McGill students’ plan to help rebuild Lac-Mégantic wins praise

Trio’s vision for an innovative centre for entrepreneurs is embraced by town

One year after a runaway train transporting oil plowed through the downtown core of Lac-Mégantic, igniting and razing much of the town’s commercial centre, three McGill University students with a passion for social entrepreneurship have become part of the town’s efforts to rebuild.

The three students, who are working to build something sustainable out of the ashes of the Lac-Mégantic disaster, recently tied for first place in McGill’s flagship startup competition, the Dobson Cup.

But what they are truly thrilled about is that their idea for an innovative centre for entrepreneurs has been embraced by the hard-hit Lac-Mégantic community — and they are hoping it will become part of the town’s redeveloped business district.

“We knew what had happened and we really wanted to help the community,” said Cécile Branco-Côté, one of the students involved in the project. “We didn’t just want to rebuild something, but we wanted to create something sustainable that would help retain young people in the area.”

That is the simple, but noble, idea behind their prizewinning startup initiative, which they have aptly named the Centre Magnétique.

Jacques Cloutier, an entrepreneurship teacher who has mentored the McGill students and was one of the first locals to embrace the project, said in an interview Tuesday that their idea, while not completely finalized yet, has been received positively by much of the community.

“We need fresh blood, and we think this is an idea that will encourage people to come here,” Cloutier said. “We are at a critical point now, as businesses try to restart, and this is like a wind of hope.”

Their idea is to create a kind of business incubator for local enterprises: a place that would offer affordable working spaces to entrepreneurs plus additional services and support that could help them achieve their business goals.

Four of the region’s biggest economic development agencies, which had to relocate to the outskirts of the town after the accident, would be housed in the centre to offer their support services to the burgeoning businesses.

The students’ proposal says that “by bringing together these agencies, the project envisions not only to establish the first innovative centre, but also to build a place that will become the reference figure of entrepreneurial support in the region.”

They are dreaming big, as it’s a project that will cost about $2 million. Their winnings from tying for first place in the Social Enterprise track of the Dobson Cup were $5,000, which they will use to finance more trips to the region and other costs.

But Branco-Côté said money isn’t even the main obstacle, as they believe they have an interested government partner and they would be eligible to get some funding from the Red Cross.

What seems most urgent now is getting the not-forprofit project done as quickly as possible, before young people get frustrated with the situation and start to leave the area. Cloutier said that’s a real concern as a lot of work has inexplicably stopped since the provincial election in April.

“If we don’t do something quickly, the town will die,” he said.

Branco-Côté said the students have taken their cues from local people like Cloutier and have tried to focus on moving forward without dwelling on past mistakes.

“Something Jacques Cloutier said to us when we met him really struck us,” she explained. He had said it was a unique opportunity to build a city — something that signalled to the students that the townspeople weren’t focused as much on being victims of something horrific, but were trying to concentrate on opportunities for rebuilding.

The students had to develop a startup plan for a rural area for Anita Nowak’s social entrepreneurship class at the Desautels faculty of management, and immediately thought of Lac-Mégantic. Nowak loved the idea and encouraged them to apply for the Dobson Cup. They were subsequently invited by the town council of Lac-Mégantic to present their idea.

Leilani Ku, a communications manager for Desautels, said that social entrepreneurship is becoming a greater area of focus in teaching, outreach and research in the faculty.

Bernard d’Arche, another of the students, said the idea was just a school project at first — but when they were invited to compete for the Dobson Cup, he started to think it might become a reality.

“The accident was a tragedy, but now there is an opportunity to rebuild, and that is the focus of our project,” he said.

And yes, they got an A on the project.