"A Foggy Day in London Town"

It defies understanding. Folks in my home town of London, Ontario woke up yesterday to the news that its bid for a world-leading HIV vaccine plant had been turned down. Up against three other communities in Canada (Laval, Peterborough and Winnipeg), the competition was stiff but exciting at the same time. Our city entered the fray with a world-class bid, supported by the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa - a key champion in the struggle against AIDS. The bid was centred around the research component of the University of Western Ontario, which already housed key researchers at the frontline of the fight against AIDS.Support arrived from all over the community when Prime Minister Stephen Harper and billionaire Bill Gates opened up the competition among the four locations three years ago with much fanfare. The entire project would cost $88 million. The Gates Foundation would supply $28 million of that total, and the province and federal government would come up with the remainder. This was exciting stuff. A high-tech manufacturing opportunity with the potential to not only assist those suffering from a terrible affliction around the world, but would bring millions of dollars of investment into our community - just the kind of innovative jobs that everyone says Canada requires for its future.But there was another key component to that bid from London. The city is somewhat unique in that its three main ridings are held by MPs from the Conservatives, Liberals and the NDP. Sensing the importance of the bid to our community, Ed Holder (Conservative), Irene Matthyssen (NDP) and I put aside our partisan interests and threw ourselves into the project, both in London and in Ottawa. It was a unique moment of non-partisanship that caused other communities to sit up an take notice.Then we discovered yesterday that we lost. I went to the Internet to discover which of the other three locations triumphed, only to discover that they, too, had been turned down - the competition had been cancelled following two years of relentless effort by four outstanding communities in Canada.How do you describe this? A competition announced by the head office holder in the land working hand-in-hand with one of the world's richest philanthropists was ... gone. All the efforts put in by Mayor DeCicco-Best, City Council, MPPs, MPs, companies, and UWO itself, ended up being for nothing. The other three communities would tell a similar tale.It was the Gates Foundation itself that had identified the lack of such a facility in Canada as a roadblock for developing an effective vaccine for AIDS. And so Gates himself wooed the Prime Minister to work together to produce a pilot research plant that would find a vaccine for AIDS. Accordingly, the big announcement was made and the competition began.  And now this.This isn't so much a politically partisan issue as it is the responsibility of a federal government to follow through on a commitment that resulted in a robust response - not to mention the partnership of Bill Gates. Other levels of government and four respective communities did their cities proud with four outstanding proposals. When a spokesman for the Gates Foundation learned of the news, he could only reply, "Canada is the real loser."Unfortunately, so is London. Local citizens would have every right to demand a reason for the cancellation. A large group of citizens, researchers, politicians,and groups put plenty of skin in the game and they deserved better than this.  All four communities deserved better.I commend Mr. Holder and Ms. Matthyssen for their efforts, but it's hard to get people to believe in politics when, even with members from various political parties working hard together for the benefit of their home city, they are shunted aside in such a fashion. All of us have a right to be angry over this. Many people are raising their voices about political insensitivity these days. This will only add to their disenchantment.