the Manitoban

Category: Comment

  • Hate cyclists?

    It was a new dawn and I was off to the pet store, walking and smiling, a hop in my step and a bunny under my arm. Butterflies bobbed about merrily as a piccolo busker warbled on the stoop yonder. My bunny smiled up at me and I down at him. “This could be a perfect day,” I thought to myself.

    A brief skidding sound from behind gave us a start, bunny and I, so I turned quickly round halfway to see what was coming. Just as bunny peeked from behind my arm, the culprit, a sidewalk cyclist, zipped by sending bunny flying. With a great noiseless shadow, an owl glided by, plucking poor bunny from the sky. The biker from a hundred metres up the sidewalk called back “Sorry.”

    Flash forward 10 days.

    I was on my bicycle happily humming as my baby bunny and I creaked and clattered along the pavement. We were riding on the street of course; that’s where bikes belong. Bunny was enjoying the breeze from his basket when we were both startled by the honking of a truck fast approaching from the rear. As I struggled to stay on two wheels the truck zipped by in front, its mirror clanging against baby bunny’s basket. Baby bunny went flying. You know the rest.

    The moral of this fairy tale is that cycling in Winnipeg is not what it could be. After recently returning from other more bike-friendly cities, the problem seems ever more visible. We just don’t include biking in our general transportation mentality.

    Our city has an awkward population; we’re a little too small for a subway network, but too large for just buses. This problem is exacerbated by large geographical spread. Students living way out in St. James can look forward to daily bus trips to the university that take upwards of two hours each way. All of this makes driving the choice mode of transportation — if you can afford it.

    Compounding this conspicuous lack of useful public transportation is the curiously poor level of bike access around the city. I’ve borrowed a car this past week and have kept my eyes peeled for any indication that cyclists are included in our traffic system. There was one moment when, like a mirage, a bike lane appeared before me. It was on Garry Street, just north of Broadway. For the entire stretch of that bike lane I was elated. “We’re finally getting it!” I said to myself. It was definitely the most satisfying six seconds of my ride home.

    That’s right, just six seconds. Upon reaching Broadway, the bike lane had stopped and it was business as usual. Oh well. I’ve noticed a similarly stunted bike lane on Princess. These rogue bike lanes serve no purpose to cyclists who often need to ride their bike further than a single block.

    The result of our city’s lackadaisical attitude toward giving cyclists their place on the roads is twofold. When a Winnipeg driver is trying to push through the gridlock, they see no mention of bikes, so, as far as they are concerned, bikes are not a part of the traffic system at all. What reason would a driver have to yield for a cyclist? From drivers’ perspectives, if it’s not a car it shouldn’t be on the road. On the other side, cyclists are made to feel like they are sneaking into the traffic system, like they just shouldn’t be there at all. They need to sneak around, snake in and out of sidewalks, dart into back lanes, basically break all the rules in the book just to get where they’re going without being run over. Why should they need to stop at a stop sign; those are for cars.

    I recently spent a few days in Montreal. While there, my friend and I made use of Bixi, a Quebec-based public bike system that currently has service in Montreal and Ottawa. Bixi has planned or installed over 300 bike depots concentrated around Montreal’s highly populated areas. Riders can pay $78 and get full access to bikes from May to November, but my friend and I opted for the 24-hour rental fee of $5. The system proved extremely useful for riding around the city and we saw countless others riding the recognizable Bixi bikes. The system is so successful that Bixi is soon to expand to Boston and London. See? Some cities like bikes!

    In Montreal, it is not only relatively easy for anybody to gain access to a bike. It feels safe — comfortable even — once you get on those busy downtown streets. But the most notable and instantly recognizable difference from our road system is that cycling is alluded to on nearly every road, with full bike lanes or, more commonly, with “sharrows,” essentially bike lanes added to a road using paint — no construction required. Many cities already use these sharrows: Montreal, Saskatoon, even Winnipeg — the bike lanes on Garry and Princess that I described earlier.

