Ideas - Hands Up Who Loves Timmins

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Timmins calls itself “the city with a heart of gold." And it offers a fast track to permanent residency for immigrants willing to move there. IDEAS producer Tom Howell finds out what this northern Ontario city has to offer a newcomer, and who’s ready to fall in love with Shania Twain’s hometown. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 11, 2023.

Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This Is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you gotta know, and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood, or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, this is Everard Kasimauna,

and I'm so pleased to be here today to talk about my life experience and many other topics that will come up. As you listen, I just hope you just have fun. Lots of fun. Because you'll be hearing so many things that might sound strange to you, but interesting. All right, that's a big promise. Yeah. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayed.

Everard Kasimamuna works at the Hard Rock Animal Hospital in Timmins, Ontario. Come to Timmins. Come to Timmins, the best place to live on earth. He received permanent resident status in Canada in exchange for an informal commitment to work and live in this small northern city. I love the short of snow and the fluffiness of it. I love that. I like my evening walks. I like cycling. And I love the people of Timnus too. So we're actually going up to a lookout where you'll see inside of an open pit mine that's right in the middle of the city. We are literally the city with the heart of gold.

The city with the heart of gold? Yes, the city with the heart of gold. The city with the heart of gold? Yes, the city with the heart of gold. I really think that the next census will see some growth. I'm optimistic about that. We really need a lot of workers. Oh, we need people in Timmins. We need to build our city. It's not growing.

Timmins wants to make a sharp turn. It's had it with the decades of declining population, the complaints about its appearance. The reputation is a place to make a quick buck in the mines and then leave it all behind. The city with a heart of gold wants that love that's going to last. They can come in, they'll do their post-secondary education, we help them learn

English, we help them find jobs. The goal is for them to stay here and love staying in Timmins. Do you know the other town slogan? Why Jitsen? Yeah, Jitsen is like basically, it's important to me. I belong to Timmins. I live in Timmins. It's an important part of who I am. So how many people do you need?

Like, could you have 5,000 people come in the next couple of years? 10,000 people? Could Timmins handle it? Yes. Should we be able to build all of the housing that we're planning to build?

Ideas producer Tom Howell brings us the story of a town's promise to those willing to embrace it and its quest to re-emerge from under the curses afflicting it. Tom's documentary is called Hands Up Who Loves Timmins. In 2021, Everard Casamorna changed his life circumstances dramatically. He left Dubai, international hub city, home to Lindsay Lohan and Giorgio Armani's hotel in the world's tallest building, and he moved directly to the northern Ontario city of Timmins, population 41,000. You know, a lot of people tell me, when I tell them I'm from Dubai, they're like, what were you thinking? Like, are you out of your mind? You know, that kind of thing. You know, it's, yeah, it's a very,

it's a very big contrast between Timmins and Dubai. Very, very big contrast. What did you know about Timmins before you came here? I knew Timmins was far north. I knew the weather was, the cold can be extreme sometimes. Let me tell you something I always did. The city camera, you know, you can actually see that online. The Timmins City 24-hour webcams broadcast

via the website timmins.ca. You can watch one pan across the main downtown street or the other one panning across the main downtown lake. Every day, I kid you not, every day when I'm free, I go on that camera and I just sit down there and gaze. Oh, yeah. When you were in Dubai. Yeah, when I was in Dubai, every time I did that. So I knew it was like, because it was a nine-hour difference, so when it's like 5 p.m. in Dubai, it's like 9 a.m. in Timins.

Everybody's waking up, going to work, that kind of thing. So I just like, you know, just go on the camera and just watch how people move there are two cameras one on that city building and one on gillis lake so I go on those two cameras I tell myself, well, someday I'll be here. Someday I'll be here. Oh my God, he watched that camera for a long time. I am Ifoma Kasimauna. I live in Timmins with my family.

I have three kids. I'm married. Who are you married to? I'm married to Everard Kasimauna. Then when he was watching, it was winter. So he was the one in front of the city hall. So he would be like, oh my God, it's still snowing. When does it ever stop snowing? Yesterday it was snowing, today it's still snowing.

But he liked it. In 2015, Ifuma Kasimuona was an on-air personality going by the name The Queen Mother at a radio station in Nigeria. I say you're on to trend 100.9 FM. It's The Queen Mother on radio. How you doing? You know, stuff like that. Were you sitting there thinking like, oh, if only I could quit this job and go to Timmins? No. No, not yet. I wasn't thinking of that then.

Her husband, Everard, earned his degree in veterinary medicine in Nigeria, but he wanted to practice overseas. One thing I promised myself was I was going to be a veterinarian of international repute. First, Everard Nifoma moved to Philadelphia, where Everard worked as a veterinary technician. Then he got a job as a full veterinary surgeon, which meant moving to Dubai. Sometimes things have to go zigzag before you hit targets. Ifeoma found it easy to fall in love with Dubai.

