Earlier this year, I turned 38. I did absolutely nothing for my birthday.
That makes sense, considering 38 isn't much of a milestone, unless you happen to be subject of a Tragically Hip song about a guy that old who has yet to kiss a girl.
I'd rather wait until I turn 40 to spend a couple of bucks on a cake and a few beers for my friends. I need a milestone to actually care.
But Manitoba doesn't give a hoot about milestones. In 2010, the year the province turns 140, politicians have planned a year-long party that comes with a $2.5-million price tag.
I have no idea what's planned for our 150th birthday in 2020, but in two short years, we're getting something called Manitoba Homecoming 2010.
The event is apparently timed to coincide with the winter Olympics. It's designed to bring former Manitobans home, presumably as they travel west to Vancouver.
"We're planning a year full of opportunities to see old friends, visit family and really reconnect with Manitoba and all the great things going on here," Manitoba Homecoming's co-chair announced in a press release in May.
"We want people to rediscover our changing, growing province and diversity of people, cultures and activities."
So in other words: The year the world is focused on Vancouver, we want ex-Manitobans to make a pit stop here at home.
As a tourism strategy -- or an effort to convince expats to return -- it's pretty much like dipping a net in a salmon run as the fish return to spawn somewhere else.
The entire project, which is supported by a $1.2-million grant from the NDP government, has already acquired the stench of arbitrariness that made the Spirited Energy campaign such a mess.
This year, Quebec City is holding a year-long party because it's celebrating its 400th anniversary. That's a big deal for a North American city.
In 2006, Philadelphia spent a year celebrating Ben Franklin's 300th birthday. Given the city's patriotic identity -- the Liberty Bell and National Constitution Center live downtown -- that also made sense.
But there isn't much about 2010 that means anything to Manitoba, beyond the fact Winnipeg's new airport might be open by then and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights was supposed to be finished, but won't.
That, of course, will not stop our provincial braintrust from blowing more money on a hare-brained scheme to bring former residents back home. Some of the events planned for Manitoba Homecoming 2010 include the province's largest social and some form of concert involving Randy Bachman, the Salt Spring Island, B.C., resident who's lent his Ain't Seen Nothing Yet to the party and has threatened to return.
"To come back to Winnipeg after so many years of travelling the world and playing music will be a true return to the '60s -- a time when the culture of Winnipeg and Manitoba shaped our music and became the soundtrack of many lives," Bachman said in the same May press release, perpetuating the fiction that our province peaked 40 years ago.
Far too often, Winnipeggers and Manitobans look to the past and herald past achievements instead of dreaming about a future when new and unimagined things can happen.
In 1896, the Winnipeg Victorias won the Stanley Cup. In 1905, Winnipeg was the fastest-growing city in Canada. From 1962 to 1964, Neil Young played in Winnipeg rock bands.
None of this really matters any more. It's time to stop fetishizing our history and begin thinking about our future.
And a big part of that future is coming up with a real strategy to promote tourism and bring former Manitobans home. Spirited Energy was a $3.1-million failure because it had no indentifiable target -- it said nothing about Winnipeg or Manitoba to either former residents or people considering a visit.
It wasn't the slogan, but the lack of focus. The campaign had no discernible purpose. If the province had handed Travel Manitoba that money, the underfunded agency (2007 budget: $7.5 million) could have launched an ad campaign on par with Newfoundland and Labrador's excellent television ads or Alberta's newspaper inserts.
But when the provincial opposition made a similar point in the Manitoba Legislature this spring, Premier Gary Doer laughed it off. The province can't tell arm's-length Travel Manitoba how to spend money because then critics would complain about meddling with ad contracts, Doer said.
Allow me to repeat this: The NDP doesn't want to promote the province because it's afraid it might not be able to fairly tender an ad contract? No offence, but I refuse to believe any government could be that incompetent.
And then we have Destination Winnipeg, the city's underfunded marketing agency (2007 budget: $3.2 million), which spends most of its energy attracting conventions. Destination Winnipeg doesn't really have the resources to promote tourism, but it's topping up the government's $1.2 million with a $200,000 donation to Manitoba Homecoming 2010, the fluffiest economic development strategy ever conceived.
I'm sure Manitoba Homecoming director Kevin Walters, who did a good job on the 2005 Juno Awards and 2006 Grey Cup, will organize a decent event, but what the heck is the point? Why spend at least $1.7 million in public funds on a nebulous new idea when we've already blown $3.1 million on an old one?
For the combined $4.8 million, Manitoba could purchase one hell of a nationwide tourism campaign. Or Travel Manitoba could do far more of the good work it already does. Or Destination Winnipeg could more than double its budget. You get my point.
I don't begrudge anyone at the province for wanting to hold a year-long party. I just don't understand the why -- and the when.
If somebody wants to hold a massive shaker for my 39th birthday, go ahead. Just don't expect me to pay the bar tab.
bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca
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