Jobs and business boom in the West Island

A project that has been years in the making is about to come to fruition this weekend when the West Island Chamber of Commerce (WICC) unveils its first-ever jobs and business fair at the Holiday Inn hotel in Pointe Claire, with over 30 exhibitors.

"It's a new initiative for the Chamber," explained WICC's director general Andrée Bélanger. "It was an idea that was on the back-burner for a little while," she added, but due to various circumstances, it never quite went ahead until this year.

The brainchild of Éric Léouzon, one of the Chamber's members, the idea for the fair is to create both "business to business networking opportunities, and employment opportunities," he said.

When he originally thought of the idea in 2004, Léouzon said the business sector in general seemed to be worried about an upcoming lack of employment. "Employment was leaning more and more toward the knowledge economy," Léouzon said.

With the amount of high-technology companies present in the area, he added, a jobs and business fair here seemed to be an ideal fit.

One of those high-tech companies at the event will be MDA Space Missions, the national aerospace technology company that helped create the famous Canadarm used at the International Space Station, which has a branch in Ste. Anne de Bellevue.

"MDA is very happy to have a job fair take place in the West Island," said company spokesperson Nathalie Patenaude. Their current openings include several managerial and engineering positions.

Local educational institutions will be present as well. John Abbott College's continuing education director Diane McGee explained this would be a great opportunity to both present the department's many programs to those attending the event, as well as network with employers to secure internships for students. "I think that this is a really interesting venue," McGee said, particularly since many of the students attending John Abbott tend to be from the West Island area.

The Lester B. Pearson School Board will also have a booth on display at the fair. "We are involved with about 120 companies in the West Island," explained Pearson chairperson Marcus Tabachnick. These ties allow the school board to place students of vocational training programs in internship placements, and also create employment, he added.

With these exhibitors being just a handful among several others, Bélanger said reception was generally warm as the Chamber began to approach potential exhibitors.

"There's always scepticism every time you do something different," she admitted. For example, one potential exhibitor, the Canadian Armed Forces, asked the Chamber to have a certain number of exhibitors to sign up as a guarantee the project would move ahead before agreeing to take part in it. The army is now among the exhibitors.

Others include Transcontinental Media, The Chronicle's parent company, as well as Caisse Populaire Desjardins, a chief sponsor of the event.

"I am very happy to join this event and thus associate our Desjardins team to this new initiative of the Chamber," said Denis Dubreuil, vice-president, support to business development for Caisse Desjardins in the west of Montreal.