It can teach you to want everything in the moment. You can have access to it. You can rent an apartment. It's cleaned up for you. You can hire movers, and they move your things in. You just tell them the arrangement you want. They set it up. You don't break your back saying, I'm hanging this.

I'm packing it up. They will pack everything. So these are the things all you have to do is pay, and they get everything done for you in record time, the time you want, so long as you're making the money, you know? You come to love it because one of the things that, as a family, that you come to appreciate is the safety. Your child could forget their teddy bear in the mall and you'll find it. You could forget your laptop on your car, you come back and you meet it.

So that safety is something that if you've lived there, you have to reawaken your sense of your consciousness to know, okay, not everywhere is as safe as this. Yeah, because it can spoil you. If Omar, why would you ever leave this place? Yeah, because it can spoil you. If Omar, why would you ever leave this place? Yeah, because as amazing as the UAE is,

for immigrants in the UAE, you're not called an immigrant, you're called an expatriate. So it's a country of 90% expatriates from different parts of the world. So you might have friends, and the next thing you know, your friends are living to Australia, or the next thing you know, your friends are living to Australia or the next one, they're living to this country. So it's a very mobile

place. It's hard to put down roots. You can't say you are a permanent resident of the UAE. You just continue working. Your work gives you access to residence visa if you quit your job you tell yourself okay it's time to give you you have to move you know even though they've been modifying some of their immigration uh things but that sense of permanence is not there what if i'm not working this job anymore what if i don't want to work a job in the uae, or what if I lose my job? So that means I have how many more months to stay? Yeah. We wanted that permanence that the UAE couldn't offer. We always thought Canada, so why not?

Yeah. I'm Michelle Bordeaux. I'm the mayor of the city of Timmins. Born and raised. You were born and raised the mayor? Wow. Born and raised in the city. How long have you been mayoring? I've been mayoring since November of 2022, but I'd served a term on council just before that. My first ever morning in Timmins was spent in the mayor's car, getting a tour of the town. Timmins is a small city founded thanks to the mines and mining exploration, but now it serves as a bit of a service hub

for Northeastern Ontario. It's the largest urban center in the area within three hours drive in any direction. Shania Twain Way. Yes. So this is where the Shania Twain Center used to be before it got taken down to be mined, for the area to be mined again so we're actually

going up to a lookout where you'll see inside of an open pit mine that's right in the middle of the city um so we are literally the city with the heart of gold good one did you come up with that or someone else? No, that's been our slogan for a while. One of Michelle Wallow's jobs is to make Timmins an attractive option for those seeking a profitable urban Canadian lifestyle. A place with everything you want in a city and perhaps more. Whoa, you weren't kidding. Yeah. So look, you see the rock trucks actually going up? This is my daughter's favorite thing to do. We go get ice creams and then we drive up here

and we watch the rock trucks going around the mine. If you've ever stood at the edge of a volcano's crater, that's roughly what it looks like where we're standing now. The open pit is a kilometer long, half a kilometer wide, entirely shades of grey. Even the huge yellow mining trucks are covered in grey dust. The deepest pockets of the crater lie out of sight. You just see the trucks looking increasingly tiny, disappearing down a spiraling gravel road into the depths.

And then if you look to the other side, you actually just get a view of the city. If you look out on a clear day,oculars help i believe you could see about 14 mining head frames on the horizon so when i grew up you know like the berm wasn't here the landscapes changed just since my childhood since they started mining this open pit because it built up the berm all around all right berm is what it's like the uh the stockpiles that build up around the side of an open pit. And so you end up seeing a bit of a mountain go up. That's what we call the berm.

So we're actually walking on the berm right now. The berm is the bit when you dig a hole and you stick the sand beside the hole. That's the berm. That's the berm, exactly. And so actually we might end up being asked to leave. About twice a day security comes up and clears out the lookout because they do blasting. Usually it's about 11.30 in the morning and then 3.30 in the afternoon. The Timmins Public Library is located on 2nd Avenue in downtown Timmins. We are next to the transit

station as well as across the street from what was the Shania Twain Centre and is now an open pit mine. So my name is Amy Nifton. I am the Assistant Library Director here at the Timmins Public Library. I don't actually have a hometown but I've been here for about a year and a half. About a year ago, you would feel them twice a day, but it was just a... What do you mean, feel them? You could feel a little bit of a rumble when they did the blast. Being new to Timmins, I was going, okay, are we having an earthquake?

