{"id":7586,"date":"2009-11-04T15:17:19","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T19:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/?p=7586"},"modified":"2009-11-04T15:17:19","modified_gmt":"2009-11-04T19:17:19","slug":"reopening-boat-lease-fraught-with-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/04\/reopening-boat-lease-fraught-with-danger\/","title":{"rendered":"Reopening boat lease fraught with danger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.niagarafallsreview.ca\/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2159874\">Niagara Falls Review<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Premier Dalton McGuinty sailed into uncharted waters, forcing the Niagara Parks Commission to put its lease with the Maid of the Mist out to tender. If he doesn&#8217;t navigate carefully, he risks steering the Niagara Falls tourism industry right onto the rocks.<\/p>\n<p>Jaws dropped in Niagara Falls last Wednesday when Ontario Tourism Minister Monique Smith announced she was &#8220;requesting&#8221; the Niagara Parks Commission hold a competitive bidding process to find a company to run boat tours in the Niagara gorge. Right now, the Maid of the Mist Steamboat Co., a private company, pays rent to the parks commission for the use of government land to run the Canadian part of its business.<\/p>\n<p>Some expected the government to rubber-stamp the recommendation from its own commissioners to renew its lease with the Maid of the Mist.<\/p>\n<p>Open government is a noble goal. But when managing a public trust, it can&#8217;t always be about the lowest bid. Why not issue tenders for everything &#8211; hospitals, schools, museums, the military, and the U. S. space program?<\/p>\n<p>On routine business, issuing tenders is a fair way for governments to do business. As long as all the companies are equally qualified to provide the service, it makes sense to take the low bid.<\/p>\n<p>But running boat tours in the Niagara River is not like buying a new fleet of pickup trucks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Niagara Falls Review: Premier Dalton McGuinty sailed into uncharted waters, forcing the Niagara Parks Commission to put its lease with the Maid of the Mist out to tender. If he doesn&#8217;t navigate carefully, he risks steering the Niagara Falls tourism industry right onto the rocks. Jaws dropped in Niagara Falls last Wednesday when&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,2],"tags":[1111,1154,88,1001,99,2440],"class_list":["post-7586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-niagara-falls-attractions","category-niagara-falls-news","tag-dalton-mcguinty","tag-lease","tag-maid-of-the-mist","tag-maid-of-the-mist-steamboat-co","tag-niagara-parks-commission","tag-tender"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7587,"href":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7586\/revisions\/7587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/accessniagara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}