The Barrhead Chamber of Commerce celebrated Small Business Week with dinner and guest speakers on Wed. Oct. 22, at the Barrhead Royal Canadian Legion.
Mayor Gerry St. Pierre, and Reeve Bill Lee answered questions regarding the economy, how councils are working to attract new families to the area, their business incentive plans, and how they are working to promote affordable housing.
Before the question period began, both had the opportunity to provide some opening remarks.
“First of all let me congratulate the Barrhead Chamber of Commerce on the many projects and events that you have initiated, not only this year, but the past several years,” St. Pierre said. “I am certainly encouraged by the progress we have made.”
One of the items listed in the five-year plan that was created last January was the multiple recreation facilities in Barrhead.
“Contrary to what has been the opinion in the past, recreation should now be considered an essential service,” St. Pierre said. “Remember this, proper recreation facilities are a key component to economic development in any community.”
St. Pierre also discussed the matter of amalgamation in his opening statement.
“We strongly believe that we will never achieve our full potential in becoming a progressive and vibrant community unless we become one, with the same shared vision, led and governed by a group of individuals who make decisions based on what is best for the community as a whole. That there no longer be an us and them, or a we and they,” St. Pierre said.
Lee began his statement talking about how lucky Barrhead is to have a Chamber of Commerce.
“There is communities that do not have Chambers,” Lee said, adding that they are very active in the community.
“To us, the county is like a business,” Lee said. “The job of any government, whether it is federal, provincial, or municipal, is to give the people and serve the people the things they cannot serve themselves.”
“We look after the things that you as individuals cannot do, and that is like infrastructure, highways,” Lee said, adding that just like a business the county council also has a guide of principles that they follow.
“Our principles are to give good government to people,” he said. “Now we have some weaknesses in our municipality, and our weakness that we have, and the town has the same problem, we do not have a large industrial tax base.”
Lee continued to explain that without that form of tax base most of the revenues come from those living in the community.
“We don’t have those things that really generate a lot of wealth,” he said. “70 per cent of our funds come from farmland, people, and residences.”
“We have some great businesses in our county,” Lee said. “Our biggest is agriculture. We have 667 farms in the county… We sometimes don’t appreciate how much business farmers do.”
Lee said that the county looks at how to keep the current businesses in Barrhead happy.
“When they are hauling grain, when they are hauling bails, or cattle, whatever, they need those roads to get them where they have to go,” Lee said. “This is what we as government help our businesses do.”
According to Lee the county is adopting new technology, and is putting as much information online as possible to help promote the area.
“We have information packages that we put on our website,” Lee said.
Rita Lyster was the mediator for the night, and read the questions provided to the Mayor and Reeve.
“What specifically are we doing as a town or county to encourage businesses to come to Barrhead,” Lyster asked.
Lee was the first to answer the question, and said that in 2010 the Economic and Community Development Committee (ECDC) was created.
“I don’t think you can have true economic development without developing your community,” Lee said.
The ECDC decided to first understand the needs of the local businesses and solve their problems, and then outside businesses will be more attracted to the area.
“One of the things we did was go and visit the businesses we had in the county and see what their needs are,” Lee said, adding that the needs were often simple.
“Everybody knows that 80 per cent of growth comes from within,” St. Pierre said.
One of the concerns St. Pierre has when it comes to research on how to bring new businesses to the area is that it will provide competition for the businesses that Barrhead already has.
“It should not be subsidized by taxpayers dollars, that would be unfair to current businesses… That is one of the many issues that we have to consider when considering those incentives,” he said.
The next question involved a business incentive plan, including tax breaks for those coming into the community.
St. Pierre said that Barrhead currently has some of the lowest gas and power franchise fees in the province, but after doing some research, he learned that those things aren’t always the most important.
“One of the things way down the list was low taxes, what was high on the list, which I mentioned earlier, was proper delivery of services, they were a key priority,” he said.
Lee said that tax breaks may be attractive to those coming in, but they have a disadvantage.
“If you give tax breaks, it gives a competitive advantage to somebody who is already an outsider coming in, and existing businesses should be competing on a fair and equal playing ground,” Lee said.
The next question was about living in the county, but owning a business in Barrhead, and how it affects voting on what the town does.
The issue is not the choice of the municipality, but a province wide ruling.
“Anybody that is in that situation… If you have a problem come see us. We are here to serve the people,” Lee said.
St. Pierre said that this is one of the positive things about amalgamating the two councils.
When it came to the question regarding how the two councils are promoting the area, they both refer to the Kraft Celebration Tour and how it put Barrhead on screens everywhere.
“We were on national centre stage for the better part of a few months,” St. Pierre said, adding that the strategic plan involves promoting Barrhead.
Lee said that the Barrhead video that is posted on both of their websites, helped bring the Kraft Celebration Tour to the area.
Questions regarding bringing in a new power centre were brought forward and both the Mayor and the Reeve agreed that the downtown area is vibrant, and if a power centre was brought to the area, it may complicate things.
“In regards to the power centre, I don’t know,” Lee said. “We have a good downtown… Our downtown is where the action is in our community, and if you put in a power centre then it is going to split the businesses, and I don’t know if we really want that.”
The final question asked was regarding the town subsidizing for the county when they use firefighting services.
Lee said that what people are led to believe, that the costs is split in half no matter who uses the services most, is incorrect.
“The 50/50 split is on the capital, when we go to buy new equipment,” Lee said, adding that the county is billed hourly for the services from the moment the trucks leave the station.
“It’s important that no matter where the fire is… the first thing we do is get out there and fight it and protect the property and lives as much as possible,” St. Pierre said.
Closing remarks followed.
“If we try to be all things to all people, we end up being nothing to nobody,” St. Pierre said.
“There is so many good things here in Barrhead,” Lee said. “To me, Barrhead is heaven.”