This feels like an earthquake, but not like an earthquake. 20, maybe 30 seconds of rumble. We would occasionally have one of our signs tilt a little bit on the wall for our emergency exit, but it was just a little tilt, and then back it would go. Wait, it would go back by itself? No, we would twitch it back, and then it would go back and forth, but it was... So every day the emergency exit sign would get knocked off? It doesn't get knocked off, it just kind of goes not quite so level anymore.

But it was more of a giggle for us. The Timmins Library is also next door neighbours with the town's museum, where one of the popular attractions is to stand and wait for the rumble. Quite a few people that have come just they want to feel it. There's less of it happening in the summer so you don't always catch it in the summertime. Where are we? Tell me who you are and where we are. Okay so I'm Caitlin Dubow the assistant curator here at the Timmins Museum National Exhibition Centre. We are in a Hollinger house, which was a company house built by the Hollinger Mines. They began in the, around 1919, 1920. What's this cool thing?

This is the stove furnace heating mechanism. Artie. Yes, it is quite pretty actually. It's very much in the 20s, like Art Deco style. It was allegedly quite a nice piece for the time. So, yeah. So, like 1920, so 100 years ago. Yep, yep.

What was going on in Timmins 100 years ago? A lot of gold mining. Timmins is, of course, a gold city, I guess you could say. Timmins grew very quickly. There were several thousand people at the time that these houses were going up of course most of the people working here were employed with the mines. There were many many streets of these houses so a lot of people have that memory of living here at some point in in their time in Timmins. We get a lot of people who have moved away and then come back and tell us about how they lived in a Hollinger house and

a lot of really nice stories and memories of it so it is very much a part of our the community's collective memory these these homes how do you feel like Timon's trajectory has been over the last 100 years uh as I mentioned like it grew very quickly and and continued to grow very quickly until about the 70s, and it kind of has been fairly stagnant since then. I mean, we're hoping for some growth. There's a lot of big things on the horizon, so we're hoping that there's maybe some more growth coming. Are you talking about a nickel mine or something else? Maybe something like that.

There's quite a few mining projects that are popping up in the next few years. So yeah, we're hopeful. We're hopeful. What kept you here? So I did leave to go to school. So I actually left Timmins for 11 years and returned home. I lived all over the Southern Ontario, lived overseas and came back with my husband in 2017 for a work opportunity for him. We didn't intend to stay but Timmins has a lot of

great opportunities and so we both ended up in positions in our fields and are very happy there and then we had a son and the grandparents are here so everything just kind of fell into place so we are now here so we've embraced that now. To study our community's history you really do get a beautiful sense of how things were and also that we were very multicultural back then and we like to say that Timmins was multicultural before Toronto was. By the 20s there were actually 27 different ethnicities represented in the community and the population was only a few thousand so that sense of community was born from that melting pot. It is quite a very proud thing to say. And so, yeah, I mean, we're starting to see

a little bit more of that come to life in the last few years. And so it's nice to kind of see history sort of repeating itself and kind of going through that cycle. Timmins prides itself on being a bilingual city today. 40% of residents identify as Francophone, including the mayor, Michelle Boileau. She drives me past the large French high school she attended, called École Thériault. So you didn't go to the same school as Shania Twain? I didn't, no. She went to an English school. But if you ask my dad, they dated when they were in high school.

I do have a friend, though, who used to go to the same family cottage as Shania Twain. They were related through marriage and things like that. So she actually has pictures with Shania Twain when they were younger. That's my closest connection to Shania. Just in case my parents are listening, Shania Twain is an extremely famous singer. She became famous in the 1990s and early 2000s, growing to become the top-selling female artist in country music history. And she's from Timmins.

So actually, you'll see, just on the right here, behind these trees, the white building, that's where Shania Twain went to high school. Ah! Vocational school. Okay. We're on the Shania Twain went to high school. Ah. High vocational school. Okay. We're on the Shania Twain tour now. Well, who? Yeah.

Sorry. So this is where I grew up, this big brown house there. Oh. We had the park next to us and the bush behind us. There's a snowmobile trail that went right past there. Was it a good upbringing, a good place to grow up? Yeah, it was such a nice neighborhood to grow up in. I mean, I could point out where all my friends lived as we drive through here.

I would leave home in the morning and start walking to school and you'd pick up all your friends along the way. And by the time we got to school, we were a group of like 15, you know, so it was fun. How much is it? How much would one of these houses? One of these houses would be low 300s. Yeah, maybe 350. And they're all like detached with garages. Good size yard, good size home. Most of these probably have three bedroom if not four bedrooms.

The cost of living is still quite affordable here considering. Right. So you could live in Timmins on like 30 grand a year um 40 i'd say more like 40 you know it's uh yeah that would still be pushing it because though the cost of housing is is lower goods and services could end up being more expensive than in southern ontario when you think about just what it takes to get goods here right transportation and stuff um stuff. So the further north you go, the more expensive things become.

