Whistler Watch

As I go through my news links every morning I’m constantly coming across newspapers from other municipalities (I just pointed out Milton and Oakville (of ALL places)) that are complaining about having to send their mayors and other municipal leaders to Whistler for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Annual Conference. They’re complaining it’s too expensive. It can cost more than $20,000.

Allow me to give my two cents on this.

First of all, this is a business trip. This isn’t a personal trip where all the Canadian mayors are going to lather up the sunscreen and wear special protective sunglasses that will keep the beach sand out of their eyes. They’re going to a conference. A conference in a Canadian municipality. Something tells me there wouldn’t be so much uproar if the conference was in Cornwall, Ontario, possibly the smelliest Canadian city I’ve had the pleasure of passing through. Sorry for the cheap shot Cornwall.

Whistler is an expensive town, but people do live here. Just because it’s a resort town for the outsiders, doesn’t mean there aren’t any Canadian citizens that live here, have friends and families and dogs and polluting cars just like the rest of Canada. It also doesn’t mean that the citizens who live here are rich. I’m coming up on my first year anniversary here and my income was the lower in 2008 than it was in 1998… when I was a teenager.

Your leaders are coming to a conference with other leaders to teach each other effective methods of leading. That’s priceless!

Are people resentful that their leaders are going to a beautiful place?  A place with high, snow peaked mountains, rain forest, bike trails, beautiful lakes, hot springs, adventure sports, nice people? You can live here too! You can come here too. I can’t think of a better place in Canada to have conference of municipal leaders.

I can hear it now; “In this economically troubled time, we shouldn’t be spending lavishly on frills of scenery and resort lifestyle to make our leaders feel more comfortable.”

I really wonder if the people who are publicly complaining have done any research on what their municipal leaders are really going to. I have. You can get a lot of information off this website. www.fcm.ca

If you come across an article that suggests it’s stupid to have had the conference here, forward them this article.

Thanks,