By Ephrem Gallant, North Bay.
Mayor Al McDonald, you need a plan. What you have written is best described as an idea, or wish. Also evident within your musing is that only immigration can generate the dramatic increase in population which you claim you have the mandate to work toward.
I’m not convinced you truly grasp the complexity of this ten-year undertaking or the resources required.
As you do not have the in-house capability or expertise, this City should retain the services of experts/specialists in the various fields required. To produce a multi-faceted, strategic growth plan. Indeed, your success depends on this.
Staff should then meet with these experts to discuss your idea's feasibility and create a strategy, to come up with a process, to produce a plan (document). This would all be developed with community input. The document produced to be approved by Council.
Consultants, however, do not work for free. It will be an extensive and expensive study because of the amount of research and stakeholder consultation. In terms of study timing, it could take between 1-3 years to complete. There are also legal requirements to satisfy and consider. Once you have a plan, it can be implemented. Success is not guaranteed. The production of this strategic growth plan will not be without its controversy.
The task is much simplified but refer to your planning department, or the new CAO. They can confirm the above. I do wonder if you discussed the subject with any of your previous CAO’s?
If this is not post-election rhetoric, a ruse, or a distraction, then it will be the largest socio-economic experiment ever attempted by our City. This is no place for a DIY piecemeal approach. At the end of the day, no one wishes to see a waste of time, money and resources. We must all be aware of both the positive and negative aspects of any growth plan.
Remember always with this strategic growth plan, you are directly impacting on people’s lives. Immigrants will have expectations, can they be fulfilled? The jury is out as to how realistic your goals are. From what I have read I suspect your goals were randomly selected.
I wish you well (depending on your approach) in this challenge to increase our City’s population.
Ephrem Gallant
