Sunday, April 12, 2009

Sudbury in the year 2020


The great recession just ended last year. After 10 years of ever falling employment and loss of manufacturing base few regions in Canada remain unscathed. As gold prices soared to $2500/oz. the economy of Timmins boomed. The biggest gainer though was Sudbury. It had the foresight to woo Magna into building a Nickel cadmium battery plant that supplies batteries to the big 3 Auto manufacturers. (Ford,Toyota, and Magna). The Sudbury plant employs 5000 directly with 4 times that number employed in supply jobs.

Magna became a dominant player after the collapse of Chrysler in 2009. It was one of it's largest creditors and as a result took possession of it's assembly plant in Windsor. General Motors failed in 2012 after the introduction of it's halo car, the all new electric Chevy Volt. Who was going to pay $40,000 for a compact car when Ford in partnership with Magna was selling it's all electric Focus for $25,000, introduced that same year. Magna also started to supply Toyota and Hyundai with the electric drives for the Camry and Genesis. Demand for electric cars skyrocketed after Iran announced it had successfully built and tested a nuclear weapon. Oil prices broke the $400 U.S./barrell barrier for the first time.

Magna started to manufacture it's own electric car in 2013 after assuming control of the shuttered G.M. plants in Oshawa. Canada was now the largest Auto manufacturer in North America. For a look at what started Magna's ascendancy, click the link below

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fordpedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/ford-battery-electric.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fordpedia.org/2009/02/03/ford-2012-electric-car-just-in-time-for-judgment-day/&usg=__d0KjWTuLVnOPq7e473K8bA01Oqg=&h=333&w=550&sz=125&hl=en&start=4&sig2=_G7AdPu-dAoGHsfo5rDp5g&um=1&tbnid=BM1j5k0pji-lLM:&tbnh=81&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfords%2Belectric%2Bcar%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGLF_enCA303CA303%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=SGbiSc_WAZTznQe98PCZDg

The following story is just my opinion on what may happen with our economy. The part regarding Magna building the electric drives for Ford is true. It's time to wake up Sudbury!!!
Why couldn't we have a manufacturing plant for Nic/Cad Batteries? What is Sudbury known for?......pass me another beer?

Greater Sudbury


This city we call home, simply is not working. Infrastructure is crumbling and the tax base from the resource sector is slowly eroding. There are 160,000 people living in an area the size of Toronto. The solution? "Back to the Future" or partial amalgamation. The city in its current state is not sustainable. There are key services regionally we could share such as


  • Fire and Policing

  • Ambulance service

  • City Land Fills

  • Bulk equipment purchases.

What I propose is that the city go back to it former pre-amalgamation state with autonomous councils set up to take care of it's own needs. They would be responsible for



  • Road maintenance and snow removal

  • Garbage collection

  • Establishing mill rates and collection of taxes and user fees.

  • Recreation

  • Planning and issuing permits.

The current council we have is no better at running the city than the prior one. So whats the problem......? Could it be that the city in it's current form is unmanageable?


What do you think?