China Trip , A Bit Like Sending Meisner To Buy Diamonds

By Ben Meisner

When City Council opted to give the City Manager Derek Bates and City Councilor Don Bassermann $5 grand each to go to Beijing  in June, while Mayor Colin Kinsley will pay for the trip out of his, "travel Budget”, you couldn’t help but reflect back on just what we got in the way of contracts during  the trip we took to Turin and of course the previous 10 trips we have taken to China to promote ourselves.

I don’t have any trouble in sending someone off to promote the city to try and snag some business for the region.

There are opportunities out there for business , lets try getting an Alberta business to set up in an area where property and labour are far less , where we have a pool of labour waiting to take on a new challenge , but one gets the feeling that this is not warm and fuzzy.

Instead we are in China trying to snag a home run.

Now let’s look at our success so far.

Winton Global heads over there nearly a decade ago to sell modular homes, it cost that company a bundle, the Chinese stole the idea, and began manufacturing, and the company never set foot on that ground again. There is a reason why we have such a high trade deficit with the Chinese, we buy their goods but it hasn’t worked the other way nor is it about to start.

So what do we do?  Well we say we can sell lumber to them, of course that must be tongue in cheek given the fact that the total sales to China in a year would barely keep one small mill in Prince George going. So what are we now told? Here are Councilor Don Basserman’s comments;  

  “Bassermann says one contract, one new foreign student, being able to report the number of significant contacts in Beijing, will all be signs of success.  He says the most difficult thing to report to the community is the necessary relationship building that is crucial to doing business with

Now using Bassermann’s logic it means that if we spend $15,000 dollars and get a student to come to Canada we have accomplished what we set out to do. I do hope that you people heading to the polls will be able to translate that logic to the ballot come election day , because what the good Councilor is saying is that we should be prepared to spend $150,000 dollars to get 10 students , and so on and so on. Add to that of course why in the world you would send the Mayor, City Manager and a Councilor to do education business is a bit like Mike at Michael's Jewelry sending me to buy diamonds. I’d love to make the trip to  if he pays, but don’t expect any good buys cause I don’t know anything about diamonds.  

Of course it is a difficult thing to explain to the community, when you do nothing; it is hard to justify something.

The Chinese are very adept at taking good ideas and running with them. That is what has made them so successful. The problem is that after 10 or more trips to the fountain our elected officials don't  get it !

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.  

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