The Look North strategy is making steps toward a new set of recommendations, and taking the message of the north to European eyes.
A series of Look North roundtable discussions ended with two meetings in Flin Flon, covering education and training and enterprise and entrepreneurship.
The second item is the official domain of Flin Flon’s Becky Cianflone, the enterprise and entrepreneurship lead for Look North and one of the key organizers behind the group’s Flin Flon meeting on Mar. 20.
Roundtables covering four subjects, including infrastructure, housing, indigenous collaboration and mining and resource development, were held in a previous meeting in Thompson.
Cianflone said there are common threads running through each of the six items under Look North’s purview and that regional meetings have been effective in sharing knowledge across the north.
“What we’re seeing in all of these areas is that there’s really interesting things happening throughout the north, innovative things, but they’re happening in silos. Other people and other communities don’t know about them,” she said.
Business leaders in relevant industries took part in the discussions.
“For mining and resource development, they invited people from that sector from throughout the north. In Thompson, we had people from all over the north. In Flin Flon, we had people from as far away as Churchill and St. Theresa Point, and of course some people from Winnipeg as well,” said Cianflone.
Cianflone said more information and an improved strategy for northern Manitoba development to present to the provincial government are likely to come from the recent meetings.
“The steering committee will take back all of the notes and all of the information from the discussions in Thompson and
Flin Flon, then we’ll look at what the next steps are going to be, what the actions are going to be and the recommendations to government,” she said.
In the meantime, a Look North delegation was invited to recent discussions in Winnipeg involving the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) to pitch the north to stakeholders from EU countries. Cianflone was part of the delegation, selling the benefits of northern Manitoba business and industry to representatives from Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland.
“That’s the new trade agreement, and looking at how Manitoba companies can do business with companies in the European Union,” said Cianflone.
“There were a few of us from Look North, a delegation invited to come. That’s a key piece of this strategy.”
Back in the north, Cianflone feels the discussions with the Look North group will bring quality recommendations and responses to the provincial government, adding the meetings have led to more cooperation between northern communities.
“There’s so much optimism in the process and we’re gaining momentum. We’re seeing results come out from it already,”
she said.
“Having the opportunity to bring northerners together several times now, we’re already seeing partnerships and collaborations and really interesting ideas come out of those talks.”
