Cutting Through The NIMBY Propoganda In Leslieville

Graffiti or Community Propoganda Billboard

I understand Margaret lives in Leslieville so there......

Let them get film jobs!

MARGARET WENTE

May 27, 2008 at 9:07 AM EDT

Here in NIMBYland, my neighbours are boiling mad. They are rallying, protesting and hammering in lawn signs. "No big box in Leslieville" they read. The Mayor is on their side. Jack Layton is on their side. They know they are fighting the biggest battle in Toronto since ordinary citizens like them defeated the Spadina Expressway.

Only this time, it's worse. Wal-Mart is coming.

Wal-Mart is the ugly face of American capitalism. It ruins neighbourhoods, destroys hard-working local retailers, causes traffic jams, and sells crappy merchandise made in Chinese sweatshops. Worst of all, it creates crappy low-wage jobs. One lawyer, who's acting for the residents, said last week that Wal-Mart jobs aren't "true" employment at all. Take that, retail serfs!

My neighbours know what kind of jobs they want in their backyard. Not retail jobs. Film jobs! Film jobs are true employment. There's a film studio on the site that's moving away, and they want to hold out for another film studio or its equivalent - not a Wal-Mart - to take its place.

"The retail job is worth $33,000 a year to Toronto's economy," argues Paula Fletcher, the local councillor who's leading the opposition. "The value-added job is worth $106,000 a year."

Nobody seems to have told Ms. Fletcher that $106,000 film jobs in Toronto have melted faster than the April snow. These days, former film folks are getting jobs in retail. But mere facts will not deter those who are convinced that Wal-Mart is the face of corporate evil. "With its predatory pricing techniques and minimum-wage mentality, Wal-Mart doesn't belong in any city, let alone a downtown district that's reinventing itself," fumed a columnist in the Toronto Star.

For progressive people all across North America, Wal-Mart has become the focal point for righteous NIMBYism. And God help you if you disagree. One woman, who told the Star that the area needs a Wal-Mart, declined to give her name. "I have friends who are against it and they'll kill me," she said.

In fact, Wal-Mart has done more to help low-income families than most social programs have. Why? Because they save so much money shopping there. "Plausible estimates of the magnitude of the savings from Wal-Mart are enormous," wrote the academic Jason Furman, who is a Democrat and has never received payment from Wal-Mart of any kind. He cited a total of $263-billion in 2004, or $2,329 for every household in the United States.

Judging by those numbers, my neighbours should be demanding Wal-Marts across the country. One study figured that its benefit to low-income families is equivalent to a 6.5-per-cent increase in income. Wal-Mart also forces the competition to cut costs. Its real competitors are not the local retailer or the high-end grocer selling organic chicken breasts for $14.99 a pound, but other big-box discounters such as Price Chopper.

I've noticed that the people who are likely to oppose Wal-Mart are very different from the people who are likely to shop there. Those who oppose it are socially conscious types who buy fair-trade coffee at $14.99 a pound. Those who shop there (judging from the Toronto-area Wal-Marts I've been in) are recent immigrants of slender means who've never heard of fair-trade coffee. You also see a fair number of little old ladies on a pension, who don't look like the type to go for organic chicken breasts.

As for those sweatshops in China, I'm sure that part is true. On the other hand, most of China's 800 million peasants would prefer a sweatshop to a pig farm any time. They probably wouldn't turn up their noses at the idea of retail jobs at Wal-Mart either. I admit those jobs are not the best. You don't meet many movie stars, and you might only make $10.15 an hour. But hey! Film jobs are hard to come by these days. And even a crummy job at Wal-Mart is better than no job at all.