The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1968, Page 19

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
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promising manufacturing sector.
A lot of changes have taken place
since that COMEF Report was filed.
We are developing our water power
in the North so that we will have
ample power at a reasonable rate-
magnet for industry that becomes more
power-hungry year by year.
We are farming our forests. We arc
mining our minerals, and I believe we
still have great mineral resources under
our Northern lands. Our agriculture
has become more productive and is
supplying much of the raw material
for manufacturing. We are educating
our young people in the skills a mod-
ern technological society demands.
But a lot of other things have
changed in the five years since COMEF
issued its Report. Now the Manitoba
Government has decided it is time
for a new look at ourselves, and for
setting new guidelines for the 1980’s.
That is the purpose of the new Com-
mission that the government has establ-
ished—to set Targets for Economic
Development. T-E-D. The TED Com-
mission is smaller in size than COMEF,
but its task is similar. It has the
groundwork of COMEF, to build on.
The TED Committee, like COMEF
before it, is composed of representatives
from different sectors of our economy-
agriculture, labour, the universities,
government and industry. It will enlist
the help of many more people before
its studies are completed.
COMEF involved a great number of
responsible people of Manitoba in the
task of investigating and recommend-
ing how we could best help our econ-
omy grow. The TED Committee will
do the same.
The Government also attempted to
show a new perspective on Manitoba
to both our own people and potential
investors in this province.
Just as our pioneers looked out to
new opportunities—so must we. Mani-
toba is still in the same geographical
position. You cannot pick up the
province and set it down somewhere
else physically. But the relationships
that our province is involved in have
changed—and it is these new perspec-
tives that should be emphasized.
Manitoba's early outlook ran with
the railways—to the West. Our pro-
vince’s focus was on an east-west axis.
And that emphasis was the correct one
at the time. Manitoba grew by servic-
ing and supplying the West. We still
do so—but as other Western centres
grew to .service their own areas, our
growth must be based not only on the
traditional east-west pattern—we must
also look north and south.
Northward^we face new opportun-
ities. As transport opens up the North
—as new mineral discoveries are found
—as the forests are more fully utilized
—the population and local market of
the North will grow.
But transport through the North
and to the continent of Europe brings
another dimension to the North. For
years the hope of a great trade through
the port of Churchill has been dorm-
ant—stillborn by the short shipping
season. New technological changes
hold new hope for fuller utilization
of our northern port.
To our South lie new trading op-
portunities along an historic trade
route. Before Confederation, the Red
River Carts plied between here and
St. Paul. Now there is new opportunity
to trade again in tire Mid-Western
United States.
The Kennedy Round has lowered
United States tariffs on many goods,
beginning on January 1st of this year.
There are 45 million people in the
eight Mid-Western United States, di-
rectly to our south. This submarket
of the great United States market is
closer to us physically than our tra-
ditional market in the Prairies. Trans-