Loss of freedoms
Published July 4, 2008
Loss of freedoms
A few weeks ago, I received an angry communication from a resident. His complaints touched a number of areas and I no longer recall which one set him off. He did make one comment, however, that caught my attention. He was very unhappy about the proliferation of rules, regulations and laws that he felt Council and the County were imposing on folks like him. I felt that it was a valid observation and one that deserved an answer.
I remember when I first arrived in Alberta as a young man, just out of school how refreshing it was to be able to do pretty much whatever I pleased without interference from anyone. If I wanted to shoot or hunt, I could toss a rifle in the back seat of the car, drive a few miles and blaze away to my heart's content, limited only by the amount of ammunition I could afford. I could ride a Ski-doo pretty well anywhere in the County and not have to cross a fence all day. There was a sense of total freedom and independence unlike anything I had known growing up in Southern Ontario.
Of course, at that time, Sherwood Park's population was less than 10,000 and the entire population of the County was not much more than that. Today after many decades of growth and "progress" we are nudging 100,000, one of the most populous municipalities in Alberta. And with this burgeoning population, we must acknowledge that the old days of freedom and open spaces are gone forever.
As we pack more and more people and businesses into a shrinking landscape, we find that more restrictions are needed to avoid harming one another or getting in each other's way. As more and bigger vehicles compete for space on a road network mostly laid out before the 1920s, we resort to elaborate, some would say bizarre, schemes to keep gridlock from shutting us down. We can no longer dump our garbage in a hole and forget it. We can no longer run our sewage into a ditch and hope that it gets lost before it gets to the well. Those days are over.
We on Council do not spend our days sitting around in a circle thinking up bylaws just to be deliberately annoying, though to some it might seem that way. Rather, we are obliged to address the real social, economic and environmental problems that a population explosion creates. Growth has consequences, including a parallel growth in restrictions and loss of freedoms. That is the reality we are living today and it is unlikely to change.
Alan Dunn
Councillor, Ward 6
780-464-8206
dunn@strathcona.ab.ca
Last updated: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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