The budget crunch facing the City of Ottawa and other municipalities across Canada is, in large measure, the result of years of benign neglect on the part of senior levels of government, coupled with a significant downloading of responsibilities.
Ottawa city councillors are facing an almost impossible dilemma: stop investing in the organizations, agencies and activities that are the sources of wealth creation or cut funding to the organizations and activities that make this city a desirable place to live.
( To express your opinion on the issue of funding for Ottawa's economic development agencies, please click:
http://discussion.ottawabusinessjournal.com/article.php?sid=192 )
To use an analogy, the first option would be something akin to eating tomorrow's seed crop. Your hunger might be abated over the short term, but, before long, you'll face starvation. The second option isn't any better. Burning down your house to stay warm means, before long, you're liable to freeze to death.
The recent throne speech, with its promise of a new deal for Canada's cities, suggests the federal government is awakening to the need to reinvest in this country's municipalities. Help appears to be on its way. But what do we do in the meantime?
The Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) is Ottawa's principal economic development agency and an organization that represents nearly 650 businesses and public sector institutions. OCRI relies on investments from the City of Ottawa to do its job. What makes OCRI somewhat unusual is that, not only is it a major source of wealth creation within our community, it is also particularly attuned to quality of life issues—those qualities and attributes that make Ottawa such a desirable place to live, visit and do business.
OCRI leverages $4 for every $1 it receives from the city. These investments are plowed back into a myriad of wealth creation and quality of life initiatives. Here's a brief look at just some of the centre's success stories:
n Since it opened in 1999, OCRI's Entrepreneurship Centre has facilitated the establishment of more than 10,600 new businesses, resulting in the creation of nearly 11,000 new jobs and $700 million in new sales.
N Since 2000, OCRI's Venture Capital Fair has seen $1.7 billion of the $3.5 billion disbursed to the fair's alumni companies, more than half of the total venture capital investments directed to Ottawa-based firms.
N Ottawa Global Marketing, a division of OCRI, is helping foster new business opportunities between Ottawa-based high-tech clusters and other centres across North America and Europe. Over the past two years, Ottawa Global Marketing has held more than 50 events to promote these clusters. From December 2003 to January 2004, it helped generate 12 new investment leads, the largest number since 2000.
N OCRI's Volunteers in Education program is placing close to 1,400 volunteers in 267 area schools to foster lifelong learning, matching the needs of individual students and teachers with valuable resources in the community.
N OCRI's School Breakfast Program provides nutritious morning meals to some 5,700 children in more than 90 area schools.
N The centre's OttawaReads/LectureOttawa program draws more than 300 public- and private-sector volunteers to read one-on-one to kindergarten and Grade 1 students in more than 30 area schools.
N OCRI's Tech Coaches and SchoolNet Grassroots programs are supporting nearly 400 projects in Ottawa-area schools to help facilitate the integration of technology into the curriculum.
N OCRI is a major player in Ottawa's SmartCapital initiative, aimed at developing the city's broadband infrastructure and online service capabilities. The centre was instrumental in leveraging the city's $140,000 investment with a $6-million cash infusion from Industry Canada, Human Resources Development Canada and the Province of Ontario, along with another $6 million from local public- and private-sector partners. Today, OCRI volunteers are working at more than 80 SmartSites across the city that provide computers and Internet access to people who otherwise couldn't afford them.
N OCRI has been a key contributor to Ottawa's 20/20 Plan for economic development and, today, is helping transform this vision of the city's economic future into reality. Through the plan's TalentWorks initiative, for example, OCRI is helping businesses, government, educational institutions and community groups partner on projects aimed at addressing both employers' and job-seekers' needs. Literally thousands of Ottawa-area young people are learning new skills through this initiative.
OCRI's mission is to advance Ottawa's globally competitive, knowledge-based economy; to bring together people, ideas and resources to create wealth and improve the quality of life in our community. It's doing that. If it is to continue to do so, it needs the city's support.
Ottawa's next budget needs to strike a balance. It must adequately address those activities that sustain our ability to create wealth. But it must also speak to those things that give wealth creation meaning: the arts, our community centres and our parks, to name a few.
We need to continue to sow the economic seeds of prosperity.
- by Jeffrey Dale
President and CEO of Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation
