If the great playwright William Shakespeare had witnessed Moose Jaw City Council’s April 27 discussion about the Canadian Tire project he would have had inspiration for his comedy, Much Ado About Nothing.
The Canadian Tire project — a consolidation of the local Canadian Tire, Mark’s Work Wearhouse and Sports Chek stores — has been spinning wheels for almost five years without getting anywhere.
Originally pegged at $10.5 million, then $12.5 million, and now at $20 million by Chamber of Commerce CEO Rob Clark, the project was dead when the company wrote city council a letter advising the company it was no longer interested in the land deal.
As part of the response to the pandemic and the chaos caused the company by closure of 250 Ontario stores, Canadian Tire has halted all such projects. This is the second time since the original 2016 deal that the national retailer has put a hold on any renewal/expansion projects.
Once the letter of no interest was received, council believed the deal was dead. The mayor and the city manager, without telling council, took it upon themselves to try and re-interest the company in locating the development on the Thatcher Drive East location on the former race track site.
They successfully renegotiated the deal and brought it to council. A surprised council reacted by voting four to three to require Canadian Tire to post a $200,000 non-refundable deposit of good faith on the property.
Purpose of the $200,000 non-refundable deposit on the site was the same as when someone makes an offer on a house and provides a good faith deposit to hold the owner from doing another deal until this offer has been dealt with.
This kind of deposit is common in property deals.
There was another reason for the deposit request as Coun. Scott McMann stated in the April 27 discussion. He wanted to crystallize the deal: in other words he wanted Canadian Tire to get off the pot.
Some councillors may have voted for the deposit out of embarrassment at the lost $7.5 million industrial park sale to Carpere. When Carpere asked for an extension, council rejected a request to demand interest worth $100,000 to grant the extension.
When Carpere walked away, council was left with eggs on its face and costly infrastructure work on the park.
In the April 27 attempt to salvage his hero status for renegotiating the Canadian Tire deal, Mayor Fraser Tolmie declared any councillor wanting the $200,000 deposit was opposed to economic development.
Nothing is further from the truth. Those originally voting for the deposit were following standard commercial procedure in these matters, based on usual practices, not out of desperation for development.
Two of those councillors — McMann and Dawn Luhning — reversed their votes April 27. So now the city will go grovelling to Canadian Tire asking for the old deal.
Canadian Tire will build this project in Moose Jaw when it suits the company standards of return on investment, when the company has investment funds, and when the business climate is conducive to new development, not when council wants a success to brag about in this fall’s election.
In the meantime, council’s cap in hand begging erodes future negotiating power when Canadian Tire does build.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
