What’s on Brandon’s wish list for Santa?

Put it on your list to Santa.

I must confess to having said this to each of my three kids at one point or another.

When I was a kid I would spend hours poring over the Sears Wish Book. It brought great joy and was the source for the list I’d prepare for Santa containing all of the things I hoped he would bring.

Residents of Brandon also have lists of things they’d want for the community. There are many I see repeatedly.

On my personal list is more air service — an eastbound flight to complement our westbound flight to Calgary. When we were looking to move here more than 15 years ago, Brandon had all the things we wanted on our list — except air service.

We were thrilled to see it added more than a decade ago. Still, for both leisure and business, east is a more frequent destination for our family. We know the viability of air service east probably requires more population, or the development of a smaller plane with the ability to travel longer distances. A West Jet VP once joked with me after the Toronto-Brandon flight trial a number of years ago that if we could move Toronto and Brandon 100 kilometres closer together, the flight might be viable with existing aircraft.

I know many people who make regular trips to Costco. Personally, I have only been in Costco (or its predecessors) three times (spanning from 1996 to 2020). That was two times too many for me, but to each their own.

But clearly Costco is on the wish list for many, and it is often cited as a litmus test by some Westman residents as to when Brandon will have “arrived” as a city. Either way, the current situation leads to a fair amount of leakage from the local economy, not to mention a fair amount of time and energy just getting back and forth.

These lists people have may not only be about the things we don’t have. But also, how do we maintain things we already cherish. The Wheat Kings come to mind. In many places, since the pandemic, attendance at live events has softened. I haven’t seen numbers, but my casual observation has been that the Wheat Kings have not been immune from that trend.

In the last few years, a waterpark has emerged as an amenity some would want. Some wanting summer recreation options, others perhaps a year-round weather-protected facility. It is unclear if this would be a public, private or non-profit proponent. In any case, the business model would inevitably require significant traffic to cover operating costs, regardless of how capital for construction is obtained. This means we’d need people who are willing to pay and are prepared to attend on a regular enough basis to make it sustainable.

Speaking of pools, my personal list also includes the ability to return to hosting the Canada Games. Brandon missed the opportunity to be the first community in the country to host the Canada Games in Canada’s sesquicentennial year when it lost the bid to — ourselves. We were the only bidder.

A key reason we lost was we didn’t have a swimming pool that met the regulations, and we didn’t believe in ourselves enough to say we would get one. It was a huge missed opportunity. Worse, to cover up the lack of faith, some locally turned to messaging that the Canada Games had outgrown places like Brandon. But despite this excuse, smaller cities continue to host. We should be lining up now to host the Canada Winter Games in 2039.

Not everyone has the same list for Santa. I am certain readers can list another dozen examples of things they themselves want or they hear regularly from friends and family.

But one thing is common — more population makes everything on the list more viable.

While all of these things would benefit from population growth, each of them might require a different level of population for viability and sustainability. The long-term viability of the Wheat Kings might not require the same population growth as sustaining a daily 88-seat flight to Toronto.

When preparing to bid on the Canada Games in 2011, Brandon was fewer than 50,000 people. If we had had a vision for ourselves as an 80,000-person community within three decades, we might have made different choices.

For example, it might have been easier to see that Assiniboine College and Brandon University might need to grow and that they might need additional student residences. This was the other missing element to our Canada Games bid. But one need not look any further than Regina in 2005 to see they built two residence towers are the University of Regina in advance of the games, and then turned them over to the university.

My point is that a positive vision for the future might better inform current decision making.

My wish list to Santa didn’t always get filled. But as I got older, it did lead to thinking more about what comes after Christmas — New Years. With New Years comes the slate of resolutions designed to intentionally lead to a better life.

I look forward to the new year and talking about the commitments that might lead to a better planned future for Brandon.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. See you in 2026!

» Mark Frison is president of Assiniboine College