Raise the Hammer

Gary wrote, "the sad part is we all generally want the same things out of life but get stuck behind false or misleading rhetoric. sometimes even the big bad developer is just a guy trying to support a family."

Wise words in an already fascinating discussion.

I was at the market today. I bought so much food I could barely carry it home (I need to get one of those grocery carts that elderly ladies are so fond of). Some of the things I love about the market:

• Quality of ingredients. There's an Italian woman with a great cheese and olives and antipasto stand on the top level. Quite a small stand, right in the center of the top level, with fantastic food. I bought a jar of marinated roasted red peppers from her a few weeks ago. They were phenomenal and I used them in all sorts of things.

A few days later I was having people over for dinner and I wanted to use roasted red peppers in the meal I was preparing, but I only had a quarter of a jar left. The market was closed so I popped over to Fortino's and grabbed a jar of roasted red peppers off the shelf there (along with cat litter, cereal, yogurt and other non-market items). Two jars of roasted red peppers - two different kinds - but what could really be the difference?

The difference, actually, was unbelievable. The ones from Fortino's (President's Choice brand) were thin, bitter and tasteless. Compared to the thick, juicy, sweetly flavourful roasted red peppers I had become accustomed to...well, there WAS no comparison!

• Enjoying the company of my fellow citizens. Markets build community. That's also one of the reasons I like public health care, besides the fact it's affordable: it puts us all in the same boat. I enjoy living shoulder-to-shoulder with all my fellow citizens.

• Purchasing from people who actually have the time and the inclination to make conversation, and who remember me. I got in a 1/2 hour conversation with a flower seller the other day. Today, when I was trying to buy some more of this incredible pesto that the Italian woman I mentioned above carries, I couldn't remember which container I had purchased before. She said, "Oh, it was this one," and plunked it down in front of me. I bought the first jar two or three weeks ago! How on earth could she remember that?

As far as improving the market is concerned. I think all that we need is to make decisions that allow people to do what they want to do. I'm often amazed at how difficult we seem to think it is to have a proper market. The markets in Iraq are, apparently, bustling, and this is in spite of constant threat of car bombs and snipers. Doesn't that mean that all we really need to have a good market is to make the space for it?

Hamilton's market is already excellent and if permission is given to start expanding it onto the street and elsewhere, well, let the marketeers do the rest.