearly 127,000 scheduled passengers passed through the airport, marking an increase of the 125,000 seen in 2006 and the 115,000 in 2005.
While this still pales in comparison to the high of 145,000 seen in the early 1980s during the operation of the Detour Lake Mine, it nevertheless represents a growing surge, which has mirrored the recent rise in mineral prices, Nikkel says.
In this vein, the run-up to the opening of the De Beers Victor project has caused the cargo freight activity at the Timmins airport to swell to three million pounds of goods and construction material in 2007.
This increased activity is expected to raise the airport’s 2008 revenues by 2.5 per cent, even without raising fees, which have not changed since 1999.
“We’re the key aviation hub for northeastern Ontario, servicing Hudson Bay and James Bay communities, and the continued air services to those communities is a key component in our airport operation services,” Nikkel says.
“We’re the right size at the right time, and we’re ready to meet future needs and demands for air services.”
Timmins Economic Development Corporation (TEDC) CEO Christy Marining says the city’s growth has also spurred a rash of interest in solidifying the local business base.
Whereas the TEDC initially planned to provide business planning assistance to 250 people through 2007, more than 450 interested parties came knocking on their door for anything from new business advice to inquiries about land to build a new company on.
“Entrepreneurship is very much alive in Timmins,” Marinig says.
“In the middle of the slow peak when mining wasn’t doing so well, our phones weren’t ringing, and we were chasing people. Now, our phones are ringing, which is a great thing and it just shows that when commodity prices are strong and there’s positive news about a community, that creates a steamroll effect.”
Young entrepreneurs made up 21 per cent of the total, which Marinig says to be a sign that a lot of young professionals are moving back or staying within the community and creating new jobs.
However, as with many Northern communities, Timmins’ downtown core continues to see challenges in terms of occupancy. With a vacancy rate of 11 to 12 per cent, the city’s downtown continues to be observed by city officials as an underutilized area.
To try and promote the beautification of the area, the city offered a community improvement plan last year, which proved to be a success.
The $230,000 in loans offered through the city budget for downtown businesses to improve their storefronts in 2007 was snapped up in a matter of months. In turn, participants in the program were able to use the sum to secure an additional $350,000 in private funding.
Local businesses face a number of challenges in other areas as well, especially in forestry, according to Timmins Chamber of Commerce president Marilyn Wood.
In particular, Wood says the issue of wood allocation needs to be re-examined, and the community deserves a say in who is given the rights to a particular parcel of the forest. Similarly, she says it’s crucial for local business to be involved in related discussions the Ministry of Natural Resources is examining a co-operative forestry licensing system.
“I think we have to find another paradigm for the forestry industry, and we have to see how the community can become involved in that,” Wood says. “We need more say in things like where our wood allocations go, and make sure they aren’t being shipped out of our jurisdiction because there’s no value-added and no positive impact on the community.”
