Medicine Hat: Where Talent Meets Opportunity

Host Brian Konrad welcomes Tracy Tawiah, an economic development specialist with the City of Medicine Hat. With a background in economic development from the University of Waterloo, she is passionate about making our community an attractive place for new residents and businesses. Tracy has been instrumental in various initiatives that promote workforce attraction and investment, making her a credible voice in discussions about the city's growth and potential.
Discover how Medicine Hat is attracting newcomers and investors through innovative programs and a welcoming culture. Perfect for entrepreneurs and remote workers seeking a fresh start, this episode reveals why Medicine Hat is the next big thing. Tune in for insights on affordable living, community connections, and economic opportunities.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
00:13 Why Medicine Hat? The Community's Appeal
01:20 Relocating to Medicine Hat: Personal Experience
04:30 First Impressions and Community Integration
06:06 Rural Renewal Immigration Program Explained
08:43 Goals and Impact of the Immigration Endorsement Process
10:30 Opportunity Medicine Hat Tour for Workforce Attraction
12:51 Engaging Students and Promoting Community Interest
14:31 The Competency-Based Assessment Tool
18:04 City VIZ Data Portal and Community Data Insights
20:58 Future Prospects and Community Development
21:27 Partnerships and Community Collaboration


When it comes to attracting talent and investment, many communities struggle to find their footing. But in Medicine Hat, economic development specialist Tracy Tawiah is paving the way for new opportunities. Today on the Porch, we’ll explore how she’s promoting the city, the unique programs in place, and why Medicine Hat is a hidden gem worth considering for your next move.

Why Choose Medicine Hat? 
One of the first things Tracy highlights is the “affordability” of living in Medicine Hat. With homes going for as low as $150,000, it’s a stark contrast to the housing market in larger cities like Toronto. This affordability is a significant draw for young professionals looking to establish themselves without breaking the bank.

Tracy shares her experience of arriving in Medicine Hat and being greeted warmly by locals. Unlike the fast-paced environment of Toronto, where interactions can feel rushed, Medicine Hat offers a sense of community. Residents greet each other with smiles and good mornings, making newcomers feel at home right away. This welcoming atmosphere is crucial for attracting individuals who value community connections.



For more insights into economic development and community initiatives, explore our previous posts on related topics. Let's keep the conversation going about what makes communities thrive!

Resources

Medicine Hat Economic Development - https://www.medicinehat.ca/news/economic-development/
Rural Renewal Immigration Program - https://www.medicinehat.ca/southeast-alberta-municipal-immigration/rural-renewal/
World Education Service (WES) - https://www.wes.org/
International Qualification Assessment Service (IQAS) - https://www.alberta.ca/iqas-immigration

Thank you for listening and sharing you are one in a million! We are excited to announce our community is growing and we couldn't do it with out you! 

