The Message

So what is my point? While the tourism industry does bring a lot of money into Collingwood it doesn’t necessarily get shared with everyone. With the loss of our local industry many people are unable to afford the ever growing property taxes and the cost of shopping in our own town. The town needs to realise that this town was built on industry and we need to at least keep a proportionate amount of it to keep our town afloat wihtout forcing people who have lived here there whole life to relocate. Thanks to everyone who commented it’s greatly appreciated

I Found A Cool Book Called “Lost Landscapes And Failed Economies”

The Books full title is Lost Landscapes And Failed Economies-The Search For A Value Of Place by Thomas Michael Power 

Here is an excerpt from this book it gives lots of info on both sides of tourism you can check it out at www.books.google.ca/books?id=zggt7_3_9boC&printsec=frontcover&dq=lost+landscapes+and+failed+economies#PPP1,M1

Pg 216: Another advantage of a tourist industry is that its jobs are readily accessible to local residents, often requiring familiarity with the area. Unlike some industries imported from the outside and calling for specialized skills thta the local population lacks, tourism offers many entry level jobs. Because of the part-time and seasonal nature of many tourist jobs, they may also complement other pursuits such as farming, homemaking or school.

Finally as mentioned above, the long-run trend in tourist employment and income is up, and there seems to be more of a future in tourismthan in some trditional sectors of the economic base. Although some may argue that tourism is just another boom that will eventually leave our communities bust, the length of tourism’s cycle is much longer than timber or mining or agriculture….Despite tourism’s pluses, communities should carefully weigh their options before latching onto this industry as environmentally benign and economically promising. Only with its eyes wide open to all open economic development proposals can a community mould economic development to its own ends. And there are a number of serious problems associated with tourism of which communities should be aware. First, employment tends to be low income, unskilled and dead end. Second, vacation homes and other tourist developments tend to drive up property values and the cost of living, driving out existing residents. Third, tourism brings in a flood of temporary visitors whose holiday mood and disregard for the local community can disrupt and permanently alter it. Fourth, tourists and recreationists put a lot of wear and tear on the natural landscape. Tourism isn’t always, or even often, environmentally benign.

Hmmm. Some food for thought.

15 People Get Laid Off At Local Canadian Tire

Even our local box stores are feeling the pinch in this recession. Canadian Tire in Collingwood have laid off 15 employees, something that has never been done before well at least not in the last 30 years. It’s not just our industry that’s faltering. People in our town with lower paying jobs are now spending less in our local stores.

Our Town Council

Our Town Council was mentioned in a comment and I would like to just give my opinion on our town council. They are OLD! No wonder they don’t mind turning this town  into a retirement village, they are creating their own perfect oasis catering to their own needs before thinking about the people who still need to work for a living. Whatever happened to the sporting complex we were supposed to get? But wait, that would appeal to the young people who live in this town. Maybe there wouldn’t have to be a law about the purchase of spray paint if the kids in this town had something to do that didn’t cost a lot of money, like skiing or snowboarding.

Chris Carrier

Our new Mayor Chris Carrier, what a guy. Many of you may not know this but Mr. Carrier himself is part owner of a local truss building factory called T.D. Snow. This is a fairly small business with not a lot of employees and very few have been there for any length of time as they are constantly getting laid off. How did a guy with a fledgling business get elected to be our mayor? What made him so appealing, please tell me it wasn’t his earring.He didn’t get my vote that’s for sure.

