The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
"It seems reasonable that HBMS will always be our main industry. However, it is critical to our survival that we develop one or more secondary industries as well." Those words from then-mayor Dennis Ballard are far more relevant today than when they were spoken a decade ago. But unlike then, when a group called the Flin Flon Community Economic Development Commission was pushing to diversify our economy, the message seems buried today. Residents appear content to live exclusively on the whims of a sector whose success and failure hinges on forces far beyond their control. There is this deeply embedded mindset that mining is truly all we have, and that when that goes Ð be it in 50 years or 500 years Ð that will be the end of Flin Flon. This immured outlook was illustrated in the most disappointing terms by the Manitoba government's recent $1-million Forestry and Mining Training and Workforce Retention Initiative. Give the province credit for developing this program, which will involve up-skilling and re-skilling opportunities that match current and projected job demands in Flin Flon and other communities. But what is frankly absurd is how the government's response to mining layoffs is to focus on training individuals for that same downsizing sector. It would have been much more rational to, on top of that initiative, set up training driven by where the jobs are right now. There are definitely more stable sectors to work in than mining, and some are absolutely starving for qualified people. But it all comes back to that narrow view of Flin Flon, one that exists both within and outside of our borders. Of course Mayor Ballard was right when he said HBMS will probably always be our main industry, but it's time to move past this collective thinking that they will be our only real industry. Realistic? Does a more diversified economy not seem realistic? Tell that to Flint, Michigan, the city made famous by the Michael Moore documentary Roger & Me. Over the years, its citizens have endured the loss of more than 70,000 jobs in the auto sector. Did the people of Flint throw their hands up in the air and say, "Well, we're only a car town"? No. Government and business are working together to move Flint in a whole new direction. Tax incentives are being used to spark a more commercially-driven economy and attract young, talented entrepreneurs. Alternate uses for vacant property are actively explored and strategic investments sought. There is an effort to expand higher education opportunities (are you listening, Premier Doer and University College of the North?) and make Flint more of a learning hub. It's a process wrought with challenges and some inevitable failures, but by many accounts, it is paying dividends. Of course we'd be foolish to pretend that varying the economy of the remote Flin Flon area Ð with a population under 10,000 Ð is the same as doing so in an urban centre of 125,000 like Flint. Or would we? Flin Flon still has its main employer intact for years (hopefully many, many years) to come, its smelter notwithstanding. That's a better starting point than places like Flint enjoy. It is time for Flin Flon to begin hurling ideas out there like the sky is the limit. Let's look at serious tax incentives for businesses big and small. Let's look at lower lot prices and the retirement community concept. Let's push city council to budget more than a petty $10,000 a year for economic development. While we're at it, let's advertise and promote ourselves. Let's not let negative images of our community such as those portrayed by the Winnipeg Free Press prevail. Let's get the word out that Flin Flon is open for business and open to new, exciting ideas, not the same old "one-horse town" mentality. If you throw enough horseshoes into the pit, one of them is going to hit the stake. When it comes to a more diversified economy, Flin Flon hasn't hit the stake yet, but then again, how many horseshoes have we actually tossed? Local Angle runs Fridays.
