March 2017 | Business View Magazine

198 199 Preferred vendors n Veolia North America www.veolianorthamerica.com n Fanshawe College www.fanshawec.ca Goderich, Ontario While the port and port area businesses are the town’s largest economic drivers, James Cox, the town’s Economic Development Director and Tourism Coordinator, insists that Goderich ac- tually has a fairly diverse economy. “We have a robust, small-scale manufacturing sector and a number of small-scale employers in our indus- trial area,” he says. “We also have a very strong tourist economy, here. Being on the Lake and having a unique sense of place– the waterfront, the unique design of downtown, the strong commercial residents we have in the downtown – all of that combine to make it so.” “We also have a very strong healthcare sector as well,” he adds. “We have a full-service hospi- tal in the community and a number of associ- ated assets. Our healthcare presence has been important for our sustainability as a community, especially when we want to attract residents to town. One of the biggest challengers for our employers, like the salt mine, is finding skilled labor. So they need to attract people from other regions. And if you attract those people, and you want to retain them in town, you need to have doctors, you need to have recreational facili- ties, you need to have parks, you need for them to feel that this a good place to raise a family. So, it’s really a complete community that we’ve got here; a great community to live and work.” McCabe agrees: “It’s a well-balanced municipality from the position of economics and from tourism,” he states. “We’re ideally located, two and a half hours west of Toronto; two and a half hours north of Detroit; and an hour and half from Port Huron.We’re far enough from some of the major centers that we’re a regional shopping area.We have all the major chains and a strong downtown core. The core area is a circle with a park in the center. Businesses front the circle and go down the eight radiating streets to form a square. So it’s unique; there are only two or three in North America. Planners view the design of our core area and the layout as one of the best from a planning point of view. Goderich is a unique, historic munic- ipality with considerable charm and some of the best sunsets in the world.” And it’s also “The Prettiest Town in Canada.”