Editor:
It must be spring election time in the Rockies.
The birds are flying back from Ottawa. Canmore naysayers are also busy once again disparaging our new Multiplex as a $36 million “fashion statement”.
Well, I say nay to nay-saying naysayers.
A veritable freight train worth of tax dollars has already been spent attracting trendy toques to our little mountain paradise. Now that they are here, how can we possibly ask these poor people to use pre-existing (and simply ghastly) public services?
Is my Canmore your Canmore? It is dear, if you can afford it.
A few people have invested a great deal of time and money into owning their own small piece of paradise and it logically follows that they should have the right to feng shui the public services with fine, fashionable new accoutrements.
The well refined understand that nothing says “someone please look at me!” like a brand new Prada bag slung stylishly over a perfectly waxed shoulder. Canmore’s new status as an haute couture Mecca of the Canadian Rockies will only demand more and more expensive little bags as time goes by I reckon. Not to mention corresponding colour coordinated Prada pool and Prada public library, Prada climbing gym, and so on.
People don’t spend a million dollars buying a house to live in a trailer park for goodness sake. But do naysayers and have-nots take a moment to consider just where Canmore would be without haves? No, they most certainly don’t. Has everyone forgotten what this town used to be like? It was barbarous to say the least. Absolutely nothing matched.
Wasn’t it John the Baptist who said “put your faith in the wealthy and the wealthy shall provide scraps at a slight mark-up with easy payment plans, plus interest”? Of course it was. It’s the trickle-down circle of life.
Rather than blaming the fashionable for a lack of affordable housing and public transit, perhaps Canmore’s young families and working poor should try walking a mile in our designer shoes for once. “Oh, but we can’t afford Gucci” they’ll say. Nice try lazy bones.
Onward brave Canmore! Our new Multiplex will still be proudly shouting volumes about this little mountain utopia many shiny, happy (and above all fabulously trendy!) years from now. Stiff upper lip little ones. We’re all in this together remember!
Never mind the naysayers, neighbour. That’s what I say.
J. R. Louden,
Donner Party Historical Preservation Society,
Canmore chapter
