Governments invest to diversify

Page 5

The Canadian and Saskatchewan governments are each putting $10 million over five years into a fund aimed at strengthening and diversifying the northern Saskatchewan economy.

The Canada-Saskatchewan Northern Development Agreement will provide opportunities for northerners to improve infrastructure, training and education, and increase research and business investment.

The new fund is part of the Northern Development Accord, signed Oct. 17 in La Ronge, which provides a framework for federal, provincial and northern authorities to work together to improve living conditions and economic opportunities in the north.

"Northerners want to see action in this agreement . . . and they also want to see action quickly," said Northern Affairs Minister Buckley Belanger at the signing ceremony for the accord. Authorities say about $1 million will flow before the end of the fiscal year next spring, although details on the application process for projects have yet to be announced.

The fund will be managed by a committee of two members each from the federal and provincial governments and the Northern Development Board (NDB), which represents northern First Nations, the Metis Nation of Saskatchewan (MNS) and the municipalities of New North. Each party will have to agree before a project proceeds, which ssentially gives each party a veto.

To be eligible for funding, recipients must be legal entities, such as non-profit corporations, post-secondary institutions, hospitals and regional health care centres engaged in research, or other provincial agencies or legal entities created by the provincial government. Commercial businesses will not be eligible for support, except in circumstances where the community would benefit substantially from the investment.

Churchill River MP Rick Laliberte likened the support of provincial and federal governments to two snowshoes, and said it was now up to the NDB to wear those snowshoes and head in its own direction.

"We have new trails to make," he said, emphasizing that northerners needed to create wealth for themselves, not share wealth with other powers. "Please, don't treat us like the Hudson's Bay Co.," he said to his federal colleagues, Public Works Minister Ralph Goodale and Stephen Owen, Secretary of State for Western Economic Diversification.

"This (accord) is a uniqueness in Canada," said Cumberland MLA Keith Goulet, who remarked that the NDB may need five-legged snowshoes, given all the partners-the Prince Albert Grand Council, Meadow Lake Tribal Council, MNS and New North.

"What I like about it is the partnership," said MNS president Clem Chartier, though he said the accord falls short of what was envisioned four years ago during development of the Northern Strategy, a similar accord between the province and northern leaders.

"This is truly an experiment in partnership and collaboration," said Goodale, noting that the accord demands that governments abandon the usual hierarchies of placing one government above another.

"We need to find new and better ways to work with each other horizontally," said Goodale. When an area is faced with economic and social hardship, jurisdictions don't matter. Results do."

Gary Merasty, grand chief of the Prince Albert Grand Council and co-chair of the NDB, emphasized the same need for co-operation instead of the "stovepipe approach" that has hindered First Nations development in the past. He explained that the $20 million won't go far on its own, but it can be used to leverage much more funding from other sources and programs, such as for a hydro project.

Perhaps the Alberta government could be persuaded to match funding for a road so that the unemployed in La Loche, Sask. could seek jobs in Ft. McMurray, just over the Alberta border, said fellow NDB member Max Morin, adding that northerners had many aspirations that go beyond this one agreement.