And this whole attraction retention thing, is Timmins growing or shrinking? If you look at StatsCan data, we're shrinking. But that being said, the last census definitely didn't capture the wave of immigration that has arrived now in Timmins. I really think that the next census will, you know, we'll see some growth. I'm optimistic about that because, like I said, international recruitment is a relatively new phenomenon here. So it's just been, I guess, a thing in the past decade.

I think we'll really start to see the benefits of that where students are choosing to stay here and settling down and starting families and there's been an active effort to attract immigrants from southern Ontario up to northern Ontario. So I know that there are a lot of newcomer families in Timmins so I'm really hopeful that that'll be reflected in the next census because without immigration really it would just continue to decline. Between the aging population and youth exodus, our youth end up having to leave quite often to go study and pursue their careers. Yeah, we definitely are relying on immigration to be able to fill the gaps.

If the youth of Timmins need to leave for their studies and their careers, it raises the question of why someone who's immigrating to Canada, also for their studies and their career, wouldn't want to avoid Timmins for the same reasons. In 2019, Timmins joined a pilot project aimed at tilting the scales on that decision. It runs until August 2024, though a similar scheme is now permanent in the Atlantic provinces. It hinges on the one thing a would-be immigrant needs that a youthful Timmins-born person doesn't need, permission to live in Canada. The pilot project leverages this need by making the

Canadian immigration process miraculously smooth and efficient, but only in places like Timmins. Then the question becomes, who wants to make a deal? I'm Yuvi. My name is Yuvraj, but everybody in this town calls me Yuvi. It was my dad's idea. So if we go all the way back in 1997 my dad wanted to come abroad for a better future and stuff but then he was married and he has two kids so it wasn't possible for him so it was my dad's childhood dream to send one of his kids to canada or any place to study and stuff so as i completed my 12th grade my dad insisted me hey you should go to canada and you would have a bright future there you know so i i started looking at colleges and

stuff and i applied to all the colleges which were providing journalism course to international student i did not got admission anywhere so after that i i approached northern college with some of the business programs and i came here. Now I'm a very optimistic person myself. I like whatever you give to me you know unless it is something really really bad. So when I came here I started enjoying business and I graduated with I think 3.8 GPA or something. All of the professors were really happy with me. I was on the dean's list of honor and stuff. Once I was graduated, I got good references from my professors and I was able to show them to some of the employers.

And I got a good opportunity with Best Buy in this town. And that's where I started working. And then I got to know more about this RNIP program, Rural Northern Immigration Pilot Program. RNIP program is basically 11 communities around Canada are selected for this rural program where government is encouraging people to study and live here. Everybody comes to Timmins and after studies, they run away to Brampton or Toronto. And government don't really like that.

They would want people to live here, grow the economy in small towns. So they came up with this program. Requirement was pretty simple. You find a good job here. You find an employer who is willing to came up with this program. Requirement was pretty simple. You find a good job here. You find an employer who is willing to support you with this process. And if you have that, government gives you a PR, which is significantly faster than people who live Toronto or Brempton. You know, they have to go through lots of steps and stuff. So the deal is you find yourself a job. Yeah. And then in exchange, we will give you your PR card. Yeah.

Yeah. So I secured a good job and I got my PR card. Oh, what was it like when you got the card? Oh, I was so happy. So it was July 4th. I will never forget that day. I cried. I was so happy. Like I was like something really big I have achieved. Because, see, from the culture I come from, it is a really big thing to get permanent residency. So many students just work hard and they give their best to get that thing. And when I achieved it, I felt so grateful and so happy that, hey, I finally got what millions of people dream to achieve. on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. You can also hear ideas on the CBC Listen app

and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayyad. Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goldtar, and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and, most of all, true crime podcasts. But sometimes, I just want to know more. I want to go deeper.

And that's where my podcast, Crime Story, comes in. Every week, I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. The city of Timmins, 700 kilometres north of Toronto, wants to recapture its luster. Once the busy, glittering centre of Ontario's gold rush, it now finds itself cursed by what ails so many smaller cities. Downtown businesses lost to the big mall by the highway.

Young adults leaving for the metropolis. And a vicious circle. Successive declines in population making it harder to raise money, which the city needs to pay for the services and amenities people will look for when choosing where to live. But there is hope this spell may be broken. Not just with new gold discoveries, although that might help, but by luring Southerners to seek another kind of treasure, a house they can afford. luring Southerners to seek another kind of treasure, a house they can afford, and in the case of would-be immigrants, the status of permanent Canadian resident. People kind of were surprised with his speed. I remember my friends asking me, like, do you know anybody in the embassy? Why is it so fast? You know, it was pretty, pretty fast.

