Thompson 2020 project manager Tim Gibson and assistant project manager Harold Smith appeared before council June 19 to explain the two-year initiative, which aims to mitigate the effects of Thompson’s shrinking mining sector and lay the foundation for a diversified northern economy in the future.
“Thompson’s been through many challenges,” former councillor Smith told current council members. “It’s always been a community of opportunity. The reason for Thompson 2020 is to make sure that it continues to be that community of opportunity but it’s not going to happen on its own. We’ve always been able to pull together. The upcoming developments with Vale, however, present probably some of the most significant economic challenges that the community’s faced and it’s going to take a concerted effort to try to reduce the impact of those on residents, the workforce and the community as a whole.”
The four key areas of work that Thompson 2020 has identified as critical to the development and sustainability of the northern economy are retaining skilled workers who lose jobs with Vale’s Manitoba Operations, ensuring residents of all ages remain in Thompson, helping new and existing business to develop and thrive in Thompson, and pushing for more all-weather roads to connect more remote communities and further solidify Thompson as a regional service and shopping hub.
Gibson, who came to Thompson about two years ago and has worked in northern areas of Newfoundland and Labrador as well as in Fort McMurray, Alberta, says some of the work that Thompson 2020 is building on was done in the past through initiatives like the Thompson Economic Diversification Working Group (TEDWG) and that he intends this initiative to be transparent and to include ideas from many sources.
“We intend to have a very transparent process with publicly available progress reports,” he said. “We’ve already got a parking lot on our shared drive that we’re putting ideas on as we lead meetings. They’re coming to us fast and furious but some of them are very good.”
Partnerships will be key to Thompson 2020’s success, Smith said.
“We really need a number of different organizations to continue to pull together,” said Smith. “We need to collaborate on ideas, we need ideas from an engaged public, from council, from levels of government in terms of what we need in order to reduce the impact. We need to build partnerships among different organizations, private sector, public sector, different levels of government and, at the end of the day, we’re going to need to focus on the most important things that we can get done between now and 2018 because we need to have a fast reaction, we need to be ready for those impacts and time is tight. We’re going to need to focus on a handful of specific projects and some of those projects are going to have enduring effects.”
As part of the project, council voted unanimously later in the meeting to approve a master project charter, which outlines the direction of the project and the partners involved, one of whom is Mayor Dennis Fenske, which prompted a suggestion from Coun. Ron Matechuk that an alternate may be needed as the mayor works for Vale.
“There will be situations where our mayor who is the only member of this committee will be in a conflict of interest,” said Matechuk. “I think we should have an alternate member of council to step in in such instances.”
“We can look at that,” Fenske said.
“I was excited to hear that you already have a number of initiatives or suggestions brought forward to them and that some of them look viable,” said Coun. Penny Byer. “That’s exceptionally good news for expanding the economic base of the city.”
