Editor:
Your editorial (March 25, 2021) urges compromise concerning Three Sisters Mountain Village development. Only compromise is genuinely democratic; any outright refusal of the proposals is “extreme.”
My first remark is that your editorial addresses two issues. Whatever “online misinformation” and “manufactured outrage” you have detected are obviously problems, but they should not be confused with clearly stated, evidence-based, reasonable opposition to the porposed development.
My second remark is that local development issues have already had a long history of compromise. Debates 30 years ago and ever since have been resolved by compromise, only to leave the people who live here in exactly the same deadlock with developers, though always with a critical difference.
Each time there is compromise; each time some development is allowed. Development is cumulative. Bit by bit by bit the developers move towards their own absolute position: buildout of the Bow Valley. Resisting this progression is not “extreme”; it is staying with what used to be seen as compromise.
My third and last remark is that development schemes like those of Silvertip and Three Sisters — the issues apparently resolved by the NRCB — have done nothing but introduce wealth and deepen poverty.
The same RMO issue that runs this editorial includes a long article on food-rescue efforts and food security. Think of the town’s recent overnight shelter provision. Remember Vanmore. Consider the ratio of “affordable housing” to luxury units in the much-contested rezoning of Quarry Pines.
No one who has followed events in Canmore over the last three decades can be fooled by more development promises. I’m afraid your lineup of pros and cons is specious.
Canmore Town Council has just provided us all with a chance for real democracy. Everyone living here could speak at the hearing or write what they thought of the development proposals. The hardworking councillors listened patiently to hours of hearing submissions and must have spent many more hours reading their mail.
Ninety per cent of those who expressed their views opposed the latest development plans. With that kind of response there is no democratic need for the compromises you suggest.
Barbara Belyea,
Canmore
