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Members from the consortium spoke to city council on Monday about their success. They renamed the group the Thunder Bay Metal Fabricators Association to focus on jobs outside the oilsands and remove the word “consortium,” which could confuse people. Councillors spent the first part of Monday‘s meeting asking members about the association‘s potential. “You currently have more than 800 highly skilled trades people and, given your ambition, where do you think that number could go?” Coun. Andrew Foulds asked. “It could grow into hundreds of thousands of working hours per year,” board member Paul Peterson said. “It‘s difficult to give the number of jobs, but the sky‘s the limit.” There was some talk about the fancy blue shirts board members wore to the meeting and to the 2010 National Buyers and Sellers Forum held in Edmonton earlier this year. Peterson said their booth was in the best location, directly outside the lecture hall. “We had the highest amount of traffic,” Peterson said. Southern Ontario had a booth there and so did Quebec, both trying to get jobs in Alberta‘s oilsands industry and other work in that part of the country. Peterson said the local association is a front-runner for a contract worth $32 million in Western Canada, although he wouldn‘t go into any details. “That‘s great stuff and I like the shirts,” Coun. Brian McKinnon remarked. “I noticed everything you‘re doing is looking west. With the Ring of Fire happening the other way, are you looking that way at all?” McKinnon asked. “Yes, the idea is to look outside the close, local region. The Ring of Fire is on our radar, front and centre,” Peterson said. “We haven‘t forgotten about what‘s outside our backdoor. It‘s easier to do that and it‘s more cost effective.” Changing the name to the Thunder Bay Metal Fabricators Association was a way to “chase work” in Saskatchewan for uranium and potash, and go after hydroelectric jobs in Manitoba, he said. In 2007, when the consortium first came together, members believed it would be simple to get work, especially with former competitors working together. “When we first sat down we thought this was going to be easy. We thought we‘d do $200 million, (but) we‘re absolutely ecstatic that we did $50 million in that time period and kept those people employed,” Peterson said. “That‘s been huge for us.” Peterson said the group‘s success wouldn‘t have occurred if it wasn‘t for help from the Community Economic Development Commission. Top of Page |
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September 2, 2010, 7:48 am |