Where Will They Live?

It seems to be a growing trend in Brantford for neighbours and others to oppose any development of any kind. While there may be some legitimate concerns that need to be addressed in some cases, what if all development was to cease? Where would your children live? I guess they could live in your basement while they waited for you to die so they could inherit the upstairs and let their children take over the basement or they could just leave town to somewhere where housing was still available, never to return . And your elderly parents who can no longer look after themselves? Guess you could just put them on an ice floe in the Grand River next spring to float off to their death. And new immigrants? Sorry, go elsewhere even if you have needed skills. Doctors needed to fill the growing shortage? Forget about Brantford? There will be few homes available and those homes that are available will be in high demand. Student housing? Forget it. Might as well move the University back to Waterloo.

And to those critics: what if this attitude prevailed 50 or 100 years ago? Would you still have a house or apartment to live in? Not likely. And make no mistake about it, your current residence created the same problems that you are are so concerned about. Your house disturbed the natural environment and removed wildlife habitat. Your house is blocking someone else's view. Your house is occupying land that the Indians claim as theirs. Land had to cleared at some point for your house to be built. And just how many trees have you planted on your property? Or have you cut down trees that were there when you moved in( a growing trend in Brantford and one of the reasons for the low forest cover percentage in this city)? The land that your house sits on could also be used as farmland. Your house and its inhabitants caused increased pressure on all city services. Your vehicles are causing congestion on city streets and spewing out pollution. Even if your house was only the second one built in Brantford, it was urban sprawl.

The population of the World, Canada and Brantford is steadily increasing. Where will these people live? Not in Brantford apparently. Seems that in this city the prevailing attitude is "I've got mine, to heck with everyone else". NIMBY, NIMBY, NIMBY.

Christmas Lights: Enjoy Them While You Can

When I was young, most Christmas lights didn't get put up much before the middle of December and Christmas trees were often erected on Christmas Eve or not more than the week before. But, of course, this was back when most trees were real and after several weeks of being in the house they were shedding needles at an alarming rate. And what artificial trees there were had limbs that looked like toilet brushes only green. Strings of lights would go out altogether if even one bulb failed and you had to keep changing bulbs until you found the culprit. Outdoor lights were bulky and often subject to this same problem.

Now we have artificial trees that often look better than the real thing and are more environmentally friendly with many having lights that are part of the tree itself and not dependent on the other lights to keep working. Also outdoor lights are smaller and their cords less brittle with a variety of clips to make hanging them easier. So now lights and trees start appearing soon after Halloween. Early though it may seen to us old timers, they do provide a cheeriness to dreary November evenings.

But things might change in the coming year with lights and trees not being hauled out until closer to Christmas again. With the imminent coming of the so called "smart" meter for electricity, rates for the 5-9 pm hours will be 9.3¢/kwh as compared to the current rate of 5.7¢/kwh or approximately a 60% increase. And on top of that will be another 8% due to the HST which is scheduled to come into effect next summer. As people face these skyrocketing electrical bills, Christmas lights could easily be a casualty. I'm sure those hypocrites like Al Gore and David Suzuki will smile to look down from their jets as they fly overhead to their waiting limousines and see cities in darkness but for the rest of us it will be another loss to the greed of the Ontario McGuinty Government.

Poking Your Neighbour In The Eye

Why is it that the Indian land claims protesters just target the areas next to the reserve for their protests? They claim that all the land for six miles on either side of the Grand River belongs to them (a false claim), yet they don't bother to protest developments in the rest of this area, even though there is far more development going on in places like Cambridge, Kitchener and Fergus. Instead they continually disrupt meetings and the construction sites of their closest neighbours while complaining that some treat them with contempt. I guess it just easier to just poke your neighbour in the eye with a sharp stick then to bother to actually travel to other cities where the same things that they are against here take place.

Oh, Rats!

Councilor Carpenter is now claiming that the building on the south side of Colborne St. ,that the city is expropriating, are so overrun with rats that they will need to be fumigated before being torn down to stop herds of displaced rats from running wild in the downtown. If this is really true and Mr. Carpenter has been aware of it, why did he allow this situation to exist? There is a Building Standards Bylaw with a section dealing with rodents and vermin. Why did he not see that it was enforced long ago? After all, there were several restaurants in this section (where was the Health Dept. for that matter?), not to mention a number of tenants living in these buildings as well. Shouldn't he have been concerned with the well being of the citizens of Brantford before this? Councilor Carpenter has expressed an interest in becoming the next mayor. Maybe a better position for him would be "Official Rat Catcher".

Mayor Littell

Mr. Littell is not satisfied with destroying the downtown, now he wants a chance to destroy the rest of the city.