2023 State of the City of Timmins
Bonjour,
D’abord, je tiens à remercier la Chambre de commerce de Timmins pour m’avoir accordé cette occasion de vous adresser, en si grand nombre, aujourd’hui.
Thank you to the Timmins Chamber for organizing this event and allowing me to speak to you, their members, and our business community.
I’d also like to express, once again, my heartfelt gratitude to you, the people of Timmins, for putting your faith in me to be your Mayor and entrusting me with the challenge of growing our economy, ensuring its sustainability, while also minding the safety and well-being of our community.
Being now already 3 months into this role, and a month and a half into the New Year, I can confidently say that I believe that 2023 will be a good year for the city of Timmins. A year of continued recovery, renewal and resilience.
Since being in office, I’ve been energized by the meetings I’ve been having and all the great work that’s being done in our city. I have met with First Nations leadership, with health and social service agencies and with businesses of all types and sizes. And though I’ve been hearing from all that we continue to face significant challenges, I am reassured by the general sense of optimism being emanated by you, our local stakeholders.
I am proud of this community.
Because despite everything: global pandemics, supply chain issues, inflation, rising interest rates, labour force shortages, everything that could and should hinder development … despite these things, you have all rolled up your sleeves time and time again, to do what had to be done to persevere. And that, you are.
But I know it hasn’t been easy.
I know that you, our business community, are getting tired. Tired of the struggle and grind, tired of having to rise above it all. And rightfully so.
I’m here today to tell you that we, myself and council, we hear you, and we are here to help.
It’s no secret that public safety continues to be a top concern as crime rates rise in our city. Just as with most social determinants of health, Timmins ranks highest in areas where we want to be low, and lowest in areas where we would want to be high. And unfortunately, it’s you, the business community, who bear the brunt of this reality. We hear stories almost daily of property damage, vandalism and theft. Your workforce feels unsafe, or worse, they may even be struggling to cope with their own health, mental health or addiction issues due to an ongoing lack of supports and resources available in our community.
These issues are real and we are taking them very seriously. How can we expect to grow our economy if we can barely keep the doors open of the businesses that are already here?
People are asking for a plan, and I’m proud to say that we have one and that we’re actively working the plan. You’ll often hear me referring to the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan, which council adopted in April 2021.
Year one consisted of initiating dedicated working groups to each strategic priority and in year two, we started to move on the implementation of new strategies. We can already see some progress made as a result, but we acknowledge that there is still much to be done when it comes to the Community Safety piece.
That’s why I’ve been working directly with City staff to re-establish the ‘Shared Safety Working Group’ in order to renew our approach. In the coming months, you will see a new workplan come to life with tangible action items and measurable outcomes to better address safety concerns in our municipality.
Believe it or not, as bad as it is, as it has been, we should be proud of ourselves as a community for the strides we’ve taken so far.
The City of Timmins is being recognized for its commitment to dealing with these issues head on and demonstrating exemplary leadership in the areas of homelessness and addictions management and treatment in Northern Ontario.
Last week, I had the honour of meeting with the Deputy Grand Chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation and her Senior Policy Analyst. They were in Timmins to meet with various agencies: the Timmins & District Hospital, CMHA Cochrane Timiskaming, the Safe Health Site Timmins, the CDSSAB, et j’en passe, to learn more about our models (notably, our comprehensive drug strategy), and to bring best practices back with them for application in Thunder Bay.
Our paramedic services – the first in Ontario to carry naloxone in its ambulances – have (yet again) spearheaded a new, soon-to-be provincially adopted protocol to administer Suboxone. A drug therapy that offers a better, more effective path to sobriety and recovery.
And it should be said that when the provincial ministers and their colleagues, with whom I’ve been meeting, know the personal names of some of our doctors and community leaders in Timmins, we have to know we’re doing something right.
We should be proud of our community.
But there’s more to be done. Much more.
Our focus has to be on bringing Timmins to a level where we can fully participate in the wave of economic opportunities that are coming our way.
First and foremost, we need to address the lack of appropriate and affordable housing. We are dealing with a shortage of all types of housing, especially when we’re projecting the kind of growth that we need to see here that, quite frankly, the world wants to see.
That’s why we struck a taskforce through the Timmins Economic Development Corporation (TEDC) to identify challenges and to explore and develop strategies to address our current and future housing needs. This initiative is still in its infancy, the group having just met this week for the second time, but I am assured in its ability to deliver on a sound housing supply strategy for the city of Timmins by this year’s end.
In the meantime, we continue to actively pursue possibilities for housing development. We’ve been endorsing a number of applications for supportive housing to the federal ‘Rapid Housing Initiative’ program, and have put out RFPs for two subdivision developments within the city.
Housing is at the core of council’s strategic focus for this term. We’re committed to making investments and adopting or amending policies, where required, to ensure an increase of- and improvements to the housing stock in Timmins.
This is especially important now, as we work to grow our population and assessment base.
We know that this is crucial, not only for taxation purpose, but because we’re in serious need of more skilled people in our workforce. In order to achieve that, we will need to consider short, medium, and long-term recruitment strategies that can be implemented concurrently and through collaboration.
Some such strategies I believe we can successfully realize include increasing immigration rates, promoting Timmins as a destination for post-secondary education, and striving to make Timmins more livable, specifically by targeting in-demand professions to support population growth, like Early Childhood Educators and Primary Care Physicians.
