LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Timmins a `vibrant community’

I would like to express my disappointment with a recent article that appeared in The Northern Miner (June 11/90) about the future of the city of Timmins. The article discusses the present labor problems at Placer Dome and poses the question “is this mining city of 47,000 facing an economic disaster?” It goes on to depict doom and gloom for Timmins. As mayor of this community, I want to assure you and your readers that Timmins is not facing an economic disaster at present, in the short-term or the long-term future.

Timmins has always taken initiatives to shelter itself from the cold reality that mines do not last forever. We are a vibrant and healthy community and this is demonstrated with recent announcements to proceed with a district hospital, expansion of our retail sector, an increase in new construction in the housing market, and the list goes on.

Mining is an extremely important part of our economy but I would caution your writers to look at the whole makeup of the Timmins economy. If they did, they would realize that there are other strong attributes to this city. We are not totally dependent on one industry as may be the case of some of the other communities mentioned in the article.

It appears your writer got caught up in the labor difficulties at the Placer Dome operations and chose to bring out a host of other negative thoughts on the local Timmins economy because of a shortfall of information on the labor dispute. We do not appreciate this type of reporting because it is always possible that potential investors may give an article of this type some credibility and look elsewhere to place their investment funds. Timmins and many other communities in northeastern Ontario spend a lot of money promoting what we have to offer and it only takes senseless articles like this one to eliminate the good we have done.

The Northern Miner would serve communities better if it concentrated on encouraging the federal government to reinstate the flow- through funding program which created an enormous amount of activity in the economy of all northern Ontario municipalities. Dennis Welin Mayor Timmins, Ont.