My Storey

We moved here 12 years ago due to the weather, environment, rural atmosphere and recreational opportunities and peaceful lifestyle the previous allow. We did not move here to be play a part in overdeveloping and urbanizing one our Provinces gems. That may be a funny thing to say but it seems many like to measure a communities value by it's economic development first and foremost. Economic development being more people, more houses, more jobs more money, more, more and more until the place is overrun and congested to the point of being less attractive to those who want to escape the infernal economic machine and rat race. Progress does not need to be Remote to Rural to Urban to Metropolitan to be deemed as successful.

Progress can be measured more effectively by examining the quality of life that people enjoy, health, safety, education, recreation, social stability, feeling of community etc.

Looking forward 10 years I would like to see a greater interest in preserving what we have as opposed to continuously and consistently looking for ways to increase our "economic net gain".

Some important issues to focus on would be, -seniors housing and support yes we tried that without success but maybe now after watching the effects of C19 we can have a different perspective, the winter population of Seniors in the community may now be much larger as snowbird options may be effected by the C19 issue complicated by insurance issues for out of country travel. -greater protection of our environment and respect for the boundaries we have created thus far to protect it, we are doing some good things but we are still encroaching on and stressing the limits in many areas, much room for improvement to be had in all areas of land, water and air, -a recycling, reuse and reduce initiative that goes beyond the basic, we are still filling our landfill with many things that could be better dealt with, -a clean air policy that addresses the smoke filled skies and toxic air we endure from back yard waste burning every fall and spring, -tangible support and promotion of agriculture for food purposes, our local food security is not very good at this time and once again the C19 issues have highlighted the issues surrounding, production and delivery when relying on others to feed us, -supporting our youth, better said our teens who are "expected" to act as adults but just aren't there yet, at this time we offer them very little, no place to hang out and not much available that addresses their needs which are much different than ours,,,

This all may sound a bit unrealistic to some but what we all need and probably know is that the present systems we hold so dear are not sustainable, don't adequately address many of our issues and that eventually we will need to make some drastic changes in how we plan for our futures and live our daily lives, yes we will give up a few things but in turn the gains will balance the perceived losses.

The greatest critique of "suppressing" development is loss of jobs, but those may be conventional jobs in sectors that really don't give us meaningful progress, when one looks towards a saner existence jobs will be found there as well,,,,there will always be something to do, just what the direction we want to take is the question.