George Fontaine is hopeful for Flin Flon’s future, but he’s no starry-eyed optimist.
That was the message the mayor delivered last week after some of his recent public comments were questioned.
“Don’t think that I’ve got my head in some rose-coloured vacuum and don’t see what’s going on,” Fontaine said.
Fontaine was responding to taxpayer advocate Blair Sapergia, who encouraged the mayor to balance his faith in the future growth of Flin Flon with “all the facts.”
“You talk...about council having the mind that this town is growing,” said Sapergia. “And I think that’s the only mindset that this council should have. But I think you should also make sure you look at all the facts, and never before have the facts been clearer in this town.
“And that is that 777 mine has seven years of life left. Right now they have no targets to drill. They aren’t drilling anything except underground. They’re looking underground for targets, that’s all.”
Sapergia said the situation represents “a big deal for a long-range plan for this town,” adding that “it doesn’t look good.”
Fontaine said “parts don’t look good” and that council has been mindful of spending by rejecting projects such as a new Pine Avenue bridge.
“So that’s part of what you’re saying – ‘Don’t spend money where you don’t need to,’” the mayor told Sapergia. “However, we’ve always had to look at this town and say, ‘I think that we are going to be a town that continues for a long time as whatever type of town we’re going to be – service, whether we see some other industries come in, or whether we see some smaller mines open up if there is no big one.’ That’s happened before, too, and covered the down periods of potential recession.
“Whatever it is, this town, this city, has got to maintain its infrastructure in such a fashion that it’s always ready to move ahead, and we’ll do everything we can to be on the up and up, and not dropping.”
Fontaine said he recognizes that “it’s easy enough to take a pessimistic attitude,” but he does not think Flin Flon is going to “hell in a hand basket.”
“There’s a lot of money tied up and a lot of infrastructure tied up, and I think we’re going to be here for a while,” he added.
In comments of her own, Coun. Karen MacKinnon took aim at negativity over the future of Flin Flon.
She said she and her husband moved from Nova Scotia to Flin Flon 37 years ago at a time when many people were writing off Sydney as an economic failure.
“But when we go home on holidays to Sydney, the attitude they took to keep building the city and working on the city and the whole surrounding area, (is that) they never gave up,” said Coun. MacKinnon. “And that’s what we’re doing – we’re not giving up.”
