North Bay conference looks to find ways to tackle issues rural northerners face

A three-day conference underway in North Bay is looking at tackling issues northerners face when it comes to labour, transportation, the economy, health care and more.

When it comes to northern Ontario’s forestry sector, Ontario Forests CEO Rob Keen said there is a shortage in available skilled labour in rural northern Ontario.

"Generally there are a lot of opportunities within forest management,” Keen said.

“I've heard that mills are having a really hard time keeping staff. There's jobs like that from soups to nuts."

Keen is one of more than a dozen keynote speakers at the Northern Directions 2022 conference.

The three-day conference is hosted by the Northern Policy Institute in partnership with the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation and it's meant for municipalities, organizations, leaders and decision makers to set priorities for the next year to make life better for northerners.

"We hear from actors on an ongoing basis and we also want to hear about what is in the news and what the challenges are and we incorporate that into Northern Directions," said conference coordinator Bryanne Rocha.

The main highlights of the conference look at ways to keep people in the north, attract newcomers, retain and create jobs, find ways to improve regional transportation, look for more housing solutions and improving health care.

"We want to know what are the main challenges for the next 12 months and who needs to do what to address these challenges,” said Rocha.

Hornepayne Mayor Cheryl Fort said the main priorities she’s looking at tackling is access to health care in her community and finding solutions to create housing.

"In our case we have Hornepayne Community Hospital,” Fort said.

“We want to ensure people can get health care in their communities. We want to support that, plus doctor retention and health care professionals across the board."

When it comes to transportation gaps, Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities President Danny Whalen said there is a desperate need to connect northern towns through passenger rail revival.

"One of the things we're eagerly anticipating is the return of passenger rail,” Whalen said.

“Not only are we encouraging the return of passenger rail but we as northerners have to look at how we're going to increase the ridership.”

Once the conference ends, the hope is guests will take back what's been discussed to their towns and cities and try and use solutions suggested to fix issues the public is facing.