Keep them here, grow them here, and bring more here – that’s the goal for business under a new program released June 12 by the Regional Economic Development Commission (REDC).
All three communities involved with the REDC – Flin Flon, Creighton and Denare Beach – have teamed to create a business retention and expansion program (BRE) aimed at boosting small and medium-sized businesses operating in the area. The BRE program will include an avenue for business owners to communicate directly to other business leaders and members of municipal council while allowing the REDC to gather information on needs and issues found by local business.
“Through this BRE program we are aiming to show existing local business their importance to our region by asking them about their needs, future plans and how they think the local business environment could be improved,” said Bruce Fidler, Creighton mayor and REDC co-chair.
The first initiative done through the BRE will take place from June 24-28. That will include surveying about 100 regional businesses on their operations, ideas and concerns, then taking the answers and aggregating the information to find recurring concerns.
“We’re going to take the data and aggregate it, so it will allow us to make decisions moving forward on economic development,” said Eve O’Leary, economic development officer for the REDC and its three communities.
The program will also include regular surveys and check-ins with businesses to address any concerns.
“It’s more sort of an ongoing program that helps us make informed decisions, in terms of economic development and where we need to guide the program,” O’Leary said. “The important thing is that we’re out in the business community.”
Information gathered through the BRE can allow municipal governments to decide what to pursue, protect or change in order to aid business growth.
“It’s information that we do need to collect because it will guide us and help to make future decisions for economic development in the region. It’s just good economic development practice to have a business retention and expansion program. Your small and medium businesses are a huge asset to any community, and that’s where about 75 per cent of jobs are created,” said O’Leary.
“It’s important that we are developing that relationship with them and addressing any concerns they have… It’s a foundation of economic development practice. There’s a variety of things that we as an economic development commission should be doing. One is this expansion.”
