the community along with an adjacent melamine factory which manufactures products with Flake board’s materials. Such examples of this are furniture and cupboards where a finish is added to the product. Together both of Flake board’s factories employ about 150 people. The Huron Central Railway is important to these local industries, too.
Furthermore, the business process outsourcing industry, with Three call centres, Nucomm, Cross Country and Sutherland Global Services located within city limits employ about 1500 people. The largest employer of the Three call centres is Sutherland Global Services. The call centre industry has become a large employer in Sault Ste. Marie which contributed to the economic turn around of the city in the late 1990s.
Another very large employer in the community is the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG). The OLG has a corporate office located within the city on the waterfront and employs about 900 people in Sault Ste. Marie between the corporate office and OLG Casino Sault Ste. Marie. The prize centre used to reside within the city but was moved back to Toronto (York Mills) in 2009. Its role in Sault Ste. Marie has diminished, although only slightly; however, it is still the fourth largest employer next only to Essar Steel Algoma, Sault Area Hospital and the call centre industry.
Sault Ste. Marie is one of only a few cities in Ontario where a municipal bylaw prevents stores from opening on December 26. As in Sudbury, retail stores in Sault Ste. Marie instead begin their post-Christmas Boxing Day sales on December 27. A municipal referendum to determine whether voters favour allowing stores to open on Boxing Day was held concurrently with the 2010 municipal election. Although voter turnout was not high enough to make the referendum legally binding, meaning that Sault Ste. Marie City Council is free to disregard the results if it chooses to revisit the issue in the future, 60.77 per cent of voters opposed
