Cut smartly

The Queen gets it. Or at least her representative in Canada, the Governor General, gets it. Food is important. Where its grown, how it is prepared and what the consumption of food does to our planet.

This is why the Governor General chose to honour Hillier’s own Jamie Kennedy twice last year—in June bestowing upon him, along with Michael Stadtlander, the inaugural Governor General’s Award in Celebration of the Nation’s Table. Then again at the end of the year—appointing Kennedy to the Order of Canada (See page 2) in recognition of his promotion and inspiration of food preparation using local, organically grown ingredients.

If these folks understand the importance of food, particularly locally grown food, why doesn’t half our council get it? Late last year eight members of council—a mix of new and old—voted to sink a County program in partnership with our neighbours, Lennox and Addington, Frontenac and Hastings County, to attract investment in the cheese business in this region.   Consumers spend a lot of money on cheese. They spend a great deal more for specialty and fine cheese—cheese they seek out and find. It is what we serve when we seek to impress or express our good taste.

Prince Edward County is good at making cheese. Black River Cheese has been making the stuff for more than 100 years. Fifth Town has been making cheese for just a few years but in that short time has established a brand and a following for its specialty goat, sheep and cow cheese that stretches far beyond the borders of this community.

Cheesemaking is also a proud tradition in this region. One of the oldest and most prestigious cheese trade events, the British Empire Cheese Show, has quietly built upon this region’s traditional strength in the dairy business for the past 83 years.

The now defunct “Invest in Cheese” program was developed to nurture investment in this region into the specialty cheese business. Quebec and Vermont cheesemakers enjoy a very large share of the specialty cheese market in Ontario. There is a huge market opportunity for locally grown specialty cheese to be produced and sold in this province.

Investors and producers are seizing upon this opportunity and will continue to do so. The only question remains is, what region of the province will reap the benefit? Who will be the most agile and responsive to these investors and pro ducers? Which area will emerge as the specialty cheese region of Ontario?

Provincial agriculture folks were betting on Prince Edward County and our neighbours to the north and east. That is why they put up more than half of the money needed to fund the second phase of the “Invest in Cheese” initiative.

But in their blinkered zeal to slash spending, half of council voted to kill the investment attraction program— telling the province and our neighbours, “we’re out”.

It was the wrong place to start.

Regular readers of this column will know I am very much in favour of improving County finances and reducing our debt load, but you don’t start hacking at the part of your business that generates revenue (tax base) and investment. Instead you start in the dark corners where light hasn’t shone in a decade. You start with the big items.

We currently spend about $34,500 each and every day in our Public Works department. To continue the “Invest in Cheese” program, and receive the added benefit of $93,000 from the province would have cost County taxpayers a grand total of about $46,000 over the next 15 months.

When you find yourself in a hole—better to stop digging than to stop efforts to fill it back in. It seems an obvious choice, yet enough of council didn’t agree last month. They concluded spending was spending and this program made an easy target.

It is a new council, it was bound to stumble out of the gate. So let us consider this a Mulligan—a one-time doover.

When the opportunity comes up to reconsider this decision— and it will—those councillors who voted to cut this program must try to temper the reflex desire to slash funding simply because they can.

For in the long term they will be assessed not on their ability to cut spending in the soft areas, and relatively small potatoes of investment attraction, but rather their ability and stamina to whittle away at budgets measured in millions of dollars rather than tens of thousands.

They ought not lunge at the easy targets. Their responsibility is greater than that. This new council has been being called upon to see the bigger picture and make hard choices— not hack away at programs designed to foster growth and opportunity for County citizens.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca