Bait and Switch?
How it started:
Excitement is building for what’s expected to be a multi-million dollar development along the Cabot Trail by a private firm with European connections.
Just two days after the sale of a beleaguered Ingonish ski hill, the facility’s new owners are hosting a public meeting.The group known as Cape Smokey Holding Ltd. purchased the 162 hectare property from the province for $370,000.
Part of the group’s plan involves the creation of a ‘tree walk,’ which is similar to a structure found in the Czech Republic.
The tower of climbing platforms offers visitors a bird’s eye view of the area. Ingonish project proponents say the tree walk will be both eco-friendly and accessible.
“It’s going to be huge both from an economic standpoint and the social aspect of it,” said Victoria County Coun. Larry Dauphinee. (Cape Breton Post, 23 September 2019)
CB Post caption: “Ski Cape Smokey shared this photograph of their plans to create a year-round amenity known as a Tree Walk, similar to a structure located in Krkonoše, Czech Republic.”
How it’s going:
A multi-million mountaintop attraction in the Cape Breton Highlands won’t be opening anytime soon but Ski Cape Smokey is building chalets and progressing toward being a year-round destination.
The Cape Smokey tree walk project with a proposed 32-metre tall lookout tower was once proposed to open in 2022 at the Ingonish destination but was delayed due to permitting issues. It’s now on hold.
“We are working on it right now still with the government about it and trying to get the appropriate documentation. But it’s kind of in a holding pattern to be quite honest right now because, for us, the priority is to finish the housing development because unfortunately there is not anywhere to stay and (the tower) kind of becomes a secondary thing,” said Martin Kejval, the CEO of Cape Smokey Holding Ltd.
“We have time to figure (the tree walk) out and make sure that all parties are happy (but) as I said, we see the biggest problem is the lack of accommodation.” (Cape Breton Post, 18 April 2023)
I have to guess Kejval et al knew there was no accommodation on Cape Smokey in 2019, which makes one suspect the tower was always “a secondary thing.”
But who could resist that visual?
Solidarity?
What is it people—and in this, I include a lot of reporters—don’t understand about strikes?
Why is every actual and threatened labor action in this province met by articles like this one in today’s Cape Breton Post:
The woman in the photo, Mima McLachlan, wants her special needs child to attend classes even if the educational program assistant (EPA) who accompanies him is on strike.
So, she clearly has no problem crossing a picket line.
And would presumably be on board with scab labor.
As it happens, this particular strike may be averted because the regional centers for education across the province announced this morning they’d reached a tentative agreement with CUPE, the union representing about 5,400 EPAs, bus drivers, cleaners, maintenance staff and early childhood educators.
And I am biased on this issue because my sister is an EPA, one of those CUPE members who voted 97.5% in favor of strike action. But even were my sister not involved, I’d still be having the same bad reaction to the strike coverage in the local media.
CTV did a similar story, in which the mother of the special needs child interviewed expressed precisely zero appreciation for the work of her child’s EPA or interest in the concerns pushing EPAs to strike.
The CBC led with interviews with parents of special needs children who, again, had nothing to say about the reasons for the strike or the value of the work done by the EPAs. As with the Post and CTV, there was liberal use of photos of the children.
But 25 paragraphs in, the reporter introduced a parent with a slightly different take. Stephanie Carver is “the parent of a student with an intellectual disability and the president of Inclusion Nova Scotia, a not-for-profit organization that supports people with intellectual disabilities and their families.” She told the CBC that:
EPAs are the backbone of the province’s inclusive education policy, which commits to ensuring that students with disabilities have access to education as a human right.
“If we were talking about students with physical disabilities, removing the EPAs is like saying, ‘No, you can’t come in with your wheelchair,’ or ‘let’s just take your glasses off at the door,'” Carver says.
“They need to be respected. They need to be acknowledged. They need to be adequately compensated for the incredible, magnificent superstar work that they do every single day.”
If you value your child’s ability to attend school (which you clearly do) then why not value the workers who make that possible? Why not wait and see whether you’re actually inconvenienced before you go to the press to complain about it? Why not show a little solidarity?
Strikes, my dear people, cause disruption—that’s why they work.
Do Cape Bretoners really have to be reminded of that?
Apparently yes, because look what’s brewing over at Saltwire:
Cape Breton post reporter @BarbSweetTweets looking for Cape Bretoners not employed by the feds who are worried they might be affected by the PSAC strike strike. Boarder crossing concerns? Tax refund delay worries? Burning opinions? email her at barbara.sweet@saltwire.com
— nsullivan (@CBPostNSullivan) April 19, 2023
Portapique
I was at my desk on the morning of 19 April 2020 and so was one of the Nova Scotians who actually saw the RCMP’s second tweet about what we weren’t yet calling the “mass casualty incident” in Portapique, Nova Scotia.
A friend DMed me to say it was a much worse situation than the cops were letting on.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say those events affected all of us, but on this third anniversary, I can think only of the victims and their families, families who don’t have the luxury of remembering Portapique from time to time, as I do, but must live with it always.
I have read part of the Mass Casualty Commission Report and am determined to read the rest—it seems like a kind of duty, and I don’t even mean as a reporter, I mean as a Nova Scotian.
I have nothing more to add, but couldn’t let the day go by unremarked.
Featured image: Hungarian woman reading a newspaper, 1962 by FORTEPAN / Lencse Zoltán, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
