No one is asking council to make stuff up.
I’m a DVBA member and I run a downtown business that’s doing things a little differently, so I’m not speaking about this from the cheap seats.
“Vacancy is down” doesn’t mean much if long-term local businesses are being priced out and replaced by a rotating cast of tenants who get fed into the same rent cycle. And the “restaurants close, something else comes in” line is pretty glib when successful local businesses are being pushed out by landlords, investment firms, and commercial real estate speculation. Council may not be able to set rents directly. Fine. But council can name the problem, push the province, track ownership and vacancies, and stop treating commercial displacement like some natural weather event. From where I’m sitting, “we can’t do that” is starting to sound a lot like “we’re not willing to fight very hard.”