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, this is Brian again. And I'd like to ask you to do a favour. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please, like, share, subscribe. Tell your friends about bring back the porch. I came across Medicine Hat from a real estate office, like, Why not? I'm very proactive. And so when I saw Medicine Hats, I knew this was the community I wanted to go. So I thought this was a nice way to get the attention. Even though a job was, posted at the time. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. And at this time, on the porch, I'd like to welcome Tracy, Tawiah Economic Development Specialist with the City of Medicine Hat economic development. Welcome to the Porch. Thank you. Now, we were just talking. You've been here two years now? Yes, right on two years. And the climate hasn't chased you away? No, it's actually nicer down here. I don't know if it's global warming or something going on, but there has been a switch. So in Toronto this year, the winter was terrible and we were having a lot of sunshine. And people were wondering, are you sure you're in Alberta? Or did you lie to us like, yeah, this is Medicine Hat, and that's just the sunniest city in Canada. So you got on the phone and said, you got to come live here. I did, and I'll still been shouting that to all my friends. Recently, my brother moved here just a month ago. So two years later and I brought one more person with me. Yeah. Well, that's kind of what your job is, is to bring people the Medicine Hat. Yes. It's both on the talent attraction and investment attraction. All of those things. I know you already spoke to Al Sharma business attraction manager, so I won't go into his realm of affairs. We'll deal with only work force today. Yeah. You became involved with the City of Medicine Hat when you were still going to University of Toronto, I believe you got involved in a project that got noticed and they noticed you. So it was the University of Waterloo. Okay. But I did my master's degree in economic development, and so we were taxed with a class project to pick a community of choice and also select a target group to advertise that community to. So we had options from choosing investors to community members, workforce. Any which way. And I decided to pick young people looking for work. And I came across Medicine Hat from a real estate office, like, Why not? I'm very proactive. And so when I saw Medicine Hats, I knew this was the community I wanted to go. So I thought this was a nice way to get the attention. Even though a job was, posted at the time. So I selected Medicine Hat as that community and did some research. At the time, there wasn't too much I could find, but I did see something on, I believe, Tourism Medicine Hats YouTube channel and put together a video and presented that to my class. But the main thing I highlighted on was the affordability because that was what caught my attention. It was a real estate post about a house going for $150,000. Like, where is this place? Give me that now. And I wasn't at a point in my life where I was looking to buy a home or anything like that, but just for the future. I knew that place wouldn't be turned, or at least in the interim. So, I was really excited to explore that opportunity. I presented that to my class and then posted that on my LinkedIn and tagged the City of Medicine Hat, and it got the conversation going and people were like, how did you hear about us? Why did you select our community? And, after that conversation, I noticed the Medicine Hat Economic Development had posted some jobs at the time. It was for an economic development office, and that was somewhere in December. I was still in school. That didn't work out. And they posted another position somewhere in February I applied, and then by April when I was done with my program, I just moved. I had invested Medicine Hat before. I didn't know anybody. I just up and left. Just like that. Just like that. So you come to Medicine Hat with a conviction that this is the place to be? Yes. I'm not just reading lots of, prepared statement or something. It's in your heart. No. Yeah. That's good. So how's it been going for you in the last two years? Pretty good. I think it has grown on me. When I first came, I actually just landed at the airport. I was looking around. I was like, okay, this is very different. And I was at the hotel downtown. I can't remember the name of the hotel. I stepped out to just take a walk and look around to see what the community is like. About four people who met me on the way waved and said, hello, good morning. And I was watching. I'm like, okay, this is really still very different because Toronto is such a fast paced, city. Nobody really cares. Everybody is just going about their business. Nobody even smiles at you. Rarely ever. And so it was very different. Like, okay, this is nice. This is welcoming. This is great. And since then, I've been involved in different activities with, the connection Intercultural Association that's run by, Councillor Yusuf Mohammed. They organized really good events for newcomers and, new residents to connect with the existing residents. The community stuff attended a lot of the events, and that's how I've really been connected with other people in the community. So now I do have friends, even though I didn't know anybody before moving here. And my colleagues have also been really supportive with showing me places to go to get what. So it's really been a good experience so far. One of the things that you're working on is the Rural Renewal immigration program, which I guess, is coming back again in May after being paused last year. How does that whole thing work? That's right. Through all renewal, the migration program. So, that's an employer driven program to support the retention and attraction of skilled workers. It's very hard not to look at the city as an immigration firm because we are kind of running this program, which is an immigration program. But we keep telling people we are not an immigration firm. We don't necessarily answer immigration questions. But this program is run at the provincial level for temporary foreign workers to be able to get their permanent residence and then stay in the community of choice. But what the province has done is downloaded some level of responsibility on the community to be able to vet the candidates that go through the program. So we do the vetting. We speak to employers to understand their workforce needs, to understand as to why they need to use this program. And then we issue endorsement letters to their employees, and they can use those endorsement letters to apply for the immigration program with the province and get their permanent resident. So it's it's a bit of a process, but that process is to ensure the integrity of the program. It starts with an employer consult, like I said, to ask about their workforce needs to see, if there's a need to hire from either out of the community, out of the province, or out of the country. And then based on how that conversation goes, we can either proceed to support the employee or to support them, hiring from out of the community or out of the country. And if that doesn't seem to be the case, we would refer them to either the YMCA or to other partners in the ecosystem. So we do work with lots of