Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre Executive Director Tom Vair answers questions after his presenting his request for funding a lottery and gaming development strategy at City Council on Tuesday night.

City Council approved a request on Tuesday night for at least 250 thousand dollars to be allocated towards implementing a lottery and gaming sector development strategy. This money from the city’s Economic Diversification Fund will be instrumental in helping the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre to move forward in four specific areas during the first year of a three year commitment. Those areas are talent management, communications and outreach, modernization and business development. Innovation Centre Executive Director Tom Vair says progress is being made on the data centre front…

One of the high level goals is to create 200 new jobs, in addition to the 900 already at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming offices. The 250 thousand dollars — with an additional 500 thousand expected out of the EDF over the next two years — is expected to be leveraged with another 3 and three quarter million that would come from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and a number of lottery and gaming companies. A decision on that funding is expected sometime in December. There is enough money in the 2015 Economic Diversification Fund to cover the 250 thousand dollars for the first year, but the remaining 500 thousand dollars over 2016 and 2017 isn’t assured. It will likely depend on economic conditions affecting the EDF. Vair is confident that some good news will arrive before the end of the year…

That 3.75 million would also be split into thirds over the three year period. When asked about where Sault Ste. Marie will be at the end of 2017, Vair answered optimistically. He hopes that there will be a robust office for OLG and for the new company that will be taking over the province’s lottery operations and for some new companies that would be feeding into the local lottery gaming cluster. Tuesday’s decision was not made before some criticism from councillors about putting more money towards the centre and the Economic Development Corporation, who has also been working on the strategy. Vair answered his critics this way…

Sault Mayor Christian Provenzano said that the city needed to take a leadership role in this development, adding that ‘the time is here and now’. He mentioned that the lottery and gaming sector could be tied to the information, communication, technology and human resource sectors — areas the city needs skilled people in. Vair says his group can attract those people through ex-pats, immigration and the relationship with Sault College and Algoma University to develop programs and future jobs.