Quote:
Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian
Yes, that is a Canadian value, 100 percent. But its not a Canadian value to accept ignorance and all ideas because somebody has them. This is why people like Romeo Dallaire are great Canadians.
Dude is from the US. I don't really care what he has to say because he "has an opinion". There are really bad opinions. They have as much value as their content.
This guy is negative Nancy.
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Yeah, I read through the piece. It's very snarky. Sniping about this and that thing, often spinning things in the least charitable way possible.
I'm surprised he's so negative. After all, this was the year that this city rid itself of the Bedford Plague. That is, Peter Kelly. And he played a central role in that.
No matter my disagreements with Bousquet on policy and politics-- and there are many-- I think the city owes him a debt for his investigative work on the Kelly file.
Now, admittedly, there were a lot of dumb decisions this year by Council-- tearing up Chain of Lakes Trail for a sewer pipe to run sewer from Timberlea to downtown is one of them...-- and unfortunate happenings, but they were small and, in a year, with a city of almost half a million, you're going to get bad decisions from time to time.
On the whole, agreed, this was a great year for Halifax; from gaining Mike Savage; ridding Peter Kelly; gaining some great new Councillors like Waye Mason; getting the Convention Center going; finishing off the new Library (mostly); a bunch of awesome new developments proposed for downtown; some sense (emphasis on some) on HRM Council about benefits from investing downtown and curbing sprawl.
I think Bousquet is mostly bitter about the Convention Center. For some reason, he hates that thing with a passion, and I just don't know why.
But Bousquet's opinion on the Center is not necessarily a "foreign" or American one. In fact, it's as Nova Scotian as the Bluenose. I know a lot of people outside of Halifax, in rural areas, who resent the development and Halifax's (seeming) good fortunes. Also plenty Haligonians who hate it too-- mostly the STV / Heritage crowd, and their allies, people who often self-identify as "progressive" but are actually profoundly conservative when it comes to developments and progress and change in the city.
Bousquet is wrong about the Convention Center. He'll eat his words when it's a success.
PS: I do agree with Bousquet that the city buying up houses along Highway 102/Connaught on the one hand, and then pretending that the decision hasn't already been made about the Bayers widening is bullshit. Looks bad, like "the fix" is in for any Council votes later. Like HRM staff are already sinking costs into the project so that it can later be spun as a fait accompli when presented to Council. IMHO, HRM Staff did this with the Bloomfield development, after staff basically rigged the selection criteria so the Provincial bid would win over a much higher quality and much better development proposal from Louis Lawen. They were like "sorry, we need to award it at this point!" Even though Council didn't like it.
I think the forthcoming Light Rail report, and any ideas on rapid public transit, should be considered before any more new major / multi-million dollar road widening projects are pursued. Or, at the very least, the two things would be twinned: if the City embarks on spending tens of millions on Bayers/102, it should, at the same time, embark on a major Light Rail project. I'm all about compromise.
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