Becoming the city of first choice

The North is in a mining boom, and the window for Sudbury to benefit is narrow. One company alone has committed fourteen billion dollars to its Ontario mines by 2030, and a major new nickel mine north of Timmins was approved this summer. Those decisions are being made now, and where the spin-off investment lands is decided in the next council's term, not the one after it.

Sudbury already holds the expertise. The engineers, the mechanics, the equipment manufacturers, the entrepreneurs and innovators who have built companies here. In December, ground was broken on Maley Drive for an eighty-five million dollar mining equipment facility, opening in 2027. That has to be the start, not the whole story.

We start from strength elsewhere too: our nickel and copper already reach markets well beyond the United States, and the national chamber of commerce ranked Sudbury the country's least exposed city in the trade war. We can turn this into the Sudbury advantage.

• $14BCommitted by one company to its Ontario mines by 2030
• $85MMining equipment facility on Maley Drive, opening 2027
• #1Canada's least trade-exposed city, per the national chamber of commerce

Here is the part that gets missed

A company deciding where to grow is looking beyond tax rates and serviced land. It is asking whether the people it needs to attract will want to live there.

Some of the growth available to us is in the companies already here. When one of them grows it hires, and those jobs go to people already in this community. But it can only grow if the engineer, the tradesperson, the manager it needs are willing to move here first.

We need our doors responsibly open to that growth, and we need to be a city people want to move to. Both at the same time.

Our arts and culture agencies are punching well above their weight. Cultural organizations put on festivals across this community, in our neighbourhoods, on very limited budgets, and anyone who has been to a YES Theatre production has seen how they are producing quality entertainment. All of that in spite of the funding, not because of it, while the money going to arts and culture keeps ending up on the chopping block.

Our recreation options have not kept pace with our recent growth. Teams who want ice time cannot always get it. We need to invest in the quality of life of our youth so they choose to stay and build our city up.

Those aren't vanity investments. They are the tipping points that convince someone choosing what northern city they invest in, because when deciding where to invest people want to see a city investing in itself, believing in itself. They help drive the kind of growth that pays for our ailing infrastructure.

What that means for your neighbourhood, street and household in Ward 12

Every business that builds here and every industrial job that lands anywhere in this city widens the base that pays for this city. A growing commercial and industrial assessment is the only thing that takes weight off residential taxpayers and closes the gap that leaves our infrastructure in poor shape. This is how we generate the funds to make our neighbourhoods thrive.

Government doesn't create jobs. It creates the conditions for them to take root.

Government doesn't create jobs, or businesses, but it can create the conditions necessary for them to take root and grow. We have all of the raw nature, resources, and talent it takes to be a destination city.

It's time to be the city people choose, and companies choose to invest in.