Dear Editor,
It usually starts like this, some politician quotes statistics that show “Pontiac is the poorest region in Quebec.” But don’t you worry; politicians have the answer – find efficiencies, put our noses to the grindstone and create jobs, jobs, jobs.
How? Look for grants to launch studies, hire outside consultants to search for industries which want to locate in Pontiac. Find an industry in need of a new home, offer tax incentives, loosen environmental regulations, look the other way while a crew comes and reams the resources and good will of Pontiac.
A few years later, the grants go stale, the market for hand-whittled widgets dries up, the local workforce is not as motivated as had been imagined and production grinds to a halt. The owners and upper management disappear, along with any valuable movable assets.
It’s happened more than once and on the same piece of property. The so-called Pontiac Industrial Park is a place where political money goes for a vacation. It may not be Pontiac funds, but it’s tax money from somewhere and we’re also citizens of Quebec and of Canada so it’s us who will eventually foot the bill and nurse the wounded egos.
Just imagine, building a giant greenhouse and growing sort-of-legal marijuana will return millions of dollars, pay the predicted 500 jobs worth of salaries, everybody will be happy, we’ll all live well forever. Right? Now lets have a show of hands. How many of us believed that was going to happen? Anyone? Higher, I can’t see you.
No, it was never going to happen. Sadly predictable. Big deals are for big suckers. I had hoped that Pontiacers would have learned from the shingle mill that made shingles for a couple of years, then burned, then restarted, then burned again, then was used as a log dump, then closed and shuttered up. Ghost real estate — what are we to do with that? I’ll bet somebody made some money and I’ll bet they don’t live here or spend it here.
Consider the phoney waste management operation that was imposed, to the disadvantage of local entrepreneurs already in business. Then it folded, leaving a huge pile of inconvenient, possibly hazardous waste. That pile of waste has been relocated, and my information is that it was buried on the site. That is probably the million-dollar invoice facing the LiveWell consortium. Big deals come and go, leaving big messes and broken dreams in their wake.
By contrast, there are several businesses in Pontiac that are growing from family operations to going concerns, providing living wages for a few or a dozen of your neighbours. Businesses that produce goods and services such as landscaping, snow removal, restaurants, building supplies, wine, metal fabrications, abattoir services, newspapers, etc.
Forget the big deals and play the long game — dream small and watch it grow.
Robert Wills
Thorne/Shawville, Que.
