By Doug Draper
If anyone thinks that Niagara, Ontario’s regional government doesn’t give time to economic development in this region, think again. Our regional councillors have all kinds of time to horse around over who or what should operate a truly effective economic development operation for Niagara.
Well, at least it's a job in Niagara, so take it. . Photo by Doug Draper
Who cares if it takes them months or even years to get past the parochialism that keeps doping and making anemic any real progressive for Niagara as a region, if it could only truly speak to the rest of the world with one voice and one set of rules and hoops to jump through for businesses that may want to invest and create jobs. While we are waiting for our municipal leaders to decide whether they should place the interests of Niagara at large over those who run a fragmented complex of economic development and tourism agencies in their local communities – there are still jobs out there in a Niagara, Ontario region that can certainly not be proud of nursing one of the highest jobless rates for any region in Ontario or Canada.You can always get a job for near minimum wage suiting up as a giant shampoo bottle and dancing out off a busy street with a sign advertising cut-rate prices for haircuts.
I took this photo this spring, of a fellow dressed up as a bottle of hair suds, not because it says it is unique for this age that people are doing jobs like this for what are almost always subsistence wages. Going back to my own youth in the 50s and 60s, there were people who dressed up as Mr. Peanut for the Planter’s corporation or as Ronald McDonald for the McDonald’s corporation. Never mind all of the people who have worked for a pittance and no benefits, having anxious kids peeing on their knees while playing a shopping mall Santa each Christmas.
So it is not that the guy in the suds bottle is new. It just seems to be more of a symbol of the kind of jobs that are available to everyone up to including debt-laden university and college graduates who can’t find a decent job in their field here. But then, hey, advertising cheap haircuts in a shampoo bottle costume may be better than one of the other jobs you can always find in the classified ads – that of “chicken catcher.” Seems they always need “chicken catchers” in Niagara, and if you are wondering what that entails just type chicken catcher in on Google or whatever search engine you use, and I can almost guarantee you wouldn’t want to do that unless you were down to your last dollar.
So the debate over what to do with economic development in Niagara goes on and on and on and on!!!! It drags on to a point where you want to pull what is left of your hair out watching our municipal leaders tying themselves up in knots over something as simple as having one, all-encompassing website to promote tourism in this region. All while the under-employed person in the shampoo bottle costume dances on and the only ads for jobs we can always count on seeing in the papers each week is one for chicken catchers and people willing to deliver, door-to-door, flyers with the chicken catcher ad in it.
(If you want to send in a photo and commentary of your own that illustrates a ‘sign of our times’ in this greater Niagara region, including our neighbours in Erie and Niagara counties, New York, please do so to drapers@vaxxine.com. In the meantime, you may wish to share your views on this post in the comment boxies below. Remember that we only post comments by individuals who are also willing to share their real first and last names.)
Niagara At Large 
Doug, I share your frustration with our municipal leaders 41 years of this infighting and no coherent voice to show the world, everybody is protecting their own turf, and the whole region going down the sewer, jobs flying to India , China and Mexico and it will get worse, Stephen Harper without any input from us the unwashed masses of canadians, has signed the intent to have a Canada/European free trade pact and it is worse than the N.F.T.A it forces municipalities to allow European companies to bid on any contracts over 350 thousand dollars, Cities and Towns can no longer show preference to local businesses, Quebec will howl bloody murder when they get wind of this sell out to the E.U., Quebec freezes out canadian firms from their contracts. The ratification takes place within the next two months. We have been shafted big time.
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Great post Doug. Sad and true signs of the times.
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Perhaps what you see as parochialism are in fact the markers of fracture lines in an unstable political construct. Perhaps “Greater Niagara” is actually an artificial entity with little cohesive will. Conflicting agendas, representative of localities with the compatibility of grapefruit juice and kerosene, are conflicting for reasons that transcend political egos. As long as the empire builders of St Catharines keep treating the Southern Tier as hinterland populated by hicks, all you will see is decline and stagnation. Not all, but most politicians of the Southern Tier realize they are being gamed, and have the self-respect to speak-up for the needs of their electors. Parochialism is the tie that binds the voters with their representatives, the fundamental expression of the democratic imperative. In the words of the great Tip O’Neill, all politics is local. Lay the blame for what you perceive to be the failures of Niagara on those politicians who turned their backs on their constituents, who failed to grasp the simple fact that their power originates from their voters, who polarized the region with their indifference, who in their elitist pretensions threw the hard working people of the Southern Tier under the proverbial Greyhound Bus. There-in may reside the true sign of the times in Regional Niagara.
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It is not just south Niagara that is suffering. St. Catharines has had its share of job loss and then some. To be frank, the reason why Niagara Region remains the armpit of the armpit of the armpit of Ontario is because of this various parochial actions, conflicting opinions and a lack of a single voice. I do know that when a region or city speaks as one, they are more likely to be heard by senior levels of government, as well as by businesses looking for places to invest.
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