Editor:
Kudos to Banff town councillor Paul Baxter for refusing to meddle in the free market as Banff town council considers a quota on chain operations.
He believes, as I do, that businesses should live or die on their own merits, not by manipulation of the democratic process. In this regard, and during discussions that have arisen over Banff Tea Co. owner Susanne Gillis Smith’s attempt to ban David’s Tea Co. of Montreal from opening in Banff, (it would become competition to her unique(?) operation), all seems to be lost on what well organized chain or improperly labelled big box stores bring to communities they set up shop in.
Let’s start with a company-sponsored benefit plan so employees can get their teeth fixed without taking out a bank loan – going further in debt in the process. That’s a really big deal to people living in the real world of 2011, looking at their future.
Naysayers may solicit opinions on this from the 50 or 60 local people who have abandoned jobs at ‘unique’ operations in the Bow Valley to work for the recently-opened Canadian Tire in Canmore. It’s one good example fresh on the minds of many newly employed people in this community who have precious few opportunities of this scale available to them. These operations allow people to survive in the community, not the reverse as some mistakenly think.
Another thing lost on some looking in on this subject, is that corporate giants like Safeway, Sobeys, Tim Hortons and Canadian Tire provide tremendous charitable donations to communities in which they locate, with very little, if any, public fan-fair.
I found this in spades as a volunteer for the Canmore Folk Music Festival in 2010 and again in 2011. Donations (which I had a first-hand in) offered by these businesses are one very important factor which allows our folk festival to operate at the very high success rate it does, positioning it near the top of its class among folk fests in Canada.
I could go on, not intending to slight the value and importance of small, well-run independent operations to Bow Valley communities, with their noticeable charitable largesse. But like it or not, the highly mobile consuming public of the day has made its choice and corporate monoliths like Safeway and Canadian Tire win every race they compete in.
It’s all determined by mass consumer buying practices, not individual opinion, or attempts to block competition.
As a frequent supporter of small business, I do not necessarily like what has occurred in our towns and business communities either, but accept it as part of the consumers’ freedom to entertain a retail business experience with whomever he or she is comfortable with, guided by democratic free market principles and, most importantly, solid business practices.
I, like most consumers (I suspect), do not want freedom of choice dictated to me, or legislatively restricted by town hall.
Alvin Shier,
Canmore
