It is “disappointing” that the City of Peterborough has hired only one of the 16 employees at Peterborough & the Kawarthas Economic Development (PKED) who will lose their jobs at the end of the year, when the city is set to take over responsibility for economic development and tourism from the not-for-profit organization.
That was one of the comments made by PKED board vice chair Paul Hickey when he addressed city councillors during their general committee meeting on Monday night (September 16).
While the meeting’s agenda included a report from PKED board chair Burton Lee and president and CEO Rhonda Keenan on the organization’s activities for the first and second quarter of 2024, Hickey’s presentation didn’t address the report. Instead, he shared examples of three projects that have been underway at PKED and raised some concerns about the transition of responsibilities from PKED to the city that are “not normally included in reports.”
“Three months from now, the ball’s going to be in your court from an economic development and tourism perspective,” Hickey said. “I thought the chance to be here and just kind of talk to you face to face would be good.”
As for the three projects, Hickey said “I think they’re really representative of the kinds of work that needs to be continued to be done if we’re going to grow, if we’re going to increase our tax base, and increase our population.”
Using the example of the Farnborough International Airshow that took place in July in the U.K., Hickey stressed the continued importance of the aerospace and aviation sector in Peterborough and demonstrated how attendance at these kind of industry events is critical for lead generation.
“I wanted to vote that that continues to be a really strong priority of whoever’s doing economic development in the future,” he said. “Lead generation is a crucial part of what we do.”
Hickey, who noted that PKED staff attended the airshow along with representatives from The Loomex Group and the Peterborough Airport, said PKED came away with “15 really strong leads,” with 11 of them still “what we would consider hot” for potential tenant agreements at the airport.
Hickey then spoke about the Build & Soar program, which is designed to match local employers with students from the local separate and public school boards’ construction and aviation and aerospace specialist high skills major program, a specialized provincially approved program that allows students to focus their learning on a specific economic sector while meeting the requirements to graduate from secondary school.
“One of the pieces of economic development that often doesn’t get talked about is the economic development for existing businesses, making sure that we’re helping them grow, helping them stay here, helping them find land, increased office space, increased manufacturing facilities,” Hickey said.
Hickey said the Build & Soar program, which has been led by PKED in partnership with the two school boards, the Peterborough & The Kawarthas Home Builders Association, and the Workforce Development Board, provided 42 high school students with summer jobs at 15 employers in the construction and aviation sectors. Editor’s note: PKED has clarified that 35 employers participated in the program; of the 42 high school students, 15 are participating in flight simulator training.
“It’s a great example of the kind of work that needs to be done to bring together students, schools, post-secondary institutions, and companies, and making sure that we’re meeting the needs of companies that are here right now,” Hickey said, noting that the Build & Soar program is intended to expose students to career possibilities that they might not have normally considered.
Hickey then spoke about PKED’s engagement with travel media to drive water-related tourism — specifically for the spring opening of the new Canadian Canoe Museum — by first addressing Mayor Jeff Leal.
“Your worship, with respect to some of your comments a few months ago, when you were waving the CAA (Canadian Automobile Association) magazine and wondering why we weren’t in CAA magazine, I wanted to touch on this for a second,” Hickey said. “It’s an example of some things that just get talked about out there and the overall impression that’s left sometimes is that the people at PKED, or The Canadian Canoe Museum, or Le Boat, or whoever, weren’t doing their jobs.”
Hickey was referring to comments Mayor Leal made during council’s general committee meeting on June 17, when councillors voted to endorse a staff report outlining the city’s plan to assume responsibility for economic development and tourism services.
“You would have thought that somebody would have had the initiative to have a story front and centre about The Canadian Canoe Museum,” the mayor said during the meeting, as he held up a recent edition of CAA magazine. “Isn’t that one of the great destinations that we want here in Ontario and Canada? I’m not a marketing guy but it seems to me that would be a pretty elementary thing to do, to get your story in a magazine that is probably on more kitchen tables than any other magazine that we have here.”
