Dissolving the Economic Development Corporation - Part 1

By Pepper Parr

November 10^th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

The Special Council meeting that took place this afternoon was a continuation of the meeting that took place November 4^th that heard comments from the Burlington Economic Development & Tourism Corporation who were responding to a report from Rubicon Strategy, a consulting group that was hired by the city to do a review of BEDT’s operations and the value they city was getting for the $1.9 million they spend each year.

BEDT has a staffing complement of 15 people and a 13-member board that includes two members of Council, along with the Mayor.

Why is this an important matter?  Attracting new business to the city is vital toits growth; retaining what we have is equally as important.  Having a tourism unit that can attract visitors and play a major rile in making the city a tourist destination.

This is a complex story that needs to be told in pieces.

A conclusion was reached.  Staff were instructed  to come back in April of 2026 with

Direct Staff to report back by April 2026 on two options for Council’s consideration.

1: Fully detailed options for integrating economic development and tourism functions within the municipal structure and

2: Provide a draft Services Agreement that retains an independent entity while permitting a collaborative decision-making relationship with Council.

Getting to that point was the roughest experience CAO Curt Benson has experienced since he took up that office several months ago.  Benson was appointed CAO on very short notice when Hassaan Basit  resigned after serving just 16 months of his five-year contract; he left Burlington to join the provincial government

During his time with the city, one of the things Basit did was merge the existing Tourism department with BEDT. Why?

The province created a 4% Municipal Accommodation tax that is collected by the city.

The city keeps 50% of what is collected in a reserve fund to be used as Council directs.

The remaining 50% is made available to eligible tourism entities to be used to promote tourism, including product development.

Council designated an eligible tourism entity, governed by a board, to receive and spend these funds in the community. That entity was Tourism Burlington.  The tourism community and city hall came to the conclusion that they were not up to the job.

Basit merged Tourism Burlington with Economic Development to create BEDT.

The problem was that important City Hall staff did not feel Economic Development was doing a very good job, and they brought in Rubicon Strategy, a consulting group to do a review. They issued a devastating report which recommended dissolving BEDT.

Benson wanted to act on that recommendation and explained his reasoning at the Tuesday Special Standing Committee meeting saying:

CAO Curt Benson explaining his thinking to Council.

“As a part of a continuous improvement approach, it’s important to do periodic reviews of services to ensure effectiveness, efficiency, value for money, and to address areas of alignment to strategic objectives, policies and practices here at the city. The work to review the economic development function was initiated back in May 2024 through the endorsement of a report that identified an opportunity to address deficiencies and agreements between the city and the agency partners that deliver important services that our residents and visitors depend upon.

“Having detailed agreements in place helps to ensure mandates and services are aligned with Council’s expectations where there is discretion. The report recognized the need to advance this work in Priority sequence.

“There has been feedback shared on this approach, namely that we need to look at all agreements for city agency partners, comprehensively and staff will get there. We have been deliberate in addressing our approach with economic development as the highest priority. It represents the greatest opportunity to correct the alignment and integration challenges that have persisted under the model. The learnings from this work, in particular, the collaboration and consultation in developing a new arrangement will provide the clarity and accountability that can serve as a model for agreements with the city’s other agencies. It’s important that, based on staff’s initial assessment, there is no intent to assume or internalize the valued functions of any other city agency.

“Most of the other agencies have a mandate that are either back stopped by existing arrangements derived from parent legislation that drives governance and accountability, or they are at a point in maturity that reflects a steady or stable state, given some of the change over in city leadership roles. Work needs to continue to strengthen the relationships with all agency partners. It’s important that progress is made before coming back and providing council with an update on this work early next year.

“For Burlington Economic Development and Tourism, from my perspective, there is a strong desire for the city to have a clear line of sight to the full range of activities associated with business retention, business attraction, and leveraging of tourism in driving business outcomes. The line of sight currently does not exist. To address this gap and to address other issues of alignment we recommending that council in principle endorse the integration of Economic Development and Tourism services and operations into the city’s organization structure.

“There are other recommendations to ensure that this is done in a careful and coordinated manner through the development of a transition plan. That transition plan would be prepared and provided to council no later than April 2026, highlighting key milestones, timelines, resource implications and options for a model to ensure effective oversight.

“This represents a material change, and we do not take these recommendations lightly. The changes proposed in the report are two governance and structure, and are meant to build on accomplishments made under the current model and to seize an opportunity to keep what works, the business insight, the relationships, the tourism partnerships, but place it in a model that gives Council clear line of sight, gives businesses a single front door, and uses public funds in a transparent and effective way.

“The review and its recommendations are by no means a reflection on the commitment and significant value driven by the volunteer board or its staff. We are quite fortunate to have a highly skilled, engaged board of volunteers who are passionate about supporting businesses in our community.

“There are a few points addressed in the report that were also raised by the delegations on Monday that I’d like to address really briefly. Comments on the review itself.

The consultants released a devastating report that recommended dissolving the Burlington Economic Development and Tourism Corporation, a city not-for-profit organization.

“For example, some question the process, its independence, the fact that it did not take stock in the positive outcomes delivered by the model, or did not address the significant effort or value of the merger. While many had comments and criticisms about the nature of some of the statements in the report, none of the delegation suggested there was there wasn’t room for improvement.

“As staff, we take stock in that, and as was mentioned by a couple of the delegates, we also want the very best for the city and the business community to thrive. We’ve heard from delegates that the current model is superior from the perspective of agility and speed and working in the gray area, that means independence and minimizing bureaucracy or politics.

“Well, if speed is a concern, there are remedies to design a fit for those purposes, tools within that framework, standing offers, pre qualified vendors, templated scopes, rather than operating outside of municipal controls.

“Unwinding: We’ve also heard that unwinding, the model led by the independent board could come at significant cost. It could be disruptive, and it could include an issue of garnering compliance with the MAT tax rules. City staff maintain that all these things, can be solved as a part of a new model. If specific barriers are identified, the intent was always that we would review them and propose targeted fixes as a part of a transition plan.

“There is an opportunity through the work of a transition plan to define how best to leverage the value and community based business perspectives through different models. It’s really important to take stock in where we are in our growth and maturity as a municipality. For example, in 2019 After launching the red tape red carpet initiative, there are key lists of a long list of recommendations on how the city can be better partners with businesses and developers, you heard from us in July 2025 through a report that nearly all the recommendations falling out of the red tape red carpet initiative have been operationalized.

“There has been significant process reviews undertaken and many of those overhauled. There’s been an establishment of a small team to address support for high impact files and also support for Main Street small businesses, as evidenced over the past two years, our relationship with the development industry is strong. Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for our relationships with the business community. We have no direct opportunity to build those relationships and strengthen those relationships without going through an intermediary. Board, council has important levers under the system, under its decision making under the municipal act, we want to make sure that our plans, policies, incentives are there to support business in our community, and that that is done in a way that represents accountability over budget and defining key service standards to support.

“Those are my opening comments.”

Much of the questioning from staff that followed could not be described as a pretty picture.   We cover that in part 2.