Letter: Taking care of constituents should be top priority for local politicians

By Letter to the Editor on February 11, 2021.

Dear editor,

When will our local politicians stand up for their constituents’ health and well being for generations to come?

Between Glen Motz, Drew Barnes, Michaela Glasgo and Ted Clugston, I have not heard a peep about the current plans to begin intensive coal exploration on the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies. Meanwhile, foreign mining companies are busy laying the groundwork to begin mountain-top removal as soon as possible.

This is the most short-sighted policy I have ever heard considered in this province.

Forget the fact these mountains are the headwaters for Medicine Hat’s drinking water (along with most other major cities through Alberta and Saskatchewan), they also serve as one of our province’s major revenue streams through tourism and agriculture.

The St. Mary’s irrigation system is an engineering marvel but relies on clean water to grow fertile crops (see the problems downstream from Sparwood in the Elk River system). It turns out that people don’t really want to come and vacation in blighted mountains that have been laid waste by companies turning temporary profits into generations of publicly subsidized clean ups.

I realize there is a lack of revenue at all levels of government right now, but perhaps the scorched-earth policies of intensive natural resource exploitation (the simplest short-term, most complicated long-term solutions) could be supplanted by some more innovative thinking by our governments. Taking care of their constituents’ health and well being should be every politician’s top priority.

Matt Goss

Medicine Hat

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