Federal money washes into Callander’s waterfront

At 11 this morning Anthony Rota, the member of parliament for Nipissing-Timiskaming, met with Callander’s mayor Robb Noon at Centennial Park to announce $500,000 in funding to help revitalize Callander’s waterfront.

“There are so many things we can do with this funding,” Noon said. “It’s going to allow us to jump start the plans that we as a community have been trying to put into place for a number of years.”

The funds, which come from FedNor, will be earmarked for implementing aspects of the town’s Waterfront and Downton Revitalization plan, which has been on the municipality’s mind since 2012, as progress is dependent on funds, and a grant of this size “accelerates” the timeline.

See: New playground coming to Callander’s Centennial Park

“It’s hard for a small municipality like ours to complete these projects alone,” he said, because “you don’t want to raise the taxes, so you have to pick at these large expenditures slowly.”

The revitalization project began with the dock on Lansdowne, which the provincial and federal government also helped fund, and Noon sees that as a “gateway to the municipality from the water.”

This new round of funding will go to building a boardwalk in Centennial Park and constructing a large gazebo in the park as well. A bathroom will be built.  Improvements to the road leading to the waterfront are planned, as is some landscaping to help beautify both the park and the dock.

Noon is excited to “see the vision” materialize from the revitalization plan, after having it only on paper for so many years.

“Centennial Park is such a draw for our businesses, and for our community,” he said, and improving the area “will help turn our park into a destination for tourists.”

That’s what Rota was thinking, too. He mentioned how the federal government has created the Tourism Relief Fund, a fund administered by Canada’s regional deployment agencies and Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada. There is a budget of $500 million over two years to help boost tourism after the devasting effects the pandemic has had—and continues to have—on the industry.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has heightened the challenges many communities face within the tourism sector,” Rota said, but as restrictions loosen and people “are freer to travel,” the federal government is looking at ways to “to support that sector.”

“We know the tourism sector in Nipissing-Timiskaming continues to be one of the most affected by Covid-19,” Rota continued, “and our economy will not fully recover until tourism has too.”

“Our municipality, like so many in Ontario, relies on the tourism industry,” Noon said as he gestured to the many ice fishing huts in the bay, “and as you can see behind us, in our small city of ice shacks, it’s four seasons of tourism in our town.”

The funding “is such an opportunity for us,” he said, and work is set to begin this spring.

David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.