Timmins, built on mining, still experiencing growth – 25% of

The largest city in Canada with a geographic size of 1,240 square miles, Timmins, Ont., bills itself as a “world-class” mining camp with plans to retain that reputation. With a population of 47,000, serving a market population of more than 100,000, Timmins is a regional centre for the James Bay basin of such services as health, education, culture and business. The city is laid out in a grid fashion on sandy terraces overlooking the Mattagami River. In the thriving downtown area are modern shopping malls, boutiques, specialty shops, restaurants, movie houses and entertainment centres. In fact, according to a Timmins promotional publication, all the facilities one would expect to find in a large prosperous city.

About 25% of the city’s workforce of more than 21,000 is employed directly with mining and mine exploration companies. Exploration, not counting exploration by the major mines, accounts for nearly 300 of the total workforce. A further 500 work for service companies supporting the exploration firms.

Evidence of the continued reliance, to some degree, on mining-related businesses in the community is the development, with significant assistance from Giant Yellowknife Mines of the Gold Mine Tour. Providing an opportunity for travellers from around the world to experience an underground operation, the tour’s development has had a positive impact on the Timmins economy, creating other new business opportunities and increasing the city’s tourism revenues. Having grown as a regional centre for the James Bay basin, partly to offset negative changes in the mining and forestry industries, Timmins is continuing to seek other opportunities to keep employment figures from declining.

The economy has been strengthened with fresh manufacturing enterprises that not only serve the regional mining industry but also are able to compete in global markets.

The Timmins Economic Development Corp. bears responsibility for implementing the city’s strong economic development strategy based on a mandate to develop a “Northern Quality of Life” for its residents. Timmins has been steadily widening its economic base since the days 20 years ago when 14 operating mines employed 16,000 people and when the community was solely dependent upon the mining and forestry industries. The current major mining operations — Falconbridge Ltd.’s Kidd Creek division and Placer Dome — employ about 3,300 with education, government and health facilities providing employment for another 1,900. The remainder of the city’s workforce derives its livelihood from the more than 1,400 other concerns that make up this vital mining community’s commercial foundation.

Mayor Dennis Welin points to the growing number and worth of building permits in Timmins as one indication of the city’s vibrant economy. Ten years ago, even as Canada began to suffer an economic depression, more than $10 million in permits was issued in Timmins. By 1988, more than $51 million in permits was issued, a flurry of building activity never before seen in the community. Last year, this economic indicator had jumped to $70 million and Mayor Welin said the value of permits issued in 1990 could well surpass the $100-million mark.

In efforts to accelerate the modest rate of growth in employment and business expansion — both in its existing sectors and to gradually develop a more diversified economic base — Timmins has formed a 4-phase strategy for economic development and diversification. Over the next five to 10 years, this strategy will focus on developing the city into a more vital regional services centre, on developing a broader and higher quality spectrum of tourism and visitor attractions, on expanding the traded goods and services sectors and on maintaining the existing resource extraction and procession sectors while, at the same time, encouraging diversification into new processes.

The city of Timmins remains as the only major centre in northeastern Ontario that’s experiencing a population growth. While that growth is small, it is steady and is attributed to the community’s continually expanding service base.