The Impact of Development: Single Industry Communities and Capital Mobility

Event Date: 
Thursday, March 1, 2018 - 8:30am EST to Friday, March 2, 2018 - 3:00pm EST
Event Location: 
Trinity United Hall 310 Park Avenue Thunder Bay, Ontario
Event Fee: 
Free and open to the public.
Event Contact E-mail: 
Event Contact Web: 

Over the past few decades, many Northern communities have experienced little sustained economic growth and now find themselves at a crossroads where the uncertain future of their extractive resource-based economies is combining with changes in global markets and undermining their social and economic prosperity. The recent global economic turmoil has exacerbated this trend by tying the fiscal hands of government, accelerating the decline in business investments, increasing unemployment dramatically and by stripping away markets and opportunities elsewhere.

The Impact of Development is a workshop that seeks to understand how single industry communities looking to the future can ensure that they will not repeat the mistakes of the past. The workshop offers both a regional and international focus on the various impacts of development on communities that depend on a single industry. A major consideration of the workshop is the place of northern economies in a changing world where competition comes in new forms and from many directions.

The goal of the workshop is to better understand the development of resource dependent communities in Canada in a comparative perspective. In particular, the workshop will examine how communities have attempted to remain resilient and what lessons can be learned from the evolving development of extractive industries in Canada and abroad. The workshop will bring presenters together to discuss future research that will assist northern communities in better understanding the challenges they face in the context of the global economic shifts currently taking place.

Click here for the full program.

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