Listening to premier Doug Ford blow on about his Buy Ontario pitch brings back memories. After all I go back to the days when the province used to promote doing home renovation jobs in winter “When men and materials are available.”
But Doug’s objective is to compete with president-elect Joe Biden’s ‘Buy America’ speech fillers. You have probably noted that American politicians usually include this idea when their speech seems to be lacking substance. It is just a filler, easily said, soon forgotten.
Doug should listen to a very experienced politician he knows by the name of Hazel McCallion, the former mayor of Mississauga. Hazel spent most of her life building her city and she still has words to the wise for political newbie’s such as Ford.
I remember years ago when I was working in Mississauga and one of the division heads wandered into my office. He wanted to know why the City of Mississauga was not buying his product. He wanted me to talk to the mayor and city council about this. Since some of his division’s products were made in the area, he thought they should have more consideration.
I explained that I did not have time for such a presentation myself but it would probably be better if he made the presentation himself. I fed his ego a bit, told him how to arrange to make the presentation and sent him on his way. I already knew exactly what Hazel would do to him.
She had a stock answer for companies with their local-source product presentations. She would give them a lecture about how Mississauga attracted industry such as his because the city provided excellent services at the lowest tax rate of any city in Ontario. And one of the ways that they could offer the lowest tax rate was that they always bought at the lowest price.
My only addendum to that is that we need to challenge our local companies to innovate, to add value and to be good corporate citizens. It is hard not to want do business with those companies.
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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry
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