Materials Joining Innovation Centre receives support
BYLINE: Rick Owen
A new initiative that includes Northern College and the Town of Kirkland Lake as partners received close to $1.3 million in funding from the provincial government Monday.
The money will be used to establish the Materials Joining Innovation Centre (MAJIC) at Northern College's Kirkland Lake Campus. The centre will serve as a technology storehouse, an education and training centre and provide expertise in matters of applied research and development as well as technology transfer.
By strengthening linkages between Northern Ontario, Canadian and global marketplaces, MAJIC will also build the foundations for an industrial welding cluster in Northeastern Ontario. As many as 15 new highly skilled professional jobs and other community benefits could be generated over the long term by the innovation centre.
MAJIC is receiving $1 million from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and $249,319 from the rural Economic Development (RED) program.
In making the announcement on behalf of the Minister of Northern Development and Mines Rick Bartolucci and Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Leona Dombrowksy, MPP David Ramsay said, "it's leadership that this college has shown and leadership this town has shown that really makes my job easy. I can't think up these ideas and say this is what Kirkland Lake should be doing and why don't you do that, it comes from the bottom up. My responsibility is to make sure our government has the tools in place to assist leadership such as shown here in Kirkland Lake to make these projects a reality."
He described the MAJIC project as a "very exciting high tech proposal" that is going to mean a lot to the economy of not just Kirkland Lake but Northeastern Ontario.
Ramsay said his government realizes the importance of rural Ontario and the need to invest with partners to have successful sustainable economies.
He said the objectives of the MAJIC program are to provide high profile knowledge based jobs in welding and technology, to advance the competitive position of Canada's welding initiatives, to develop a centre that will act as a hub of economic development in the welding industry and to maintain and develop professional employment opportunities in this region.
He sees the centre as supporting a diverse and vibrant Kirkland Lake. Ramsay said, "partnerships are key to success," and he complimented the various people involved in the partnership that developed MAJIC.
Ramsay said it took a lot of work to make people realize how exciting this is, how high tech it is and how leading edge it is and how they are moving into new technologies and new materials of the new economy.
Michael Vuchnich, who has been involved in MAJIC from day one praised Ramsay for his help to get funding for MAJIC. The project started in December of 2003 at a meeting in Oshawa of a group concerned about the welding joining industry in Canada.
Vuchnich said there is no welding industry, it is an enabling technology which goes across all industries. He said what came out of the meeting in Oshawa is that there needed to be a Canadian made solution to welding and joining.
He said MAJIC is about having a Canadian solution and right now if you need a solution you often have to go outside Canada.
Vuchnich said because Northern College has done so well with its technology based welding program, it is that base that MAJIC will use to offer a wide variety of services to industry and to the community.
While MAJIC is starting slowly Vuchnich said they will be generating revenue and will move forward even more and it is anticipated that within three years MAJIC will be self sufficient and that within 10 years there will be 15 full- time employees at MAJIC that will be for the most part engineers and technologists, highly paid highly educated people. "It will make Kirkland Lake the centre of welding technology."
Northern College President Michael Hill thanked David Ramsay and commented on how he has helped the college and how he recognized the merit of this project. He noted that Ramsay helped with the Early Childhood Education program, he helped the college to form partnership with DeBeers and the First Nations in James Bay Region.
Hill explained that Northern College decided they weren't about the development of the college they were about the development of communities and worked toward that end and gave examples of how the college has worked to develop communities including MAJIC.
"This project will see diversification of Kirkland Lake's economy, which is exactly what the North Needs," said Hill.
"The project will see Kirkland Lake join the knowledge economy, which is exactly what I think small Northern communities need and I think it is exactly the right type of project at the right time."
Kirkland Lake Mayor Bill Enouy thanked the college staff and MPP David Ramsay and his staff.
He said that Kirkland Lake was a one industry town and in the 1960s the population started to decline but now the town is bouncing back and it is due to projects like MAJIC that diversify things in Kirkland Lake.
The mayors sees the project as having a big multiplier affect on town's economy.