MULGRAVE: After a year’s hiatus due to the global pandemic, the Strait of Canso Superport Days returned last month, in a virtual format, and organizers say they’re pleased with the opportunity to provide an update to the Strait area.
Tim Gilfoy, chief executive officer (CEO) for the Strait of Canso Superport Corporation, explained the event started as a joint initiative with the Superport Corporation, the Municipality of the District of Guysborough (MODG) and the Municipality of the County of Richmond.
“It’s an annual event, of course it was disrupted a bit by COVID the last couple of years,” Gilfoy told The Reporter. “Typically it’s hosted in Dundee, and the intent of it is to bring a broad range of interest, both local and national, together to get a bit of information on the port itself and some of the initiatives that are considering locating in the port.”
Superport Days also keeps local municipal units and local businesses apprised of some of the opportunities that are on the horizon.
Richmond County Warden Amanda Mombourquette advised from a municipal perspective, these type of gatherings are really important.
“We have a strong industrial base here in Richmond County, and I think it’s important on a number of fronts,” Mombourquette said. “It’s important number one, our industries feel supported, and have an opportunity to network and collaborate. But I think it’s also really important in terms of community engagement as well.”
For industry partners, having an opportunity to communicate with the public about what’s on the horizon for them and their plans going forward, is second to none.
The Superport CEO suggested the motivation behind the initiative came out of inspiration from another local event with a similar intent, Richmond County’s Point Tupper Days.
“We kind of picked up on that initiative, after they decided to no longer fund the event,” Gilfoy said. “We spoke with them, and we agreed to participate; we kind of picked up on that same date, since it already had a good following and just kept going with it for Superport Days.”
He suggested while virtual events aren’t always as popular as their in-person counterpart, typically for Superport Days, they would have around 110 attendees; at any given time during the virtual event, there were up to 80 people online.
“It was great interaction. I think pretty much each speaker got some pretty meaningful questions,” Gilfoy said. “There were a few questions that we weren’t able to answer online, but any question we weren’t able to answer, the person to whom the question was addressed provided a response and we emailed it back to them.”
Mombourquette said she left the virtual event feeling like there is still a great deal of confidence being expressed by the private sector in this region as a place to invest and grow their businesses.
The warden said what was really exciting to her was the level of engagement form the participants, the great questions that were asked, and the terrific conversation that it sparked.
“We heard from Port Hawkesbury Paper, where they’re looking at potentially $200 million in investments related to the PHP wind project,” she said. “Which would be, if it goes forward, the largest wind farm in the province, and right now with the data collection they’re doing, the results are very encouraging for that.”
Additionally, Mombourquette advised presentations were made by Clearwater, which addresed the opportunity to expand the services at the port to attract more vessels into the area, Maritime Launch Services, which is expected to break ground in the fall, and Anaconda Mining discussed their plans for the Goldboro Gold Project.
“These are exciting projects,” she said. “Some have been in the works for quite a while, some are newer, but they really to me,speak to the level of confidence the private sector continues to have in this region.”
Mombourquette suggested it’s really great to see these private sector companies investing locally, but which look at their businesses as global operations.
Following up on the successful virtual Superport Days, organizers can’t help but to look forward to next year’s event, one that may be somewhat back to normal.
“We’re all still hopeful that we’re going to get beyond this by next year,” Gilfoy said. “So we are looking forward to having an in-person event next year.”