Brandon needs to promote existing businesses: Pedersen

Manitoba’s minister of Growth, Enterprise and Trade is encouraging the city as a whole to keep promoting itself and not forget about the businesses it already has.

In a sit-down interview with The Brandon Sun on Tuesday, Blaine Pedersen said he would "gently chide" the business community and tourism industry to start talking about the positive things in Manitoba, adding that the province is "on a roll right now" with continued investment and work by government to reduce taxes and red tape.

"I’m out here to help promote Brandon, too," he said. "Brandon is promoting themselves just like every other community and everybody’s looking for that big catch — the headline makers for the front of The Brandon Sun, ‘A new Roquette coming to Brandon’ — everybody would love that, but don’t forget about your existing businesses."

Pedersen’s remarks come as Brandon reported a four-year low in private-sector capital investment in 2018, a statistic the city’s director of economic development said wasn’t overly concerning given last year’s market fluctuations and international trade negotiations.

He also did not cite anything specific that the city isn’t doing to encourage economic development, but said the province will help if Brandon reaches out for help with an incoming business.

"Every community large and small — you talk to Winnipeg too, it doesn’t matter which community — is all thinking they’re missing the boat in terms of, well there’s economic development happening everywhere but my community, and that’s not really the case," Pedersen said.

"We have ... record private investment for the last two years in Manitoba. It is spreading around the province."

While companies such as Maple Leaf have helped create jobs in Brandon, Pedersen said the creation of a pea processing plant by Roquette in Portage la Prairie and the expansion of HyLife in Neepawa will have spinoff effects throughout Westman.

He also pointed to the role of small businesses, including Indigenous and women entrepreneurs, in helping build the economy and the creation of a provincial economic development office to ensure all of government is on the "same page."

"The biggest impediment we’ve had from businesses is they didn’t know which department to go to," he said. "They were concerned because it would take far too long. We’re trying to speed this process up. I know it sounds bureaucratic, but really what it does is it speeds it up."

On retail cannabis, Pedersen said despite the process being rushed by the federal government, Manitoba’s model for legalization remains the "envy" of other provinces, with the Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority of Manitoba in charge of licensing, Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries responsible for wholesale supply and distribution, and leaving stores in the hands of the private sector.

However, Pedersen said a recent Health Canada recall of cannabis produced by Winnipeg-based Bonify was concerning, not only because it was a blow to the company — of which three senior managers lost their jobs — but because the provincial government didn’t learn about it until much later.

"Health Canada knew about this two weeks before we did. That shouldn’t happen, and we’re still asking for information from Health Canada as to what actually happened," he said.

While supply also remains a limiting factor, Pedersen said Liquor and Lotteries purchased a much larger supply of cannabis before legalization compared to other provinces.

"There’s no sense in opening a store if you have no product to sell," he said. "They expect another six months before the product catches up to demand. We want those licensed stores to be ready to open the day they’ve got product to sell, so there’s a process going on behind the scenes right now."

Premier Brian Pallister has told municipalities to not expect any revenue from cannabis sales since costs are expected to exceed revenues.

Pedersen said municipalities have been asked to track those costs, as well as the tax revenue they earn from retail stores.

» mlee@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @mtaylorlee