How is a Walmart Super Store akin to Cornwall moving forward? If your bench mark for progress is a super store, I would suggest setting your standards a little bit higher. Its fine that high school students or “retired” people can work for minimum wage, but no one else can afford too. Once those who graduate go into the work force, they are going to need more than Walmart jobs to afford families, homes, cars, and life necessities. Meaningful and better paying jobs will create growth, boost new and current small businesses, and help recent grads and new families. A prosperous community with create jobs, and if more tax revenues are generated taxes can be reduced. This will also mean having less people relying on social assistance, and as poverty decreases so will crime rates. Cornwall could be booming with wind mills and wind power, green car manufacturing, government jobs, more innovative tourism, and other entrepreneurialship. With the downturn in the US dollar, more people will be looking at Canada for safer investments and the city must take advantage of this. The service sector economy will never replace the manufacturing economy we use to have, so now we have to think about diversifying our economy. There are better entrepreneurial opportunities for Cornwall than a super store; we just need people with an imagination and the resources to invest in our city. It’s going to take more than an expensive and ugly logo to change Cornwall’s fortunes and image. It’s going to take leadership, outreach, and salesmanship, but we can make this a better city with a better image.

-Jason Setnyk