Garbage and Pride - A measure of Dunderdale's success!

How many of you notice the garbage everywhere - in ditches, on the streets, in the woods, stuck to fences, hanging off trees, and flying in the air?

First of all - most of this garbage is from adults - not from kids. Tossing stuff out of the car window and commercial vehicles driving along the outer-ring road spewing unprotected waste - on the way to the dump. Then there are retail parking lots - or just outside their borders - the mounds of waste; branded as applicable. I'm starting to wonder if they consider tens of thousands of Tim Horton's cups decorating our landscape as good advertising?

I'm wondering if there is a way to keep the Colonels boxes penned in - the chickens are far more controlled than the litter is.

Then my favorite, washing machines dumped in the woods just outside of the city boundaries, car wrecks here and there, bits of metal, remains of transport truck tires providing a slalom course on the Trans Canada highway.

More disgusting than all of this are children being tasked to pick up the garbage as a volunteer effort.

So what makes adults toss their waste all over the place; anywhere other than the dump or garbage container? What makes adults desire to live, drive, walk, and run amidst the flying debris?

The answer is a lack of pride. There is no pride left. It has been stripped from our population by lazy, incompetent, disinterested, or ignorant elected representatives.

When you sit in your own garbage - you must feel there is no hope.

Whole communities lost - families moved away - youth leaving everyday - industries dismantled and closed.

Husbands or wives leaving for months on end to other provinces for temporary work. Elderly parents left without family, children without regular presence of one parent or another.

So the leaders that are looking once again for your vote - are asking it - without having performed.

Make no mistake - if success can be measured by companies being interested in stripping us of our resources - without commitment to processing - or secondary industrial development - Newfoundland and Labrador is king. We are at the top of the heap. That was and remains our problem.

Let me give you a sample of good news in our province.

1. We have lost the Abitibi mill in Grand Falls-Windsor - and apparently that's a good thing. We can diversify and expropriate assets and sue people.

2. We have lost the Abitibi mill in Stephenville - and apparently this also is marvelous - to be complimented with the continued downgrading of the Stephenville Airport and Port.

3. Our groundfish stock has not recovered - in twenty years - but this too is an opportunity to do aquaculture.

4. We are going to haul the oil up out of the banks at record levels - this is great because we can spend like drunken sailors during an election. Those valuable non-renewable resources are best taken now - so that our children and grandchildren will not have to worry about their development and use. They could not possibly be smarter than the crew we have elected now - right?

5. We are going to develop the Lower Churchill - oops we mean Muskrat Falls - and in this way we can lower costs to Nova Scotians and green Canada up. We will have the privilege of paying double for this wonderful development - that will ensure Hydro Quebec's success and the inevitable failure of Nalcor. The good news is - somebody is waiting in the wings to buy it from us. Privatize it!

6. The loss of shipbuilding is great - maybe this will open new opportunities for those assets. Perhaps we can be a subsidiary of Irving. Kiewit and Sons -poof - gone. While we are at it oops there goes another fishplant. That's okay - now we can "rationalize" the sector.

7. Last but not least - with loss of population or at best no growth - loss of industry after industry - our power needs are going to go up. Yes sir - we had better get that Muskrat working to protect us from relying on Holyrood. Oh yes Tom Marshall has us heavily relying on that facility. No odds - the fact that the statement is untrue does not matter. What matters is that Tom - thinks he is doing a great thing by imagining we are growing. 


So what have we learned?

Have we learned to do more secondary processing of our fish? NO!

Have we learned to do more secondary processing of our oil? NO!

Have we learned to do more secondary processing of our hydro? NO!

These inept - self-serving or weak politicians are bankrupting us resource by resource. With that - so goes pride - and with that we will agree to sit in our own garbage.