NPI Celebrates 10 Years of Impact

Tomorrow, April 20^th in Thunder Bay, Northern Policy Institute, Northern Ontario’s home grown think tank, will hold the second of two galas celebrating its first decade of difference-making. Founded in late 2012 and beginning operations in 2013 with just three staff, the Institute now has three permanent offices in Kirkland Lake, Sudbury, and Thunder Bay.

 

Florence MacLean, current Chair of the NPI Board and a member of the founding Board in 2013, talks about some of the impacts the Institute has had since its creation:

“NPI has changed the way public policy is discussed in Northern Ontario. People expect advocates to be able to provide evidence, pro and con, on ideas for our future. The data and analysis NPI provides allows for that informed exploration. It helps everyday people answer basic questions like – how much will this cost and what will be the impact on me?”

 

Over the last decade, the Institute has published over 200 Research Reports, Commentaries, Labour Market Reports, and Policy Notes. Copies of over 150 presentations that NPI’s authors and staff have made in every corner of Northern Ontario (and beyond) can be found on the Institute website. The website also allows quick access to maps of key infrastructure, political boundaries, services, resources, and supply chains impacting every region in Northern Ontario.

 

During that same time, the Institute has provided 78 summer students with 16 week placements and created post-graduation employment for another 30 youth. These positions are part of NPI’s flagship program, Experience North, which is intended to build policy makers, communicators, and not for profit administrators right here in Northern Ontario.

 

When asked to highlight examples of how the Institute’s work has made a difference for Northern Ontario, NPI’s President and CEO, Charles Cirtwill replied: “By far our largest impact has been on making more and better information available about Northern Ontario and its constituent parts. We are not and never have been a single, one-size-fits-all, region.”

Cirtwill continued, “in my view, our efforts, both in research and education, have played an important role in many exciting developments over the last ten years: the introduction and recent expansion of the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot, the expansion of post secondary program choices in Timmins, the piloting of the 2 plus 1 road model here in Northern Ontario, the expansion of bus service from Toronto to Winnipeg, and the reintroduction of the spring bear hunt, to name just a few.”

 

Images from NPIs first ten years, as well as pictures from the first celebratory gala, held in North Bay in November, can be found on NPI’s website at www.northernpolicy.ca.