The new Temiskaming Shores may not be officially a municipality yet, but those who will make up its government are already looking to the community's future prosperity.
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Jamie Hawken, the acclaimed mayor for Temiskaming Shores, says amalgamation of Haileybury, New Liskeard and Dymond Township into the new municipality of Temiskaming Shore will officially take place Jan. 1, 2004.
"The focus, from my perspective in supporting amalgamation, is that we have to support one another and stop competing with one another to attract new enterprises to the Tri-Towns, now Temiskaming Shores," says Hawken.
"I've heard anecdotally of instances where we have lost opportunities to bring business here due to in-fighting and we can't afford to miss opportunities at this stage," he says. "It may be as simple as focusing our energies instead of spending money, time and energy together to create a better interest in this area by being one."
Hawken says, with the Tri-Town Strategic Economic Development Unit (SEDU), the community has finished developing a strategic economic development plan for the community. It has identified a number of initiatives for development in the town, one of which was already achieved in October with the announcement of customer relations and telecommunications company NuComm bringing a 150- to 250-seat call-centre to New Liskeard.
"It's a quick-start project and it's a hot entity," Hawken says. "We were able to secure a good company. They will establish several hundred jobs, eventually."
He says the community is working on a number of other areas, including developing value-added forestry and agriculture products. The community is also looking at a tourism initiative that would involve developing a package of tourism attractions that would bring people off Highway 11 and through Cobalt, Haileybury, New Liskeard and Dymond Township along Highway 11B.
On the forestry side, he says there are a "number" of value-added opportunities that are available using full-length lumber, but in particular, an untapped market is in the use of "end cuts."
"We're looking for market opportunities for end cuts, parts at the end that are chipped or burned," says Hawken. "We are looking for a niche that people might not think of...there's a company in China, for instance that produces things like tongue depressors and spoons; those kind of small-scale products."
He says the recent announcement of construction of the Temagami Wood Products sawmill will present other opportunities, he says.
On the agriculture side, he says there is a research project underway in Timiskaming looking at malt barley for alcohol production. There is also an organic preservative for bread derived from barley that could present an opportunity for local farmers.
"Underlying all that, there is the general strategy we want to develop to increase our economic development capacity by trying to improve the level of education of our workforce, improve our infrastructure with fully serviced industrial parks and commercial land available for development," says Hawken. "Basically, we want to have all our ducks in line so, when opportunities do arise, we're not scrambling to accommodate them. We can show them we have the skilled labour force and infrastructure."
The amalgamation of the three communities into one town was a vital step along the road to development. The new town has been able to cut costs in staffing, which has been reduced by 25 per cent through voluntary retirement. Staff should have a better idea of operational savings once the community has operated for about six months.
And although some local businesses may have experienced a tax increase, most, in the business community, have reacted positively "on a philosophical plain" to the amalgamation, says Hawken.
It was also important because Northern Ontario communities are competing on a very large scale.
"Even looking in Northern Ontario, we've got to sell ourselves next to cities like Sudbury, Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie who, themselves, feel at a disadvantage next to Toronto so everything is relative," he says. "The bigger the nucleus you can form, the more apt your are to get noticed."
With a staff complement of approximately 115 people, Wabi Iron and Steel Corp. in New Liskeard is one of the largest industrial employers in the Temiskaming Shores area. General manager of sales and marketing Todd Steis says the nearly-100-year-old company continues to value its place in the community.
"We have a global business," Steis says of Wabi. "Fifty per cent of our business is U.S.-based, a large amount going to equipment manufacturers that ship globally."
"The Tri-Town, now Timiskaming Shores is a fabulous community to live in," Steis says. "It has good people; there is a tremendous difference in raising a family here than in larger communities like Toronto, Richmond Hill or even Sudbury."
He says the business benefits from being centrally located in New Liskeard to larger metal-producing sources such as Timmins, Sudbury and Rouyn-Noranda. Being located near a major transportation artery like Highway 11 also offers the company tremendous savings in transportation costs.