    Montreal is a good example of sharrows working very well. I felt as much a part of the flow of traffic as cars on even the busiest streets we rode down. As soon as a driver sees a sign that they are meant to share their lane with bikers, they accept it. When drivers are exposed to sharrows on nearly every street, it gets hammered into their understanding of how traffic works. Cyclists no longer seem irritating or “in the way,” they just seem like other vehicles. After all, that’s exactly what they are.

    Winnipeg could easily accomplish this kind of system. We don’t need to construct specialized bike paths along the sides of busy streets. Obviously to do so would be nice, but it’s expensive and difficult. The sharrow that I saw on Garry Street did not require any construction at all, just a little extra paint. If the same were done when all streets are painted, cyclists would be all the more inclined to bike and, more importantly, they would all be safer.

    – Kevin Doole is the Editor-in-Chief of the Manitoban.

  • Too taboo for school?

    Canada is a society that prides itself on equality. We constantly tell ourselves that we live in a free country where we are all equal to one another. Further, we take gratification in our national projects, like public health care, that provide citizens equal access to essential public goods. The right to equality is so important to Canadians that it has been enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

    Equality, however, extends only so far. The equity we pride ourselves on is equity based on social ideas and constructs. That is why we are equal before the law, equal before the state and equally entitled to the social benefits that flow from being citizens of Canada.

    People, however, ignore the fact that on a fundamental and biological level, we are inherently different, and thus unequal from one another. And while we can try out best to mitigate these differences — through distributive justice programs like Canada’s progressive tax regime and state-maintained social benefits — such efforts will never ever equalize the most fundamental differences between us — genetic differences.

    What I mean is that despite our society’s laudable mission to guarantee equality among as many citizens as possible, our quest for equalization has certain biological limits. And while we pride ourselves on equalizing much in our society, that equalization has yet to tackle the uncomfortable biological issues that make you and I different from each other in ways in which we do not (and quite possibly cannot) equalize against.

    I’m talking about the role genetics, biology and natural selection play in each and all of our lives; and how the media treats this issue superficially at best, and ignores it completely at worst. Specifically, I wish to discuss the role attractiveness measured through aesthetic beauty, and how it is something the nation-state does not take into account in its attempt to create an equal society.

    Some people are blessed with gifts of genetics, including physical traits that cannot readily or easily be altered. In most areas of life, you can improve yourself through practice, education and hard work. The same, however, cannot be said when it comes to altering hardwired genetic characteristics about your body, especially in terms of how you look. It’s difficult to talk about attractiveness, because again, it is for the most part an inborn trait that you either have or you do not have.

    We can see the effects of this sad-but-true, human reality everywhere in our culture. Models are so desperate to achieve a physical standard of beauty that they starve themselves of food to be thin, and alter their bodies through surgery to defy age. For many, many people, they can try all they want to achieve a socially-defined level of beauty, but only those with natural, evolutionary blessings can achieve success at the highest levels possible. Gisele Bundchen, Brad Pitt, Playboy bunnies — these kinds of stars are not made, they are born, and they do not have to do too much to hone their aesthetic blessings.

    It all comes down to one thing — nature versus nurture. What kind of advantageous genetic traits do we get from nature that cannot be changed, and what kind of advantageous genetic traits can be nurtured or socialized during our upbringing?

    This leads back to the problem — equalizing differences. Our society readily follows the principles of John Rawls’ liberalism, as we try to “maximize” the position of the “minimum” of those who our society deems disadvantaged. We collect taxes and then redistribute wealth through social programs and tax incentives on this basis, yet our tax system does not take into account the aforementioned biological traits of physical attractiveness directly. Perhaps it is time it should. The process of quantifying beauty for tax purposes against those lucky enough to be blessed with such traits is a topic that should be more readily discussed.

