SOON EVEN REGINA WILL LEAPFROG US
By TOM BRODBECK
You know your economy is substandard when the mayor of your own capital city says we've been sitting on our duffs too long and watching other cities pass us by.
Worse, you know you're in trouble when your provincial chamber of commerce launches a new campaign called "Making Manitoba a Have Province."
Ouch.
Seems to fly in the face of all propaganda the Doer government -- and their media supporters -- have been bombarding us with in recent months.
"Manitoba is booming," the government says, claiming the province is leading Canada on many economic fronts. Right.
If that were true, Mayor Sam Katz would have claimed confidently this past week during his state of the city address that Winnipeg's economy -- which makes up at least two-thirds of the provincial economy -- is booming, too.
He wouldn't dwell on how substandard our economy is and how hard we need to work to climb out of a hole.
If we truly were leading the country and experiencing record levels of prosperity, he would have said so and taken some political credit for it.
'Passed us by'
Instead, he said this:
"My friends, for too many years, our city has just sat back as Vancouver, then Calgary and then Edmonton passed us by," Katz told a Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce luncheon crowd Wednesday. "Sure we told ourselves that they had inherent competitive advantages like geography and oil. In reality, we just gave up. We didn't even try to be more competitive."
Doesn't sound like a booming economy to me.
Katz told the crowd we have to get off our butts and turn this city around if we want to compete in an increasingly global economy.
"To attract businesses to move here, it's not good enough to be at the national average or the same as a neighbour," said Katz. "We need to be the best. Businesses and jobs can virtually pick up at the drop of a hat and relocate to Alberta or Minnesota and now even Singapore or India."
It's quite a contrast from the Doer government's "Manitoba means business" campaign, which claims:
"Manitoba enjoys one of the healthiest, most diversified business economies in Canada. Our strong, steady growth coupled with such important advantages as low energy costs, a very competitive cost-of-living, a skilled, hard-working labour force and very attractive business taxes (that's a belly-laugh) help make Manitoba businesses extremely competitive whether they're doing business within Canada or around the world."
Either Katz is missing something here or the provincial government is being less than honest with the public.
"This city needs to change if it is going to prosper and grow," said Katz.
Now, the world of Winnipeg is not all doom and gloom, according to Katz. He says over the past year, Winnipeg's economy has seen some signs of improvement.
"We have been working, taking the tough but necessary steps to put Winnipeg back on a pathway to opportunity and economic growth," said Katz.
"The fact is that Winnipeg is experiencing a resurging economy. After slow job growth in recent years and decades, Winnipeg was up over 6,000 jobs in 2006, and this trend is expected to continue in 2007."
Now all this may just be political spin -- Doer's spin and Katz's spin.
But you've got to ask yourself this question:
Why did the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce, one of the province's biggest cheerleaders, just launch a campaign called "Making Manitoba a Have Province?"
Shame
What's that all about? According to Doer, we're not only a "have" province, we have one of the leading economies in Canada.
Shame the chamber, which represents some of the biggest companies in the province, fails to see that.
They must be among the "naysayers" Doer and his media cheerleading squad always tell us about.
The chamber's campaign includes something called "Join the Journey: Towards a Have Future."
Towards a have future? I thought we were a "have" economy already.
As a keen watcher of all issues economic, I'm going to put my chips on the Katz-chamber number.
Manitoba's economy is steady, but very modest. We are a "have-not" province because we rely increasingly on federal transfer payments to survive -- federal money that comes from provinces more prosperous than us, including Saskatchewan.
We did, as Katz said, let cities like Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton pass us by, with all the excuses in the world to justify it.
As a province, we just let Saskatchewan pass us by, too.
It's not a crisis. We're not in an economic tail-spin. Far from it. We have very steady but mediocre growth. But it's a pace so slow that others are leapfrogging ahead of us.
The question is, as a city and a province, are we prepared to do something about it?
Or are we going to wait until Regina passes us by, too?
tbrodbeck@wpgsun.com
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The sooner Manitoba figures this out the better.
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