In my view, the municipality acts of Ontario are somewhat lacking and instead of leading to good governance, they are leading to the self destruction of communities and bad governance. Reformation of the parliamentary system may indeed be needed because larger governing bodies may suffer from the same weaknesses as the municipalities. The whole province may harbour pockets of communities that may be governed corruptly.
Having lived in Quebec during the time of Duplessis, It would not be the first time governing bodies abused their electorate and the whole system was fundamentally deficient.
It seems that even if the majority of people are against some thing in Grand Bend, they can be forced to accept it, because they live within Lambton Shores, a municipality that has more authority. Yes, quite! And, it has more scope for bad government, or corrupt government.
The issue of sewerage systems is an environmental issue, but the identity of those being forced to change to an environmentally inferior system is at risk. It's like a city closing down a forest because it does not like trees. Yes! You my reader can understand that a city that closes down a forest because it does not like trees is not good for the forest.
In Grand Bend, a community within a city is being force into making changes that will alter the character of the village. Just the process of change will destroy a struggling community spirit of the village, pitting people against each other, and will cut into the forest to make changes that it claims are an improvement, but which village says it does not need, nor want. The city also says that the village must pay for these unwanted changes. In essence, the city is a bully, is environmentally destructive and fails to meet the challenges of good governance.
An earlier comment in my blog pages was that sewage systems engineers can come to govern a community. This notion was taken from someone with long experience in fighting an ineffective sewerage system. This person, a lawyer, claimed that no one else knew more about sewer systems.
The identity crisis facing Grand Bend is happening because of the linear thinking process that governs the projections into the future of trends that cannot continue without fundamentally altering the character of the Ontario environment.
When villages should be villages, the community has now to behave like a city. This is a recipe for disaster. A village needs to be a village if the community is to pull together.
One could be forgiven if one thinks that the shit methods of the city and it's problems are being foisted on an innocent village community and a sewer of a problem is destroying it's spirit.
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.
