Saturday, May 16,,1992 Bis 5 PAGE = = = S Dave McCullough Publisher OurWiEWS One Canada with Quebec eave it to ordinary people to | solve Canada’s indentity crisis. Take the Castlegar Kiwanis Club, for example. Using human initiative, our Kiwanis Club is trying to bridge the gap between Canada and Quebec. This summer, representatives from the Castlegar Kiwanis Club will extend a warm hand to our French- speaking cousins in an effort to overcome this nation’s constitutional bickering. It’s a kind-hearted gesture that shouldn’t go unnoticed. Bruce and Nancy Ketchum will be this club’s ambassadors as they travel across la belle province, meeting and greeting fellow Kiwanis Club members. . Representing Castlegar, the Ketchums will be carrying a simple message with them. — Our Canada includes Quebec. The message may be simple, but it certainly is effective. For far too long, Canadian politicians have tried tinkering with the concept of Canada to the satisfaction of no one. It is time to push self-serving politicians aside and let ordinary citizens take strides towards a united Canada. If we truly love this country —a nation which includes Quebec — we must save it. A Canada without Quebec is hardly a nation to be proud of. Canada is built on differences — differences that can’t be legislated. Don’t be mistaken, our Canada does include Quebec — today and everyday. AdrianRAESIDE {a8tlegar NewS -aty ie VE kcccccccceecaccadasddd ~— Fixing city’s planning disasters Planning has been a foreign word in Castlegar for decades... just take a look around. The city is a tangle of conflicting land uses: industrial businesses shoulder to shoulder with apartment. complexes, a radio station smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood and commercial businesses lockstepping their way from one end of Columbia Avenue - & “ Ron NORMAN a ra he, | Comments from the Crossroads recommending changes at public hearings. But that’s still some months away. Right now the committee is pouring over information from _ its recent questionnaire that it mailed randomly to 465 households. Ours’ was one of those | households. (How come I ' am one of the ‘lucky’ few selected to fill out a city questionnaire, but I never to the other in one big strip development. But the City of Castlegar is out to change all that when it updates its Official Community Plan this fall. The plan will be the blueprint for growth in Castlegar through the turn of the century. A steering committee headed by Walter Flux (best known for his CURB activities) and made up of residents from each of the city neighborhoods will be reviewing the existing community plan and win the lottery. Not even close. Is that fair?) The questionnaire asked about things like land use: ‘Do you support increasing the density of housing as new homes are built Gie. more multiple family residential and-smaller lots?)’ Personally, I like large lots. I live in a smaller house on a large lot. I wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s one of the reasons I don’t live in the city. please see NORMAN page 7 Streeif TALK Question: Is it fair for the regional district to pass a bylaw forcing people to clean their yards? Leroy Player Castlegar “Certainly. Clean that mess up.” Ann-Marie Leckie Wetaskawin “No, it’s private property.” Geoff Verigin Castlegar “Yes, it would keep the city beautiful.” Ryan Leckie Castlegar “No, people should do what they want Chris Miller Castlegar “Yes. Unclean yards can be dangerous.” with their yards.” im Saturday, May 16963" - se dThe News OtherVIEWS Please address all letters to: Letters to the Editor Castlegar News P.O. Box 3007 Castlegar, B.C. V1N 3H4 or deliver them to ~ 197 Columbia _ Ave. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not longer than 300 words. Letters MUST be signed and include the writer's first and last names, address and a telephone number at which the writer can be reached between 9a.m. and 5 p.m. The writer’s name and city or town of residence only will be published. Only in exceptional cases will letters be published anonymously. Even in those cases, the name, address and phone number of the writer MUST be disclosed to the editor. The News reserves the right to edit letters for brevity, clarity, legality, grammar and taste. Letters tohHE EDITOR City must start building tomorrow today Plans for a better tomorrow must be put in place today. What would you like Pp see happen to our fine city in the future? Being in the centre, we are the hub and the area around us is the wheel. Our responsibilities are to help maintain growth and development in our region. What we do in our community affects much more than we realize. Our industrial park should have brought a great deal of services to us but through lack of proper promotion and the continued recession period we have had plagued our town, we have missed a great deal of development. Celgar is giving us two things at the present time: cleaner environment and capital to work with. So let’s get busy and develop. I am sure Celgar would like nothing more than to see Castlegar develop into more than a single-industrial central as it is now. Putting road blocks up to so many developers and businesses to stop development in our town is wrong but that’s what we continue to do. . As an example, all the mall proposals put to the city have run to a stand still through lack of co-operation. The malls have been told you pay for the services to hook up to the city which in my opinion is a red light on development. If the city paid for the services for a mall to become operational let’s see what we would get. Taxes from this venture would pay back the city very quickly and continue to grow which would give us the capital to improve our streets and services to the community. So let’s get some green lights going before it's to late. William Warner Castlegar This share movement is trying to ignore one very major factor, the resource industries have not shared for