Despite a dip in the cold-weather-testing business during the economic downturn, things are heating up once again.
And with a significant portion of the world enduring frigid temperatures for at least part of the year, there's no reason for the demand for this type of testing to drop off, Binns said.
Cold spinoffs
"We're Canadians and North Americans, we live in a cold climate. Northern Europeans do, too. If you have a vehicle and it's -40 degrees and you're 200 kilometres from the nearest community, the last thing you need is for your vehicle to stall or for the fuel systems to ice up," she said.
All those weather-testing visitors, naturally, bring their wallets with them and often open them up at hotels, restaurants and bars.
Binns said she was pleasantly surprised to hear some of them were doing more than that.
One company, for example, spent money at 65 different businesses in Thompson, including maintenance garages and hardware retailers. It even used a gardening store to buy peat moss - in the middle of winter, naturally - to clean up any minor oil spills that it might have caused on roads or in parking lots.
Mayor Tim Johnston said as soon as everybody realized that the sky wasn't falling on Thompson after Vale dropped its bomb last November (the company still intends to do mining and milling) the wheels started turning on how Thompson could ensure it becomes the best possible service centre to the north.
He's confident the province's third-largest city can follow the trail blazed by the second largest, Brandon.
"We want to do what Brandon did, which was transform from an agricultural centre into a service centre with an ag base. We want to become a service centre for northern Manitoba with a strong mining base," he said.
Service centre
Thompson's service area covers the north-central region of the province and encompasses about 60,000 people.
"It's not unusual for somebody in northern Manitoba to travel two or three hours to purchase what they need. They'll come here for grocery shopping and other products and services that aren't available in their home communities, like automotive, accounting, legal, furniture and restaurants," Johnston said.
He added there's no doubt some challenges lie ahead but he prefers to look at the need for diversification in Thompson as an opportunity, not a threat.
"It's a transition. We shouldn't see it as something that is anything more than a change in the way business is going to be done, which happens all the time. We have to look at it and not be fearful," he said.
Despite Vale's job reductions, the company still intends to be a force to be reckoned with in Thompson for many years. Having about 1,000 employees after the shake out will do that.
"We think we can manage [the job reductions] through attrition and natural turnover, which is a nice situation to be in," said company spokesman Cory McPhee.
New ore body
McPhee said the company wants to ensure Thompson remains a strong and vibrant community, which is why it is an active participant in the diversification discussion."We feel a commitment to Thompson. The city and the company grew up together," he said.
Vale is also putting its money where its mouth is when it says it believes there's a solid mining future in Thompson. It's planning to spend $14 million on exploration over the next few years, and McPhee said the company is excited about a new ore body in the area, dubbed Thompson 1-D, and is looking at the best ways to access it. "We're very excited about the mining future in Thompson. The mining projects are going to be our future for another 20 or 30 years," McPhee said.
Housing freefall
The uncertainty about Thompson's future, however, has filtered down to the housing market. Bernard Kelly, owner of the local Re/Max office, said house prices have fallen 15 to 20 per cent from where they were just three years ago. He may be optimistic. This year housing prices plunged from an average of $208,000 in January to $137,000 in June, according to the Manitoba Real Estate Association. While Vale's previous actions have undoubtedly played a role, Kelly said the fact the company's contract with its employees expires this fall is of greater concern: it has played some serious hard ball with employees in other cities.
"[The Thompson operation] to Vale is such a small part of their overall holdings that the gut feeling here is they could shut it down whenever they wanted and it wouldn't hurt them. Before, when it was Inco, we were a major player," he said.
Kelly predicted that once the Vale contract is settled, the housing market will rebound.
Johnston said the city has seen the addition of about 150 hotel rooms in the past year but the hospitality industry hasn't followed up with restaurants and pubs.
"I think there's a huge opportunity there as well as retail," he said.
from Western Investor September 2011
