Dear editor,
At the beginning of the pandemic, I saw a quote that said, “Your grandparents were called to war. You're being asked to sit on the couch. You can do this.” That quote has stuck with me ever since. This is our generation’s great battle, but are we truly facing this with the dedication to the future that our grandparents had? As we approach Veterans’ Week – which runs Nov. 5 to 11 – and the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, I have to ask if we have done enough.
The 40th Avenue interchange is a much-needed project. Kudos to Mayor Peter Brown for allocating the lion’s share of the budget and to MLAs Angela Pitt and Peter Guthrie for securing the other $21.1 million from the province. This infrastructure will help unite our city, allowing for better access to businesses and services on both the east and west sides of the city. However, the promise of 300 jobs – and no guarantee they will be filled by Airdronians – is not enough to bounce back from where we sit today.
How did our grandparents recover after the Great Depression and the Second World War? It was not by aggressively paying down the deficit. It was not through job cuts in the public sector. It was not by having the government tighten its belts. The Canadian economy boomed in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to government social programs and innovation.
Shopping local and having a business pictorial section in our paper are good attempts to keep Airdrie’s small businesses open. But if the residents of Airdrie don’t have money to spend in those businesses, advertisements do little to keep them afloat. We need a recovery plan that puts cash in our hands – in more than only 300 hands – so that we can spend that cash in Airdrie. We need to remember the sacrifices of our greatest generation and we need to remember how they managed to recover and thrive after their struggles.
Tammy Plunkett
Baywater Rise
