City council is stepping up efforts to shed Flin Flon of its one-horse town label.
“I’m really trying to change [that perception],” said Mayor Cal Huntley. “We’re not [only] a mining community – we were [only] a mining community.”
Significant economic diversification has long been a goal of Flin Flon’s leaders. But now the city is taking an in-depth how mining can be but one part of the local economy.
Optimism
It’s early going, but Coun. Colleen McKee is highly optimistic. At last week’s council meeting, she summarized what she learned during a provincially initiated training process around economic development.
She listed a series of potential moves council can consider, each of them designed to generate or sustain jobs. Options ranged from spurring industrial development and tourism to leveraging public-private partnerships.
“The leveraging part is the part I want to learn more about, because it seems to me that we’re not using the dollars that we actually have…to their capacity,” McKee said.
She emphasised the value of small- and medium-sized businesses, which she called the backbone of a community.
“We want to ensure that we are a business-friendly and supportive environment,” said McKee. “And I’m not saying that we aren’t right now. I just don’t see that we have a lot of initiatives starting that support business.”
To that end, she said council has applied to have Flin Flon undergo a process to identify its strengths and weaknesses in terms of economic development.
Cooperation
McKee said her training also taught her that cooperation is vital.
“I think honestly, when I look at our region, the one thing that we are really hung up on is autonomy,” she said. “We want to make sure that things are done our way or other communities want to make sure that it’s done their way. And [her instructor] couldn’t stress enough how strong we would be if we collaborated and worked together on some of these initiatives.”
As McKee pointed out, cross-community (and cross-border) cooperation is taking place among mayors and municipal administrators from Flin Flon, Creighton and Denare Beach.
As Huntley stated, Creighton mayor Bruce Fidler has initiated some “very initial, very preliminary” meetings. The goal is a more varied area economy.
“There will be some follow-up meetings in the near future to formalize what we’re going to do,” Huntley said.
Necessary
The mayors’ meetings and McKee’s training come as Hudbay plans to close Flin Flon’s 777 mine in 2020. Lalor mine near Snow Lake, which employs many Flin Flon area residents, is expected to operate for another 20-plus years.
But as Huntley put it, “Regardless of what’s going on at Hudbay right now, this is something the community needed to do anyways, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
The mayor would not frame the ongoing discussions as a means of “saving the community.”
“It’s more about enhancing the community and the opportunities for the community. The community is fine,” Huntley said. “So we’re looking at different opportunities to diversify and expand what we have in this region here right now.”
Funding
That said, the eventual closure of 777 mine – with or without another mine in the area to replace it – could provide a funding source for economic-development initiatives.
Since 1970, the Manitoba government has maintained the Mining Community Reserve Fund (MCRF), designed to help support workers and diversify economies in communities impacted by mine closures.
If Flin Flon is to receive financial assistance through MCRF, Huntley said, it will be up to council to apply.
“We would have to approach and ask [for funding]. They’re not going to say, ‘Hey, do you need some cash?’” he said. “We definitely have to, and we haven’t yet.”
Coun. Bill Hanson said he believed council has accessed dollars from MCRF in the past. He wasn’t sure if Flin Flon would meet the criteria again, but the mayor thought it would.
Huntley said council has already had conversations around the fund.
“We believe if we can levy the existing position into accessing those dollars to enhance our vision of the community going forward, we’re certainly going to try and do that,” he said.
Huntley said he would hope the city can access “fairly significant dollars” to assist with plans for the region going forward.
“And that’s part of the diversification thing, the idea of, you know, the new emergency room…[and] enhanced health care,” he continued. “The ability, maybe, to access the funds for the kind of senior housing that are going to keep people in the community. From an educational point of view, the kind of funds that maybe would enhance the project similar to the [Flin Flon Arts Council’s proposed North Central Canada Centre of Arts and Environment] – those kinds of things, as well as make us more of a service centre and bedroom community to the mining industry.”
Supporting business
For McKee, working to support existing businesses is key. Bringing some of the Flin Flon area’s 101 home businesses to storefront would create jobs, she said, adding that the municipality would need to pave the way for this to happen.
During her three months of economic-development training, McKee said she was struck by the number of communities that, like Flin Flon, have endured population loss and face something like a mine closure.
“Some of the strategies that people have come up with, with economic development [were] mind-blowing,” she said.
Added McKee: “I truly believe we’re going to be fine. I really do.”