For Everard Kasimaona, choosing Timmins meant Canada's immigration system showed him a quality it's rarely known for, speed. June, July, that's when they started. So I put in my application, then I had my interview sometime in October, I guess. And then by February, I already had my visa to come in. And then the PR card. The PR card, okay, I came in and then the February, I already had my visa to come in. And then the PR card? The PR card. Okay, I came in and the PR card came like under a month.

Wow. So it was less than a year between. Oh yeah, less than a year, less than nine months. Yeah. I mean, that was amazing. I've never heard that happen to anybody before. I mean, that was pretty good. Ideas producer Tom Howell picks up the tale

of a town's bid to win itself a new population. I was curious to try selling the idea of Timmons to people in a fashionable espresso bar down south. I'm Dorsa Giyahi. I'm currently at the Combine at Bevy Cafe in Toronto. Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Yoshiki. I'm a barista at Bevy Cafe, Toronto. Do you know the town Timmins? I actually don't. How long have you been in Ontario? So I was born and raised in Toronto. Went to school here, live here. Yeah, been here my whole life.

And you've never driven eight hours directly north, clearly. I guess not. Timmins, ever heard of it? I'm sorry, I'm not sure about this. So it's a town of about 40,000 people and they're really trying to get people to consider moving there. I brought a couple of brochures for the town. If you have any questions about it, and give me your initial impressions.

Talk of nature, I see. Like, first thing I'm noticing is nature. So I'm usually out and about. Like, I love where it's populated and alive. I don't know, I live by myself with my dog, so the city doesn't really make me feel so lonely. So I guess my worry would be like, will it be fun and entertaining enough on my own?

I actually, as I'm getting old, consider to move more, not countryside, but more chill, more nature. One drawback of Timmins is there's no coffee shop. Okay, that's a total 100% deal breaker for me. I run a design community in Toronto called Designers and Coffee, and I bring digital designers in different coffee shops. So it's a big part of me. I mean, you could start a coffee shop there.

True, I could be a cafe owner. Yeah, same here. Yeah, I would love to build up the coffee shop. I'm pretty good at making coffee, so yeah. Yes, he does. I had one of the best matcha lattes made by him several weeks ago. But yeah. Yeah, let's do it.

In the downtown, they have a huge open pit mine. Would that bother you? Could you live by a large mine? I've never really thought about it. I guess if the sound is fine and I can sleep comfortably and there's still people and things to do nearby. Yeah, people can get a house there for about $250,000. That is amazing. So I'm actually a newer homeowner. It's been two years and I had a variable

mortgage rate and it's gone up three times like times three what i was paying last year so that sounds heavenly and i'm getting my ass kicked right now that's why i'm working all the time so yeah yeah that's much cheaper than like japan and toronto so yeah that'd be if i can afford to get the house that would be great. And like I say, they really need a good coffee shop. Yeah, I'm going to build up a coffee shop in the first floor of my house. And you said you're from Japan. Are you a citizen here, PR? What's your situation? I'm just visiting right now.

And do you want to stay in Canada? Yeah, so I'm just trying to get my work visa first. Because in Timmins, they'll give you a permanent residency card if you agree to live there. Oh, yeah. That'd be great. Yeah. Something to consider.

Yeah, of course. I probably should add a couple of words of clarification. They won't just hand out PR cards to anyone showing up in Timmins. There's, of course, a formal process, eligibility, requirements, employment criteria, interviews, so forth. Secondly, much more importantly, I did just say there's, quote, no coffee shop in Timmins. This is true in the vernacular of downtown Toronto. However, there are several Tim Hortons outlets in Timmins and one Starbucks. There's also an independent tea house where you can get a coffee on weekday lunchtimes.

And there's the historic McIntyre Coffee Shop in the former village of Schumacher, a short drive from the center of Timmins. But despite the name, it's really an old-fashioned diner. Definitely not your espressos and laptops and single-origin beans sort of place. Everybody here goes to Tim Hortons. That's the go-to. For eight years, Marielle and Polly ran the sort of place I'm talking about, Christopher's Coffee Shop on Pine Street. There isn't a day that I don't go into Timmins or my husband and people say, we miss Christopher's, we're so sorry that it doesn't exist.

It was the typical coffeehouse vibe. That's Mary Ellen's son, Cameron Grant. It just wasn't necessarily part of the culture here in Timmins just yet, because it was just a little bit, I wouldn't say ostentatious, that's a bit too much. It was just a little bit highbrow, I suppose. I had been to Europe before I decided on the style inside and out. I had been to Croatia and Vienna. And not only that is Niagara on the lake. If you, you could probably find one particular establishment down there that would look very, very much like ours.

