Recent NewsNew Dawn versus ECBC
It almost sounded too good to be true when New Dawn Enterprises Ltd. president Rankin MacSween optimistically said “we cannot afford not to co-operate” following a purportedly co-operative meeting with Enterprise Cape Breton Corp. CEO John Lynn on April 1.
And it seems as if it was too good to be true.
The issue — Sydney port development — is too serious for the parties involved to have treated it as an April Fool’s Day joke. So, it would seem they were sincere at the time. But eight months later, MacSween was complaining that Lynn had refused to participate in a roundtable meeting on port development, citing conflict concerns.
In the meantime, Cape Breton Post reporter Erin Pottie, in a series of stories, sussed out the relationship in greater detail.
On the one hand, MacSween wants ECBC to vigorously market Sydney harbour as a container terminal location. Moreover, MacSween has indicated that ECBC is not doing that because Lynn is feeling pressure to back the development of a container terminal in Melford, Guysborough County. And MacSween has suggested, critically, that ECBC favours a Canada Port Authority governance model, which gives government more control over a port than a community-based port governance model.
On the other hand, Lynn argues that it would be throwing good money after bad to actively market Sydney harbour as a container terminal location during a global economic downturn. He said ECBC would welcome a container terminal proposal, but added that “a myriad of other opportunities for commercial development” must be entertained and supported. And Lynn said that ECBC isn’t advocating for any particular governance model.
Lynn makes sound arguments in the face of MacSween’s occasional allusions of conspiratorial machinations at ECBC. The trick is getting Lynn to make them publicly. During our recent series on the port, the Post requested interviews with the ECBC CEO a number of times before he agreed.
It’s perhaps that trait that led Paul Power to waggishly refer to Lynn as the elusive “rare white warbler” or “Lynnus evasivus” in a recent letter to the editor.
We’re not advocating for Lynn to drop everything every time New Dawn requests a meeting. New Dawn is a non-profit community development corporation, but it doesn’t speak on behalf of “the community.” Indeed, ECBC, as a Crown corporation, is arguably answerable to all taxpayers, whereas New Dawn is only answerable to those with an interest in it.
We are advocating for Lynn to become more open to media interviews. He has a reputation among reporters of being hard to get a hold of and, at times, gruff. We don’t care about the gruff bit, as long as he’s accessible. He has a long history in the private sector, and hasn’t necessarily had to deal with the type of public scrutiny that’s inherent with taxpayer-funded institutions such as ECBC. But Lynn began his five-year term with ECBC on June 1, 2008. He’s had time to come to terms with it.
During our last interview with Lynn, he said: “We have a culture here that the door is open, people walk in and out. You don’t have to make an appointment generally to see me or anybody else.”
We’re going to test him on that in the new year.