Re-inventing Thunder Bay's economy: oil sands, mineral exploration, global logistics in city's favour.

Thunder Bay is going to transform its economy, and it's going to do it sooner than later.

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That well-worn story of Thunder Bay as a battered forestry mill town with hundreds of lost jobs? It's yesterday's news.

There's bigger and brighter prospects ahead, says Steve Demmings, CEO of the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission, who boldly predicts the city's economy will be turned around within five years. China's and India's thirst for commodities--wheat, lumber, minerals, steel, oil--and Western Canada's need for skilled labour and steel fabrication, puts Thunder Bay and all of northwestern Ontario in an advantageous position.

"It's staggering to see what the opportunity is and it's all on our doorstep," says Demmings.

The real economic power in Canada is shifting to the West and Thunder Bay needs to have a partnership stake. That was the message he took home from the National Buyer Seller Forum in Edmonton where he spent three days as part of an Ontario delegation with Economic Development Minister Sandra Pupatello.

Southern Ontario's manufacturing economy tied to the struggling North American auto industry may be in free-fall, but Northern Ontario is poised to do well.

The speed of global trade and investment is happening so fast, it's literally taking place within a few hundred kilometres of the city

India's Essar, a Forbes-listed company, acquired Sault Ste. Marie's Algoma Steel on the other end of Lake Superior, and to the south, the Mumbai-based giant is building a steel mill on top of a Minnesota Iron Range ore deposit.

"China and India are impacting everything we do, even right here on Lake Superior," says Demmings, the former president of Site Selection Canada, a Winnipeg consulting firm offering services to expanding technology companies.

Since arriving in April 2007, he's been taking stock of Thunder Bay's emerging knowledge-based sector, its research-oriented university, a high-tech college, an underutilized Great Lakes port and rail network, a cluster of industrial fabricators and suppliers, the robust mineral exploration scene, and the community's quality of life.

Then he sees it's all located in the middle of North America, a strategic cross-roads to do business.

The city has made some inroads into Alberta through their Thunder Bay Oil Sands Consortium, a 25-company group of machine shops, fabricators, welders and structural capabilities, engineering and logistics firms. A Calgary-based consultant provides them with market intelligence on securing contracts.

"The opportunities are so much greater than the Oil Sands in Alberta," says Demmings.

There are 1.7 trillion barrels of oil in Alberta and there are untapped oil and mineral reserves in Saskatchewan. Manitoba has billions of dollars worth of hydroelectric projects underway and there's a nation-wide call of infrastructural renewal of roads and bridges.

All need steel and skilled labour.

The city remains in negotiations to land a multi-national oil sands-related company with a 100,000-square-foot shop which could mean hundreds of jobs.

There's also a deal underway with a 60,000-square-foot building user.

In April, the first of several shipments of British Columbia metallurgical coal left the Port of Thunder Bay heading east-bound for a Corus steel mill in the United Kingdom.

Demmings says that's only a hint of what's to come. One business contact recently toured the harbour and sees the potential to move a million tonnes of material over the docks. Within months, Demmings expects to make a major announcement of another company moving to Thunder Bay because of the port's logistical advantages.

On the forestry side, two specialty paper mills are reopening under new management teams to offer niche products to the North American market.

Demmings says compared to the Finns, Canadians have been slow to innovate and need to do a better job of harnessing their intellectual horsepower to be more competitive.

He draws parallels with northern New Brunswick, including his hometown of Bathurst, where the economy has been devastated by mill closures. Some communities have turned to Information Technology and some manufacturers are doing project work in the Maritimes headed for the West.

"How cities are dealing with change is part of our strategic plan. Alberta is playing a key role in Canada's economic transformation."

The economic vision of where Thunder Bay is going will be rolled out this spring and over the next few months with a massive and elaborate marketing program.

When Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce Mary Long-Irwin sizes up what the New Economy has to offer, especially in life sciences with the new Molecular Medicine Research Centre and the $500 million worth of city-wide medical procurement, it dissolves any image of Thunder Bay as a dying community

"Everybody thought we were a one-industry town."

More has to be done to free up commercial and industrial land for new business, she says, and Thunder Bay needs to do more to promote itself as a regional service hub, especially in mining.

Government money must be spent to build permanent year-round roads into remote Aboriginal communities and Long-Irwin supports the creation of a regional development commissioner in Queen's Park to advocate on issues affecting all of the North.

"We are one North and we need to work together."

www.thunderbay.ca

www.thosc.com

(Thunder Bay Oil Sands Consortium)

www.tb-chamber.on.ca

By IAN ROSS

Northern Ontario Business