groups, work with the YMCA, with Redi Enterprises, with Community Futures, with the College to ensure that employers are well connected the way some employers in that program early on that we told, look, you may not be able to hire from out of country. We won't be able to support that. But, YMCA has people that are looking for jobs. You can access talent through this program. And they also have, some grants that if you hire people through their program, you are able to assess and then play was like, wow, I didn't know this. So it was just that information sharing that helped they when they were able to hire someone. And that was of benefits to their business. So it's it has been a good experience so far with this program. There have been some challenges along the line too, but we are happy to resume that program. After doing some evaluation with revised and modified changes. I think, you had 134 endorsement letters in the first go round? Yes. Do you have a goal for this time or whatever it happens to be? That's, that's a tough one. It's hard to know, you know, how many people might be out. There in the yes.... We do have, the province has assigned allocations to each community as to the number of, endorsements that they will support in a given year. And we are going along those numbers. I can’t nessessarily share that, on air. But we will be working along those numbers, not because we want to restrict people from using the program, but we want to be able to manage expectations. We don't want people to waste their time and money because this costs money to go through this program. There's a $350 fee, a level there's another fee deep at the provincial level. And so we want to ensure that people are moving forward in the process. Wants to give an endorsement letter. How would an employer find you to talk about this opportunity? So we do have our website, it's long I can only mention that here, but we have an email address immigration at medicine hat dot ca. I respond to emails fairly quickly, usually in one business day we usually give 3 to 5 business days, but I'm pretty quick with emails, so if they have any questions they can reach out and if any further information is required, I'm able to schedule phone calls, with employers that way. I said the word opportunity, but do you have another program that caught my eye because of the way that it's spelled, it says opporT O U Rnity Medicine Hat. But t o u r is capitalized to stand out. And that caught my attention. That was more. Where it played right there with our comms team. Kudos to them, for coming up with that. But we this was modelled after a similar program that we had last year. Actually, no time is going really quickly 2024. We had something similar for investment attraction where we invited investment influences from the province, from, the feds to come down to Medicine Hat for an experience to go through our key industries, visit key places in the community, and their responses. So the feedback that they came back with was, wow, I have heard about Medicine Hat, I have seen the name, but this experience, it gives me something to go to invest this with. And that's the difference. When they have been in the community, they are better able to speak to things in the community than just seeing it online or just reading all that social media posts and newsletters and things like that. And so we thought, well, why not, let's do this for workforce as well, for our employers who are really struggling to fill key roles, especially in engineering. You might have heard of, landing zones, mechanics, corn cob, the, top employers who struggle to find these skills in our community. And so this program is to help bridge that gap. And so two funding we received from the government of Alberta, we are going to post-secondary institutions. Actually, I was in Edmonton two weeks ago to speak to students at NAIT and University of Alberta. I was speaking to Power Engineering and instrumentation students I need and then a U of A. It was electrical engineering students, both undergrad masters and PhD, actually. And then I went to their computer science and AI class as well to speak to them about opportunities in Medicine Hat. And it was surprising. I asked how many of you have been to Medicine Hat? And there were just few hands raised, and by the time their presentation was done, everybody was going, And lots of people came to talk to me after that presentation to ask more questions, to see what opportunities out there. And we'd been applying to this program. We've had over 80 applications come through since then, 80? Exactly. That's encouraging. Exactly. So there is interest in Medicine Hat. We are. And that's what we are doing. We are looking to promote the community. We are looking to promote the city, to get people interested in moving here. Now, the nice part of this, where you highlighted the tour is to bring down 20 candidates. Because this is government funded, we could have expanded 20 candidates into medicine hats to meet with the employers and also to have a tour of the community, understand the lifestyle, see people say hello, which they typically wouldn't say in the bigger centres. Right. And also experience the community for themselves. And the goal is that with this, you'll be able to make more informed decisions with accepting job offers when they see their jobs posted online to just the medicine hats. It's like, where is someone actually asked me, is medicine had the name of the company hiring them? Like, no. Is the name of the city, right? So you come here and you have that experience and they go back with stories. Some of them will be making post on their social media, and that amplifies the name of the community. And for those who may not find opportunities now, Medicine Hat is on their mind for future opportunities at least. It's kind of sad in a way that people have not heard about the good news of Medicine Hat, but it's also, I guess, hopeful that you are telling people that we have a great community here. And as I said to Mayor Clarke, you can live better in Medicine Hat. And I said, there's a slogan, you can take no charge, you can run with it. But when people do come here and see for their own eyes, as you say, they experience a community, they I guess, find out that we are the best kept secret. Exactly. Yeah. That's the best way to frame it is the best kept secret. So another thing that you're working on too, is the, competency based assessment to allow that. Sounds very bureaucratic. That’s an interesting one! It's actually that International Talent Recognition and Assessment program. So it's pretty long. But it's in twofold. One, we did realize that we have a growing newcomer community in Medicine Hat. A lot of our population growth has actually been from immigration and migration from the bigger centers. Now, a challenge that we do see, or we have heard is that the skilled workers struggle to find jobs. They have experience from their home countries, and they have higher education from their home countries, but they struggle to find jobs. Employers, on the other hand, also say we can't find people to do the work. So there's a disconnect. And so this project was meant to bridge that gap. Employers, we find, may not necessarily understand what those credentials look like, what that experience is. You see, someone