Algoma region to study Niagara's success.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Algoma, Ontario, Canada - Brief Article

Sault Ste. Marie becomes site of new initiative focused on helping 'underdeveloped' businesses

SAULT STE. MARIE - The federal government is providing more than $400,000 towards a business development pilot program for the Algoma district that could become a cookie-cutter model for communities across Canada.

The Ministry of Industry is throwing its support behind testing a successful initiative created in the Niagara region that helped shrivel that area's unemployment rate from among the highest in Canada to one of the lowest.

"Our project is focused on those businesses that are underdeveloped in their growth and can provide a good return to the community," says Glenn Stansfield, chief executive officer of the Niagara Enterprise Agency.

Niagara developed this initiative after that region was battered in the early 1990s by the loss of 20,000 jobs in the automotive and advanced-manufacturing sector. Relationships developed that pulled together local bankers, economic development officials, post-secondary educators and key community leaders to focus on the needs of surrounding business and how to grow them.

Some initiatives from these grass-roots collaborations built on the region's traditional strengths in tourism, agri-business and manufacturing. It worked so well that the federal government asked the agency to determine whether its model would work elsewhere.

Sault Ste. Marie and Kingston have been selected to test it over the next two years. The Sault's RAPIDS Community Investment Inc., a non-profit sister organization to Niagara under the Canada Community Investment Plan, will implement it.

Stansfield sees no reason to doubt that Niagara's fortunes can be replicated in Northern Ontario. "Our success was based on the community looking internally and asking, 'What do we have that's natural and innate to our region?' rather than dreaming about General Motors bringing another plant to the region. That part of the process is fully transportable to any community."

With the guiding hand of Stansfield and his agency, RAPIDS and other community partners will work toward improving contacts with small- to medium-size businesses, showing them how to access capital and find the technologies they need, and where they can get into the marketplace.

Niagara runs several unique programs including the Virtual Business Accelerator, Intelligence Acquisition Service and the Niagara Growth Fund. Their initiative has attracted much widespread attention in the...