Windsor Contractors Must NOT Read This BLOG

If you are a Windsor Contractor starting to read this with your coffee and bagel, then

STOP IMMEDIATELY.

DO NOT READ THIS BLOG.

Immediately close down this BLOGsite for today and do NOT read any further. Health Canada has warned that the following story is not good for your health since it will increase your blood pressure dramatically. If you do decide to read this BLOG, you do so at your own risk.

Here is what a reader sent me. Read it first and then I will make my comments.

• "Hamilton builds 10,000 more construction jobs in 2006
  
  In the first seven months of 2006, Hamilton has added close to 10,000 construction jobs, a 55.6% year-to-date increase that comes at a time when construction employment for the country as a whole is up by 6.5% year to date.
  
  Of the four major building construction categories – residential, industrial, commercial and institutional – the industrial and commercial categories in Hamilton appear to be the most active. Industrial construction was up 52.9% and commercial up 26.8 % year over year in the second quarter.
  
  A closer look at the Hamilton economy reveals that the pickup in commercial construction is due, in part, to two years of double-digit growth in office-based employment. Over this period, robust growth has been exhibited in finance, insurance and real estate, professional services and managerial services employment.
  
  However, while it is comparatively easy to see what is driving commercial building, the underlying cause of growth in industrial construction is not as obvious. Especially when you consider that manufacturing employment is down 16.4% year to date in 2006, following a 12% drop for 2005 as a whole.
  
  The answer lies in Hamilton’s location and value. According to Guy Paparella, Director of Industrial Park and Airport Development for the city. Hamilton is attracting a growing number of small and medium-sized industrial companies looking to take advantage of its strategic location and much lower (than the Toronto CMA) cost of serviced industrial land. Mr. Paparella pointed out that the cost of industrial land in Hamilton – at $180,000 to $300,000 an acre – is approximately half that of other municipalities on the “fringe” of Toronto.
  
  Looking forward, the whirlwind of construction activity in Hamilton will probably subside mid way through 2007. However the city’s proximity to two major north-south corridors, an international airport and excellent port facilities will continue to attract companies interested in lower transportation costs and ready access to the hub of U.S. and Canadian cities that form the largest concentration of people of North America."
  

Doesn't it just make you sick. Here we are at the main border crossing point in North America and our unemployment rate is about the highest in Canada. But for a proposed call centre that has not yet been revealed and Chrysler-pressured plants moving here, what have we to show in Windsor!

Look at the lost opportunity. Reread what I wrote about Fort Erie and how they are capitalizing on their border location. Contrast that with all of the talk and inaction with our Economic Development Commission over the past 3 years.

Infrastructure can be used to create jobs. So what are we doing with the $300 million BIF funds....we built an overpass that is hardly being used, increased the size of the left-turn lane into the Bridge Co.'s processing Centre and are wasting millions on a DRIC study and a Tunnel Plaza Improvement scheme tobuild a $30 million parking lot so Eddie can play Border entrepreneur.

How many jobs would have been created if we started building the road to the border that the City endorsed with WALTS, one of the options of SCHWARTZ and one that even DRIC liked! Instead, Eddie and Mike Hurst spew "tunnel" talk.

Imagine if we had really figured out that the Bridge Co.'s enhancement project actually makes some sense and the $500 million or so that they were going to spend had started already.

Imagine if industry was actually welcomed her with a border that works. All industry is going to hear about now is the new hour or more delays at the border!

Remember what I posted before about Eddie and Sam at the Construction Association meeting [BLOG: February 24, 2006, Where's the $300 Million Already]:

• "How would you like to go and meet an industry group that has been suffering with this economy and tell them that you have had a couple of hundred million dollars in your pocket over the last few years but because of your inability to complete a deal, they cannot have it. That was the task that Mayor Francis and his buddy, Gridlock Sam faced the other night in their presentation to the Heavy Construction Association of Windsor...


Sam spent most of the night pumping up the contractors on how much work they would be getting through this plan and how they need to be creative and innovative in their methods of construction, mitigating traffic confusion and disruption during the construction period and how to be proactive in keeping the flow of international trucks flowing freely across the border until construction is completed. Sam told them that if they did all this in their bid packages it would help keep out the big construction conglomerates from coming here and taking their work.


It was the perfect lead-in for Eddie to tell the contractors that the city has increased the capital works budget this year and will be for the next few years in order to get the "city needed" projects done now before all this infrastructure work comes to them. He told them he doesn't want them to be tied down with small city projects so that they miss out on all the big money projects."

So where is the work now that Sam is virtually invisible and his Plan has been put on the back burner? Where are the jobs? So much for carrots.

Oh I know, it's all about "quality of life" and tunnels and election campaigns. Tell that to the unemployed workers and close to bankrupt contractors!