put education on their resume and it shows from Ghana, for example, or, from China from somewhere else. And you just don't understand how it equates to Canadian education or you don't understand what the equivalency is. This program was meant to educate employers on that portion. So we were working or we are working with a consultant, for our research. They're based in Edmonton and they've been doing a lot of work in credential recognition space. So we had them, do this session, speak to employers about it to help employers understand that there are tools available that you could use to assess, their credentials. That includes what education service jobs is, what most people call it. There's also IQAS International Qualification Assessment Service, I believe, that employers can use to find out what the Canadian equivalency is. Now, the second portion of that is their competency based assessment tool. And that's to help assess the skills of people beyond the, resumé. So that applies to everybody, not just newcomers, but everybody. Sometimes employers to get a resume in is just to say, toss it in the pile. This is a no, this is a no no. But we do need people. So how do you assess something in five seconds of looking at that resume? This tool is going to help employers answer key questions as to really when you look at your job description, when you look at the role that you're looking to fill, what's the key thing in there? What would be necessary for a candidate to have? This is what's optional, what's non-negotiable versus what can I train. And so this tool would help employers answer those questions and be able to look at their resumes with a different eye to see what they can work with. And so that tool is not out yet. We are hoping maybe to launch that towards the end of April or early May. That would be on our social media pages and newsletters. And we will be looking to promote that amongst, employers in the community. So folks should watch out for that. It sounds interesting because, like, as someone who used to hire, you could look at a resume and, okay, but what can you do exactly? What can you do? And how do I know what this person can do? So this tool might help there. Exactly. Yes. I hope and the other thing you're working on is the city Viz v Z data portal. That sounds interesting. Yes, because that's all data. And people like data. Data wash over you. It's trying to like, drink, from a fire hose sometimes. Yes. We worked with a consultant as well for this project. And that's the name of the consultant is City Viz. That's the name of their company we know for a long time people have been looking for local data, things related to Medicine Hat in workforce, population, just economic indicators, even real estate, data as well. And people have had to look in different spots. They're looking Statistics Canada, they're looking government of our better portal looking different areas, different reports. It's like which one do I believe? Which one is accurate? Which year is this? And sometimes people don't even know how to navigate, these posts out. And they give up. And they give up and they don't use it anymore. So what this tool does is it puts everything together in one place. So that could be overwhelming to because you visit this website and is just full of data and graphs and charts, explains what it is. It shows you the numbers. It shows you this source with our Statistics Canada. With that, it's Government of Alberta. It shows you the source. It puts everything in one place. And so we are hoping that this is going to help make our community investment ready for investors. Looking at, doing something in medicine had to be able to have the numbers to know what is the workforce in this community looking like? How many people have a bachelor's degree or how many people have, a diploma in this community, which, area is, in high demand? Which industries are the key sectors and things like that answers those kind of questions. If you are looking at real estate, what's available? This is, what's not available and those kind of things. Gradually, we'll be looking to break down the data on that portal for, our viewers and our listeners to be able to consume that, because we understand that that could be overwhelming. So that's coming right now. We have a launched is on our website inside the Medicine Hat ski. Once you go there, you'll be able to find what you need. But down the line, we'll be looking to break down the information as well, to simplify it for everyday people. It sounds like you're, pushing all the right buttons. I think Medicine Hat is on the precipice of good times. We've just recently seen the announcements about, the work that'll be done on at CFP Southfield, again with the, as well as with data. So, good things are happening in medicine that we need to shout. Yes. The things that happen. Should I out? Yeah. No, I'm not literally. A. Thumb drive. Yes, yes, yes, I do encourage people to come to medicine and especially the young people. When you're starting out life, the affordability is necessary. It gives you a head start in life. Quality of life is important. Yes. Tracy, thank you for the visit. Thank you for having me. Actually, before we go, I'd like to, thank all our partners because all this work that we do will not be possible without our partners. So, thank you to medicine, high college community futures and Charkop, the Southeast Alberta Chamber of Commerce, Reddy enterprises, medicine hat local immigration partnership busses, bucks County immigration services service, immigration. I hope I have mentioned everybody that we work with for all our partners will be testing. Will it be from the government of Alberta as well? All the work that we do will not be possible. With all these partnerships and relationships. We make sure to do the work together. It's a very collaborative community, so we do things without duplicating efforts, which is what makes the work great and easy. Many of the people that you mentioned are friends of the poor chair too, so I'm glad you glad to help. That's great. Thank you Tracy. Thank you. I'm. not literally. A. Thumb drive. Yes, yes, yes, I do encourage people to come to medicine and especially the young people. When you're starting out life, the affordability is necessary. It gives you a head start in life. Quality of life is important. Yes. Tracy, thank you for the visit. Thank you for having me. Actually, before we go, I'd like to, thank all our partners because all this work that we do will not be possible without our partners. So, thank you to medicine, high college community futures and Charkop, the Southeast Alberta Chamber of Commerce, Reddy enterprises, medicine hat local immigration partnership busses, bucks County immigration services service, immigration. I hope I have mentioned everybody that we work with for all our partners will be testing. Will it be from the government of Alberta as well? All the work that we do will not be possible. With all these partnerships and relationships. We make sure to do the work together. It's a very collaborative community, so we do things without duplicating efforts, which is what makes the work great and easy. Many of the people that you mentioned are friends of the poor chair too, so I'm glad you glad to help. That's great. Thank you Tracy. Thank you. Thank.