Thurs May 30: Owen Sound is the Next Big Thing in... Isotopes?

Plus: Man charged after a single vehicle rollover in the City

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When you think of the City of Owen Sound’s strategic priorities, what comes to mind?

I went looking to see if I could find a current list, starting with the “Strategic Plan” page on the City website.

Cool flipbook, but the document on that page is from 2021 to 2023.

There’s a handy button below it telling me to “Visit the Strategic Plan Dashboard.” Great, let’s try that.

Darn, this is also out of date.

Correction: An earlier version of this article contained an inaccurate calculation of the River District Vacancy Rate. Thank you to readers for the correction!

Anyway, what I’m looking for is accurate, accessible, up-to-date information about the City of Owen Sound’s strategic priorities, and here’s why:

My goodness, that’s an ambitious goal. Relieving global isotope supply chain issues must be high on Owen Sound’s priority list, too, since we’re funding Sponsored Content about it in the National Post, complete with an accompanying Facebook Ads campaign.

Oddly, the only information I can find on the City’s website about our commitment to becoming “an innovation hub and center of excellence supporting the medical isotope supply chain” consists of:

• Several press releases since last summer about our participation in the Southwestern Ontario Isotope Coalition.

• And this campaign landing page published 5 days ago, right before the National Post article went live.

Remember when Owen Sound ran a campaign with sponsored content and a pyjamas giveaway in 2021 to attract people from Toronto to move here? It turns out there was already a mass exodus of people from Toronto moving here due to COVID.

And so I have to wonder… given the worldwide shortage of isotopes and our proximity to Bruce Power, aren’t people relocating here to get close to the Bruce whether we spend taxpayer money on advertising or not?

Bruce Power just announced this week that it’s doubling its capacity to produce medical isotopes. This is happening without financial assistance from the overtaxed, financially disadvantaged tax base in Owen Sound.

Businesses that want to relocate to Grey Bruce to support that supply chain are going to learn very quickly that Owen Sound is one of their only choices. We don’t need to create national awareness that we’re here, close to the Bruce.

What we do need is to be able to compete against Saugeen Shores, Kincardine, and Collingwood with a more business-friendly environment. We must be able to show companies looking to start up or relocate that we have a supply of affordable housing and services/amenities like transportation, healthcare, and a safe and vibrant community – the things they need to attract talent.

Aside from that, there are also plenty of ethical questions around taxpayer-funded sponsored content, especially at the scale of a national campaign.

If the purpose of this was economic development, do we not have Ec Dev professionals in the City’s employ to speak to this issue? Is it appropriate for the Mayor, an elected official, to be the “star of the show” in a national ad campaign funded by taxpayers?

What does it take to get mentioned in one of these articles? How does the City ensure fairness when mentioning one business in front of a paid audience of hundreds of thousands and not others?

I’m not the first person to question the ethics of government use of sponsored content. Here’s a journal article on the use of sponsored editorial content as a tool for propaganda:

“This article explores the rise of government-sponsored content, a recent development in the branded content model, in which government agencies assume the role of sponsors of editorial content. Theoretically, branded content blurs the boundary between strategic messages and communicative ones. As such, it embodies an inherently manipulative essence.”

There’s not a lot of research out there on its use by local governments, but researchers have studied Sponsored Content by provincial/state governments worldwide. The Grattan Institute, for one, warns that “while some government ads are needed, many are little more than thinly disguised political ads on the public dime.”

How do you tell which is which?

Well, one measure they recommend is establishing an independent panel to evaluate whether government advertising campaigns may be politically motivated. A warning sign, they say, is a taxpayer-funded campaign that promotes the government’s policies or performance but lacks a meaningful call-to-action.

“The panel should have the power to knock back campaigns that are not compliant – whether they are politicised, or more generally don’t offer value for money,” Grattan Institute said.

The use of Sponsored Content or advertorials by a municipal government calls for strict guardrails and judicious use. At a minimum, you’d want to see a solid use case that supports key City priorities in a tangible, measurable way, with documented evidence of the care taken to avoid conflicts of interest – real or perceived.

Otherwise, elected officials could buy themselves national exposure as leaders or drivers of just about anything – a retirement hub, an industrial innovation powerhouse, the ‘Work From Home Capital of Canada’ – while taxpayers pick up the bill.

And at the end of the day, every taxpayer dollar spent must be purposeful, because it’s no longer available to fund other much-needed City priorities.

The Owen Sound Current has requested more information about this campaign from City Council and the City Manager, including the selection process for people and businesses mentioned in the article, and the safeguards in place to prevent conflicts of interest.

Postmedia doesn’t publish their Sponsored Content rate sheet, so we’ve asked the City how much is being spent on this campaign. We’ve also requested the desired outcomes from this media investment, and how the City will measure success.

We’ll let you know if we receive a response from the City, and as always, we welcome Letters to the Editor on this and other topics.

Full subscribers, there’s a lot more for you below, including…

• Details on the upcoming launch celebration for Volume 19 of Northern Terminus: The African-Canadian History Journal at Grey Roots

• Charges for a 74-year-old man who drove while under suspension and rolled a pick-up truck on 9th Ave E on Wednesday morning

• An invitation for residents of Georgian Bluffs to participate in a survey and have your say about the township’s future

~ Miranda

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