Dear Editor,
A Modest Proposal
(with apologies to satirist Jonathon Swift, an early proponent of the value of ‘alternate facts’)
We all know that our hardworking provincial government is getting unfair, ill-informed pushback from mere citizens who have the nerve to have opinions about the placement of a necessary jail near the centre of Kemptville. What small town does not want more residents?
There are nervy others who dare to question the paving over of a designated wetland east of Toronto for the clearly very necessary purpose of building Canada’s largest Amazon warehouse. Where is their national pride? Big counts.
Ridiculously, still other malcontents have the audacity to challenge the new “Ag Gag laws”, clearly designed to help keep feedlot farmers doing the important work of feeding growth antibiotics and GMO corn and soy to future hamburgers. If we don’t use most of our farmland for these two crops, what on earth else could we grow? Food for people, not animals? Foolish.
We are told that some farmers “feel unsafe” and at the mercy of so-called animal rights activists who wrongly dare to wonder why cows, pigs, and chickens do not have the same protections as cats and dogs. The answer is just as obvious: we are civilized people who do not eat pets. Very high fines are in order for anyone who spies on these proprietary businesses. No one wants to know what goes on in these facilities.
The Honourable Steve Clarke is clearly doing his best to protect the imprisoned, farmers, and struggling startups like Amazon from the predations of dangerous local activists, whose narrow, parochial interests couldn’t possibly be for the greater good.
Given the poor Ontario Government is getting such biased criticism back from its own ungrateful citizens, I present a modest proposal, a solution that bypasses the ungrateful citizenry.
I applaud their clever insertion into omnibus bills of clauses to overrule local conservation authorities, local governments, and to support developers who currently have a greater understanding, and whose political positions are in no way compromised by the large profits they stand to make from the redeployment of such useless lands.
Your government’s use of Ministerial Zoning Overrides has not been taken far enough. Please, Mr. Clarke, use YOUR authority to fill in a couple of OUR local wetlands — one for a prison, and another for an Amazon warehouse. You are OUR M.P.P. Fill in OUR wetlands, not just those in other jurisdictions. We are loyal people who have voted conservative, both provincially and federally, since Confederation. Reward us. Don’t believe this nonsense that wetlands are ecologically necessary. Far better to have prisons and low-wage gig-economy jobs. Low-wage jobs are better than none.
We know that you know better than us. We trust you to solve all of our local problems centrally. Please save us from ourselves.
Steve Clarke’s calendar:
I just looked through my ‘free’ calendar of “terrific local events and activities” of 2021.
What a surprise: no mention of a prison at all, so, by his own admission, it is neither “terrific” or “local” in origin.
Darrell Nunn
