NORTH BAY -- More than $1.4 million in funding from Queens Park is being divided among five companies in North Bay, funding aimed at creating 17 jobs.

Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli made the announcement Monday morning at Designed Roofing Inc., one of the recipients of the funding.

The company, which employs more than 110 workers between Design Roofing, Essential Exteriors and Northland Glass & Metal, received $400,000 to help with the construction of its new building,

“We were quickly outgrowing our previous two facilities,” said company president Michael Valenti, adding the funding will allow them "to come into one (building) and help fast track our move to the industrial park."

Four other companies in the city are benefiting from the money, which is coming through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation.

Central Welding and Iron Works is receiving $726,750; CO-OP Regionale is getting $128,561; $118,872 is going to Jacques Dalcourt; and, MetricAid Inc. is receiving $72,083.

Fedeli said the funding is designed to help create 17 new full-time jobs in the area and promote economic development.

Always a good sign

“We brought tens of millions of dollars and those companies are all employing people -- they held up through COVID. You look here, they’re looking for people, you look at MetricAid and talk to Les and he’ll tell you they’re looking for people,” said Fedeli. “So that’s always a good sign when you’ve got these companies trying to hire people right across the community.”

This is the second time MetricAid has received funding from the Ford government during the pandemic. Owner Les Blackwell said it has given them added opportunities.

“I don’t know a lot of industries, but in mine, a lot of our costs come before the revenue," Blackwell said. "So when I need to build a new product and deliver on that and then service that, all of my costs are front loaded."

Blackwell said MetricAid has 30 employees compared to the 16 it had in March. Those numbers expected to double again in the next six months.

“We’re putting (the funding) towards hiring developers," he said. "So in fact, we’ve hired four new development staff since March and I think three of them (are) attached to this funding.”

Metso closing

Although good news, it comes shortly after the Finnish firm Metso announced it’s closing its North Bay operation and cutting 60 jobs.

“If I could equate it to a football game, maybe, because it was a football day yesterday, we know that there’s going to be scores against us and we need to score, as well,” said North Bay Mayor Al McDonald. “So we recognize in the global economy that there’s going to be contraction and moving capital in different parts of the world. We just need to do our part to make sure that we’re attracting more capital than we’re losing and working with the companies that we have here.”

Fedeli said families were taken into consideration prior to this announcement.

“For families, we know that the most important thing is that they have a job, that they have an income and there’s a good paying job,” he says. “So in this particular piece of the budget where we try to rebuild the economy, we want to strengthen the employers so they can hire more employees and that’s how we’re going to support the families in Ontario, by making sure that there are companies around so they can have a job.”