    The problem, of course, is that it’s taboo, unconventional and politically incorrect to discuss such an issue because it makes us realize that people, quite frankly, are unequal. Calling someone “short” or “ugly” are insults based on biological traits, and carry more venom than calling someone “stupid” or accusing them of “sleeping around.” Those first examples are characteristics that are difficult to alter, while the second are things most people can endeavour to change. These ideas relate to sexual appeal and thus our biological purpose of reproduction, which is what makes them so difficult for society to address openly.

    While discussions like this can lead down a dark path that Western society has not touched since the Second World War — the theory of eugenics and the self-direction of human evolution — it is nonetheless a topic that should be discussed more openly.

    –Michael Silicz is an alumnus of the University of Manitoba.

  • Roll the dice, dance the dance

    “There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto.” — Cormac McCarthy

    As another school year opens, I believe it is safe to say that many of you reading this paper will have had, upon more than one occasion, “a little too much fun” at some point this summer. I certainly did. While that itself is no crime, on May 17, after a wedding social and a few beers before last call at a local pub, I was charged with an infraction of the Liquor Control Act. While I understand the basic logic behind not allowing booze crazed yahoos to wander around aimlessly swilling highly taxed poison and creating a ruckus, I am still vexed by the seemingly indiscriminate application of this civil law.

    Now, on the night in question, I was caught red-handed, by an RCMP officer, “in possession of liquor (about a quarter of a bottle of beer) in an unauthorized place” as I left the bar heading, on foot, to a friend’s place across the road to celebrate his birthday. Such an infraction against the Queen cost me $164. However, my girlfriend, after a court date in Minnedosa amending the improper citation she initially received (she was charged with “consumption” of booze, while really she was only “possessing” booze), was hit with a fine of $150 for the same crime. We were both cooperative with the apprehending officers, despite having seven cold Luckys (improperly seized from my backpack) dumped onto the cold, hard clay beneath our feet, and neither of us has a criminal record of any sort. — peaceful citizens enjoying Queen Victoria’s birthday.

    After we were handed our citations, we walked across the road to our aforementioned buddy’s place, and vented our spleens at our unfortunate luck. Our host, Jim, who never drinks alcohol, listened attentively to the ranting.

    What the hell is wrong with this backwater cesspool we’d chosen to visit for the May long weekend, I cursed? In Winnipeg, I’ve never been hit with a fine for dumping my beer when asked to by an apprehending by officer, and in many countries the world round I would never even have had to dump the beer in the first place. I drink mostly cans, I never smash beer bottles, and I only ever litter where I know that someone will pick up and benefit from my discarded can. My days of youthful, booze-fueled destruction of property are long behind me. Why, I wondered aloud, in sweet hell can I not enjoy a goddamn beer where I please in this country without fear of economic reprisal?

    “Man,” Jim said, packing a bowl. “Could you imagine what would happen if all of a sudden Canada allowed drinking in public? It would be utter fucking madness! It’ll never happen. Pandemonium would ensue!”

    As I mentioned, Jim never drinks. I’ve known him about 13 years, and his contempt for drunks is high, having grown up across the street from one of the raunchiest, rowdiest bars in southwestern rural Manitoba. He’s been my, and countless other drinkers’, DD countless times, and has put up with all manner of bad behaviour facilitated by consumption of booze. Jim took his bong hit, and continued.

    “Canadians love boozing, partly because it’s ‘not allowed’ socially. I mean, it is, of course, but the fact that you might not be allowed to do it makes it that much more appealing. If tomorrow every drunk in Canada was allowed to walk down the street slugging booze from the bottle, society would crumble. People couldn’t handle it, they’d be drunk 24/7 for weeks on end. Strife, poverty, and violence would sweep the nation. We’d be invaded by the Danes in a matter of months. Wouldn’t that be a headline!”

