Official Niagara Baffle Gab

The front cover of the Niagara Regional Government’s 90 page book reads, ‘looking out to focus in’ with a sub title stating, ‘fostering an environment for Economic Prosperity’.

Included in the 90 pages of baffle gab is this; ‘Economic prosperity emerges as the prominent theme throughout the national, provincial and local agendas. And, while it is the private sector that generates wealth for the economy and creates jobs, governments can play a key role in fostering the conditions for economic competitiveness through investments (spending) in sound infrastructure, seamless transportation networks, highly skilled labour markets and favourable trade conditions. The research suggests that a narrow focus on supporting economic prosperity in Niagara is our best opportunity to deliver the greatest community impact over the next few years’.

Included in this missive is a link to the complete 90 page document of cleverly concocted ‘baffle gab’ designed to offering nothing more than a cover-up for the fact that there is no intention of doing anything different than the last Regional Council. In fact this 90 page missive is testament to do nothing!

The Niagara Regional Government’s CAO Mr. Harry Schlange addressed council with his opinion of what ails our Niagara Region.

Schlange was blunt in his assessment of Niagara’s current weaknesses, including higher than average unemployment and youth unemployment, lower than average population growth, lower than average income levels, and social assistance caseload that’s soared in recent years — pushing up already long waits for affordable housing.

It’s all about “doing business very differently than we’ve been doing,” he said. “Very differently.”

“We need to do some leading-edge things,” he said. “The competition is eating our lunch."

“We’ve decided we want to chart a new course, a course of aggressive economic prosperity,” he said

Schlange identified the perpetrators of this report was jointly created by every one of his department commissioners and through numerous meetings he’s had with all 12 chief administrative officers at Niagara’s towns and cities, all five local municipal economic development offices, a number of local chambers of commerce, deputy ministers at the province and the president of Metrolinx, the province’s transportation investment agency.

CAO Schlange couldn’t manage to complete his presentation on fostering an environment for economic prosperity without referring to needs for investment (SPENDING) or even proffer a single thought as to how the Niagara Region could possibly become ‘competitive’.

It is painfully obvious the CAO Schlange and his Gang believe that prosperity can be bought!

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.    

It is difficult to make ‘Quantum Leaps’ when up to your knees in bullshit!