Representatives of Timmins Economic Development Corporation provided an overview of business start-ups and expansions the organization helped support last year.
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Audrey Penner, TEDC chair, and Christy Marinig, chief executive officer, made a presentation to Timmins city council Tuesday night where they provided highlights of the corporation’s annual report.
Penner said the TEDC’s Business Enterprise Centre met with close to 500 clients, and offered consultation on 69 business start-ups and seven expansions.
“That’s really quite phenomenal in this region,” said Penner. “We can tell the economy is booming and 69 business start-ups is pretty solid return.”
Penner said there were different types of new businesses covering a wide range of sectors but she didn’t go into any specific details.
She said the TEDC helped to leverage more than $1.1 million in funding for community economic development and close to $3.4 million for business development and retention projects.
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Marinig highlighted several initiatives where the TEDC played an integral role in securing funding or investment within the community.
“The Stratospheric Balloon Launch expansion – Brenda (Camirand, director of Business Development and Retention) in our office worked with other city staff to acquire $3.2 million for the expansion of the balloon base which was recently opened.”
The Canadian Space Agency’s Stratospheric Balloon Base in Timmins recently opened a new payload integration facility, doubling its capacity.
The Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario (FedNor) and the Northern Ontario Heritage Funding Corporation each contributed $1.6 million towards this addition.
“We’re quite proud of that,” said Marinig. “That allows the facility to run more campaigns and do more things out of the City of Timmins.”
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Marinig said the TEDC has also been actively promoting Timmins as a location for shooting films.
“In 2022, Noella (Rinaldo, director of Community Economic Development), from our office, was able to secure a full-length feature film called My Animal. The success of My Animal impacted the local economy with job creation, local business impacts and expenditures, and enhanced Timmins’ reputation as a film location.”
Marinig also spoke about the TEDC’s efforts to entice skilled labourers to move to Timmins.
“We have a Move to Timmins: A Workforce and Resident Attraction Marketing Campaign,” she explained. “That campaign is currently running and we received $150,000 from partners and the government to run ads … on LinkedIn, Tik-Tok and Facebook. Those campaigns are being done in French and English and the key partner sectors are health, education and mining.
“So, we have done the program for two months now, and we’re continuing the campaign into the fall. It will run for the next 16 months.”
On Twitter: @TimminsPress
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