15 Aug Where’s that shovel? —feedback

For the better part of a decade, developers have successfully quashed efforts to block new office and residential projects in the city, and then failed to build them. Contrarian reader Marian Lindsay asks:

What gives? Does anyone have anything to say about all this procrastination? This seems a ridiculous waste of time and perfectly good space. Does no-one in power find this unacceptable? Can no-one get these projects rolling?

And, why, I ask, if these are private developers, are they dependent on government hand-outs? Has this just become the standard way of operating in this province? Yet, it seems to me, that business interests, and the right-leaning public refuse to accept, or give any break whatsoever, to governments who want to give so-called hand-outs to the “small citizens” who really need it to live. But it seems they are fine with corporate hand-outs (while usually denying that they exist) to build projects often of questionable need, and dubious design (it would seem to some).

What’s wrong with this picture, Nova Scotia?! Perhaps we really ARE as backward and stupid as some in the rest of Canada think we are! Even so, is it necessary for us to make it so easy for some people to claim this? I can only shake my head at the things that go on – or fail to go on – here.

I don’t know, but perhaps Ms. Lindsay should keep an eye on the Chamber of Commerce this morning where, according to media reports, Defence Minister Peter MacKay will announce $47 million in federal funding for Joe Ramia’s controversy-drenched Halifax Convention Centre. That’s on top of $56 million each from the province and the city.

So maybe,  just maybe, developers who aren’t being showered with government subsidies don’t appreciate having to compete for tenants against a developer who is.

Just a thought.