And that's what I was looking for, because in Timmins, everyone says that we don't have what Southern people have, and it's true. And I thought, well, why not? Why can't we have that coffee house? That coffee house. I just thought that that's what buildings should look like instead of neon signs, you know, the printed letters. It's Christopher's. Nothing neon. The lights above it.

Some black grounding colour. Some light. The tables were round, and I don't know if people know this, but there's a reason why coffee houses have round tables. It's because you generally go in alone. When you're sitting at a square table, you feel like there's three people missing. And many people had said to me,

Marilyn, why don't you put in square ones so we can put them together? And we go, no, no, no, this is a coffee house. We have to keep that. So you could be a single intellectual in Timmins and find your comfortable spot. We had a lot of customers like that. We definitely had problems. It was the beginning of the change of our downtown area with the homeless. And I know, but it's a fact. It was the beginning of that.

And unfortunately, that also deterred people from spending money or people coming into the downtown. Can you explain? People don't know anything about Timmins. Can you explain the context? Well, I think it's, I mean, it's not unique. Why are you looking at each other weirdly? There's a narrative in town, I think, right now. And, you know, don't get me wrong wrong there's certainly real safety concerns um you know with a lot of downtowns particularly ours as well um you know it's it's understanding the difference between homelessness and criminals um which exist very differently from each other or sometimes the same and i think that the narrative between some of the groups that didn't want to come downtown was that you know everybody who

was homeless was dangerous or people with drug addictions, those kind of things. That's what was happening. And for myself, I had young girls working there, well, 18, 18 years old, that were afraid at night. I ended up closing earlier because of that issue. I think that even made the papers when you did that, actually. issue um i think that even made the papers when you did that actually yeah but the problem is the customers like the old age home down the street those ladies used to come and they stopped coming because they were too afraid on the street now whether they had a reason to me is not the

point they were from the visuals well tell me what the visuals are okay see we okay so here's a problem what's going on you want to encourage people to come to dims because it's a great great place there's a great community but if they find out what the situation is with our down which is town right now than any other downtown anywhere else i think it's just northern ontario obviously we have very long harsh winters so homelessness was never prevalent and i think because it's become prevalent now and we were never used to it like we would be if we were in toronto or escargot or brampton that you know it became as though perceived nuisance which then became a perceived danger and then became a very real danger in some cases and so you know as ambassadors of our own communities it's like

how do we get people to come here and and not push the narrative of what can be really happening? But also if we start cleaning it up and making it look nice and beautifying it, then, you know, that would tend to deter some activity as well, I think. They have to come up with the funds to do that, right? So it's a vicious circle, really. Is it actually a, like, is there a big crime problem or is it just sort of a mental thing, do you know? There is a crime problem. For sure.

What? Google it. We may have ended up on a few lists. You just have to go drive downtown and all the stores are closing. The business has been broken into seven times over the past four years. We are dealing with the other great pandemic, the opioid crisis. The overdose death rates here have been some of the highest in the country. I have blood on my tables in the morning. Sometimes I have to put Javax on my picnic tables.

Our city of 42,000 people having death rates of higher than Vancouver. Anyone wanting to put a negative spin on Timmins can find plenty of material. Those lists Cameron mentioned, they include placing 10th in the Maclean's magazine's ranking of Canada's most dangerous places 2020. The list is based on data from 2018. Maclean's hasn't updated its ranking since. But Statistics Canada has released data on crimes reported to the police during 2022. By that ranking, Timmins is now in 14th place overall among Canadian cities with over 25,000 people.

For non-violent crimes, it's ranked 20th. But the bad news is it's up in seventh place for police reported violent crime. So setting to one side the direct concerns relating to all those involved, there's also the municipal concern of freshening up the city's brand. I'm in. I'm in. Timmins, I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. Are you? There's a lot of amazing things happening in Timmins,

and I think, you know, Timmins is seen as obviously a mining community, which it is as well but there's a lot of vibrant services there's a vibrant community living here so it's a great place to settle and have a wonderful quality of life in terms of coming north. Hi I am Melanie Dufresne I'm the campus director for Collège Barrial here in Timmins Ontario. Do you know the town slogan? Yes the city with the heart of Ontario. Do you know the town slogan? Yes, the city with the heart of gold. Do you know the other town slogan? It's very short, so they could fit three languages on the end. Yeah, I'm in. Which in French is J'y tiens. Oui, J'y tiens.

Exactement, J'y tiens. So I'm in. Yeah, J'y tiens is like basically, it's important to me. Like I belong to Timmins. I live in Timmins. It's an important part of who I am and that, you know, we want to make sure that it continues to be a vibrant city. The past five to six years, we've seen the Timmins demographic change positively. Both Collège Barial and other post-secondary institutions have seen an increase of international students, whereas Timmins has not been traditionally an international student destination.

