Feb 252019
 

LETTER TO MUNICIPAL COUNCIL

Dear Members of Council and Staff,

 

I am trying to understand what’s going on.  This might be a bit blunt for you.

I am addressing a collective, not individuals in the collective.

Two things.

 

  1. REGARDING:

The Regulations that apply to the (  – – – ) are not hard to understand.   So why aren’t they being followed?  Is it because

  • You believe you can act outside the rule of law, that you are above the law?   To that, I would say:

Perhaps you have not studied democracy.  Or perhaps you are one of those who “gets away with whatever they can”.  It doesn’t matter.  The Rule of Law, which is to say democracy, means among other things:

The rules must apply to those who lay them down and to those who apply them – that is, to the government as well as the governed.  Nobody has the power to grant exceptions.

People must, of course, KNOW WHAT THE LAW IS, if the rule of law is to be upheld.

We citizens are in big trouble if we are ignorant, because then we are disempowered and at the mercy of bad actors.

We do not have the luxury of being ignorant, and we do not have the luxury of being complacent.

NOTE:   Canadians are currently sensitized to the Rule of Law because of the SNC Lavalin case and the corruption in Vancouver real estate and casinos.

 

  1. REGARDING:

Spending priorities, the Public Purse and the Public Good

  • It seems you believe that the failure to address water quality will not affect the ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT (tourism, property values). You are gambling, or do not have the skills, for assertively working with the Provincial Govt to get effective action on our offshore water quality (evidenced by the presence of cholera and chronic norovirus).

Let me dissuade you of the belief that failure to address matters of substance (offshore water quality) will not affect tourism and property values.

As water quality continues to deteriorate (because Council apparently deems it a low priority), the astute people will in time start dumping waterfront properties.  Maybe they start to worry about what their kids might pick up.  Maybe because they know that if it happened on the Great Lakes, it can happen here.  Maybe because they read,  and they read the June 2017  IISD Report:

Homes along the lake’s shoreline have dropped in value by more than $700 million. 

(in reference to Lake Erie, economic damage because of pollution)

Pollution of Lake Erie Causes $4B in Economic Damage

Some people have the ability to look down the road.

It just gets more and more expensive if you don’t actually DO something.  The risks for Lake Erie were known decades ago. . . .  Inadequate action,  incompetent people?  maybe we shouldn’t feel too sorry for those who are the last ones to buy into the real estate?   They didn’t know that no one was looking after the water.   A real estate agent isn’t going to tell them about the cholera and noro-virus.

 

The damnable part of it:  we will ALL lose in the end.

Turns out we are inter-dependent.  My neighbour might be dependent on me to speak up.

Perhaps you think that the nature of the water quality  will not become more widely known?  In that event, you are gambling.  We are arrived at the point of chronic norovirus (a trend of earlier in the season, and more, reports of norovirus).   The trend was punctuated last year with cholera.

You are gambling that the trend-line isn’t a trend-line – –  something more serious is not going to happen and be spread across the newscasts.  The last norovirus outbreak, cases in Ontario and Alberta, was traced back to the Salish Sea (oysters – – not far from here).  That got pretty good coverage in Canada.  You think that locals aren’t going to start getting upset, municipal governments doing nothing to apply pressure to “get with it”?

Or maybe you don’t care if Homes along the shoreline drop in value by more than ($??) millions?  Maybe you don’t understand that there will be implications for everyone in Town?

Someone else” is not going to develop a strategy to address the quality of our offshore water. The Provincial Government is not going to work with itself, saying “Oh, those poor people, we need to help them.”

We need all the money and brains we have to address fundamental and critical problems.

Our water is our responsibility;  if you don’t want to serve this critical public interest, then the citizens made a poor choice on their ballots.   May be you didn’t understand what your role is.

I understand that cronyism is corruption, it is the diversion of resources (time, money, effort, . . . priorities)  away from the public need into personal pockets.

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

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