Last week, the provincial government released its Look North Report and Action Plan for Manitoba’s Northern Economy.
The report tells a sad story of northern communities that built infrastructure and livelihoods around a few key industries that are now in decline. The big players in these industries are companies that people in the north have relied on in recent history. With those companies forecasting mass job loss, our northern communities are biting their nails, wondering what’s next.
The nail biting is nothing new. These communities have been trying to parse their fate and fight a resource fall for years.
Still, the report states that mineral potential in the north is the most likely long-term source for northern prosperity, though ‘long-term’ is a relative concept – the report states, “with the right support and investment, [mineral potential] could sustain the north for another 80 years.”
Many of us won’t see another 80 years here, but there are some generations in this city that will live to see the tail end of them.
Reaping the rewards of mineral deposits is an enormous part of what Flin Flon was built on, and in terms of mining in the north, 80 years is a good chunk of time. But in the grand scheme of things the success of that practice here has been short-lived, and the end of another 80 years is not so far away.
It’s sensible that northern communities will milk the ground for everything it has for as long as possible – perhaps nearly another century – to support their current workforce, residents and economy. But it’s this single-minded approach to economic viability that has most of the north in this predicament in the first place, and it seems shortsighted to continue to put most of our proverbial eggs into the same basket – one we know has an expiry date by its very nature.
It’s time to collectively turn more of our attention to other economic opportunities, before it becomes too little, too late.
One of the observations made in the Look North Report is how long-term reliance on key companies and government funding has stunted innovation and entrepreneurship in the region. This is beginning to shift in Flin Flon in a noticeable way.
Last week’s Infusion Entrepreneurship Conference hosted by Community Futures Greenstone saw the R.H. Channing Auditorium filled with forward thinkers from the north. In last week’s issue of the Reminder we published a story on students from Hapnot Collegiate using new virtual reality technology and how educators are doing their best to give students the data and technology skills they will need when they enter a workforce that will inevitably look different than it does today.
And then there’s the place branding initiative Travel Manitoba would gladly roll out in northern communities. The initiative would see Travel Manitoba create a brand for interested regions to encourage tourism. Tourism is a $1.5 billion industry in Manitoba, and opportunities for it in the north are abundant. As Colin Ferguson, president and CEO of Travel Manitoba said, “Tourism can’t solve the problem, but tourism is one of the solutions to the problem.” It has helped places like Portage la Prairie and Gimli, and it could help Flin Flon and Manitoba’s other northern communities, as well.
Improving Manitoba’s northern economy will take a balanced change in focus, and it will take buy in from the communities themselves to begin with. To have the rest of the province, country and beyond looking north would surely help, but the bottom line is we have to give them good reason to.
