Decide on the roadmap, then let the driver drive

Those were laudable sentiments by Councillor Jason Baker, on the matter of Brockville's seating arrangement on the Economic Development Express.

As he and fellow members of the economic development and planning committee recommended going forward with a study on regional economic development, Baker suggested Brockville should “take a back seat” on any regional economic development body.

“Until somebody decides to be a team player and not a leader, we're not going to get anywhere,” he said.

The motion calls on city staff, the Brockville and District Chamber of Commerce and “partner municipalities” to study the feasibility of a regional economic development corporation.

Chamber president David Keenleyside replied to Baker with his view that Brockville “should be an equal partner to the neighbouring municipalities.”

But Keenleyside, like Baker, seemed equally preoccupied with the possibility a regional economic development effort will fail if those neighbours perceive it to be a Brockville-led affair.

Keenleyside even suggested removing “Brockville Chamber of Commerce” from the motion under discussion, to ensure wary neighbours do not balk at having Brockville in the driver's seat.

It took Councillor Tom Blanchard, a former member of the chamber's advocacy committee, to convince Keenleyside to keep the name there, albeit with an important correction: Brockville and District Chamber of Commerce.

“You are an effective third party that is representative of the region,” said Blanchard.

“There's not as much strength in the individual councils as there is in your group.”

Which was a useful addendum to another of Baker's points: his contention that any regional economic development effort will fall apart as soon as squabbling, parochial politicians get their hands on it.

“The longer you can remove the politicians from this discussion, the further down the road we are going to get,” said Baker.

Grumbling expressions of “mistrust” from the likes of North Grenville Mayor David Gordon clearly have proponents of regional economic development feeling worried some perceived Brockville-centrism will either jeopardize the project entirely, or leave it reduced to the city and its immediate environs.

But is putting the region's industrial engine (or what's left of it), its business hub and, one expects, the biggest or second-biggest contributing municipality to the project out of the driver's seat really the solution?

I doubt the back seat idea will go very far at the city council table once the talk turns to financing any new economic development corporation.

Let's be clear: chamber executive director Anne MacDonald briefly discussed the possibility of outside sources of funding yesterday, but the financial heavy lifting will be done by supporting municipalities.

With a financial stake comes a voice in running the thing.

Running it, however, is not exactly the same as driving it. Municipalities should just set the roadmap, then let the hired drivers drive.

Baker is tapping into this same insight when he urges the chamber to hang onto the file and get most of the work done before handing it to the politicians.

If the work can proceed in this way, the only real governance debate might take the form of negotiations between the two major partners – Brockville and the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville – with the rest falling in behind.

That will determine who will get to set the itinerary.

After that, if regional economic development is to work at all, the actual driving will have to be left to an arm's length group – with no back-seat or front-passenger-seat driving to distract it.