BLOOD

 

Mass unregulated development is the story of neoliberal economics. Free markets, meaning unregulated markets are favored over free people and their communities. The church knows best, the Fuhrer knows best, and the free market always knows best.

So-called development, be it oil rigs, mines or skyscrapers, without legitimate regulations to protect citizens and environments creates tragedies on a global scale.

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The epidemic of urban gentrification across the globe satisfies investors but displaces vast numbers of people who, by choice or necessity, set up home in neighbourhoods once discarded and ignored by the very class that now wishes to move back in. The rapid growth of downtown condominiums, gated communities and large residential projects also represent an urban tragedy as they erase beautiful old buildings and natural habitats replacing them with a sterile architecture and urban planning that looks away from past (and more sustainable) traditions, skills and ways of living.        

 

The modern real estate speculator is a disciple of the free market. His higher power is not nature or community but profit. Capitalism provides his moral justification to be greedy. The greater the profit, regardless of the human and environmental carnage, the better. So-called urban development today abolishes all hope to create a sustainable future defined by equity and justice. If we don’t correct our ways soon, there will be a lot more unhealthy development, a lot more corporate greed and corruption, a lot more human and environmental tragedies, and a lot more blood.

 

 

LOVE YOUR LOCAL OTTER

 

In the early spring of 2020, I brought my boat down the St Lawrence River to Picton harbour. Most boats were waiting for municipal approval for a crane that would lift them into the water. This approval would not come until the end of May because of Covid-19. For the month of April and most of May, mine was the only vessel in the harbour. The pandemic had greatly reduced commercial water and air transportation and, in the 25 years I lived in this area, I don't ever remember the air and water quality being so clean.  
 
The otters, which I had not seen in years, returned and quickly grew comfortable with my presence. Their playful shenanigans left me greatly entertained and I was humbled by their intelligence. Across the harbor beavers, also comfortable that I was not a threat, went about their magnificent engineering business.  

In June, as Covid-19 restrictions were eased, work was resumed on a recently green-lit, large waterfront development across the harbour that would see trees levelled to give way to 300 new houses, none of which would be for people on fixed or limited incomes. The local municipality was thrilled to approve this and other developments as they meant new tax dollars. The otter, the beaver and many other residents of the area, human and nonhuman, did not share the municipalty’s enthusiasm. The water is now visibly polluted with diesel, gasoline, and sewage run off. I haven't seen the otters nor beavers in over a month and, when I look across the harbor to the former beaver's realm, I see only smoke and flames. The roaring of excavation equipment is relentless and deafening. Such are the sounds of development!

Back in April when I was alone with the otters, I would have told you that this pandemic was a game changer and that it would force us all to re-evaluate how we live, work and play. I would have told you this because I then believed it to be true, just like I then believed that mass development and consumption were no longer fit for man or beast. 

Perhaps the next pandemic, which they say is inevitable, will wake us from our collective ignorance and arrogance. I fear we might have to wait until Wall Street executives are forced to travel to their place of business in canoes before humility and reason prevails. 

 

 

FOGO OR BUST

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A few years ago, I had the opportunity to travel across Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, as I conducted safety-related work for NAV Canada. When I arrived at different work locations, I noticed that no matter where I landed (Moncton, Quebec City. Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton or Vancouver), the route from the airport appeared to be the same: rows upon rows of large box stores accompanied by wave after wave of condos and parking lots.

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At the end of my contract, I decided to drive from the North East to the South West of Ontario. As I made my way through large towns and smaller cities in the Province I call home, I was greeted by the same familiar and disquieting landscape of box stores, vast parking lots and condos.  The downtowns and main streets offered little comfort with old historic buildings and homes found in a heart-breaking state of decay and abandonment. I asked myself, how did we get here? In whose eyes were these developments a sign of desirable progress? Was there still room for beauty, history, and originality in our lives?

Certainly, there is, and Fogo Island, off the North East Coast of Newfoundland, is a wonderful example. The Fogo Island Inn, the surrounding artists’ studios and most of all the beautiful and well-maintained old houses on the island are a magnificent example of how you can keep a candle burning brightly for the past as well as for the future.

 

 

THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN

 

There was an old woman who lived in an old house. She baked, split wood, grew vegetables and knitted quilts. She would tap the maple trees for their sap and her maple syrup was a most sought after and cherished commodity. As a younger woman she had hunted, trapped and fished with her father. As I got to know her, I learnt of her history. Her house had been built by her grandfather who, as a young man, had fled Napoleon's wrath in Europe. The skills and techniques he used in building the house were from the old country and had been passed down through the centuries like Bedouin poetry. 

Every night the old woman would light a candle and place it in her front window. I assumed this was for her husband who had passed away many years before. The last time I saw her, I inquired about the candle. She smiled and told me that the burning candle was a beacon for the future, not unlike a lighthouse that guides ships to safety in the dark hours. Her last words to me were to advise the future, if I saw it before she did, to never forget the ways of the past. 

After many years away travelling, I returned home and went looking for the old woman's house. I was hoping the sight of her burning candle would offer me the same safe sense of residency it had given me years prior, like a ship after a lengthy voyage resting safely at its dock.  But alas, I could not find the house. At first, I thought I was lost but realized I was not. Sadly, her home and several others were gone and in the sacred place where the candle used to burn there was now a shopping mall. This sight stopped me in my tracks as I realized that the future was dead on arrival.