We're really excited when we had our first international cohort graduate this year from Boreal. How many students are we talking about? So the first international cohort came, they were 10. So it was a smaller cohort. We worked along with the Timmins Chamber. We worked with employers. We worked with the community to make sure that they felt welcome. They felt integrated because we want our students to be able to stay and fulfill careers here in Timmins. And the labour market shortages that we're seeing is a big reason why we attracted students to come to Timmins. So these 10 people would come on student visas? Correct, yeah, they would come on student visas and then the 10 of them did a diploma, a college diploma,

specifically in mechanics and are working now in the community in that field. And the hopes will be is that they will either be applying through RNIP or other immigration pathways to obtain their permanent residency and stay and live in Timmins. Where are we going to from 10? Well, I think we're welcoming about 15 to 20 this September. So we had our first three from Senegal arrive. You know, we're seeing things change, like there's football matches happening, the food scene's changing. It's positive. It's all really wonderful. And I mean, the goal is to educate them. But then what are the ulterior goals that you have here? I mean, this started because of labor market needs and employers telling us they require so many mechanics, for instance,

or nursing students or childcare students. So, you know, this stemmed from discussions with employers, and that's, you know, where we started recruiting specifically from one program and are seeing the successes of doing so, and that the employers are open and flexible to welcoming newcomers as well. So you're not just selling people credentials, you're selling people Timmons as well.

Exactly, yeah. It's a full service, right? So they can come in, they'll do their post-secondary education, we help them with language, with our settlement services, we help them learn English, we help them find jobs.

The goal is for them to stay here and love staying in Timmins. That's Michelle Mayu. I'm the post-secondary manager for Collège Barial in Timmins. So you've increased 100%. It sounds like 10 to 20-ish. Can you keep up at that rate? Can it be 40, 80, 160? Where do you stop?

Yeah, well, you know, of course, if we are bringing any international students, we want to make sure they have adequate housing, that there are jobs in the field. So that's all part of the plan as to bringing students in responsibly, right? We're looking at increasing over the coming years, because there is such a need for people working in Timmins and that also are able to communicate in French and English. It's a giant asset. We have employers all the time looking for bilingual students and we are just beside Quebec. So yeah, the distance makes it more difficult for people to come here because we are eight hours from Toronto. We are eight hours from Ottawa.

So Toronto's eight hours from here, I you mean that's right exactly not far once you're here um I know that everyone's very conscious of not having negative spin on Timmons but is there anything you would say it is missing right now that you really would like to change um I mean I'm a like a big foodie so I like I like foodie, so I like food. But so, yeah, it would be nice if we had more of a restaurant scene for sure. And I think because of the newcomers coming as well, it's diversified that to an extent. Coffee? There's not much coffee. No, no, no.

Timmy's and Starbucks, yeah, that's it. There's a strong element of personal taste in determining whether a city counts as livable, let alone lovable. Timmins can try to promise safety, welcome, lucrative employment, housing, and so on in order to attract 2,000 or so newcomers. But ultimately, it's counting on attractive qualities it can't really provide by itself. It needs the newcomers to provide what will attract more newcomers. That's the circular characteristic of community building. Hi, this is Deepak Dara. I'm the director for Timmins Tigers Cricket Club. And we are at the cricket ground in this beautiful town, Timmins.

And we have our own cricket ground here at the Royal Street. Cricket, for all those who are coming back from India, Australia, New Zealand, or Asia, cricket for them is a religion, if not the religion per se. So it's inborn talent. So everyone in India, 90% of the kids, they have the cricket bat when they're in the grade one. And was that true for you? Yes.

I was actually playing cricket when I was actually in kindergarten. So my brother used to play cricket and I used to follow him and he used to take me to the ground and I started playing cricket over there. Tell me about this cricket ground that we're at. What are its qualities and what are its defects? Well, we don't have the perfect ground, but we have a lot and we are thankful to the city of timmons for that the qualities first of all it's a well dimensioned it's a good good big ground all the sides we have 64 meters from the the pitch which is the center where we play except

behind of the wicket on main the wicket keeper if we have we don't have that much room over there uh however the plans are that in future either city is going to provide us a new better ground or improvise on this one too good ball good ball good ball tell me how the team is doing oh well, well, we were not that great, not in that good position last year when we started this club, per se. But now this team has improved a lot. We have lost lots of matches, but you'll be happy to know that last weekend we had our tournament in Thunder Bay, Domino's Cricket Cup 2023, and we, Timmy's Tigers, emerged as the champions over there, and we just won the cup

last weekend. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I'm ecstatic. I'm over the moon with that. And Deepak, are you an example of someone who has moved to Timmins during your lifetime? It sounds like you have. Yes. I was in Toronto for a good eight years. And I was in London, School of Dentistry over there. And then I moved here. The first thing I searched is the cricket in Timmins. And yes, that was a big boost. So I chose Timmins over there and so have many other kids too. You mentioned dentistry. Is that your job? Yes, I'm a dental surgeon by profession. Right now I am with Riverside Dental here in Timmins. And that's exactly the sort of profession that Timmins has been desperate to get people to come.