In his presentation, Hickey described how over $2 million worth of unpaid media coverage was generated about the new Canadian Canoe Museum, including coverage in the Globe & Mail, Cottage Life, The New York Times, National Geographic, and more.
“The teams involved in this did an incredible job of getting the news out that The Canadian Canoe Museum had launched, and I think that wasn’t really the flavour of what the public saw,” Hickey said. “Honestly, it was crushing at the time.”
“Continuing to build relationships with water-based travel media in the future is key,” he added. “That’s absolutely something you guys should be holding any future teams accountable (for). We need to be leading the world in terms of talking about waterways and tourism and business.”
Hickey also raised an issue related to the city’s use of the term “in house” to describe assuming responsibility for economic development and tourism from PKED. He said that term left the impression with many local businesses that at least some of the PKED staff would end up working for the city, providing continuity of service.
“The reality was, of 16 PKED employees, you guys have hired one,” he pointed out. “You’ve hired one of 16. The county has hired zero.”
That one employee is Cara Walsh, who worked for almost 12 years in various roles with PKED, most recently as tourism marketing and communications officer. The city hired her in August as a communications specialist with a focus on tourism and destination marketing.
“I’ve been involved in enough mergers and acquisitions and absorptions and whatever you want to call them — it’s super important that you maintain a certain level of continuity, of relationships with outside customers, relationships with suppliers,” Hickey said. “I can’t tell you how disappointing it is to see that, of all of these great people, you snapped up one.”
Hickey then turned to the municipal accommodation tax, which is $880,000 this year, noting to council that a “good chunk of that money” needs to be reinvested in event tourism to support the hospitality industry.
“This money is not meant to fund everything else the city does in addition to tourism and economic development.”
Referring to the famous line “If you build it, they will come” from the film Field of Dreams, Hickey emphasized the importance of having serviced land readily available to attract companies, with a veiled reference to the city’s plan to work with the county to identify opportunities for serviceable land.
“The days are gone where it’s enough to promise you can talk to your neighbours and figure stuff out once somebody expresses some interest,” he said. “That’s just not the way things work anymore.”
A long-standing issue facing PKED was its inability to close leads because of a lack of serviced land.
“All of the lead generation in the world is for naught if you haven’t got serviced land ready to go,” Hickey said.
In summing up, Hickey said PKED is going to continue to show fiscal responsibility in the final three months before the organization dissolves, but PKED also has to support its staff as they search for new jobs.
“I’m going to be honest with you,” Hickey said. “I didn’t think we’d be trying to help 15 people (find) jobs in October 2024.”
Hickey then referred to the transfer of knowledge, expertise, and client files as PKED winds down.
“We’re waiting for you guys on that,” he pointed out, using a sales analogy. “You can’t hand over your territory if you can’t sit down and talk to the person who’s going to take over your territory, talk about who’s important, talk about the local businesses that have been on our backs for the last six months or six years. All of that stuff has to happen, and it hasn’t happened yet.”
While acknowledging the city has not hired all of its economic development staff yet, Hickey said it would be a “huge miss” if PKED was unable to share its insights, customer files, and more with the city before PKED dissolves.
In his closing remarks, Hickey thanked the “passionate, talented group” at PKED.
As for Mayor Leal’s comment about being in CAA magazine, Hickey — who is founder and chairman of Peterborough-based advertising agency Outpost379 — pointed out an ad in the magazine costs $50,000 “and I would never recommend it.”
In his final comment to council, Hickey noted that, in a normal October, PKED staff would be working on media campaigns for the following year.
“That’s not in our bailiwick anymore — that’s for someone else to do,” he said. “We really are anxious to start to sit down with your new people, when they’re announced, to start to transfer over some of this knowledge and expertise.”
With the exception of councillor Alex Bierk, who asked about earned media and the value of lead generation from the Farnborough International Airshow, there were no questions or comments from city council, although general committee chair and councillor Andrew Beamer thanked Hickey and the PKED team for their hard work “for what it’s worth.”
