Controlled growth in business park plan

(August 04) -The Hanlon Creek Business Park is back on the front pages. A group of protesters camped out on the site last week. They vowed to stay there for as long as it takes to stop the project.

We are lucky to have these fine young women and men in our midst. They appear to know a lot more than the bureaucrats, consultants and scientists who have studied the area at great length. These people were in an obvious collusion with those who would destroy the environment and endanger our future.

In league with the Grand River Conservation Authority, they very cunningly set conditions on development. According to official sources, these included things like protection of the old growth forest grove, including all heritage trees except two that couldn’t be saved; protection of provincially significant wetlands; restoration of 10 hectares of meadowland; 20 hectares of tree plantings to increase the existing tree canopy coverage; and protection of ground water quality.

Fortunately for us, the protesters are not fools. They are not blinded by the glare of science. They know better. They know the world will be a better place when salamanders outnumber jobs.

They are even willing to lay down their cellphones, turn off their Twitters and follow the Salamander Messiah. This is the one that crawled out of its streambed in a valiant effort to save its species. It wasn’t exactly the Jefferson you might think would be the anointed saviour. It was a common hybrid. A salamander of the people.

It was found dead on the road. There have never been any reports that it was run over by a car or a truck. So it must have crawled out of the mud, struggled halfway across the pavement and expired. No other salamander has ever given itself so selflessly. No other has broken with the normal behaviour of its species in order to save its comrades.

Either that or it fell out of someone’s pocket.

We can be confident these protesters will lay down their cellphones. The press release announcing their good intentions points out several reasons to oppose the business park. One is that the land was used by indigenous people as a hunting and gathering ground for 11,000 years.

If this is good enough reason to oppose development, it is good enough to oppose cellphone towers constructed on those same ancient hunting grounds. No self-respecting activist would sully sacred ground by using it to tweet out a Facebook message.

It is not easy to be an environmental activist in the 21st century. The only acceptable blackberries should be the ones growing in bramble bushes. They are good for eating, but not for meeting. To get any kind of political movement these days, you need the wireless kind, but they depend on the types of high tech industries the city hopes to attract to Hanlon Creek. So what do you do?

The protesters say we don’t need a city “that has effectively become a mouthpiece for developers that only care about making a profit for the already wealthy.”

Absolutely true.

That’s why we helped bounce the last crowd out of office. We replaced them with new councillors, many of whom are committed to controlled growth that balances economic, environmental and social needs. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It still is.

Back in the good old days at the turn of the century we called it Smart Guelph. No one voted in 2006 for no growth. We wanted controlled growth. The Hanlon Creek Business Park is a textbook example of this. Apparently it’s still not good enough for some people.