Tomlinson project, economic development, anonymous blogs and progress By now word is getting around that Brockville City Council negotiated a settlement with the Tomlinson Group to cancel the proposed group of plants in the west end of the central ave Industrial Area. As we anticipated, there is a rush of negative comments on the Blogs and Facebook - generally of the nature of: not business friendly, not wanting jobs, town dieing, no jobs, stagnation, sky is falling....etc ( to be fair there was a little of this exaggeration on the anti-project side as well) First - "Business Friendly" - people who suggest that the city will have some kind of negative reputation amongst decision makers because of this....i suggest are probably not the decision makers in companies looking for a new location - this was a unique situation with unique types of heavy industry in an area that has been changing its commercial make-up over the last ten years in a community that is changing its economic drivers - businesses will look for locations that fit their needs and allow them a better chance of making a profit by being close to their market, close to transportation modes, close to capital and labour or the best combination of these things and every business is different - the decision makers will only be concerned by this situation if they are trying to locate an ashphalt plant, or a cement plant, or a gasification plant....to serve eastern ontario Turning down a plant and jobs - yup - because the protestors were right - these plants do have the potential for environmental pollution - and Brockville is a small geographical footprint - roughly 4km x 5km - 2nd highest population density in Eastern Ontario next to Peterborough and the 2nd highest ratio of business properties to residential in Eastern Ontario next to Belleville - it means we are packed in pretty tight and the only way we can grow is to move to a higher density still. Is the City Dieing? - not according to the Conference Board of Canada which released a report 2 months ago as reported in the Globe and Mail - indicating Brockville was one of only two mid sized cities in Ontario and one of only a few in Canada that had recovered all the jobs lost since 2005 - this story was actually covered in the Cornwall news (asking why Cornwall was not doing as well as Brockville) but the Recorder and Times did not consider it a story worth reporting Are the jobs different? - yes - more service oriented and some of that is retail, others are financial services, health care, etc...and there are fewer and fewer jobs for people with less education - and thats not just here Is the City Dieing part two - get out and be a part of this city - look at it with the eyes of someone from somewhere else - what you will see is a really beautiful place with great people, great sports teams and culture, people who volunteer to help others, and the list goes on - it is what you make of it and the more involved you are in making it better - the better it looks to you and everyone else - Economic development and jobs - everybody wants more jobs, better jobs. the trick is how do you get them. The quick answer is just go get them! the reality is a lot more complicated - it is a different world today than it was 20 or 30 years ago and factory jobs are not the top of the economic heap that they were and they do not exist anywhere near the numbers they used to - we have hung onto our manufacturing base much better than most small communities ( see Prescott / Gananoque / Smiths Falls / Cornwall...) but the manufacturing sector continues to shrink relative to the entire economy - and it is service jobs that are growing. We still have a Proctor and Gamble plant, 3 x 3M plants, a Shell plant, a pharmaceutical plant, 2 Cable plants, the Newterra plant,....but our local economy is becoming more diverse - it has a large institutional sector (the BGH is the largest employer in the city ) - it has a large regional commercial and retail sector - we determined 6 years ago (with massive public input) that we had to work to maintain our industrial base while investing in amenities and infrastructure to attract people to Brockville - and that is happening and people are moving here - for quality of life - and they spend money here which powers the service sector - this creates jobs it is not easy today to get a job with limited education - no way around this problem - the days of getting a great factory job with a grade 12 education are long gone last comment - anonymous posting - it is sad that newspapers allow anonymous posting - as we see locally there tend to be 5 - 10 people that comment negatively on every story - anonymity makes them incredibly brave to make wild assertions and comments - but if you write a letter to the newspaper you must indicate name and location and it must be verified. Freedom of speech also means responsibility.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 03:07:43 +0000
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