Comment 109995

By fmurray (registered) | Posted March 05, 2015 at 21:17:25

Nice article, Ryan.

The presentation by Ken Seiling last Tuesday was heartbreaking. KW has it all together in their planning and vision for the future. They follow through on their plans even between elections.

It was interesting to me, as a student of anthropology, that the cultural differences between our two cities seems to drive the difference in behaviour. Ken Seiling referred to the long-standing respect for rural land and assets held by people in KW. They know their future depends on maintaining farmland and water supply, whereas we have a history of depending on industry for our prosperity and, with our location beside Lake Ontario, have never had to worry much about conserving water. We have a laissze-faire attitude to our environment. The cultural differences have played out in where we are headed as a city. We will fall further and further behind, as KW surges ahead with their future-focused plans.

Amalgamation played a part as well, but if our "old city" councillors voted progressively, we would stand a better chance of succeeding. Unfortunately, suburban councillors side with rural councillors (who don't seem concerned about maintaining farmland), so we are screwed.

I hate to be so pessimistic, but I don't see how we can change the path we are on. I've sent my letter to council encouraging them to have staff re-do the transit plan, but still I don't have much hope. It was telling that only two progressive councillors and the mayor attended Mr. Seiling's talk.

At some point in the future we may turn the corner and have a majority of progressive councillors, but that "future is not now" as someone recently said.

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