decades. In fact, they have been taking and taking, polluting and ignoring all the danger signs and protests. Now, when we say stop and let’s make sure we know what ‘we're doing, they say share. It’s rather late for that, and very arrogant. Yes, sometimes environmental groups, concerned individuals, political parties and even elected officials go too far in trying to stop the monumental pressure that the resource industries, both locally-owned and foreign-controlled, have been and are still putting on this ever-more delicate earth. Please excuse us for overdoing it occasionally. Also, please realize that overdoing it is all relative. The broader implications of our treatment of the environment are far more important to the future of this planet than the process about -which this letter. This century’s worldview, or social para- digm, is still inextricably linked to the notion that humans are here to dominate their sur- roundings. Ultimately, this opinion will lead to distinction of our species. Today, there is no away from the assump- tion that we can dominate and use the re- sources indefinitely, and for that reason alone, Industry ignoring precious resources In our present situation, here on planet earth, we don’t have a long time to reverse the very real destruction and threat to the presence of life on earth as we have known it. This is not just the opinion of the Joe average environmentalists. This has been shown over and over again in countless reports, studies, commissions and scientific papers, by the very people trained to look at life as a whole. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that if people and other living things are dying in the rocket ship, you stop everything until you find out what’s wrong. Earth is a rocket ship for.all of us, hurtling through space, protected by its ‘shell’ of ozone and atmosphere. But this ‘big’ experiment is going wrong and our protective shell is starting to disintegrate. Measuring the real cost I negate the importance of a recent environ- mental assessment compiled by the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. The ministry is hardly an objective institu- tion on the matter of protection of the envi- ronment. The Ministry of Health would be a far more important co-sponsor, since it in- volves each and every resident of British Co- lumbia, and the potential pollution that could occur. Again, the social paradigm prevalent in this century is that science and technology can ‘fix’ ‘As well, hundreds of species of living creatures on this rocket. ship planet earth are dying out. Extinct. That means no longer exist. Period. Wouldn’t you say that there is a great deal of reason to be concerned. This ‘experiment’ is going very wrong. I’m sorry if you feel that we are being extremist or uncaring about some of the resource-based industries and jobs. But,| me, I’d rather see all of mankind have to live a much simpler life with much less money and toys, than to know that there’s very little hope for our great-grandchildren and their great-grandchildren, to be able to look out their windows and see a forest, or butterflies or deer. or birds flying and fish in their streams. Keith Light, Winlaw of pollution whatever damage extraction of the resources causes. Hubris — arrogant pride — is at an all- time high in the Western world, we think we know everything and we can fix anything. The real cost of pollution cannot be mea- sured in dollars, but in the future of the human species. Allowing the local community — de- centralization — to make the decisions about their surroundings is what is required, at the very least. Donna Whitta Nelson Norman continued from page 6 If I wanted a small lot, I might as well be in Vancouver. Of course, not everyone feels the same as me. Plenty of people don’t want to spend the time it takes to care fora large lot. So maybe the best solution for future development is to provide a nice mix so that those of us who like large lots can have a choice and those who don’t can also have a choice. As for multi-family units, I think they are best in areas zoned for that — perhaps as an ‘entry’ from retail commercial areas to single-family residential areas. I know I wouldn’t want an apartment block at the end of my street. For one thing, the street couldn’t take the increase in traf- fic that multi-family units bring. Another land-use question was: ‘Do you support the notion of al- lowing further highway commer- cial development along Columbia Avenue between the hotel area at Highway 3 and 24th St. (Kinnaird Hall? We already have a pretty ugly- looking strip development along Columbia Avenue north from the interchange. Do we really want to continue that on the other side of Columbia as well? (Wouldn't that make the corner at 24th Street a real mess? It’s al- ready dangerous enough as it is. Imagine it if there were all sorts of businesses in that area with cars turning in and out and children crossing on their way to the rec complex and Kinnaird Elemen- tary. Lovely.) The questionnaires were to be returned to city hall by May 8 and by last count more than half had been completed and sent in. However, if any readers have strong feelings about the future growth of Castlegar, they can look up the questionnaire in the April 22 issue of the CasNews (page 18) and then call the Development Services Department (365-7227) _with their suggestions. The questionnaire is just the latest in a process that started last year. A key document for updating the community plan is the Com- prehensive Development Plan- ning Study prepared by Urban Systems Ltd. last August. The study shows the areas of Castlegar that need upgrading and provides options for future residential, commercial and in- dustrial growth. It also takes a look at what ser- vices the city will need to upgrade in order to accommodate growth over the next 10 and 20 years. You'll be surprised at how much money growth costs us. But more on that in next week’s column.