Unless you’ve been living under a giant slab of granite, you know the world is in financial peril.  I am a listener, I like to listen to people as they talk.  I don’t eavesdrop, I just sit there, quietly in a cacophony of conversation that happens around me and occasionally interject with my opinions and observations.  Sometimes I hear troubling things when the subject turns to current events.  A large part of a recent conversation I listened to/had was whether or not the United States’ economic stagger/collapse would affect our humble city. 

The consensus around the room was that it would, yet one vocal person said that our knight in Brooks Brothers armour, Stephen Harper informed the Canadian populous that we had nothing to worry about.  After all, our banks had restrictions against our money lenders playing with our mortgages like they were bets in a low-rent hockey pool.

That is true, but what dear Mr. Harper meant was that our banks would be fine, and our country at large would be hunky dory.  As for Windsor, the outlook, if I may quote the magic eight ball, is “Not So Friggin Good”. 

You see, sports fans, our friendly neighbourhood big three are American companies, backed up by investment firms who pledge the allegiance, and guess which economic collapse will definitely affect their long term plans?  That’s right, the American one. 

Mayor Francis in a rare moment of sheer lucidity, stated that the North American economy as a whole has no border between it, and that (paraphrase alert!) we are up Sh*t’s Creek without a paddle if the American economy doesn’t recover very soon.  Yes, the future seems dim. 

Let’s all run for the tar sands before it’s too late.  Now is the time to panic and I believe I just felt a piece of the sky falling on my head.  Never mind it was just a dust bunny from a ceiling fan.  I can see the light at the end of this tunnel, and I don’t care what the eight ball says, I think in our case, all signs will point to yes.

I am a firm believer that Windsor has to learn the hard way.  Only if we are dragged out of a bar, and beaten beyond recognition will we realise that we need to cut down a bit on the binge drinking of the auto industry.  We are so fixated on one thing that we don’t see the potential in other, high paying industries. 

If Windsor truly is the canary in the mine shaft of the economy, we have a long road ahead.  Some of you reading this will not be living here in three, maybe five years.  You will have moved on, to other places and other jobs, and that is fine.  I plan on sticking this out because as people leave the city, who remains will write the next chapter of our history.  I believe an aggressive entrepreneurial spirit is one of the things that will help resurrect our city, coupled with a friendly attitude towards the arts, and an improved University and College.

A major factor for change will be the curbing of the brain drain that has been happening here for a very long time.  Providing graduates with decent places to work and to do research will help our city throw away it’s label of a “blue collar” town.

Perhaps, in the future we can look back at this time as a period of adjustment, when the old ways and traditions of the past were no longer available to us, so we adapted.  Humans are adaptable creatures, which has made us the most successful species on the face of the earth…  Unless you count mosquitoes, or ants…

Our focus must now be on diversity; the diversity of our citizens and the incredible ideas and innovations we can all bring to the table, and the potential diversity of our economy as a direct result of this.

As it stands now, we live and die with the price of a barrel of oil.  I refuse to stand for this.  I refuse to believe that we as a city will let faceless corperations dictate our future, and the bumbling greed of investment bankers effect the way we sleep at night.  The ball is in our court.

Advantage Windsor.

Tags: Creative Class, culture, Education, investment