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Duplication and overlap is the bane of government and even some corporations. If you've got someone doing the very same job as someone else when it's a job only one person should be looking after, you're not only wasting human resources that could be directed elsewhere.

You're also running the very real risk of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, and therefore increasing the chances of things going awry.

Such is the thinking of these days at Enterprise Chaleur. In a presentation to city council last week that included a question and answer session, representatives of the local community development agency made it known that they are no longer focusing on going out to find new businesses and industry to come to Bathurst and the surrounding area.

While they continue with a mandate to foster and support business development in the region, they are leaving the search and find work to the experts at Business New Brunswick in Fredericton.

Rene Legacy, Enterprise Chaleur's president, noted that for every 100 leads regarding new industry looking at setting up shop here, only one ever comes to fruition.

In other words, Enterprise Chaleur's energies are better directed elsewhere, where there'll be a better return for the investment of time and effort.

It was noted by Mr. Legacy and Enterprise Chaleur's executive director, Donald Hammond, that queries are still fielded from interested businesses, and Enterprise Chaleur does whatever it can to facilitate the process for new businesses. However, going on so-called seek and find missions has not fielded much fruit over the past five years, and leads are best passed on to Business New Brunswick where they are supposed to be working on our behalf.

(Enterprise Chaleur has greater success creating jobs by helping existing businesses grow and expand. And, as Mr. Legacy noted, 10 new jobs being created is 10 new jobs, regardless if they're from an existing operation or a new one.)

Mr. Hammond noted the City of Bathurst can help create the right business environment by focusing on quality of life issues, making sure this is the kind of community people want to live and work in.

All valid points and arguments, we say, although somewhat initially off putting. That said, if this is the way things are, it's absolutely essential for our three local MLAs in Fredericton to be making sure Business N.B. reps are doing their part to bring businesses to the Chaleur region, as opposed to letting them all go in the so-called Golden Triangle of Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John.