North Perth Mayor Todd Kasenberg spoke at his Mayor’s Luncheon in association with the North Perth Chamber of Commerce yesterday.
Kasenberg says considering how difficult the pandemic was on local businesses, he’s very proud of how the business community has rebounded and come out of that challenging time. He says the local business landscape has actually grown.
“We’ve seen some new businesses fill in spaces that were vacant before the pandemic, and so, on the retail and commercial side, we seem to be rocking and rolling at this point. In fact, I think the challenge now and the interesting problem we have is, where’s the space? Where’s the next growth happening?”
Going forward, Kasenberg feels the municipality is well situated to meet those growth challenges and further bolster the continued growth of the local economy.
“We have a lot of the right factors in place. We have a sensible, sound, durable infrastructure on a physical front. We have a lot of the social infrastructure coming along. I think we learned a lot from the pandemic about how to support people and how to continue to be in community with each other.”
The mayor says that part of his challenge to the local business community, which he addressed at the luncheon, was to continue to strive for innovation, and part of that is improving the overall digital imprint of businesses and the municipality as a whole. Kasenberg says a lot of that groundwork is already being laid.
“So making sure we have a Digital Service Squad, the Digital Main Street Projects, which are trying to make sure that our business community is well connected to the world and has the support and advice from real humans to make that possible.”
A major part of being able to improve individual’s or any business’s digital footprint is access to broadband internet. Kasenberg says with things like the SWIFT fibre optic projects that aim to have all of Ontario hooked up by 2025, the possibilities for local businesses and industries will only improve.
“We seem to be at the cusp of a significant blossoming of all the work that’s been done, including by myself over the course of this term of office, to ensure that we get fibre optic internet to the home in as many places as possible, and to businesses which is equally important.”
