Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Woes

Ranking 80 out of 96 is a huge victory! Windsor did not finish dead last or closer to the bottom as in other surveys.

Or at least, that is how it may have been presented to the Mayor when the CFIB results came out ranking Canada's top entrepreneurial cities.

But that is hardly something that the new head of the Undevelopment Commission will be able to brag about or sell if he/she is ever appointed.

By the way, was mini-Gord telling us that, after all of this time, local boy and Sandra friend, "Patrick Persichilli, the vice-president of the development commission who has been its acting chief officer for the past year" will get the job. No offence to Patrick intended, but that would be a bad joke signalling that politicians want the Commission to play no useful role whatsoever!

You think being the Chief of Staff of Edgar (aka Eddie) is a piece of cake. All of that hobnobbing with powerful people, making news editors in Windsor shake and tremble when you phone them up, having a prime table in the City Hall cafeteria.

Oh sure, that is a signal of success. Until another Report comes out showing how Windsor is failing once again and you are the one who has to break the bad news first thing in the morning to His Worship.

But this one, about entrepreneurship for heaven's sake, how would that be presented to Edgar after his big victory when he was younger? Not only is he our Mayor but he is our world-class union fighter, land developer, sports jock, border operator, road and tunnel builder, hub advocate, P3 financier, entertainment impresario, onion marketer and canal builder. He is the guy who is our champion entrepreneur with our money and at our risk.

However, that is why people in these top positions make the big bucks. They know how to present the indefensible and to shape and massage the message so that it becomes a good news story, a remarkable victory that their boss achieved even with overwhelming odds against him.

If you actually check out the Report, dear reader, you will see that the core cities themselves, but not the suburbs, of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal did even worse than we did.

No one would dare make a comparison though between Windsor and major cities since it would be so ridiculous unless it was a Star columnist writing about music centres and spending huge amounts of money when the local economy is in serious trouble:

• "Calgary may be five times bigger than Windsor, and it may not have the highest unemployment rate in the country, like Windsor, but the difference isn't entirely about money. It's also about vision."

Watch genius at work Check out the headlines in our media. Prepare for the great news. Celebrate the top story. Windsor is the pacesetter again:

"Windsor ties for #1 City in the Region!!!"