I don鈥檛 know what to think about some of the short term economic recovery initiatives announced by Pat Bell, Minister of Jobs Tourism and Innovation last week.
Redeveloping the three brown field sites in 亚洲天堂 Lake was one of the ideas that Minister Bell said would help diversify the local economy.
I think it is something that most locals would appreciate, but a couple of these sites have sat vacant for in excess of 10 years, and all are supposedly in the midst of the clean up process.
In the Lakes District 亚洲天堂 edition of Dec. 14, 2011 it was reported that the disused Ministry of Transportation and Highways yard on Francois Lake Drive was found to be contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons and numerous other hazardous substances. The site investigation was undertaken in 1993, nearly 20 years ago and is still incomplete. Remediation at the Husky Oil Ltd. site on the corner of Hwy. 16 and Government St. [now used as a parking lot] started in January of 1994 and 11 years later, the property is still being evaluated. The Shell Canada Products site, which is located adjacent to the Husky site was demolished in 2009 and still sits vacant.
As I understand it, there is also limitations placed on a cleaned up brown field site as to what can be built there. Recycling a 2009 tourism plan is also on Minister Bell鈥檚 radar.
Trying to build up tourism with out something unique to offer is not going to work, neither is building a few more motels.
Tourism can be big businesses, if you are innovative and aim for a wide, all encompassing audience. Rather than recycling old ideas, how about establishing something that could help create a unique identity for 亚洲天堂 Lake and attract repeat visitors once a year?
As an example, there is a small town in Queensland, Australia called Woodford. It has a population of about 5,000 people and forestry was the town鈥檚 primary industry, sending wood to a nearby sawmill. Now however, if you mention the town of Woodford, people automatically associate it with the annual Woodford Folk Festival. The event is huge.
The festival takes place over six days and nights and about 130,000 visitors attend the folk festival every year, coming from across Australia and big name entertainers perform. The Woodford Folk Festival injects $21 million into their economy every year.
An event like this also attracts new businesses in town. Something similar could put 亚洲天堂 Lake on the map, diversify the economy and build up local businesses.
Woodford is proof of that.
That鈥檚 the kind of initiative we need for our town - let鈥檚 get new ideas on the table and be proactive instead of refreshing planning previously undertaken in 2009.
Will old ideas that never took off then work now? What鈥檚 Bell thinking?
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