10 Tough Questions with Yves Dubeau

Yves Dubeau is a retired business owner (1990) from a national distributor of scientific instrumentation. Also retired (2003) from Scientific Strategic Marketing (President), consulting firm helping Canadian manufacturers setting up distribution networks world wide. He is an engaged Hamiltonian with, in my view, balanced and useful feedback on Hamilton issues. Here is 10 Tough Questions with Yves.

1. It can be rather easy to lay the blame for all of Hamilton’s problems at the feet of city council and the Mayor. How much responsibility ought to be attributed to council and the Mayor. Please explain.

I agree with you that it would be simplistic to dump all of Hamilton’s problems on the existing council and the Mayor. However council has to take responsibility, period.

As the existing management team elected , only they are in a position of power and authority to institute, enact or reverse past financial decisions that were made by council that could prove to be detrimental to the city. I find that any organization which is unable to re-visit those decisions (because of present changes) is a serious management flaw by any management team.


2. Having a history in business, in the private sector, what can the city learn from the private sector, in terms of how it is run?

Within the present electoral system it is difficult to mimic the private sector and adopt what works well for the private sector into the public sector. In the private sector the management team works hand in hand to the common goal of the corporation. These common goals are set in a mission statement which is derived by the management team, owners and stakeholders. Once the mission statement is formulated, the next step would be to create a business plan which would consist of measurable goals.

From the above example of a business model, our present electoral system does not permit easy adoption of common goals amongst elected councillors. There are some cities in Canada who have political parties at the municipal levels and at election time a slate of candidates present themselves under a political party banner. In the Toronto Star on the weekend there was an article regarding the city of Toronto council. A professor of political science attributes the disfunctionality of city councils due to the lack of discipline and command structure which is part of political parties. There is nobody holding individuals to a higher standard of behaviour ( good rationale for Integrity commissioner!). Instead of having a management team working in unison we have 16 councillors and 1 mayor, a collection of individuals or single-member parties , each with their own agendas. In the private sector a major part of performance is accountability. Currently our present system favours incumbents and that conveys huge electoral advantages. At election time the electorate forgets where our councillors stood on municipal issues. Now if we had party representation we, the electorate, could bestow accountability of failure or success to a party and as such vote accordingly. That is why there is more turnover of candidates at the provincial and federal elections. I think the city of Toronto is partly there with David Miller as an NDP mayor and his inner circle ruling the city.

3. Who do you think the most effective city councillor is, and why have you chosen that person?

This is somewhat of an unfair question for all other councillors than my own councillor. I live in Ward 2 which is represented by Bob Bratina and as such I pay more attention to Bob’s successes and antics. Bob is hard working in representing his electorate as much as his fellow councilpersons. Bob being my councillor means that I am frequently in touch having an email relationship. I found Bob to be shy or very humble in enumerating his successes for the city’s downtown, his projects have a long life cycle and as such not so obvious to most of us. In the last 5-7 years about 124 million in new or renovated real estate was added in Ward 2. The Downtown Core had a net increase of 1.2 million dollars in taxes as a result.

4. What advice do you have for Mayor Eisenberger, for the remaining portion of the present term?

That he stays out of trouble! Mayor Fred had a rosy goal of managing council with consensus, this will not happen with the group of people involve. They have tried group building sessions at a great cost to the city without any positive results.

5. What is the best decision made by council, this term and why?

Difficult to answer because most hard decisions appear to be often deferred to consultants or staff. I have to acknowledge the most recently made decision to help the people flooded without bankrupting the city is one of the good ones. The city of Ottawa also had a very similar flooding event and they were paying attention at what Hamilton council was doing.

6. Recently, there was an online poll on The Hamiltonian, gauging the effectiveness of the Mayor and Council, as well as their effectiveness in issues of stewardship, value for tax dollars and political climate. The results appear to be rather dire. While unscientific in nature, do you think these poll results resonate?

They might be unscientific in not providing a large sample base but they truly show how people feel. How will this translate on election day? Probably no major swing in our elected officials due to the lack of options, we will have a very low voter turnout. Our elected officials will not be personally affected by the lack of support or not having a mandate, this is an $80,000 plus job for them. Again I will state the need for an electoral system change.

7. What does Hamilton have to do to improve its image? If you had a 2 million dollar budget, how would you approach this task?

The entrances to the city offers different views, the most common one shown is a view of the city from the Skyway bridge showing our industrial landscape in the fore ground, with smoke stalks bellowing their effluent and showing nothing else. Now if you enter the city from York Boulevard (eastbound) what you see in the fore plan is beautiful unspoiled nature on both sides of the bridge and in the background the steel mills. To me this scenery is as good and enchanting as any other cities that I have visited worldwide. Also, I might add that the view offered from York blvd. is more representative of what Hamilton is today, an equal balance of industrial to non industrial economy. The point that I want to make is that the main subject is the city of Hamilton, but what do you want to accentuate? I am a new comer to Hamilton, originating from Ottawa and residing in Oakville and Burlington before coming to Hamilton, and I am totally enamoured by what Hamilton has to offer. My marketing campaign would have the main theme of Hamilton being a” destination for a family to live and thrive” especially with the affordable housing that we currently have. Any company that would want to locate in Hamilton will look at what the city has to offer to their employees and their families.

8. Do you think Hamilton can turn itself around over the course of the next 5 years? Why, or why not?

Absolutely, but not in the old style economy. Hamilton depended too long on the steel mills and nothing else. The analogy for me is akin to sitting on a one legged stool and doing all types of acrobatics to stay seated. Many cities have transformed itself most notably a city in the news lately that hosted the G20 meeting, Pittsburgh, the host city.

Pittsburgh endured the same economic fluctuations as Hamilton did over and above the layoffs from the mills. Our local media drew parallels to our city, we have the same to offer in terms of waterfront and proximity to highways and the south west Ontario transport corridor. When the latest layoffs occurred in Hamilton, it was like the end of the world, as we know nothing like that happened. We have to get out of this mindset regarding our steel industry and start looking for our second and third stool leg to sit on. During my travels in Europe and visiting potential suppliers for high technology scientific instrumentation often if not all the time these companies were located in major cities where important universities were established ( not unlike University of Waterloo). The new industrial park from McMaster is a great start and we should see a major input of university off shoots providing that all other conditions are there for a company to flourish. The city should look for base hits versus grand slams in terms of having companies locate to Hamilton. City council should stay out of the picture in order not to introduce political interferences in the processes.

9. What do you make of the length of time it is taking to hire an Integrity Commissioner?

The length of time that is taken to fill this position to me indicates the lack of seriousness in wanting the job to be staffed. The Integrity Commissioner’s job would be to have council accountable to the commissioner. Look at the make-up of our city council and you can judge for yourself and see who would want to be accountable. You can barely see a degree of civility towards Mayor Fred. They set the bar so high for candidates as if council’s issues to be solved required Godlike qualities, a dose of reality made them change candidate’s background to widen the search. I still wonder if the resources dedicated (budget) is realistic, if I remember correctly the budget was $100,000 and the last two issues addressed by our interim Integrity Commissioner already surpassed that budget. I believe that they will drag the staffing as long as they can.

10. Do we have the right leadership in our city, for the period we find ourselves in? Why, Why not?

I think that we will survive until the next election without having serious harm done. Our existing leader is not a risk taker nor does he have the support of council which makes him harmless.

Thanks to Yves for his insights and his interest in Hamilton.