Business View Magazine - April 2016 23
tial for any growth it may wish to achieve.
Sendzik explains: “We have a population that is older
– well into its retirement years. What essentially hap-
pened is a majority of those who got out of manufac-
turing were bought out. They were close to retirement
and were able to get bought out as part of either a
closure or a downsizing. So, they stayed in the com-
munity. Where we’ve lost over the past 20 years is the
out-migration of young people and families who went
to other communities looking for careers that didn’t
exist in our community. The replacement factor is the
one where we have tripped up for the better part of the
last 15-20 years.”
The good news is that the city’s rebranding has al-
ready begun to show results. “And so, only now, are
we starting to see the young families moving back,”
Sendzik relates, happily. “We’re getting a more diver-
sified economy; we’ve got more IT in our community;
we’ve got more knowledge-based businesses: bio-sci-
ence, bio-medical, nutriceutical. They’re the ones that
are now attracting the next generation of employment
opportunities. We’ve turned the corner and we’ve got
the momentum. The goal is to keep the momentum
building.”
That momentum to which the mayor alludes is encap-
sulated in St. Catherines blueprint for its next phase
of growth. “We’ve got a strategic plan that’s been ap-
proved for the next ten years that talks about where we
