The 2012 Northern Economic Development Summit wraps up today at the Jonas Roberts Memorial Community Centre.
The event is a follow-up to a similar summit held last year, and many of the projects brought up then are again being discussed.
Lac La Ronge Indian Band Chief Tammy Cook-Searson says there is much talk about an economic boom in the north, and her people want to be part of it.
“We want our northern, young people to take over the jobs that are coming up in the mining industry and the different industries that are happening up in the north so there’s a lot of people that are retiring as we all know. So we’re wanting to have our own people from the north here take those jobs.”
Valerie Magee, the CEO of the Churchill Enterprise Region says there has been talk of setting up a new economic development organization for the north, but many details still need to be worked out.
“If the entity is created, how it meets as well as how committees from the projects will be continuing to meet and that’s part of the facilitation role that the economic development entity, or whatever it may be called, will need to play a role of that’s been lost with the removal of the enterprise regions.”
La Ronge Mayor Thomas Sierzycki says people who live in the region know what is best for their communities.
“Northerners need to come up with solutions to northern problems and unless northerners take that buy-in it’s not going to be easy for anyone to come in and try to tell us about economic development or educational reform or anything like that. This is a good instance where people are coming together. Hopefully we can continue building on this and actually get some deliverables and outcomes from this conference.”
Sierzycki says in order for economic projects to move forward, there must be suitable infrastructure, health care and educational opportunities.