BOYLE – Economic development is a long, continual process, not just a single project.
That was one of the things tourism and economic development (TED) officer Rachael Dragun stressed to Boyle councillors Dec. 1 as she provided an overview of the work she and TED committee members have been doing to set the Athabasca region up for future success.
The TED committee consists of council members and members at large from the three area municipalities — Village of Boyle, Athabasca County and Town of Athabasca — as well as a representative from Athabasca University, the county’s planning and development manager and Dragun, who work together in an effort to sell the region to its neighbours, and the world.
“People want to see quick wins and we always want to try for those quick wins as well, but it also has to be while we're working toward something so much bigger too, which is the goal,” Dragun said.
While there is often a singular focus on how many new businesses have set up shop in the region, she said, there is also a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into making sure the existing business community is content with the current environment.
“It's all about making our businesses happy and once we have a healthy, happy business community, that's when we see bigger business, more business, come in,” she continued. “It's one thing to try to go chasing smokestacks or to try to even chase those small businesses and say, ‘Come here’, but if there's grumbling going on from our local businesses, then they're not going to want to come and stay.
Mayor Colin Derko, who is one of Boyle’s TED representatives, likened it to an old fable.
“I think this is the more effective — the old turtle and the hare thing. You can rush right in there and screw it all up, or you can take the time and do it right,” he said. “We need to realize that this is something that's going to be ongoing, and you need to build continuously ... It's a process and that's why a lot of these things fail. It's so important that people get this.”
As Dragun mentioned, the retention and expansion of local businesses is an essential piece of the economic development puzzle as 80-90 per cent of business expansion will come from existing businesses already established in the community. A sustainable business community results in a sustainable community foundation, she said. It’s all tied together.
Dragun also went on to talk about the TED committee’s strategic three-year plan which includes developing a microsite, facilitating partnerships with Internet providers to improve broadband access in the region, and establishing regional partnerships to develop the area into a year-round tourism destination.
An economic development microsite is a web portal that provides the data many seek when considering a move or a visit to the region. It would include an online business directory and act as a virtual regional business recovery and resiliency guide to support current and future regional economic growth.
“I do think it would be great to have all the information in one place for all of us to be able to utilize and share,” she said.
The second strategic priority is to improve the reliability of the Internet in the region, a necessity in the modern work world, that allows business to be conducted anywhere in the world.
“It’s a focus of pretty much every rural municipality. It's talked about at every conference. So, we are we are actively working on pursuing different options in the region,” said Dragun.
The third priority is working with our regional neighbours to attract visitors to the many sights and experiences available to those from outside the immediate area. A successful campaign by Seekers Media in 2020 showcased the region to the world in a way that hasn’t been done before and won an award for their Take it to the Lake campaign. The recent formation of the Landing Valley Regional Partnership will also aid in packaging experiential tourism experiences. The TED regional partners, along with the Town of Westlock, Westlock County, Community Futures, Tawatinaw Valley Ski Hill and Pine Valley Resort are involved in the initiative.
“In the end, we're separate municipalities, but as a whole, we're one big region right and when companies come in to look at the area, we want to make sure that we're all on the same page so that Boyle and the Town of Athabasca and Athabasca County aren’t all trying to do different things because we're not going to get anywhere if we're not all working together,” she said.
