Yesterday's grant seminar was kind of useless. The instructor was well-informed and made a solid effort to reach out to us, but the substance of the presentation was lacking. What was supposed to be a three-hour seminar on how to apply for Barrie Arts Council Grants turned into a two-hour course on how to write a pitch and a one-hour networking event. Though informative, I just didn't take anything out of the seminar.

I don't know which way I'm going to branch out here. There's some Barrie stuff that's been on my mind for a while - so I think I'd like to take the opportunity to talk about some of that.

Barrie has been petetioning to annex several thousand acres of land from the township of Innisfil. Here's some background between the two. Several years ago, Barrie Raceway came upon an opportunity to put slot machines in its establishment, but the Barrie Agricultural Society decided they didn't want gambling in their city (you know, because they weren't already gambling on horses to begin with). Innisfil then built their own raceway and put slot machines in them - the whole thing has been a great success. That money doesn't go solely to the township of Innisfil, it's distributed through the entire county of Simcoe, of which Barrie and Orillia are independent municipalities of. Barrie WILL claim the slots as their own. Furthermore, taxes of current Innisfil residents will go up significantly if their land is annexed by Barrie.

Barrie's a great city. There's little crime, there's nothing you 'need' to go to Toronto for (except work) and it's generally friendly enough. But when I grew up, Barrie had 30, 000 residents and Bayfield Street was the economic centre of the city. 20 years and 120, 000 residents later, the city hasn't changed much. Bayfield street is still a mess, Mapleview Drive(formerly Molson Park Drive) is even worse, the downtown has been under construction for the last four years and isn't showing any signs of slowing down. Park Place (formlerly Molson Park) was once a lucious green park which was as pleasant to be in as it was to look at driving by. Now access is restricted and it looks like a land transplant from Afghanistan. It's a fucking desert. What an eye sore.

The fact that Barrie's only jobs are based on public service, retail and construction is just sad. Where are the businesses, Barrie? Why force the people to go to the jobs, instead of bringing the jobs to the people, like a REGULAR CITY? It doesn't help that the education centre of Barrie is a college. We stand alone as one of Canada's largest cities without a university. Simcoe University sounds awesome if you ask me. Universities bring minds. Colleges bring lazy people who want to stay at home. I know that sounds callous, but the fact is, Laurentian at Georgian is not a university, it's university courses at a college. It's designed FOR people who want to stay in Barrie - it's a community college. That's the purpose. Establishing a university would bring great minds to Barrie, who will start great things in Barrie.

To bring this back to film, I pose this question; do you seriously think I could film Soundtrack in this city? I want to. There are parts I perhaps could. But nothing from my production company will be coming from any Barrie busineses. There's nothing alluring about filming here in Barrie besides convenience for myself. The fact is, the resources and people for this job are in Toronto, and I have to go to them.

So why should Barrie get more land, when it's been proven that it hasn't had a spectacular track-record using it in the past? I'm not saying Barrie shouldn't get the land - I'm just saying I'd like to see the land used a little bit more appropriately this time around. Building cheap houses side-by-side and strip-malls everywhere is not the way to do this. Set some cheap land aside for some businesses or industry to come in, get some preliminary plans for a university. Do what I say! roar.