I was present at a well attended meeting at the Grand Bend Public School auditorium last week in which I heard a public official, and I believe an elected one state that the community need not worry about the Notice of Completion that had been sent to the Ontario Minister for the Environment. I understood the reasoning being that there was a change of heart, to be understood as a change of direction, or was it emphasis on the part of elected councilors. Beside me there were comments to the effect that the Minister would take the Notice of Completion at face value and the project would be initiated pretty soon.
It was obvious from the voices heard at the school meeting that the community had serious concerns and that these were by no means minor concerns. Since the population of the village is barely 2,000 mid week, and getting smaller, one has to think an auditorium full is fairly representative that the community by a fairly large majority has concerns. I did not hear anyone say that they did not have concerns.
These are the issues that I noted in the darkness of the hall at the time:
1. The Issue Whether There Was a Genuine Need
We understand that the provincial park to the south of the village has visitors that need to go to the loo and dispose of waste water. I have not heard of any effort by the park to develop its own system so it's genuine needs can not be so very great otherwise they would be dealt with appropriately within the park boundaries as I understand is perfectly feasible and provides an environmentally sound approach.
Surely, with all the parks administered by the province, they now have sensible sanitation system technologies for small scale needs whether placed on sandy or clay or loamy ground conditions. Rather, it seems to locals that the province wants to make use of the existing Grand Bend facilities and is thinking grander scale to get money for a massive development beyond what is required for the park. That is why the village is now involved in providing services to the park. This is hardly likely to win friends within the village as is a form of bullying. In fact so much bullying seems to be going on that people are getting fed up with the Ministry.
It was probably assumed that by combining the need of a village with that of the provincial park the bulls could pursuade rather simple minded or narrowly directed administrations in Toronto and Ottawa to fork out big money. It's not what villagers want, at least from my observations.
2. The Issue of Whether the Governments were Sufficiently Transparent
We, Grand Bend village folk are so badly informed that we did not know what was in the pipe line, and certainly did not imagine it was ****, again pun intended.
There is transparency but it is not general, and there is a small group that talks to itself and makes decisions. I am not a member of the small group and did not realize myself what was accepted as viable, otherwise I would have reviewed the matter earlier. My thoughts were in 2006 that no locality would be so stupid as to go ahead with such a ridiculous project. Villagers don't think their elected officers were sufficiently open about the project.
3. The Issue of Being Honest to the Community
My understanding here is that some people have not been as honest to their community as is desirable. Others think there is a matter of ethics to be addressed. Others would like to have an ombudsman made known to the community through which they can move forward with perceptions of legal and ethical misconduct and air grievances about a lack of honesty on the part of elected officials and others. In many ways the community in traumatized and some people are scared and frightened. Some were in tears.
4. The Issues of Economics and the Environment
Well, who would not jump at the opportunity to have have a spanking new sewerage system and there were consultants around that could argue the case in volumes of paperwork that no one in their right mind would ever read. I myself would like to speak to the economist that did the cost benefit study for the project and who evaluated the financial costs involved for the small village of Grand Bend.
Well, I exaggerate on the downside because if you count all the cars and trucks that get stuck in traffic jams crossing the local bridge and negotiating the electric traffic lights, you arrive at a much larger population figure, possibly as high as 50,000 though I don't think a count of the residences in the village using google would come that large.
It's a village less than half the size of Kincardine at the best of times, and has a much smaller population of less than 2,000. Small villages exaggerate their tourist trade just the way small villages exaggerate the number of fish and their size caught in the local streams, which can't be very many given the absence of serious fisher folk in the community. In Kincardine the fisher people sit in the harbor and are visible, but not so in booming Grand Bend, where they vanish to the Caribbean to fish or something like that. We get party goers and pleasure seekers that come and go faster than the geese.
So if the project costs $2 million and 2,000 people have to pay for it, the cost is $1,000 per person above what people are already paying. Maybe the number of households is less and the cost of the project is much higher and borrowed funds are being used. If that is the case then, the project is an unviable venture economically. It is better for the village to improve existing facilities to the tune of $1,000 each.
We heard from many experts and some told us that the option of improving existing facilities could be a better alternative to the huge capital project envisioned. It would be better for the provincial park as well.
Since I don't know the true number of village households, which seem to be small, and the true costs of the project which seem to be enormous, I am only to guess at what the per capita costs of a wasteful, pun intended, capital project might be!
Summing Up
Everyone in the village and in the surrounding area is keen that Grand Bend do it's part in keeping water clean and the environment pristine. We don't accept that the proposed capital project is the answer to genuine needs of the Provincial Park, the Village Community and the farms and businesses of the area.
It may be that because the village is divided up in some many directions by counties and authorities, we don't think as one, but this is because we do not have a community heart based on a logical political process unencumbered by artificial division based on past eras that hardly seem relevant to present day needs. Out population is transient so it is easy to fool us some of the time.
Somehow the politics, the opportunities for making money out of a failed community structure, and the lack of a community heart gave way to the ball being dropped and a ridiculous spending program being approved that does not address real needs and are more in the imaginations of consultants wanting to sell capital projects than people answering the call of nature and feeling something was due. Our administrators appear to have been marketing something that most people in the village feel that we can well do without. People have made lots of money researching the wrong issues and coming up with the wrong solutions.
In conclusion, this whole process is a waste of our time, money and future resources and should never have happened and we are surprised it ever did happen!
Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.