Kenora repositioning itself.

Despite the loss of nearly 150 jobs and the layoff of over 300 employees at AbitibiConsolidated Ltd.'s Kenora mill this summer, the community is far from devastated, says the mayor of Kenora.

In fact, the move has prompted the community to diversify its forest industry in order to become the value-added forestry capital of Canada, Dave Canfield says.

Abitibi, faced with high energy costs and a weak newsprint market, announced it would close the mills No. 8 paper machine on. June 18 and idle two others until the fall. Nearly 500 employees are affected, including 147 who were handed their pink slips. And while the shutdown has had an effect on the community, Canfield says it is not as bad as it could be.

"Kenora is the number one tourism destination between Niagara Falls and Banff (Alta.)," Canfield says. "The unique thing about Kenora is that because we're a huge tourist centre the local businesses won't feel the effect as much until fall."

Canfield suspects the city will feel only a minimal impact during the summer months and that the construction of Weyerhaeuser's Trus Joist mill will make things a little easier in the fall.

"With the construction activity at the Thus Joist mill, we're going to see a peak of 300 or more people working there. That's going to help pull us through the tough times."

Neil Brophy, president of the local chamber of commerce agrees, and says summers in Kenora, aside from the tourism-generated business, are traditionally slow for business.

Brophy says the chamber has not yet implemented a strategy to combat the effects of the mill shutdown, but instead has taken a "wait and see" approach.

"This is by no means a positive (thing), but we are trying to look for positive things," Brophy says. "We're behind Abitibi in their efforts to have the mill reopen in the time frame that they first set out."

In the meantime, the city's strategy to make a quick economic recovery and offset the impact of the mill's shutdown is to fast-track some of the economic development and diversification projects it had planned for. the future.

Specifically, Canfield would like to see at least one industrial park go up on 35 hectares of available land located across from the Trus Joist plant, as soon as possible.

The federal government has thrown its support behind Kenora's industrial park project; FedNor recently announced it will provide $5 million to the city to extend municipal services to two new industrial parks, both adjacent to a third industrial park where Trus Joist Weyerhaeuser is building its $250-million wood products plant.

Another $4.5 million has been granted through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund.

Canfield says the money will go a long way in helping the industrial park project get off the ground sooner than planned.

Forestry has always been an important part of Kenora's economy and Canfield says Abitibi's cutbacks have not changed that. Instead, he would like to see the community diversify and explore new forestry opportunities to ensure the loss of a mill or plant down the road won't devastate the city.

"It's our intent in Kenora, being the largest centre between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg, to become the value-added forestry capital of Ontario," Canfield says. "Because we're fortunate enough to have the largest TimberStrand mill in the world being build right now, and because of the Kenora Forest Products sawmill, we have all the components to provide a lot of value-added opportunities. We want to use all of these to bring other businesses and manufacturers into the industrial park and start producing the value-added-products right here..."