Northern Sask linked with world

Page 14

With a swipe of the wire-cutters, federal Industry Minister Brian Tobin sliced the ribbon-wrapped computer cable, and officially linked northern Saskatchewan to the watching world.

Broadcast live over the World Wide Web on Aug. 21, the official launch of the Headwaters Project-a three-year infotech-nology project sponsored by Tobin's department -was a grand affair, full of proud speeches and promises for expanded services to northern Saskatchewan.

The Headwaters Project, which formally began in February, is one of Canada's 12 "Smart Communities" demonstration projects. It was proposed by Keewatin Career Development Corporation (KCDC), a five-year-old joint venture that supports career services in the North, and was chosen from amongst nine hopefuls as Saskatchewan's Smart Communities project last May, receiving $4.5 million in federal funding.

Like many successful northern ventures, Headwaters is a multi-tentacled effort, with 58 supporting partners. These include northern municipalities, school divisions and other educational organizations, First Nations and Metis locals. Combining financial and in-kind contributions, these partnerships bring Headwaters' three-year budget to approximately $13 million.

Over the next three years, the project team (co-located in La Ronge and Ile-a-la-Crosse) will be opening up a range of "smart services" to the residents of nearly 40 communities in the North. These smart services include: e-learning, with a goal of enabling students to complete high school, post-secondary and vocational courses on-line; e-commerce, enabling entrepreneurs to expand their markets and promote their products, and educating northerners about on-line banking services; and e-tourism, promoting northern Saskatchewan as a destination, and showcasing northern languages and culture (through a Web site called "Kayas", Cree for "long time no see").

Addressing a crowd gathered for the launch in the gymnasium at La Ronge's Kikinahk Friendship Centre, Tobin explained this was a Canada-wide competition, and the Headwaters proposal was not singled out as a favor to northerners.

"You collectively put together the best idea," Tobin said. "This project was selected because of the strength the application... but it's also (been) selected because of the strong working partnership here. This is extraordinary.

"If we want northern communities to progress," he added, "this idea that every community, every agency, every sector, is going to act on a one-off basis with the federal government, is simply not workable. This model is workable."

It's also a model that's been in place since KCDC's inception. Established in 1996 as a short-term, provincially-funded project to improve northerners' access to career services via the Internet, KCDC has always operated with a multi-faceted board of directors, representing educational institutions, career service agencies, and increasingly, Metis and First Nations groups across the North.

The seed that became Headwaters was actually planted by the board, who were looking for ways to make KCDC sustainable beyond its initial government contract. Deciding that manager Randy Johns (now Headwaters' management consultant) and then-technical co-ordinator Bryan Orthner (now the project's Webmaster) had the skills to expand beyond career services to more of a community development mandate, the board told Johns to keep an eye out for new government programs. The North's biggest barrier-in education, in economic development, in health care-is isolation. What Headwaters is doing, Johns said, is "shortening the distance."