LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Don’t trade away our future

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/12/2022 (735 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Dec. 12, there was a special meeting of Brandon City Council to hear information regarding a decision to spend more than $30 million on pumping stations to meet the sewer and water needs of proposed development in the southwest of the city.

I was surprised to hear that a major component of the plan is the building of a “regional retail power centre” — a big box store complex is what most of us would call it. About 500,000 square feet of retail space, an area equal to that at the Corral Centre, is proposed to meet the demand of Westman’s 200,000 or so residents. According to the information offered, people of Brandon and area see availability of such retail space as a significant “quality of life” issue.

Whose quality of life, I wonder? When I think of quality of life in Brandon, one of the very last things that comes to mind is needing more places to buy stuff. I rarely have a retail need that I cannot satisfy easily in one of Brandon’s existing stores. I rarely have to compete with a store full of other customers. Is there going to be a population explosion in the Westman area that will necessitate such a retail behemoth? A Manitoba government report (Health, Seniors and Active Living Report, June 2020) indicates the population of the Prairie Mountain Health region grew from 169,760 in 2016 to 172,641 in 2020 — an increase of only 1.7 per cent in five years. At that rate, it will take far longer than even 30 years to justify another “regional retail power centre.”

Indeed, a likely “quality of life” outcome of such a development is that more small stores in neighbourhoods will have more trouble staying in business. More people who don’t want to drive cars, or can’t afford a car, will struggle to find the goods and services they need in a place they can walk or bicycle to easily. More driving to big box stores will require creation and maintenance of more roads, and result in more greenhouse gas emissions. How is this quality of life?

We are going to spend more than $30 million just for the pumping stations for the new development. It is suggested this is reasonable because of the long-term horizon we need in city planning — 30 years or more. But consider this: in that same time frame, the IPCC tells us, we have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to zero, which will require a complete overhaul of our energy and economic systems — transportation, building heating and cooling, manufacturing, waste management and agriculture. Climate science tells us that if we do not succeed in this task, life and civilization as we know it will be at risk.

When it comes to budget priorities, shouldn’t this existential threat be at the top? If we are going to incur the biggest debt in this city’s history to finance a plan, shouldn’t it be a plan to slow down climate change, a plan to end fossil fuel use by electrifying transportation, enhancing public transit and active transportation, identifying renewable methods of heating our buildings, enhancing green spaces to create carbon sinks and to reduce heat island effects in the city? Will there be $30 million available for that this spring when our city climate plan is unveiled?

In a famous speech at a United Nations climate meeting in 2019, Greta Thunberg scolded global leaders for pursuing a “fairy tale of eternal economic growth” while ignoring warnings of climate catastrophe. The development plan I was hearing sounded a lot like “business as usual.” It sounded like leaders pretending that the next 30 years will be just like the last 30 years. They won’t be. They can’t be. I am hoping that, at this key decision point, our new council is not fooled by the fairy tale that eternal growth is the most important priority, or that it is even possible. I am hoping they don’t trade the future of our children and grandchildren for a few more big box stores.

QUENTIN ROBINSON

Brandon