Editor:
I was struck by the headline on the front page of the July 9, 2015 Outlook: Unanimous decision on affordable housing.
Having followed this issue closely, including attending several hours of the recent public hearing on the disposition of municipal reserve land commonly known as the daycare lands, I was disappointed to read a clearly biased story on this decision. It may be good politics to frame the decision, as members of town council have done, in terms of park space versus affordable housing, but it is not good reporting.
Throughout the public hearing at which many people spoke, I did not hear – not once – a statement from anyone saying “I do not support affordable housing.” What I did hear was a broad range of perspectives on why the disposition of this parcel of municipal reserve land should not occur, as well as a broad range of perspectives on affordable housing. This ranged from a tearful representation by a young woman that she and her husband would have to move from Canmore to be able to buy a home, to a business owner recommending that the municipal campground be turned into a work camp to meet the housing demand for businesses and workers.
How this decision to dispose of these municipal reserve lands relates to or provides a solution to either end of the spectrum on affordable housing is an open question. Or should they be connected? I think not.
A previous town council had made a decision that the daycare lands would be sold to cover the cost of the new daycare facility. That didn’t happen. A few months ago, the current town council indicated that the land would be sold to cover the municipal share of the cost of building a $40 million flood retention structure. That didn’t happen either. However, it appears to be a convenient truth to now report on this as an affordable housing issue. This theme is carried through into your editorial of the same date entitled Canmore makes housing move.
Now, I do understand the difference between an editorial and a news opinion versus fact-based reporting. The lines get a lot more blurry when the same reporter is also doing opinion pieces on the local radio station on the self-same topic.
During my graduate studies research on the criminal justice system, I came to understand that in some cases truth is a variable, dependent on negotiation and expediency. The facts of the case presented to a judge were negotiated in exchange for a guilty plea and a favourable sentencing recommendation, often bearing little resemblance to what actually happened.
Were the facts of this story presented in such a way as to support a preferred outcome? I would hope that the Outlook holds itself to a higher standard than that.
Hans Helder,
Canmore
