The Townships of Brudenell, Lyndoch & Raglan; Killaloe, Hagarty and Richards; Bonnechere Valley; North Algona Wilberforce; Madawaska Valley and Whitewater Region have partnered to promote local businesses by encouraging residents to shop local.
The program is called “Rural Rewards” and will consist of the distribution of Rural Rewards Cards (pick-up in store or at any municipal office) that can be stamped or initialed by a store clerk after making a purchase at any of the businesses within the participating municipalities. After ten completed purchases, you can drop off your Rural Rewards Card at your municipal office and pick up a new card.
Each Township will have a monthly draw for a $25.00 local gift card of the winners’ choosing. The campaign will run from June until December 2021.
Burton,I.,Whitewater Region(2021,June11) Shop Local Campaign – Rural Rewards [media release]
Eva:
What an intuitive article on the economic future of the MV.
I not unlike you shudder at the prospects for the youth of our region who have no option but the “big City” for a livelihood rather than the minimum wage environment ( 90-95% of private businesses in the MV), of whom the biggest exploiters of this abysmal wage structure are the sawmills who have benefited for a century by nearly zero royalty for stumpage fees and access to AP. They cry wolf every time a new tariff is imposed by the USA but conveniently forget that say in WA state you pay big bucks to cut down a tree on public land versus the negligible fees paid here. There is no question that fiber of quality is a scarce quantity and the fact private land owners are paid next to nothing for a load of logs merely confirms your observation that once Algonquin Park logging is below replacement capacity (in only 5-10 years), this so-called local engine of prosperity the mills (LOL) will shut down rapidly and be replaced with what i.e. A few snowplow operators for Chippawa Shores lots.
I too was in shock and awe to see a local sawmill get a multi-million-dollar grant to process 2x the logs at half the manpower previously employed. Someone should have asked the Grant Council where all this additional feedstock will come from and what about the displaced empoyees, as I personally have seen trucks hauling to this mill over 2-3 hours from the northern perimeter of Renfrew County, and the plantation cutting of over 100 acres of legacy pine adjacent to the church cemetery on Hwy 62 drew about 3 tractor loads of logs which the local mill with the latest AI and 3-D scanners can cut and have ready for shipping to Asia in 60 minutes where real value-added is input on rare MV timber, and gainful additional employment. A quantity which is sorely lacking in the MV and where our economic prospects are very bleak except for subsistence labor wages.
Hmmm…:- this is a somewhat “low-voltage” idea which won’t hurt but it won’t help much either.
Local residents shop local whenever the stores are open between lockdowns:- it’s those lockdowns that are causing the problems and driving people from in-person local shopping to online shopping with out-of-area virtual retailers plus people have been dining much more at home instead of dining at local locked-down restaurants.
Hopefully tourism will bounce back this Summer and give local businesses a boost.
The traditional industry in this region is forestry but sawmilling is in decline because of poor private forest management:- if it was not for Algonquin Park many local sawmills would close down for lack of supply. One thing which seems to do well is firewood and it would help to promote biofuels in eastern and central Ontario to increase demand for firewood, wood pellets, and wood chips. There are no easy or quick solutions to the chronic economic malaise of this area.
Btw, there’s also farming:- after decades of decline it’s good to see more local beef-cattle farming in revival and with nice purebred herds too. Perhaps it might help to encourage more local specialty livestock farming such as bison and even yaks:- don’t laugh there are some bison farms just south of Pembroke on Hwy 41 and there are yak farms selling breeding stock in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Another possibility is raising Wagyu cattle which bring ultra-premium prices and pay quite well on even small labor-intensive herds. Mr “Yak”, our dear MPP, are you listening?