Flint Michigan, A City Dependant On Industry (Just Like Us)

Many of you I’m sure have seen some of Michael Moore’s movies, Roger &Me, Sicko, Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling For Columbine, etc. Many of his movies deal the little guy and I think this is why he gets a lot of flack from people. In both Roger & Me and Fahrenheit 9/11 he speaks of Flint, Michigan his hometown where the unemployment rate is 3 times the national average, due to the downfall of General Motors over the last few decades. General Motors was born in 1903 in Flint and they prospered right along with GM until the early 80’s. In a report in The Detroit Free Press, the number of jobs fell from about 76,000 in 1978 to about 62,600 in 1985 to about 33,000 in 1997 and to about 19,000 in 2002. For more info on this check out www.newsaic.com/f911chap7-3.html

So how does this relate to Collingwood? Well, our town was as I’ve said before was once the leading region of industry in the 1980’s. Many of the poeple who live here have been affected by the loss of their good paying factory jobs. Many of these people have mortgages or car payments that they were once able to afford, but are now finding it hard to survive when they have had to go from making $18- plus to jobs that only pay $8 – $10. It’s hard to go backwards when someone becomes accustomed to living a certain way it’s hard to make cutbacks or maybe there just isn’t room to. While there are many tourism jobs these aren’t enough to keep these people’s homes and many have had to move. I think it is sad that people who have grown up in this town are basically being shoved out by higher property taxes, which have recently gone up another 1.8%.

Blue Mountain, Helping Our Economy?

Currently at Blue Mountain they are finishing construction on the second half of Mosaic (a hotel) almost all of the construction companies aren’t  from town or the surrounding areas, they are from Toronto and even some cable installers from Montreal. How are we supposed to rely on tourism for jobs when these big companies don’t even hire within our own area? Blue Mountain could care less about our local residents all they are worried about is the all mighty dollar!

Also, one of the hotels on the mountain was refurbished and again the workers that were used, were from the city. Although I will give them this, when they repaint rooms they use a local painting company J. Ferraro and Co. they do good work by the way, very thorough.

Collingwood Seeking Ethanol Plant Shutdown

This is an article pulled from the Collingwood Connection:

The Town of Collingwood’s court date against Collingwood Ethanol has been pushed back to June.

A press release from Mayor Chris Carrier says the Town of Collingwood’s, application to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has been delayed to June 8.

 

The town has been seeking an “order of the Court to temporarily close Collingwood Ethanol, for a period not exceeding two (2) years, on the basis that ongoing odour emissions from the operation represented a public nuisance and ought to be abated before the plant resumed its operations.”

According to Carrier, the Court application must consist of the submission of a record containing the affidavit evidence.

“Some of the matters upon which the Town wishes to rely in seeking the Court Order are the on-going MOE testing results and Orders that have been issued to Collingwood Ethanol over the past months, including the recently issued control order,” the release said.

“The Town has been working with the Ministry of the Environment over the last several months, as well as with area residents, to compile this required supporting affidavit evidence respecting the court application.”

The Attorney General’s office has not released the affidavit from the MOE.

“The Town continues to press the Attorney General’s office for the release of this affidavit. Once received, the Town’s court record will be complete and the Town will proceed with its Court application,” Carrier said.

Why were high priced homes built across from an industrial park in the first place? Why should the opinion of some dictate whether or not people are going to have jobs in this factory over the next 2 years? Most of these homes are owned by wealthy people who have retired here from the city ( I know this, as I used to clean their houses) and by doing this have raised all of our taxes.

More Layoffs At Maclean’s

Yesterday I received some bad news. Maclean Engineering in Owen Sound, where I have family that works there, has laid off about half of their current staff my fam included. Could this have been averted by simply being able to expand the factory in Collingwood that they already owned? It makes me feel better to think so. Stupid Mr. Geddes and Mayor Carrier!

A Rant on our Supposed Need for Tourism

Well, as many of you know, those of us who live in Collingwood are led to believe by our local government that tourism will sustain our local economy and  local industries are just not that important. Why wouldn’t we believe this?  Have you been up to the Village at Blue any day of the week during the winter? Did you have a hard time finding a parking spot? Of course you did. So business must be booming right? Maybe, during the winter, but what happens to most of that staff during the off season? They get laid off. How does this help our economy? People who are already living paycheck to paycheck now don’t have one and have to go on unemployment and live on even less than they did during the winter months. Even the prices of our groceries have gone up along with the gas prices that goes up on  busy weekends. Why should the locals have to pay more for gas just because we live in a tourist trap? It’s not fair!