We’ve been fortunate to see success through the federal Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP) program. What’s especially unique and notable about the program is that it is community-driven and it favours applicants who are most likely to settle and reside in the city. So, although it’s expected to sunset soon, we will continue to advocate for the RNIP program to become a permanent immigration stream for our city.
The city of Timmins also has the advantage of having a number of educational institutions. We have four quality school boards, two colleges of applied arts and technologies, and two universities, with program offerings in both French and English. These are high-performing, leading institutions who are working to continue to drive growth in the region. I happen to know that both Collège Boréal and Northern College are currently developing new bachelor degree programs, and both Université de Hearst and Algoma University are in the accreditation process for master’s degree programs. This is significant for the city, as it will allow us to enhance our community profile and provide the skilled workforce that’s sought after by major industry.
However, if we’re talking about increasing the working-age population to fill current and future job vacancies, and putting more efforts into attracting new businesses and industries to the city, which will in turn result in more job creation, we need to ensure that we also have the right supports for all of these people, i.e. childcare and medical care.
At present, we’re short about 80 Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) in order to fill the spots currently allocated to Timmins. Which is why I have been and will continue to advocate for a provincial recruitment and retention strategy for ECEs, while also working with our partners at the DSSAB level to develop our own strategies for the region.
Likewise, we’re short more than 15 family physicians (and 25 specialists) to meet the basic medical needs of our community.
That’s why a community-led, physician recruitment taskforce formed last year, which I’m happy to share will now by co-lead by the TEDC and the Timmins & District Hospital. This initiative has been well-regarded by our partners at NOSM University, who will continue to work with us to ensure we build a more welcoming community for their learners and graduates.
The TEDC is also currently engaged in the consultation process with a firm to develop a ‘Move to Timmins’ strategic marketing campaign, of which I look forward to seeing the final product.
And as we navigate these different challenges and strategies, we should never lose sight of our ability to recruit French-speaking talent. Our vibrant francophone community offers a real ‘added value’ in many ways. Nous, en tant que francophone, offrons de la valeur ajoutée à la communauté et à l’économie locale.
Again, this is an advantage for us as we consider the promise of our local mining sector and the global scale on which it is now, (more than ever,) vital.
We’ve all heard our local MPP and Minister of Mines, the Honourable George Pirie, say it many times before … we have what the world wants and needs. As it seems that the entire planet is now working on respective ‘Critical Mineral Strategies’ and shifting toward greener economies, we must act now to build our capacity to embrace this changing tide and fully participate in it.
We are well positioned here, literally at the core of the new Green Economy, with engaged, socially and environmentally responsible corporate partners who want to work with us to ensure the sustainability of our economy and the broader community.
I won’t speak specifically to who those partners are or how they’re each doing, because we’ve been hearing from them directly through the Chamber’s State of Mining series, but to those of you who are in the room today, I want to thank you again for believing in our potential and so generously investing in the city of Timmins.
Yet, we know that we should not ‘put all of our eggs in one basket’ so to speak and that, despite its importance, mining is not the be-all and end-all for Timmins. If we are to truly participate and benefit from the level of development projected for the region, we must continue to find new ways to build on and diversify our current economic activity. That’s why I was so pleased to read through the TEDC’s Economic Diversification Plan that was recently put out. It presents concrete action items that we can begin to move on immediately. I look forward to working with many of you in the room over the coming years to tackle and make real progress on the proposed action plan.
Additionally, if we want to ensure our relevance and competitiveness, we know that we have to continue to improve our transportation network. Connectivity is key for a remote urban municipality such as ours. That’s why we’ve welcomed the announcement of the return of passenger rail to Timmins.
We continue to work directly with ministry partners to obtain the resources required to maintain our roadways.
We’re currently in the process of completing an ‘Airport Master Plan’ for the Timmins Victor M. Power Airport. And we’re even engaged in a route optimization study of the Timmins Transit, looking at data related to routes, ridership, schedules and costs, in order to make recommendations to improve the system.
Because once people are here, we have to make sure that there are efficient means for them to get to where they need to be.
There is just so much more that I could try to speak to, but conscious of the time, I think I’ll wrap things up by saying that 2023 will be the first of many years of direction and production for the city and we have a great team in place to help make that happen.
Despite many challenges these past years, our City staff continue to enhance the delivery of core services through their Continuous Improvement Program.
Our Engineering Department is planning for over $30M worth of infrastructure work this year, which doesn’t only enhance the quality of life in Timmins, but also provides important economic stimulation for the community.
And (as I hope you all know) we’re currently in the public consultation phase of the review of our ‘Culture, Tourism and Recreation Master Plan’. If you haven’t already done so, I’d ask that you please take a few minutes to go fill out the survey available online, in French and English, on our website.
J’y tiens vraiment, notre ville. Je crois sincèrement qu'ensemble, nous pouvons atteindre nos objectifs.
I truly believe we can achieve our goals, as ambitious as they may be, through genuine, meaningful partnerships with our neighbouring municipalities, First Nations and other Indigenous groups, our partners in provincial and federal government, and of course, private sector stakeholders who are the backbone of our economy.
Merci encore à la Chambre de commerce pour leur partenariat.
And thank you, Chamber members, for supporting and believing in our community, too.
Meegwetch.