    I pondered Jim’s comments. After sober second thought, I had to concede, to an extent, his point. Society suffers plenty of woes due to alcohol consumption, which the state profits highly from. But does nickel-and-diming folks who drink booze in public, peaceful as they may be, accomplish anything? Does the idiot tax levied upon them even cover the costs of enforcing, prosecuting, and enacting payment from such an archaic piece of social control?

    Has my citation made society a better in any way? Doubt it. Has it shown me the error of my ways, and led me to a brighter, more god-fearing tomorrow? Nope. Will it deter me from drinking outside again, when the sun is shining, the weather beautiful, and the inside of a dank tavern as appealing as, well, a dank tavern?

    Fuck no. I, along with countless others, will simply roll the dice, and be prepared to dance if the deal goes down. As the Boss would say, that’s the price you pay.

    – Sheldon Birnie, Comment Editor for the *Manitoban, loves Manitoba summers.*

  • Fasting, a recommended practice

    There are certain things in life that need to be experienced at least once by people, especially when it comes to depriving yourself of something as existentially habitual and taken for granted as the act of eating, which is one of the most repetitive things that a person does. For people of the Western World, cutting back on a part of their routine, whether it is by fasting, or other practices, could surprisingly be positive for one’s mind, body and soul.

    This year, on Aug. 20, 2009, millions of dedicated Muslims around the world entered into the holiest month of the year, known as “Ramadan,” the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. This specific month is marked by a period of self-control and fasting, during which people abstain themselves principally from eating from sunrise to sunset, no food or no drink of any sort, not even water.

    Besides the spiritual reasons and fulfillment that lead people to fast during this holy month, Ramadan is also practiced for other positive reasons. In addition to the exercise of continuous self-control and the opportunity of having your eyes opened to poverty and hunger across the planet, fasting has some serious health benefits.

    It is clear that Ramadan represents an opportunity for the body to rest and for the digestive system to take a break from breaking down foods. This fasting also helps eliminate the toxins in the body from high processed foods and other unhealthy ingredients in one’s diet. Also, by moving its focus away from the digestive process, the body will naturally use its energy for other purposes such as healing itself. If the body’s immune system is less busy fighting bacteria and toxins, it will most likely start concentrating on combating existent diseases and sicknesses in the body.

    According to Cell magazine, caloric restriction and alterations in metabolism go hand in hand with an increase in median lifespan of 30 per cent and a resistance to cardiac stress.

    In 1994, the first international Congress on “Health and Ramadan” in Casablanca combined 50 research papers from all across the world, from Muslim and non-Muslim researchers who have studied extensively the medical ethics of fasting and stated that fasting could only be beneficial to people who are generally healthy enough to fast.

    In fact, I believe that fasting, everyday, for a month, need not be only a religious practice. All healthy people, in normal conditions, should give their bodies the opportunity to pause, so that it might learn to comprehend what it is lacking and acquire ways to transform itself in order to get what it needs.

    Millions of people around the world agree on the benefits of Ramadan and are completely devoted to this practice. Since it has been followed for thousands of years, there must be legitimate reasons to believe that it is, in fact, a very important thing to include in one’s life.

    In a society like ours, people become forgetful of how simple actions like eating could overwhelm one’s physical self. Regardless of the objections that certain people might have towards a practice that denies the body of food, I think that fasting should become a bigger trend, a conscious effort that not only provides a person with psychological and physical advantages, but also that causes someone to become more conscientious about how their body works. We spend our lives eating, so why not give our body a break once in a while in order for it to refresh itself? It should be pure common sense.

    • Sarah Khalil is the International Coordinator at the Manitoban.

  • Grassroots organization in action

    On Saturday, Aug. 29, over a hundred Winnipeggers will gather at Vimy Ridge Memorial Park to Chalk 4 Peace. The premise of the event is simple: bring sidewalk chalk (or borrow some from a fellow chalker) and make some art. Some people draw something peace-related, but plenty don’t. There’s also some local music to entertain participants while they chalk and hang out.

