nudging the predictable: NDCC: For YOU Cheap!

Continuing the post immediately below.

You just can't have everything you want! I mean - where would you put it?
The Llama Parlour
Kathy Lette

Business - simply - is an exchange. An exchange of goods/services of one group for the money of another. One group supplies - the other consumes. Because of their interdependence the assumption that they would work hand-in-hand is reasonable. An understanding based on mutual respect and benefit. Ideally!

Money!
But with money the great motivator: inevitably greed kicks-in on the supply-side, and to find ways to satisfy this greed suppliers congregate in their local Chamber of Commerce (CC) to scheme for more. This expert association systematically guiding members in the pursuit.
Not to be too obviously one-note about this: it often cloaks its schemes in righteous community-this-and-that efforts - while the fixed goal behind it all without fail remains more profit for its members.

Just as inevitably - a CC sooner rather than later will attempt to control the whole local show nudge-nudge wink-wink. And - all branches jointly - the provincial and national.

There are over 450 CCs/Boards of Trade across relatively sparsely populated Canada. Then there are Canadian CCs (CCC) in foreign countries. All feeding at the same trough.
If you - for instance - are concerned with bad-bad-bad China flooding the Canadian market with cheap goods - thus eliminating jobs by killing production and what-not nationally: your concern is misdirected. Because the CCC in China - a huge affair in several cities - is making all arrangements necessary for this to happen as expeditiously as possible. Chinese don't manufacture on spec - they're getting orders for stuff from Canada, with the trans-Pacific toing-and-froing facilitated by CCs there/here - all interconnected by following the same manual. Often merchants of misery - literally.
The more money is involved - the less morals are an issue.

Local money!
The Nelson & District Chamber of Commerce (NDCC) is a small part of that - a part nonetheless. The modus operandi is the same.
Business in Nelson superficially means Baker Street - as does Shop Local! - and when we are consistently told by the NDCC and (current) Mayor Dooley - its champion - that supporting this (small) area by all/any means will automatically have significantly more tax-revenue gush in and create significantly more jobs: all hogwash!
If services/goods offered in Nelson - period - are filling needs of a large enough group, are of good quality and reasonably price - there will be profit and employment. Empty store-fronts on Baker only signify poor business acumen, a diluted/changing market or the proprietor moving on! They are not indicative of a sluggish local economy, needing to be nursed on Baker (only) by City Hall, on taxpayers' time and money. But made to look that way by the NDCC - to get more tentacled concessions out of the City!
With all that disproportionate attention - the downtown business group has developed an attitude of entitlement. Only taking - never giving.

Very local money!
The coming election is an opportunity for the NDCC - a wealthy old-boys club - to solidify its place at the local feeding-trough by - this time - semi-transparently attempting to insert its man into City Council.
Oct. 8
Justin Pelant, NDCC Prez, also Board-member of the Economic Partnership - flaunts these jobs as qualifications in his candidacy announcement. A connection thought rather too chummy for the comfort of many non-business locals - particularly what with financial arrangements between Chamber and City. Possibly leading to the appearance of City-provided funds indirectly/in part used by the NDCC to get Pelant elected.

Surely a conflicting moral issue at least - but moral whatever!

Oct.21
And despite Tom Thomson - the NDCC's enabler - announcing once to me and Frances Long, City Hall - only, never publicly! - that Pelant took a leave of absence from the Chamber for the duration of his campaign - according to Pelant himself: he didn't!
Oct. 22
Seeing that the same Pelant is the very present center-fold in an onslaught of Nelson Star coverage, in praise of the NDCC's and Economic Partnership's come-on. Four whole pages impossible to get through. And live to tell.
Oct. 29
And the very same Pelant - in the Star's Q & A with Nelson's council candidates - still/again posturing with I have served on the Chamber of Commerce Board for six years, as well as Nelson's Nelson and Area Economic Development Partnership...

On the money!

Clearly - somebody at the NDCC is untruthful: is he or is he not actively involved in the Chamber during his campaign? This is raising questions about motivation and means-to-an-end in all the NDCC wonderfulness paraded by the Star - ever so generously facilitated by Chuck Bennett, publisher and recent president of the Chamber.

Could it be that this never-before push into City Hall (legitimately!) is furthered by the worry: what if Dooley isn't re-elected?! Could it be that Pelant is positioned from within the Chamber as a Doug Ford - with the real candidate being the NDCC and Thomson its mouthpiece?!

A penny for your thoughts!

Oct. 31

The Star - front-page/above the fold - below Election 2014, where else - runs Businesses support fiscal responsibility. Another lengthy NDCC campaign item - thus more accurately Business supports...

Oct. 29

The very same article is already brazenly run online in the Election 2014 section.

Oct. 31

Then it is moved from there into News (more accessible - while not quite so campaigny!) under Business community champions planned, sustainable growth.

And to the front-page under the heading above above!

Different place, time, heading - but all the same and surely not done by the Star on its own. But in a huddle to accommodate! With/through/by/about Tom Thomson (of course) instead of Justin Pelant (of course). Thomson and Pelant seemingly out-of-sync with each other on basic who-is-what: this can't help either one - thus their cause.

Thomson here essentially repeating positions floated locally on current issues off and on. With all this finagling trying to play it safe towards the center - votes for the Chamber, don't you know! Nothing new - and any concerns he mentions now could/should have been addressed by him/them over time - but weren't, are props only. Campaign blather!

Seeing there are several more Stars to shine before election - we have more of the Chamber's adjustable-to-fit-any-situation mantra to look forward to - but don't.