Plan emphasizes city's strengths.

"Sustainable competitive advantage" are three words that sum up the way back to prosperity for Sault Ste. Marie.

These words are the theme of a draft strategic plan unveiled to the city on March 2.

Coming as it did just days after the announcement that Algoma Steel would be given a chance to restructure and survive, the strategic plan reinforced the belief that this beleaguered city will pull itself out of the economic doldrums.

However, the plan itself does not rely on Algoma Steel.

"All of us accept that Algoma Steel is not going to be the company it was," admits Sault Mayor Joe Fratesi. "Even in the best scenario, we're going to end up with a downsized Algoma Steel - and a void that has to be filled."

Fratesi adds, however, that "one of the amazing things about the plan is that it refocuses us on some things we were prepared to abandon."

"People might have thought that industry for the city of Sault Ste. Marie was a dead issue, and we would be relying just on tourism, or tourism and education. But the plan is saying, 'Hey, you'll miss the boat if you abandon your history.'"

The public was invited to review the draft plan through a series of public meetings last month. The final plan was to be presented to city council on March 30.

FOUR STRENGTHS

The search for a new foundation for the Sault's economy concluded that the city has four unique strengths. These are:

* a special relationship with the natural environment

* a significant educational infrastructure

* opportunities for industrial development

* a location which is a natural centre for transportation

The plan, which was prepared with the assistance of Rod Dobson of the consulting firm Ernst & Young, uses those strengths as a springboard.

"Based on these sources of sustainable competitive advantage, you have exciting and positive opportunities here," said Dobson in his address to city council.

The key industrial recommendation of the plan focuses on transportation. By taking advantage of both the federal and provincial governments' commitment to infrastructure development, the report urges the city to look seriously at the potential for creating a major intermodal transportation facility in the Sault.

The city is in an enviable position for such a development. By bringing rail and road in from the east, north and west to link with existing road and rail going east and south, and by pursuing discussions which have already begun with Transport Canada for a deep-water port, the city could become a major regional distribution centre.

In addition to introducing a major new industrial sector, improved transportation facilities would provide a boost for Algoma Steel's export program as well as new loads for the struggling Algoma Central Railway.

Dobson stresses the need to develop an industrial infrastructure based on the city's existing competitive advantages. Among these he includes inexpensive power, process steam, clean water, an available labor force and access to raw materials - primarily timber. The report identifies forest products as a natural focus for industrial development.

Both tourism and education are also highlighted as important elements of a healthy, diversified economy for the Sault.

Tourism has long been targeted by local groups as the city's best engine for diversification. The draft strategic plan supports expansion of the tourism sector as a good opportunity for immediate job creation, with strong links to the quality of life - identified as a key community value.

The strategy indicates that the post-secondary education sector is poised to take advantage of an unclaimed niche - a "holistic" approach to forestry, environmental studies and programs for Native people.

It urges the city to support both the BRIDGE initiative, which promotes co-operation among three (two Canadian, one Michigan) post-secondary institutions, and Algoma University College's bid to gain independent university status.

PUBLIC INPUT

The draft strategic plan is the result of a process which Dobson calls "absolutely unique" in its reliance on public input.

Long before a consultant was brought on the scene, representatives of the three levels of government got the ball rolling by identifying the need for a plan of action.

Mayor Fratesi, Sault Ste. Marie MP Steve Butland, Algoma MP Maurice Foster, Sault Ste. Marie MPP Tony Martin and Algoma MPP Bud Wildman began meeting at what became known as the RAPIDS roundtable.

"We decided that, to go out and sell the community, we needed an up-to-date plan that made sense, that all could buy into - a plan that wasn't my plan, or city council's plan, or Steve Butland's plan, or Tony Martin's plan, but a community plan," says Fratesi.

The result was the RAPIDS planning process, which examined both the economic and social development needs of the city through volunteer committees and public input, with a view to development both an economic development plan and a social adjustment plan.

Only when the 26 reports from various economic and social service sectors of the community were completed were the consultants called in to "consolidate, synthesize and add value" to the information and proposals they found.

Dobson is enthusiastic about the process.

"It genuinely was an attempt to reach out to the community, source ideas and bring things forward - it's the half of the job people don't usually go through," he says. "They usually give lip service to it, and then do as little as they can get away with, because it is messy and tough to co-ordinate, and because you get all kinds of special interest groups and unique concerns trying to make themselves known."

That means, says Dobson, that all of the changes and ideas being talked about in the plan are ideas that already existed in the community.

"They may have been thought about and rejected before, they may have had some obstruction, they may not have been connected with other things, but they were all here."

To breathe life into the city's economic development potential, the report stresses the need for a revitalized economic development corporation (EDC).

That recommendation has led Sault council to conduct a province-wide search for an executive director to head up a newly amalgamated economic development-tourism corporation. The corporation will replace the city's EDC and Hospitality and Travel Sault Ste. Marie.

MAJOR CHALLENGE

Job creation is the community's principal challenge, according to the reports filed by the community's economic and social groups.

The chronic unemployment in Sault Ste. Marie has resulted in an explosion in the demand for social services, at a time when the loss of tax base and municipal revenue makes it impossible for the city to respond.

It is predicted that the city will experience population reductions of at least five per cent annually over the next five years, and those most likely to leave are the young and the skilled.

Training programs designed to assist the unemployed will be of little value if jobs are not available.

In addition to a healthy economy, the city needs a coordinated, effective and efficient system for delivering social programs that support the city's economic and "quality of life" goals.

"Doing more with less" means focusing on improving processes, not introducing more programs. It means eliminating duplication and overlap in existing programs, and making sure that money is spent to meet human needs, not organizational interests.

This is new ground, concedes Dobson. Nowhere in Ontario has such an across-the-board co-ordination been put in place. He suggests that the round table itself - the group of political leaders from all three levels of government - provides an ideal opportunity to move toward the goal of more efficient delivery of social services.

The draft plan itself was presented to city council as a framework for action, identifying a mission, key objectives and strategies for reaching them.

Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce president Ken Lajambe says now is the time for the city to take strong action.

"We no longer have to say 'We don't have a direction,'" Lajambe says. "We have all the things that are necessary. All we need is to put the levers ahead and get moving on it."

Of the plan itself, Lajambe concedes that there were no real surprises.

"There wasn't much new that we hadn't heard before, but there was a somewhat different emphasis."

Lajambe was surprised that tourism played a secondary role in the report.

"Even though the plan may not be perfect, we now have a plan. You can't start all the engines at the same time anyway, and so we start the ones we know about, and research the ones that are new and haven't been tackled before.

"The business community in Sault Ste. Marie should be very optimistic about our community's future if this plan gets moving as quickly as we think it should."