It's an exciting time for Arborg, and a promising time for the town's economy. That's from Mayor Randy Sigurdson, now that the new Central Interlake Training Facility is enrolling students, and discussions continue surrounding the creation of a personal care home.

"The purpose of having these people trained is to have them working at the personal care home. It's huge for the town. It will provide jobs, once these people get trained they can be employed in town, and be productive earners --we'll say-- in the town."

Sigurdson says the potential 80 bed facility's construction would likely follow the model that's been seen in southeastern Manitoba, with the town responsible for construction.

"We're positioned well to get an 80 bed personal care home, which will be like the Niverville model, as it's called. What basically would happen is that we'd build it for the government, and they'd lease it from us for the next 25 to 30 years. Basically, they pay for the mortgage of it, as it's being paid off."

While the training centre is starting courses this summer, the new personal care home has yet to be formally approved. However, Sigurdson says in conversations with provincial representatives, they're quite confident they'll be seeing the facility announced in the near future.

"We're getting very, very good vibes from the province and the government. They're very much interested in making this all go ahead, but I think there's a lot of ground work that needs to be done, clearance from the treasury board and things like that. There hasn't been an announcement yet, but we're very, very optimistic."

He notes the most recent discussions took part at a local play, which saw Sigurdson, Bifrost-Riverton Reeve Harold Foster, consultants, and provincial government members all in attendance. He notes the conversations that night pointed to an optimistic outlook for the personal care home.