    Community events like this are extremely important for creating and maintaining a vocal and powerful civil society. Unlike government or corporations, the social organizations that make up civil society are not interested primarily in money or power. Community groups, unions, clubs, activist groups, and non-governmental organizations act, ideally, in the best interest of their members, and therefore society as a whole. These organizations are essential not only to provide a sense of community to citizens, but to uphold democracy. Without civil society acting as referee, government and corporations would be free to do as they please, with the risk of sacrificing social good for wealth and power.

    Despite its importance, the idea of a strong civil society is becoming increasingly undervalued in Western culture. Even less vocal aspects of civil society, such as neighbourhood groups and community activities are less common today than in the past. This may have something to do with more people working longer hours each week , the popularity of impersonal means of communication, or it could just be that we’ve bought into the notion that material goods are more important to our well-being than a sense of community and belonging.

    Whatever the reason, Western consumers seem unable to band together to work against government and corporate greed. Convinced that their actions make no difference, many people simply accept the world as it is. Instead of working together towards common goals, we quell our fears with consumerism and apathy. It’s not our responsibility, we think, to stop a fuel additive corporation from putting dangerous chemicals in our gasoline. That’s what we pay the government to do.

    But what about when government fails to act in the best interest of its citizens? What about when corporate power is greater than government power? Civil society is vitally important in holding both government and corporations accountable for their actions. Both institutions rely on citizens/consumers to support them, which gives individuals more power than they often realize.

    For proof of what an active civil society can do you needn’t look far. It wasn’t government or the market that overthrew monarchies, organized labour unions or ended apartheid in South Africa. It was groups of impassioned people who sought change.

    More recently, the Seattle WTO protests in 1999 brought much-needed attention to policies within the World Trade Organization. Over 40,000 people crowded the streets in Seattle on Nov. 30, and succeeded in not only preventing the WTO conference from taking place, but also in shedding light on the destructive consequences of the WTO’s brand of free trade. Moreover, the Seattle protest demonstrated that globalization in its current form is not a natural process, and that it can and will be opposed. Let’s see Stephen Harper do that.

    Chalk 4 Peace is a global event with more than 300 participating cities on five continents. Not organized as an anti-war demonstration, the purpose of the event is to encourage creative support for a broadly defined cause, and is intended to bring together communities and to demonstrate that the desire for peace is global. While their definitions of peace may vary, all of the participants believe that the pursuit of peace is worthwhile, and should be made a priority. All donations for the Winnipeg event go to War Child Canada, for the benefit of children who have been affected by war.

    Sure, maybe events like Chalk 4 Peace are never going to end wars. Peace is an awfully lofty goal. But that’s not all civil society is about. Chalk 4 Peace is part of a larger community of groups and events and people that want more than government or the market can provide. Government and markets are, after all, only institutions. It’s up to us to ensure that they are working in the best interests of those they claim to serve.

    • Shawna Finnegan is the Online Editor at the Manitoban.

  • Sorry About the AIDS

    In 1924, Raoul Dandurand expressed a common Canadian worldview to the League of Nations when he described Canada as “a fireproof house far from the sources of conflagration.” Eighty-five years later, in a global community that has since endured recessions, depressions, a world war, a cold war, military coups, genocides, displacements, pandemics and large-scale environmental degradation, this sense of naiveté and disconnect still exists. While the feeling of security is one of the most treasured and enviable aspects of life in a relatively prosperous and affluent developed nation, I for one had never fully realized the isolation it imposed. My crash course in learning how seemingly emotionally and psychologically unequipped many Canadians are for confronting major world issues came this July, in the form of an interactive exhibit mounted by World Vision Canada.

    Intended to educate Canadians on the spread of AIDS in Africa — the suffering it causes and the ways change could be effected — the exhibit retold the true stories of three African youth through first-person narratives. Visitors listened to these stories using headsets attached to expensive MP3 players. I heard the story of Olivia, a 16-year-old girl who was a victim of rape and a single mother, and only later discovered her hardships were worse than she could have imagined since she had also contracted AIDS. The narrator for my tour explained how fear and misinformation regarding the spread of HIV stigmatizes the condition and undermines efforts at AIDS prevention.

