Wascana opposition driven by envy of success
Cam Cooper writes private sector commerce not something to shun.
What drives the ongoing drip-drip-drip of negativity around the Conexus Credit Union and Brandt Industries office buildings in Wascana Centre?
Office buildings are hardly an invasive species in the park. The entire west face along Albert Street is lined with them. So is much of the southern edge along 23rd Avenue, the northeastern edge along Broad Street, and most of College Avenue. For decades these buildings have housed people doing tasks similar or identical to those the Conexus and Brandt staff will be doing.
Conexus and Brandt have hardly foisted themselves on the centre. Conexus responded to a proposal call from the university, one of the centre’s founders. Brandt was approached by CNIB, a longtime occupant of offices in the park.
Their buildings aren’t “office towers.” Both are three storeys, the same as most others.
Ugly, intrusive? I thought both designs attractive, showing a light, deferential touch. At minimum they are improvements over existing structures like HMCS Queen, the old CNIB quarters, or the plain-vanilla Walter Scott building. And both are going in beside existing offices along the park edge.
Traffic magnets? Compared to what, the Legislative Building ? Any number of government office buildings? An entertainment venue that seats 2,000 people?
The issue gets stretched way beyond mere offices. What sense can you make of ‘No Business in the Park’? Or the spectacle of city council’s incoherent outburst against commerce?
If that’s the principle, what about the CBC? Or Innovation Place? It’s brimming with businesses, including an incubator that spawns more, and Gas Buddy, a runaway success in high tech, selling software for commerce. Do we evict the restaurant on the shore of Wascana Lake? And where does the city’s new-found alarm come from, having been part of the earlier arrangements that made the Conexus plan possible?
So much of this is fake news. Conexus and Brandt represent something new in only a single respect: They are private sector.
We pay for this moth-eaten prejudice in Regina. Once we were Saskatchewan’s leading city. Today, it’s Saskatoon, now substantially ahead of us, and growing, a place more accepting, welcoming and less inclined to look down its nose at commerce.
And who do the No Business people consider so uncouth that they must be kept from soiling the centre?
Conexus is a co-op. It started here from scratch, grew by careful attention to service and opportunity, introduced firsts in product and access, and led the provincial consolidation of credit unions. It’s a highly successful western financial business, rated a top place to work, employing hundreds, with its head office in Regina.
Brandt also began locally, and modestly. It’s a Reginabased family business that grew through entrepreneurial leadership and innovation. Brandt designs and manufactures leading-edge farm and industrial equipment and sells it worldwide. Hundreds of Reginans have careers at Brandt. Their new office would provide quality space for CNIB, among others, replacing one of the least attractive sites on the park’s Broad Street perimeter.
What’s not to like here? Only the whiff of condescension surrounding the naysaying. The message is plain:
It’s not the quality of your building, not what you do in it, not your achievement or community contribution. It is who you are. A business? Doing commerce? I’m sorry, but we have, ahem, certain standards. You might be happier elsewhere.
And that’s the risk. An underside of Regina’s story is the recurring antipathy in some quarters to growth, development, to almost any change. It goes beyond not-in-my-backyard. The root is a grievance culture of resentment and envy that bristles at anything involving a business. It’s the voice of the Grinch, sour and self-destructive. It doesn’t represent our best instincts, and certainly not a community consensus. We can easily do better.
The Brandt and Conexus plans are attractive, the proponents worthy. It’s time to move on.