By Andrew de Souza

Summit hopes to pave way to prosperity

May 13, 2011 | 4:29 PM

The Northern Economic Summit has wrapped up with political and business leaders taking the reins to the region’s future.

The two-day summit was hosted by the province’s three northern economic regions.

It was designed to bring forward all the issues in the way of the North’s prosperity, prioritize them and systematically tackle them.

The group divided its concerns among the regions, but also looked at region wide issues.

The several hundred present than voted on the most important areas and asked for volunteers to step forward and begin working on the project.

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The most common concerns were education infrastructure, transportation, resource management and business development.

Boreal West Enterprise Region CEO Michael Wolverine said the great success of the summit was bringing all the affected people into one room and having them agree on how to tackle the issue.

“It’s quite overwhelming taking on all this information, but the name of the game is partnership,” he said. “So by creating those partnerships we should be able to get these projects off the ground and move forward.”

MLA for Cumberland, Doyle Vermette was in attendance. He said it was important for the community to have action plans ready instead of hoping the government would do all the work.

“Business people, Metis and First Nations leaders and community members have a lot to say,” he said. “And the government better take note of and hear the concerns they have but also the solutions that they’re coming up with.”

Churchill River Enterprise Region CEO Bryce Foix said over the next few months, the projects will be formalized and periodic updates will be distributed.

He said that he hopes the summit will turn into an annual event that monitors commitments made at the first summit and comes up with new ones.

“We have quite a few leaders that have stepped up and … we’re going to move forward,” said Foix.

“This was a lot of the analysis and presenting the hard work that’s been done and it’s taking that and moving them forward.

“We’ll come back next year, we’ll see what worked and where we need to refocus our efforts if we have to.”

For more information about the summit, click here.

adesouza@panow.com