Much ado…

It seems we don’t have enough to grumble about each week in Prince Edward County. Now we must invent problems. Manufacture grievances.

Our American neighbours have spent much of 2020 courting with civil unrest, led by a now-clear-for-all-the-world-to-see grifter seeking to distract folks while he fills his pockets from the nation’s treasury. As that country teeters toward dangerous destabilization, they seem to find new ways to diminish the institutions that were supposed to bring them together.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 has us confined to our homes, cut off from our friends and loved ones for weeks and months at a time. Ten thousand Canadians have died from the disease, and it appears a second wave is forming. Seven months into this pandemic and our leaders still haven’t figured out how to test folks efficiently. Children, oldsters and everyone in between waiting many hours for a test. And then isolating in limbo for several days.

At the same time, our governments are promising to accumulate fresh new debt unconscionable just a few months ago, on top of an already serious debt problem. This is surely our sour legacy to our children.

Closer to home, we are watching agape as a great sorting transpires before our eyes. With increasing velocity, the County’s current population is being replaced. Shockingly quick home sales are compelling folks to leave, replaced mostly by wealthier folks escaping the confines of the city. Every three-days-on-themarket home sale motivates two or three other families to cash out of Prince Edward County. The writing cannot be more clearly hacked into the wall. Partly through our own choices and priorities, we have failed to address the very real challenge of ensuring that the County remains a viable place to live for ordinary families.

So it not as though we don’t have real problems. Legitimate worries. But sure, let us instead wind up the grindstone to hone our axes for a few more weeks on our irritation with tourists and the economy they deliver. More precisely, let us set aside a global pandemic, the seeds of civil war next door, a mountain of debt and the transformation of our community into the exclusive address for the wealthy to grumble about Countylicious. Really?

I am inclined to ignore this noise—as I did the online petition this past summer urging council to control tourism. It merely underlines that many are disinterested in the local economy—their income or well-being is not linked to the success or failure of the businesses or investment in our midst. It is a reminder that a great many exist here on a pension or other government income. Others work for school boards, hospitals or other governmental institutions. Without any skin in the game, I get why some folks might see every visitor as a nuisance rather than an opportunity— how they may lose sight of the bigger picture. How they might fail to make the indirect connections to their schools and healthcare.

But like a terrier chasing a car—and getting more frustrated with every one that gets away—there was never a serious plan to wrestle a 3,000-pound truck to submission, nor any clear-eyed prospect of what would happen if we managed to succeed. So folks ventilate. Fair enough.

It is just not clear that gaslighting this kind of grievance moves the needle in any meaningful way. Or if it is just a distraction. Is that all we are looking for? Is that all we need? Some shiny bits to take our minds off real problems?

Countylicious is an adaptation of a concept used around the globe aimed at encouraging a broader array of folks to experience the truly great and innovative cuisine and fine dining that has emerged in our community.

It was designed and implemented here more than a decade ago as a means to broaden the visitor season into the spring and fall. It succeeded wonderfully in doing this. Moreover, it provides a terrific opportunity for those immersed in the business of our visitor economy in the heady summer months to sample the wares of our colleagues and new entrants.

So this year, in the context of everything that is 2020, the organizing folks opted to mix it up a bit. They introduced elements from—gasp—outside the County. Some Toronto chefs. The most offensive bit seemingly a downtown Toronto restaurant catering mostly to lawyers and investment bankers that is showcasing its wares and offering in our midst. This is the chief crime perpetrated by the organizers of Countylicious. This is the offence that folks, including our friends at the Gazette have chosen to lean into?

Are we so timid, so fragile, so shallow that we must shun anything that isn’t County? How thin is our hide when we are offended by the presence of an urban restaurant sharing their experience for an afternoon in September. Is our focus so narrow that we fail to see any benefit from an innovative means to fuel our remarkable and enviable economy? Or does every dollar spent on our visitor economy come out of our comfortable and pension-funded hides?

How are we to take on real problems when we dwell on the trivial?

I don’t believe that this is our community. My sense is that this is the grumbling of a few of the usual suspects, propelled by folks eager to accumulate clicks and animated feedback. I believe our community is bigger than this. Smarter than this. More gracious and thoughtful.

Let us find real things to debate.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca