The Quote Not Read In Windsor

Is Windsor Canada's answer to Susan Boyle? Will our dream come true too if only someone will give us a chance?

After all. Windsor has talent too!

I thought so when I moved here over 20 years ago. I still do and that is what my BLOG has been all about: attacking those people in power who are killing what Windsor deserves to become.

We have a dream about Windsor can be, each of us, and infrastructure spending is our huge opportunity now if we capitalize on it and not fritter it away on silliness as our politicians have been doing for years now.

They are killing the dream we are dreaming.

Be careful of what you may be thinking as we are fed propaganda. Her stardom just did not happen. Boyle became an "overnight" sensation at age 47. She is becoming a "star" because of the foundation that she had built over all of those years. It was no fluke, no quickie fixer-upper. She just needed an opportunity and the TV show and the millions of hits on the Internet listening to her voice gave it to her!

This is how one commentator talked about her and it could be about Windsor too:

• "She bided her time through the judgmental hoots and snickers of the studio audience and judges (headed by international snickerer-in-chief Simon Cowell). She sang "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables. And she brought a worldwide audience to their feet -- to her feet -- with the grandeur of her voice."

That is Windsor. We have the grandeur behind our rough exterior. We have a solid foundation through our workforce, our small businesses, our industrialists, our schools, our culture, our generosity to our fellow citizens in time of need. We are a bit dowdy and not so with-it, a bit of the country bumpkin to be honest.

We need our chance now and we can have it. And that brings me to this comment.

I wonder why the Star did not publish these quotes in a Canadian Press story from our political Bobbsey Twins. Of course you will understand why after you read them.

• "Shrinking Ontario economy reflects global economic crisis, government says
  
  Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said governments around the world have to take steps to restore consumer confidence to get people spending again.
  
  "It is about confidence, and confidence is about laying out policies that will eventually get businesses and individuals spending money again," Duncan said. "Getting that confidence back is important."
  
  Word that Ontario's economy shrank by 1.4 per cent in the fourth quarter after no change in the third quarter came on the same day Statistics Canada reported Ontario shed another 11,000 jobs in March.
  
  Ontario has lost 171,000 jobs since October, and even though the losses in March were far less than in previous months, Duncan said growing unemployment is still a concern...
  
  Windsor, Ont., had the distinction of having the worst unemployment rate in Canada at 13.7 per cent, and Mayor Eddie Frances predicts it will go higher.
  
  "That number just reflects how hard-working people in the city of Windsor and the region, our families, our friends, our neighbours, are being affected by this downturn in the economy," he said.
  
  "It'll be a while before the economy is working again and people are being put back to work."

Pretty depressing isn't it. But then again, Eddie says things outside of town that he believes will not be reported here.

Dwight as the Minister of Finance and as a local MPP ought to be acting and having the Province and Feds making decisions already not making Gong Show promises. That would give us confidence and jobs and allow us to spend money again.

Dwight needs to stop hiding behind the Integrity Act and to start talking to the people who count before he becomes unemployed after the next Provincial election. And I am sure that Dwight knows I do not mean our Mayor as being relevant in these conversations.

The quotes seem to make a mockery of Eddie's Canal vision concept now as a jobs generator don't they and make CIBPA's "Do-A-deal" pitch more urgent and more relevant and more deserving of support!

In effect, we are being told by Eddie that we are going to have to sit things out in Windsor until somehow the economy turns around. There really isn't anything that can be done according to our Mayor other than watch things get worse. But then again, we know that all he is good for is talking not acting so that is no surprise.

That is why Eddie needs a WEDC hub conference with another big name, multi-book writing, FOREIGN-paid guru talking head to tell us what Eddie wants us to hear.

More importantly, he needs the Canal to dominate headlines and conversation for weeks. And he needs a mouthpiece to spread the dream spinning. For that he has the Windsor Star.

Thank goodness Eddie had Gord on Saturday diverting our attention from reality and now Gord has a minor league player as a helper, Anne Jarvis, doing it on Page 3 as well.

That is all that the Canal is---diverting our attention from more job losses, more foreclosures and more business bankruptcies. Better to fight over a Vision than to try and solve problems that Windsor supposedly cannot solve on its own. That is the Eminence Greasie political way isn't it? Hoping and praying someone else does solves the problem before the 2010 municipal election so that all of this trouble will be forgotten and so that the Mayor can claim the glory.

Anne Jarvis's column today is pathetic frankly. A complete disgrace. All of the cliches rolled into one space. Is this what we have to look forward to now:

• "It's time to dream big"
• "Go Big or go home"
• "world-class, state-of-the-art"
• "I'm dreaming of the Windsor that could be"
• "where's the wow, the project that will take our breath away"
• "a huge opportunity to transform our city."

Yes Anne, tart us up for the outsiders:

• "the project that will take our breath away, the one that will bring all those tourists and retirees we want and help us turn the corner?"

• "Communities with poor civic image tend to be overlooked by needed investors and people. That's why we spruced up our gateways last year."

That is right Anne, let us spend millions on make-up. Unless these dreams come true so that we will not leave town, who needs the dull and boring

• "Smooth roads and dry basements."

I must adnit that if I was moving to Windsor, I would not be all that interested in having a canal in my basement.

I sit here and feel like gagging from the BS that is being shoved down our throat by our hyper newspaper and our talking Mayor. They have thrown up their hands in defeat and use slogans and dream-making as their alternatives for action so we are supposed to do so as well as we wait for someone, somehow to save us. They have given up so we should let them kill our dream too.

We do have an opportunity. There is an answer though but our Mayor and the Senior Levels as well as the Star have been fighting it. There is a way to signify that we are really open for business and that there can be thousands of jobs created. NOW!

Unfortunately, Anne wrote a column opposing the obvious answer as her first column as a Page 3 writer last Saturday. She really is advocating for a lawsuit instead, no matter who starts it, that will tie up our region for a decade or more. However, she fails to realize that in her dreamworld.

Sure, take over what someone has built up with their sweat equity and toil and make it public. She sneers at the

• "price of the only privately owned, profit-motivated major border crossing in Canada."

Yes, that private party not only made this region what it is by facilitating trade over what he made the #1 crossing in Canada but he at his own expense solved the 9/11 problems by challenging Governments on both sides of the river. Which "public" official would do that?

She hypocritically wants to save her image of Sandwich but does not care if at the same time she destroys Delray, or one of the historic areas of Buffalo in passing.

Our opportunity is readily apparent but not it seems to our politicians. Sure, why partner with a man who really knows what he is doing and who has proven it! Why should Windsor become an "overnight" sensation when the agenda is to drive a successful family and their Company out of business. Do you really think that a bureaucrat or a politician would have been able to accomplish what the Bridge Company has been able to achieve! If you want to see it for yourself, go and cross the Bridge from the US into Canada and see what has been done!

I have never suggested and I do not now to give the Bridge Company everything on a silver platter. There needs to be tough negotiating over whatever that has to be done. It is NOT rocket science but negotiating a business deal for heaven's sake.

But can you imagine what would happen when there was a successful conclusion. Then we could not only DREAM BIG but BE BIG too! We would have our opportunity and could build on our foundation for real stardom. We could stop sleeping and start doing.

We would have a new bridge for now and a protected location with the blueprints for a crossing in the future when really needed, a new road to the Bridge, a sign that this region is open for business and jobs, thousands of them and high-paying too, a robust economy. We would have the luxury as we transition to our new economy. That is a dream that is doable and realistic. Canals, symphony halls would follow. There would be a reason then for them.

Let's look at the Bright Side as the Star wants us to do while our Region is dying through inaction and active opposition to our real chance of stardom.

At the least Eddie is happy with all of the publicity and media attention so he gets his name in the news. When the media thinks of distressed areas, Windsor and our Mayor come to mind immediately.

Why you just cannot buy this kind of publicity... and who would want to!