They want their doctors, they want their dentists, they want, you know, things like that. Yes, of course. This is one of the professions where we don't have that many doctors here. So I'm here and I'm lucky I'm able to help patients here. Give me your take on Timmins as a city. You can be completely honest. I was moving from London to Timmins and I had no idea on the map take on Timmins as a city. You can be completely honest. I was moving from London to Timmins and I had no idea in the map where the Timmins was because for me, north of the Canada was North Bay or Sudbury. And after that, Canada was over. But the funny thing is when I was driving and I put in the GPS, long story short, when I was driving across the Sudbury, I thought, OK, I don't want to take,

you know, coffee in Sudbury. I'll um I don't want to take a you know coffee in Sudbury I'll take later on or either on route or there will be some Tim Hortons on the way and there we are it was just me and the woods and the road and there was no Tim Hortons in the way and I saw Moose in first time of my life the Moose was there on Sudbury highway and the first thing I just thought do I have life insurance that's it and luckily moose just crossed the thing and he didn't hurt us but I was thinking where am I going in and Timmins I didn't know I mean we were just going in the woods I said where is this Timmins after three and a half hour of my waiting for coffee as well as my drive I reached to Timmins I said thank god

I'm somewhere where the people are I could see some people but to be very honest first initially it was a shock for me and my family that okay from Toronto to Timmins it was North Pole South Pole but then we have started loving it people are so polite here and people are welcoming and yes initially there was some struggle but now by god's grace the community here and the sports like cricket we have called timid at home so you you feel you're here for good or for a long time yes i am for sure because i have two kids and uh my wife hates moving so she has given love. We are not moving and she likes Timmins too. So we're here for good. Driving back to Toronto after my second visit to Timmins,

I stopped for lunch and saw a new posting on the Timmins Facebook page. It was from Yuvi, who spoke to me earlier. Anyway, his message caught me by surprise. Yes, do you want me to read it out for you? Yes, please. So, hello to the people of Timmons. Today I made a decision to move out of Timmons for my career advancement. I came to Timmons from a whole different country in January 2020 for school. I studied here, worked at Best Buy in Northern College. Timmins gave me a lot. People spread too much negativity about the city, but I had my pleasure. 90% of people were super nice and friendly. I have come a long way in these three years. Thank you so much, everyone.

I'm going to miss the city. Beautiful. And you got some nice responses, yeah? You like the response? Yes, yes. So much positivity. Can you say some nice responses. Yeah. You like the response? Yes. So much positivity. Can you say where you've moved to? I moved to Humber College in Etobicoke. I'm studying Bachelor's of Commerce with Finance. Excellent. You are allowed to leave Timmins. Can you explain? Yeah. Once you are fully permanent resident, you're all good to leave, you know, like you're all good to move out to different cities, explore places, and you're not bound to just one city. And I know one reason Timmins wants to do this project is to bring more people permanently to the city. What's your sense? Do you feel that that is likely to work for them? Or do you think largely people will leave?

No, I love Timmins. I still love Timmins, you know, at some point of my life, you know, like at least after getting a couple of years of experience experience I would want to go back to that city it's a beautiful place to live in peaceful you know I would want my kids to grow in that particular environment where they they feel more connected to the society and I think that's how they would be more emotional about stuff you know it feels like a family right no matter what store I walk into, everybody knows me there. They all come up and shake hands, you know. They are a very supporting community. There will always be somebody who would, like, cheer you up or, you know.

That's why I would want to go back to Timmins if I move to a smaller town. Well, good luck and thanks so much for speaking to me. Thank you. Thank you so much, Tom. It was a pleasure. With cities as with matters of the heart, it's one thing to attract people, another to retain them. In a way, Canadian towns are competing under a points system like the one literally used when assessing immigrants. They might get 40 points for having a job to offer, 20 for an affordable house, 10 points for a good coffee shop or a cricket team, maybe 100 for someone already living there whom you'd like to marry. As many different points systems, presumably, as there are people who would consider

the move. You were listening to Hands Up Who Loves Timmons by Ideas producer Tom Howell. Thanks to Gulab Singh and Bailey Campbell at the Timmons Economic Development Corporation. Please visit cbc.ca slash ideas for more information on the speakers. Technical production, Danielle Duval. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso Senior Producer, Nikola Lukšić Greg Kelly is the Executive Producer of Ideas and I'm Nala Ayyad For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.