Earlier this week, I posted about what some of the needs of my community are in regards to the upcoming election. At the end of the article, I mentioned I would be mentioning my own personal issues, and here they are.
1. Help for small businesses. There has been a big expectation that big business can save us. I believe in quite the opposite. It is the small business owners who really drive our economy help build community in our communities. These people need better support and flexibility so they can hire local workers and weather various peaks and valleys in the economy.
2. Clean energy. As I sit here in my coal powered house (all local power comes from goal burning power plants), I can’t help but wonder when the country is going to embrace the huge abundance of green energy we have all around us. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be taking advantage of wind, solar and tidal energy. People complain about the noise if windmills? Have you ever parked next to a coal plant and listened to the noise from one of those? They just reclaimed old mining grounds in our town, and now there is a huge empty field where the wind blows off the water constantly, why are there no wind turbines capturing this and supplying our town with energy? Why has there been no attempt to take advantage of the geothermal potential with the miles and miles of abandoned mines which stretch out all around us? It’s time to step out and take bold new steps in terms of energy production. Our planet demands it!
3. Investing in sustainable projects. I’m not going to be very popular with this point. It is expected that later today our Prime Minister will make an announcement in regards to the Lower Churchill Energy Project. This has a lot of potential, no doubt. But what I hear politicians saying is it will create thousands of jobs in the local economy here in Cape Breton. This makes no sense to me. The cable will run by here on it’s way to everywhere else, how will this create thousands of jobs. It may create some local construction jobs, but I believe the “thousands” is very exaggerated. Yes, the project is a good idea, let’s not make it into something it can’t be.
The other huge project being considered around here is to dredge Sydney harbour to allow for development of a large shipping yard. Why don’t we just pour the $38 million into the harbour and watch it wash away? This project makes no sense to me at all. Halifax, with 2 shipping terminals and an extensive transportation system, runs no where near full capacity. But we’re more than happy to throw good money at a hopeless project, then even more to upgrade our highways and railway for the potential transportation requirements that won’t be needed because the port won’t be utilized. I’m sorry, but this project is being set up as a grand saviour for the Cape Breton economy, in the end we’ll see it was not. You want to help the local economy? See point #1 above.
These are my own personal thoughts around this election and some issues I would like to see addressed on top of what I have already identified in my post earlier this week. Next week I hope to start looking at the policies of the various parties and pitting them against what I have identified in these two posts.
Stay tuned!