Economic Development - An addiction for Government

There is no drug as powerful for a politician as the photo op that accompanies handing out public money in support of a hypothetical investment with overly-optimistic job numbers at an undetermined time in the future.

To be fair, Ms. Wynne's latest foray into the grey, murky world of job creation attempts to put some hooks into the cash infusion.  At least the Cisco deal has some sort of link to the duration of the jobs, although how that failed to be included in the Novartis arrangement is mindboggling and should be reviewed.

Those who disagree with direct government intervention in boardroom decisions also face some questions with regard to their claim that lowering corporate business taxes will automatically translate to increased economic activity.  Although Canada and Ontario have lowered their tax rates to be among the lowest in the many countries surveyed by KPMG, the resulting job boom has failed to materialize, although corporate cash accounts are doing extremely well.

With that being the case, one would think that there would be a strong demand for performance measurement in the case of corporate subsidies, but sadly that does not seem to be the case.  The Fraser Institute does tally up the amounts over the years, but leaves the assessment of value to a mere identification of the recipients.  It also only deals with Industry Canada, but the provincial government hands out incentives also, and it could be argued the entire Ministry of Economic Development is an investment, as is the tourism portion of the Ministry of Tourism.

The structures governments use to try and stimulate economic development is complex and there should be more science behind the process.  One common theme among business executives that make site decisions is the availability and skill level of the labour pool.  One such case is the Hitachi plant in Guelph, which competes with Caterpillar and, unlike the funding recipient who hightailed it back to the States, does so in Canada.

If one accepts that labour skill is one of the critical factors in locating a business, it would make sense for the government to invest in a collaborative effort with universities and colleges.  One of the investments that could be made in Northern Ontario would be a railway training facility within Canadore College.  ONTC already partners with Canadore, Northern College and Algoma to provide apprenticeships in electrical, railway carmen, machinist and metal fabricator trades, it would be a natural step to build on that relationship.

The major roads are moving away from hump yards in favour of flat switching yards due to the high cost of maintaining the automated system.  ONTC operates one of the best flat-switching yards in Ontario in North Bay and in its current underutilized state, could be used to train Conductors in the best flat-switching techniques.  Other rail colleges utilize short line railways which are limited in the facilities they can provide for training purposes.  If the Northlander was re-instated, it could further give access to trainees to the CTC system used on the south portion of the CN connection to Union Station.  Those trainees would be far more valuable to the major carriers and VIA than what the current college system produces.

Building an educational system that focuses on the needs of industry may not allow for photo ops with impressive numbers tied to them, but it may actually produce more economic development in the long run.

Culture Change Needed to Open Government

Kathleen Wynne has set the stage for one of the most important changes in politics for Ontario.  The "Open Government" program, announced on Oct 21st, was criticized for being a "gimmick" and a way to distract attention from the gas plant scandal, but it has the potential to radically change the way people view the political process.

The Premier's letter posted on the Open Government website speaks of the innovative discoveries that will become possible by opening up government datasets to the public.  While that is true and reason enough to open up government information, it is not the greatest potential of the policy change.

The sentence in the letter that carries the most impact is 

I believe that government data belongs to the people of Ontario and so we will make government data open by default, limiting access only to safeguard privacy, security and confidentiality.

The idea that government data is open by default has died a slow death since the enacting of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy act in 1988.  The intent of the act was to guarantee access to government records for individuals, but its existence seemed to provide an easy way for bureaucrats to block the release of information instead.  This Toronto Star article speaks to the attitude of bureaucrats who now seek to act as gatekeepers to the public information previously available without barriers.

In the case of newspaper reporters, bureaucrats may be trying to protect themselves or their superiors from potentially embarrassing situations.  Where individuals seek access to information, they may just not want to add to their workload by having to consider, or respond to, public input.

I had my own experience when I tried to access information about the Intermodal studies being conducted by MTO, but the process of extracting information is so dragged out, only the panel on Open Government is likely to be interested.

In order to get any information one must have persistence and be willing to challenge the legitimacy of all the roadblocks that get thrown in your way.  Unfortunately, most people simply give up and join the ranks of the cynics and apathetic non-voters instead of contributing their input.  A disengaged public has become our biggest liability in politics and spawned numerous challenges for leaders to overcome.

In order to change the "Culture of Secrecy" referred to, by Kevin Donovan, Ms. Wynne will need the support of her entire cabinet.  The benefits of the change will have to be consistently explained to the bureaucracy and those who do not buy in, will have to be convinced or replaced.

If Ms. Wynne truly wants to create the meaningful change she speaks of in her letter, she will first have to change the culture of government.