{"id":3254,"date":"2012-05-10T14:22:44","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T18:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=3254"},"modified":"2012-05-10T20:43:58","modified_gmt":"2012-05-11T00:43:58","slug":"thoughts-from-the-niagara-economic-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=3254","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts from the Niagara Economic Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday\u00a0more than 400 people from across the Niagara Region\u00a0attended the Niagara Economic Summit. The summit\u2019s stated objective was to bring people together to focus on developing a blueprint to build a stronger economy in Niagara.<\/p>\n<p>Though Niagara-based, the summit&#8217;s dialogue\u00a0would have been instructive for almost all Canadian centres facing the challenges of a transforming economy, of globalization, and carrying the yoke of cumbersome, pervasive local government.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few memorable thoughts from the meeting\u2019s proceedings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dr. Jack Livingstone, President of Brock University, quoted our Governor General David Johnston: \u201cThink Big. Start Small. Scale Up.\u201d (This quote is properly attributed to Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-mart.)<\/li>\n<li>They\u2019ll be no home-runs. We\u2019ll succeed with a whole bunch of singles and doubles; base-by-base. (There was a litany of sports analogies!)<\/li>\n<li>Paul Knafeic, of Community Benchmarks, reported Niagara\u2019s population base is \u201cvery dynamic.\u201d In four years, we\u2019ve had 39,000 people leave the area and 42,000 people move into Niagara.<\/li>\n<li>Knafeic also reported that the Niagara Region is creating jobs. Though the Region has lost large-scale manufacturing jobs and some prominent companies have moved, Niagara has still experienced a net increase of almost 3% job growth.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Government does not generate wealth, nor can it grow the economy; it\u2019s role is to provide a favourable regulatory framework for economic growth.<\/li>\n<li>Here\u2019s a recurring question, \u201cHow do we begin to address the problem of accountability from our local business leaders and our politicians?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>General Rick Hillier motivational and inspirational comments on what it takes to be a leader cut to the core: 1) robustness\/toughness, 2) optimism, 3) ruthlessness &#8211; and a great sense of humour to keep everything in perspective and to relieve your inner tensions.<\/li>\n<li>General Hillier also forwarded: &#8220;A big part of a leader\u2019s job is to inspire people and to draw inspiration from them.&#8221; \/ &#8220;Actions talk. Your values, words and actions must all line up.&#8221; \/ &#8220;Avoid the trappings of the Office and the Title. Be yourself.&#8221; \/ &#8220;We all have the potential to be\u00a0a leader.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday\u00a0more than 400 people from across the Niagara Region\u00a0attended the Niagara Economic Summit. The summit\u2019s stated objective was to bring people together to focus on developing a blueprint to build a stronger economy in Niagara. Though Niagara-based, the summit&#8217;s dialogue\u00a0would have been instructive for almost all Canadian centres facing the challenges of a transforming economy,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3254"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3256,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions\/3256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}