KAMLOOPS — An exciting thing happened in Kamloops City council chambers yesterday.
After years of being oh-so-properly-neutral on Ajax, the council and the staff that council employs stood up on their hind legs and, in unison, called BS. Together, they spoke up for Kamloops and I felt proud just watching it unfold.
The federal-provincial process that was supposed to balance the environment, economic growth and the best interests of the community has been shown — in dramatic fashion — to be almost laughable deficient. The joint federal-provincial report is shocking in its lack of attention to the concerns of the community and the local government that represents it.
It wasn’t surprising to hear Councillors Tina Lange and Denis Walsh refer to the report as “a charade” and “horrifying,” because they, along with Donovan Cavers and Dieter Dudy, have been clear in their opposition all along.
Yet throughout this never-ending nightmare, the majority of council refused to take a stand until just a couple of weeks ago. And senior City staff, whose job it is to administer and to advise, not to make policy, acquiescently came along for the ride, researching and attending meetings and filing updates.
But this joint report was clearly too much even for the City’s civil servants to stomach. Tuesday, they advised council to fight back, to re-iterate its opposition to this disagreeable proposal and to tell senior-government politicians what it thinks.
And they expressed their own disappointment in the report. I heard the words “swinging and fighting” escape the lips of the normally mild-mannered CAO David Trawin.
It must have been like being set free for these bureaucrats — who live and work in Kamloops and love their city as much as anyone else — to finally attach adjectives to their verbs and nouns.
In unison with their employers, they opened their windows and shouted to the streets, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!”
It’s a cry that surely must be heard all the way to Victoria and Ottawa.
I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.