    The statistics on AIDS in Africa are staggering. A recent Report on the global AIDS epidemic by the United Nations concluded that, as of 2007, over 20 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are living with AIDS — nearly 12 per cent of the region’s total population. Compared to the prevalence of HIV in Africa, Canada might be a fireproof house after all. By the end of 2007, the number of Canadians diagnosed with AIDS was 20,746, or 0.066 per cent of the population. The social significance of this disparity was the most shocking revelation of everything World Vision presented.

    The second-to-last section of the tour — the last area visitors saw before being asked to donate to World Vision and sponsor a child — consisted of a very modest church and a large bulletin board. The walls of the church were covered with photographs of people living with AIDS, while the bulletin board was an invitation for Canadians to write to those people with words of empathy and encouragement. What do you say to someone you’ve never met, living on the other side of the world, who has just found out they have HIV? No one seemed to know. The most common response on the bulletin board was “I’m sorry.” The phrase is considered so typically Canadian, but can it adequately respond to the devastation, fear, pain and isolation that such a diagnosis would provoke? Is there any valid response that a dweller of the “fireproof house” can jot onto a 3-by-3-inch Post-it?

    Being Canadian — or living in any developed country — has distinct privileges and benefits. Ideally, the security, education and empowerment so many of us enjoy make us well-positioned to help others. So, did World Vision invite its pavilion’s visitors to participate in an exercise in futility when it implied that hope could be so easily extended, or were visitors at a loss of words and ideas for how to alleviate human suffering? All in all, it makes a strong case for why Canadian donations are so important to fighting the spread of AIDS — talking ain’t doing and apparently we don’t even know what to say.

    – Mallory Richard is currently taking a MA in history at the U of M.

  • War in the Peace

    In northern British Columbia, close to the Alberta border, there is currently a war going on. This war is being waged by persons unknown against what they see as “terrorist” oil and gas companies, namely EnCana Corp., who they feel are encroaching negatively upon the land.

    Since October 2008, the communities of Tomslake and Kelly Lake, south of my hometown of Dawson Creek, B.C., have been the epicentre of what have been dubbed “eco-terrorist” attacks on EnCana sour gas pipelines and infrastructure. In mid-July 2009, a letter, purportedly from the bomber, was sent to the Dawson Creek Daily News giving EnCana a three-month “vacation” from any further action. This “vacation,” however, is contingent upon EnCana ceasing operations in the area, shifting to green, renewable energy alternatives, and removing all oil and gas installations within the Treaty 8 territory within five years. Fat chance of that happening.

    These first six explosions, the letter claims, were “minor and fully controlled” and intended to “to let [EnCana] know that you are indeed vulnerable, and can be rendered helpless despite your megafunds, your political influence, craftiness, and deceit in which you trusted.” The Globe and Mail quoted one anonymous (for the legitimate fear of losing his job) roughneck to the effect that “this guy who’s doing this — he’s not out there to hurt nobody . . . He’s just trying to get back at the oil companies.”

    EnCana, a Calgary-based company, posted a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the bomber(s) in January 2009. On July 30, EnCana raised that reward to $1 million.

    RCMP Sgt. Tim Shields, Dawson Creek Mayor Mike Bernier, and EnCana spokesman Alan Boras are all appealing to the public to co-operate with the ongoing police investigation, which, so far, has proved completely fruitless. After nearly nine months of investigation, wherein over 450 people have been questioned, no charges have yet been laid, despite reports in the press of continued police harassment of “persons of interest.”

