Editor:
As pessimistic as it sounds, corporate money coupled with a fleet of lawyers overruns conservation, sustainability and community goals a vast majority of the time in a vast majority of locations.
It’s a stilted notion of progress where resources are finite and consequences secondary to profit. Concerning the Three Sisters build out, this isn’t nimbyism speaking here. It’s more of a wonder how impaired wildlife corridors, increased local traffic jams and overrun trailheads are possibly going to be mitigated by anyone, including the shareholders of Three Sisters as we add more people to the Bow Valley.
This leads us to the most volatile of public letters printed in the Nov. 2 edition of the Outlook.
Blair Richardson’s open letter in an advertisement was for the most part predictable, with the pious claims of charity and community spirit. However, he exposed his true corporate character in the last paragraph, with the $161 million dollar threat laid against the Town of Canmore and every citizen living here.
Even in such a public forum, Richardson couldn’t restrain his bullying impulses. Ah… charity and citizenship, those notions will be put to the test if new house builds start settling into old coal tunnels or a wildfire rips through their exposed wildland/urban interface.
Mr. Richardson’s community spirit might be as hard to find as an offshore bank account if a new crisis affecting Three Sisters' bottom line unfolds.
Beyond vengeful, Mr. Richardson’s implied threat is Three Sisters will get all of what it wants or will unleash its lawyers and crush this town financially. I could be misreading the situation, but it appears to be a corporate strong-arm tactic aimed at intimidating residents.
Perhaps Shakespeare was only partially correct in his series of plays Henry VI. When Dick the Butcher famously contemplated the fate of people in the legal profession, he should have added to the list of “vengeful corporate debutants contemplating strong-arm tactics”.
Mike Henderson,
Canmore
