In the world of marketing, perception is nine-tenths of the law. That is why people make a distinction between otherwise indistinguishable products such as Coke and Pepsi or Player's and Export cigarettes.

So when the Canadian Federation of Independent Business grades Yellowknife 34th out of 41 western communities it isn't enough for Mayor Dave Lovell to respond, "I think we did better than the survey showed, but that's council's concern."

The federation was evaluating cities on the quality of the business environment and found Yellowknife lacking. In the face of a failing grade, the mayor describes the situation as a perception problem.

Can the 4,000 western businesspeople surveyed all be wrong? Can the engine of job creation be so misguided?

You can bet that had the federation ranked the city highly, the results would be trumpeted with a fanfare of press releases and annoucements. No doubt the federation would have been praised for its insight.

Either the pleasure of doing business in Yellowknife is to remain a well-kept secret or the city, presumably with the co-operation of council, is going to do something about this so-called perception problem.

In the current climate of economic uncertainty in Yellowknife, the last thing we need is a bad image in the eyes of the national business community.

Developing new business should be a priority in Yellowknife and a failing grade from the federation has to be regarded as a problem to be fixed, not a misunderstanding. While the needs of business shouldn't drive this city's agenda, the criteria used by the federation to rank western cities is a useful yardstick with which to measure taxation, regulation and the comparative worth of a dollar spent in this town.

On the eve of an election, it isn't much of a stretch to imagine that this will become an issue. After all, we have an image that needs work.

The Supreme Court of Canada, ruling in a case involving the Saskatchewan Workers' Compensation Board, upheld what was called the "historic trade-off" between workers and employers.

As the Saskatchewan case demonstrates, employers are well protected from lawsuits.

But we have to wonder: with benefit caps and pressure to keep WCB rates low do the injured workers enjoy the same level of protection in the "trade-off?"

Perhaps "historic" indicates what's wrong with the WCB system. It needs to be brought up to modern concepts of fairness.