Dear Editor,
I am grateful to Mr. Kevin Doyle (The Bruce Peninsula Press #14, pages 6-7) for making me aware that when I moved here twenty years ago I was committing a political act. I thought I was coming to an interesting place where I would find pleasant people, and so I did. Mr Doyle broadens my perceptions, however, by assuming that I came for a ‘way of life and rural freedoms’. Perhaps I was a bit disoriented because I came here from ‘out west’ and ‘up north’, not from ‘down south’, although I did pass through there briefly on my way. I missed the ‘closely regulated cesspool’, however. I found interesting places and pleasant people down there too.
Regulation is the price we pay for population density and individualistic choice, which empower people to make nuisances of themselves in many ways, including those Mr. Doyle enumerates. We urged people to come here, bringing money, and they are coming, in large numbers. Regulations must follow, not to erode ways of life and rural freedoms, but to sustain and adapt them to new realities in humane ways.
As to the limitations of the proposed Cabot Head trail, those problems are solvable with a little ingenuity. They need not cast doubt on the project, which is a good one. Mr. Doyle does well to remind us of them. I regret that I do not understand his objections to the term ‘stakeholder’, although it can no doubt be misused, like other terms, such as ‘cultural identity’.
Respectfully,
Paul Conway
