Officials from the town of Smiths Falls are asking the Ontario government to help replace hundreds of jobs vanishing with the closure of the community's Hershey chocolate factory.

Town CEO Wayne Brown said government offices could be housed in the soon-to-close Rideau Regional Centre for the developmentally disabled, which is also taking more than 800 in direct and indirect jobs from the community of 9,000.

"We've been after them to put a ministry in there that would bring some good paying jobs," Brown said Friday.

The provincial facility's closure is scheduled to be complete in 2009 and is well underway, with most of the 2,000 residents already moved to other institutions.

Brown said the facility contains over 74,000 square metres of space that is now mostly empty on a 160-hectare parcel of land.

Conservatives vow to move jobs to rural areas

Brown's comments came a day after Ontario Opposition Leader John Tory promised to move 10 per cent of provincial government jobs from Toronto to rural communities, if his Conservative party is elected in the fall.

But even the current Liberal government said it is open to the idea for Smiths Falls in the wake of the Hershey plant closure announcement.

"It's certainly something to be considered," said Municipal Affairs Minister John Gerretsen on Friday. "We're fully aware of the economic impact and obviously the personal devastation it'll have on many individuals within the Smiths Falls area."

Brown said the town has also tried to get the Royal Canadian Mounted Police interested in the Rideau Regional Centre site for a new headquarters.

Council still trying to save plant

Meanwhile, Smiths Falls Coun. Dawn Quinn said the community has not given up hope that the Hershey plant might still stay open.

"The mayor and council have been very very active on what we can do to save the Hershey plant," she said, adding that if the plant closes, the town needs to know whether it can legally start trying to attract another chocolate company.

Hershey announced in February that its Smiths Falls plant, which employs about 400 people in the town of 9,000, will shut down by 2008.