By Dominic Abassi

Editorial: time is now for City to reimagine economic development in Nanaimo

Feb 1, 2019 | 9:35 AM

NANAIMO — Very few successful businesses would spend millions of dollars over multiple years without any way of knowing if the investment was paying off.

So why would a municipality do it with taxpayer’s money?

This week, Nanaimo councillors held a session focused on economic development, the first in a series of discussions which will likely lead to the City re-investing tax dollars into some sort of initiative.

And as this fledgling Council moves into developing a new strategy, one thing must be top of mind: invest in something with a tangible return.

Between 2011 and 2017, the City spent more than $3 million solely on economic development through its funding of the Nanaimo Economic Development Corporation.

unprovoked attack

Vulnerable man blasted with bear spray in quiet Nanaimo neighbourhood

9h ago

HOUSING TARGETS

Nanaimo named in new group of communities for provincial housing targets

7h ago

more housing

Nanaimo council endorses significant south end redevelopment

11h ago

The previous Council shuttered the NEDC in 2017, amid murmurs some elected officials weren’t sold the organization was providing returns equal to its cost.

Between then and now, City investment in economic development dropped to little more than wages and benefits for one staff member. A proposed in-house model never came to fruition.

So, what impact did that have on Nanaimo’s economy? Well that depends entirely on who you talk to.

Even the former CEO of the NEDC, who is now leading the industry-funded Mid-Island Business Initiative, admits the performance of traditional economic development models is a difficult thing to measure.

“The key thing is to keep getting a consistent message out there,” John Hankins said. “But once you’ve got the message out there, you never quite know how it is received or who receives it. Companies can suddenly start showing up and you can’t put a complete correlation to the events you’ve been doing.”

Perhaps the NEDC was responsible for bringing companies like Tilray, FedEx and Helijet to the harbour city. But perhaps those businesses identified a profitable market and would have moved into the city anyway, without being sold on our relatively affordable lifestyle and warmer than the rest of Canada winters.

The traditional approach to economic development is to sell a region as a place to do business, invest capital and create jobs. From the outside looking in, it’s all about networking and relationship building in the hopes people with money and businesses will bring those things to your city.

The issue also becomes a bit political, because of course no council or municipality wants the dreaded title of being anti-business. For some it’s sacrilege to suggest a city shouldn’t support its business community.

And that certainly rings true with me, being the son of a local businessman myself.

The City and its elected officials must support the development of local businesses and the incorporation of new ones into the community in a variety of creative ways.

What I’m saying is when we’re talking specifically about investing taxpayer money — potentially millions of dollars over multiple years — Council must at least take a long, hard look at options with clear and measurable goals.

It is simply not good enough to say the return on that type of investment is hard to measure but it’s something we are expected to financially support so let’s keep doing it the way we always have.

Mayor Leonard Krog travelled to Vancouver last week to represent the City alongside Hankins at a Mid-Island Business Initiative event to launch a campaign focused on, you guessed it, selling the region as a place to do business.

I asked Krog what successful economic development looked like to him.

“What it means to me is creating jobs in our community…and opportunities for training and apprenticeships and skills and to create the kind of community where your children can get an education and you can find meaningful employment.”

Krog made it clear he wants to see the City back at the economic development table.

“There’s no question what we have is not adequate…Clearly a city of this size, with the future ahead of it, its location and positive prospects requires a great deal more investment.”

Bill Corsan, the City’s deputy director of community development, took over the file roughly 18-months ago. He said Council faces a unique opportunity to start from scratch and truly define where taxpayer money can be spent to have the most impact.

“I think economic development itself is somewhat nebulous. The public and Council expect to see some specific results, which is one of the things we’d like to get some direction on. What are the priorities? What does success look like and what will we be held accountable for,” Corsan said.

He pointed to talk of investment in the downtown, hypothesizing about what role the City could play, for example, in spurring development of sites in the downtown core which have sat empty for years.

Councillors and citizens alike hate property tax increases, but we’ve long been told cities are cash-strapped and their only source of revenue is taxation.

What if that wasn’t the case? What if the City invested taxpayer’s money into economic development initiatives that created revenue, which in turn could lessen the tax burden.

The City must play a key role in the development of Nanaimo’s economy, that point is not arguable.

But when it comes to investing taxpayer money, they must also be able to show citizens exactly what it is they paid for.

dom@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @domabassi