Ontario North gathering aims to connect businesses and communities to maximize opportunities

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY — Pays Plat’s plan to develop a medical marijuana cultivation centre was raised at the ABM Indigenous: Ontario North gathering, held June 10-12 in Thunder Bay. The Anishnawbe Business Professional Association (ABPA) and Advanced Business Match held the gathering at the Valhalla Inn, with about 70 businesses, organizations and First Nations in attendance.

“We have support — we’ve had two community engagement sessions and then a referendum held on April 27 where 80 per cent plus of our membership told us to go ahead,” says Doug Moses, economic development officer with Pays Plat, during a lunch-hour presentation on June 12. “The project was specifically outlined — it’s specifically to sell to Health Canada. There is no dispensary. So none of that stays around our community, it’s just the money that stays.”

Moses adds that Pays Plat also created the Pawgwasheeng Economic Development Corporation this past February with a five-member board.

“The idea of the corporation is to actually generate revenue for the First Nation along with providing opportunities for the membership to have jobs on and off-reserve with our partners,” Moses says. “To date, we have signed four MOUs [with] Pioneer, GridLink, TBT Engineering and DST.”

John O’Nabigon, economic development manager with Long Lake #58, says it was important to meet with industry representatives at the gathering.

“We’ll see what the possibilities are,” O’Nabigon says. “We’re open for business and we want to see who is out there. We need partners and see what is available.”

O’Nabigon says the community is looking to develop capacity in employment and training as well as in ownership and operation of businesses.

“This is the first [ABM gathering] I’ve been to,” O’Nabigon says. “It helps me sort out which companies that may be of interest to us depending on what we are doing.”

Kirstine Baccar, office/business development manager with Superior Strategies and a Red Rock Indian Band citizen, says this was her second ABM gathering as she attended one in Sudbury last year.

“It was fantastic — I made a lot of great connections,” Baccar says about last year’s gathering. “We landed some different relationships and potential business opportunities. Jason Thompson, who is the owner of Superior Strategies, and I kept on saying we needed something like this in northern Ontario especially with all of the developments that are happening in our territories and in our area.”

Baccar says her schedule was full at this year’s gathering, where the upcoming meetings were announced every 20 minutes over a speaker system.

“It’s been fantastic,” Baccar says. “I think all three of these companies (Superior Strategies, Superior Strategies Supply and Service and Aanigitoon Development Services) have a really great opportunity here to potentially do some more business.”

Jason Rasevych, president of ABPA, says about 100 delegates participated in the gathering, noting that the ABPA covers all of northwestern and northeastern Ontario.

“[When] they come to the event, they already have a listing of scheduled companies they are interested in meeting,” Rasevych says. “So they sit down with companies they have prearranged these appointments with and they have 20 minutes on the clock. So it is basically speed dating to kind of better understand what each side brings to the table and how they can pursue next steps to try to collaborate in some form or to start building a relationship.”

Rasevych says the gathering was the first initiative spearheaded by the ABPA to connect businesses and communities in the region to build respectful and rewarding relationships that lead to mutually beneficial agreements and arrangements.