Dear editor:
Here are a few recent headlines from the Niagara-on-the-Lake weekly paper, The Lake Report:
“Developer given permit after beginning work illegally” (Oct. 2); “Developer seeks town’s help in $1.4 million restoration” (Oct. 2); “Residents dispute Four Mile Creek apartment proposal” (June 5); “The Turner Report: ‘Corruption and democratic erosion.’ Not Trump — here” (June 12); “Arch-i-text: Analyzing the Shaw’s plans for the Royal George Theatre” (June 19); “The Turner Report: Chasing the elusive: Leaders who will listen” (May 22); “Developer threatens to sue councillors personally over Rand Estate” (May 15).
Niagara-on-the-Lake (once touted as “the prettiest little town in Canada”) has undergone a sea change in the last 20 years.
Now the Old Town has become a textbook example of how a handful of mega-developers can turn a national heritage centre into a developer’s theme park.
Even the Shaw Festival has gone more than a little crazy in its efforts to tear down two historical houses in order to expand its secondary theatre.
These things just don’t happen. Not in a genuine democracy anyway. But, in Canada, our two big competing political parties have been playing leapfrog over the grim remains of a once proud nation.
As one article’s title above indicates, all this is a sorry story of political corruption, which goes along with the erosion of democratic modes of government.
And it is very significant that our Ontario premier appears to have his finger, if not his whole hand, in the changes which are afflicting Niagara.
Doug Ford and his Royal Republican advisors have played a key role in the war against farmlands, wetlands, woodlands, heritage properties, affordable housing and the fabric of Ontario society.
Many people may be addicted to many things, but Ford appears to be addicted to the company of multi-millionaires and billionaires. He is all over them like a huge, fuzzy Care Bear.
Ford spends an inordinate amount of his time passing laws and giving speeches encouraging the decimation of the environment, the gutting of libraries and health-care systems, the high-signing of shock developments, and the need for ordinary citizens to back off from all these matters.
He has become the role model for Niagara’s mayors.
On the other hand, Ford is all over environmentalists, concerned citizens, democratic safeguards, and the rule of law like a gorilla. While he blesses friendly billionaires with the same unction as the Pope blesses the faithful at St. Peter’s, he has no use at all for anyone who tries to defend their democratic rights.
These revolting developments in Niagara-on-the-Lake are such blatant examples of functional illiteracy in the pursuit of billions that they need to be held up in front of the faces of the voters of Ontario, that is, in front of the remaining people in this province who still read, think and care.
Kevin McCabe
St. Catharines