    The RCMP long ago said that they have already ruled out infamous local malcontent Wiebo Ludwig as a suspect. Ludwig, who made international news in the mid to late 1990s for his often violent struggles with the oil and gas companies in the Beaverlodge and Hythe, Alberta area, is no stranger to police investigation or public harassment. Andrew Nikiforuk’s governor-general’s award winning book, Saboteurs, details how, after years of investigation during the late ’90ss, the RCMP had to resort to criminal behaviour to eventually bust Ludwig for charges of conspiracy and mischief endangering life. In late 1998, the RCMP themselves detonated an explosion at an abandoned well-site north of Hythe, and then had a Ludwig associate cum informant, Robert Wraight, take the credit.

    Having grown up in Dawson Creek during the Ludwig years, I believe it is safe to say that an eerie sense of déjà vu clouds the current situation in the Peace region. If anything, the stranglehold that the oil and gas industry enjoys over the economy of the Peace has strengthened, despite much work by those opposed to such development.

    Indeed, it is this sense of industrial strangulation that has many questioning industry’s seemingly boundless ability to impose itself upon the landscape and lives of those who live, and intend to keep living, in an area that was once pristine, but is now criss-crossed with pipelines. Concerned citizens have started energy co-ops and Facebook groups to counter the “tidal wave” of development thrust upon them. There are many organic produce and livestock farms in the area, and many progressive thinkers on city council. The city of Dawson Creek itself is working to become carbon neutral by 2012, and is already a provincial leader in use of solar and green technology.

    But still, the industry and the government (provincial and federal) are loath to admit that emissions from oil and gas development are detrimental to the health of living beings. However, science seems to say otherwise, as does anecdotal knowledge of those living next door to (or surrounded by) sour gas lines.

    Sour gas, or hydrogen sulfide (H2SO4), is extremely deadly when released into the air and inhaled by living organisms. Anyone, even medic-aids (my sister was one), who work in or around natural gas fields are required to have H2S training, as exposure to vented gas is so toxic it can kill or render a person unconscious — and likely brain-dead — in a matter of seconds. Ranchers and farmers have detailed extensive health problems with livestock when exposed to flaring from sour gas lines during the 1980s and ’90s, and many human respiratory, pulmonary, and reproductive problems have been associated with flaring or accidental releases of the noxious gas. According to the epilogue of Nikiforuk’s book, the Peace region of Alberta has the highest rate of cancer in the province by far.

    In Hythe, Beaverlodge, and Sexsmith, during the time of the Ludwigs’ woes, the sky was often lit up at night along Highways 43 and 59 by gas flares. The entire area stunk to high heaven. When I travelled to those towns to play in hockey tournaments, we brought our own water from Dawson Creek, as the tap water available for between shift refreshment tasted like rotten eggs. These effects are both well-documented byproducts of rampant natural gas development.

    When the bomber takes up his (or her) war against Big Oil again in less than two months, tensions in the already stressed area have nowhere to go but up. Scattered talk of vigilantism, much as in Ludwig’s day, has already been raised in coffee shops and beer joints in the area, or so I’ve heard from a long time buddy of mine who lives in the Tomslake area.

    At the same time, some welcome the bomber’s actions. “We don’t feel any more threatened by the bomber than we do the industry. If anything, we feel more a threat from the industry,” organic farmer Tim Ewert, whose son I worked and went to school with, told the National Post. The Ewerts are certainly not alone in this sentiment.

    As the clock ticks on, there is little for residents, or those watching from afar, to do but wait. Regardless of how the war unfolds, there is much to be learned from this ongoing saga. When development — spurred onward by an unrelenting drive for money and often directed from a boardroom thousands of kilometres away— clashes with the everyday lives of real people living on the ground, it is likely that sparks will fly.

    With luck, a balance can be found wherein the two interests can coexist. However, as is clear in the Peace region, often the Goliath of industry is unwilling to give any ground. The question, then, is how big the fire these sparks light will become.

    Sheldon Birnie graduated from South Peace Senior Secondary School in Dawson Creek, B.C. in 2001, and now takes environmental studies at the U of M.