EDITORIAL – Chamber of commerce gets a failing grade on its ‘report card’

An ArmchairMayor.ca editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE released what it calls a “Municipal Report Card” on Wednesday in which it examines the job the current council has done since being elected two years ago.

Let’s turn the tables and grade the chamber on its report card.

A good teacher not only points out where a student needs to do better, but lays out a plan for how to get there. A good teacher doesn’t equivocate or use piffle words.

While the chamber purports to critique council’s performance in four specific areas — strengthening fiscal accountability, promoting business development and economic diversity, enhancing business processes and fostering community engagement — the insights offered are shallow at best.

The criteria, of course, are based on business interests, which is an understandable place for the chamber to start, but business interests aren’t the only important benchmark for deciding what’s best for a community.

Business is best and arguably most successful when it integrates social conscience with corporate imperatives and, in fact, the chamber officially recognized the importance of that in policy development several years ago. Yet, there’s no recognition of it in this assessment of council.

What it produces instead is a lot of generalizations. For example, it suggests that “the efficiency of existing budgets is of paramount importance.” Okay, so where might some of those efficiencies reside? All we’re offered is, “We continue to encourage Council to work with their administration in finding areas to improve efficiencies.”

With respect to promoting economic diversity, the chamber recognizes that the council “values diversity” but says it needs to pay attention to the importance of resource development.

Well, either we want diversity or we don’t. The chamber has made it clear it supports copper mines and pipelines and doesn’t like it when some members of council disagree. The chamber seems to say council should embrace the old resource-town label but somehow diversify at the same time. At least that suggests a direction in which the chamber would like to move, but how does this multi-tasking happen? Actively court heavy industry? Reduce red tape? Build more industrial parks? What’s the plan?

And, according to the chamber, if council as a whole wants to discuss issues that are outside its jurisdiction — perhaps an indirect reference to the chamber’s disappointment over how the wine-in-grocery-stores issue was handled — it should stop. “… It would be beneficial for Council to be cautious in addressing issues that are already regulated by other levels of government.”

In other words, if the level of government closest to the people has concerns on behalf of local taxpayers about what other jurisdictions or interests are doing, well, ignore them. Is local government not an advocate for its community?

The chamber’s interest in local government is encouraging but the usefulness of this Municipal Report Card, unfortunately, is minimal beyond raising the question for discussion. If you’re going to hold a politician’s feet to the fire, turn up the heat and get to the point.

All in all, the bottom line on this report card is “Needs improvement.”

mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.