Home News Activities of the CDEC A Promethean Task
A Promethean Task PDF Print E-mail
For a CDEC, drawing up and following through with a program of annual activities is a bit like an obstacle course. You must have a taste for action and faith in people to bring all the winning conditions together.
This year was no exception, which is why we usually present this management tool to our members as a wonderful example of collective achievement. Throughout February and March, some 15 directors and employees worked hard to gain broad consensus on the orientations and objectives for the coming year. This consensus had to be based on a sharing of values consistent with the community economic development model, which, first and foremost, includes the individual and collective empowerment of community stakeholders. Of course, the orientations and objectives must also respect the framework of the three contractual agreements with our government partners, which is no small matter. In the final analysis, this consensus is accompanied by a series of decisions that must be measurable, in order to avoid simplistic or impressionistic results.
This year, with respect to the local development centre, the Borough office has made known its expectations regarding the commercialization of research carried out at health and educational institutions in the borough, as well as development of the district, including Côte-des-Neiges Road and the promotion of Côte-des-Neiges as a tourist attraction. The use of social media for individual and collective entrepreneurship will receive special attention, as will the distribution of our diagnostic tool entitled TPE en difficulté, comment se tirer d'affaires.
With respect to our agreement with Canada Economic Development, we have a range of innovative subjects, including the realization of community benefits agreements with health institutions, using the model developed by the inter-neighbourhood coalition and the McGill University Health Centre. Moreover, we will encourage employers in the area to adopt our responsible purchasing policy, a campaign to buy locally from businesses in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. We have also planned a recognition project in the form of a photography contest to showcase the attractions of Côte-des-Neiges, in addition to thematic tours of the hidden treasures of the borough. Emploi-Québec-funded initiatives don't take the back seat here, because the employability organizations in the west end of the Island can submit projects in the scope of the local initiatives budget. We also intend to exercise considerable and essential leadership within the employment roundtable. We are determined to make the job placement assistance pilot project initiated by Montréal's CDECs a permanent fixture.
We are confident that our 2011-2012 activities program will contain both the brand new and the tried and true! It would be both presumptuous and false to conclude that these achievements will eliminate splitting of the social fabric or make a significant contribution to growing the GDP. Nevertheless, we are convinced that we can make a difference between now and the spring of 2012.