Premier Dalton McGuinty sailed into uncharted waters, forcing the Niagara Parks Commission to put its lease with the Maid of the Mist out to tender. If he doesn’t navigate carefully, he risks steering the Niagara Falls tourism industry right onto the rocks.
Jaws dropped in Niagara Falls last Wednesday when Ontario Tourism Minister Monique Smith announced she was “requesting” the Niagara Parks Commission hold a competitive bidding process to find a company to run boat tours in the Niagara gorge. Right now, the Maid of the Mist Steamboat Co., a private company, pays rent to the parks commission for the use of government land to run the Canadian part of its business.
Some expected the government to rubber-stamp the recommendation from its own commissioners to renew its lease with the Maid of the Mist.
Open government is a noble goal. But when managing a public trust, it can’t always be about the lowest bid. Why not issue tenders for everything – hospitals, schools, museums, the military, and the U. S. space program?
On routine business, issuing tenders is a fair way for governments to do business. As long as all the companies are equally qualified to provide the service, it makes sense to take the low bid.
But running boat tours in the Niagara River is not like buying a new fleet of pickup trucks.
In a lot of ways, the Maid of the Mist is the “goose that lays the golden eggs” for Niagara’s tourism industry.
Operators await that day each spring when the boats go in the water.
Symbolically, it’s the launch of the tourism season.
The McGuinty government seems ready to sacrifice that golden goose at the altar of open government.
It’s all about politics.
Ontario’s Liberals are still reeling from the scandal at eHealth Ontario. It’s the agency created to digitize Ontarians health records, an idea the premier championed as a way of making health files easier to move around. The agency spent close to $1 billion, but there was nothing to show for it.
When eHealth’s cover was blown, an embarrassed McGuinty announced new rules that make just about all government contracts be subject to an open bidding process.
This is a knee-jerk reaction by a government now eager to appear squeaky-clean on openness.
This is about money. The reason to put it out to tender is to see if another company might pay the Niagara Parks Commission more money than Maid of the Mist pays now.
This is a gamble. By putting this lease out to tender, Liberals are gambling with the future of Niagara’s tourism industry. Some other company could do a better job than the Maid of the Mist. Likewise, it’s equally possible some new company would do a whole lot worse.
When the province held a competitive bid to find a company to build and operate the Fallsview Casino, bidding was never wide open to anyone with a card table and stack of poker chips. Companies wanting to get in on the casino action in 1997 had to prove they had what it takes to run a credible business. In the end, only four were deemed qualified to submit a bit.
Same thing when the city and Niagara Parks Commission were looking for companies to build a people mover system. They spelled out what they were looking for in a mass transit system and asked companies to express their interest. They considered the would-be bidders’ experience, financial backing, reputation, and deemed three to be solid enough to bid. The bidding process has to consider a new company’s financial resources, experience, safety record, marketability, suitability to work with the rest of the tourism industry and its ability to provide a service that’s going to encourage people to come to Niagara Falls and stay.
Just because the government has ordered an open-bidding process doesn’t mean anybody with a houseboat and a captain’s hat should be allowed to bid.
McGuinty has set a new course for Niagara Falls at a time when his Liberals haven’t given a lot of reasons to have confidence in the folks at the helm. This government has been plagued with a record $24-billion deficit, bungling at eHealth, watching Ontario Lottery and Gaming run amok with expenses and introducing a new harmonized sales tax.
Ontario’s Liberals have every right to chart whatever course they want for Niagara River boat tours. But the waters are fraught with danger. They had better know what they’re doing. Opening up the lease, only to get a bad boat tour operator could ultimately sink the region’s tourism industry.
