The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
Northerners got what they asked for in an institute to provide advice and ideas to the government of Ontario about how to improve the lives of people who live in Northern Ontario, says Rick Bartolucci.
Bartolucci announced Friday the launch of the Northern Policy Institute, an independent, not-for-profit organization to monitor how recommendations in the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario are implemented and to advise government on policies tailored to the special needs of the North.
The Northern Policy Institute’s two advisers — Laurentian University president Dominic Giroux and Brian Stevenson, president of Thunder Bay’s Lakehead University — will set out to appoint 10 members to serve as directors of the new think tank by October.
Bartolucci, who is also minister of Northern Development and Mines, said several organizations — including the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities and the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association — called for the institute to be independent of government.
Friday was a historic day for the North and the one-of-a-kind institute that will focus on “good policy for Northern Ontario … devised by northerners,” said Bartolucci.
This week’s announcement moves the institute from “rhetoric to reality,” said the MPP of the think tank, first announced last year.
The province is providing $5 million in seed money to establish the Northern Policy Institute in Sudbury and Thunder Bay, on a model similar to the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, which has twin campuses in the two northern cities.
The university presidents will be seeking people to provide good independent research and “well-considered concepts in the form of policy to deliver to government,” said Bartolucci.
A search is also underway for the founding chief executive officer, who will oversee the Northern Policy Institute’s preparation of a five-year business plan.
The Growth Plan for Northern Ontario is a 25-year plan to strengthen the northern economy. Critics have said it lacks specific recommendations about how to do that.
Giroux said the institute will work with stakeholder groups such as municipal associations, francophone groups, labour organizations, business people, educators and others.
For the rest of this article, please go to the Sudbury Star website: http://www.thesudburystar.com/2012/09/01/agency-to-advise-on-northern-policy