Editor,
Let me get this straight: Jessica Reid and Catherine Jackson, two of the most vocal anti-GAS (Garibaldi at Squamish) opponents, will be hosting a "community meeting" on GAS next week?
Isn't that sort of like having Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin hosting a "community meeting" to discuss Obama's Health Care Plan?
What really bothers me is to see this small, but very vocal, group of anti-GAS members driving around in their cars, skiing at Whistler/Blackcomb, talking on their cell phones, travelling in airplanes, wearing high-end, synthetic outdoor gear, using steel, plastic and nylon climbing gear, riding mountain bikes, working on laptops, shopping at multi-national chain stores, burning wood in wood-burning fireplaces, sending out thousands of paper door hangers, and, of course, drinking coffee.
All products whose environmental footprints are massive and come from sweat shops, open pit mines, rainforest clear cuts, Middle Eastern oil reserves and off-shore oil platforms. It seems that, for this small, but very vocal, group of anti-GAS members, as long as the negative environmental, political, economic, and societal impacts of the products they choose to consume and the outdoor activities they choose to participate in are in "someone else's backyard" that somehow makes it all OK.
Meanwhile thousands of locals, who also love the environment, have no choice but to burn tons of fossil fuels every day as they drive to their jobs in Whistler and Vancouver because there aren't any here.
Hey, I have an idea. Instead of anti-GAS spending all their time coming up with witty slogans like Don't Pass GAS, maybe they should present some real life alternatives to GAS to the citizens of Squamish.
If GAS doesn't pass, well, then what?
It seems the best they can come up with is to say that we are getting the Oceanfront - so, heck, we don't need GAS!
What they forget to mention is that benefits of the Oceanfront are far from immediate - they are spread out over 20 years. Seems they forgot to mention that bit of info on their door hangers advertising the event which, not surprisingly, didn't mention one benefit of GAS - so much for supplying "objective" information.
On that note, and for the sake of transparency, it sure would be interesting to find out how much of the $8,400 grant from MEC was used to rent the room, print the door hangars, make the posters, etc. for this community meeting.
For on Dec. 1, 2009 the anti-GAS movement was awarded a substantial grant to fund local efforts to stop the Garibaldi at Squamish (GAS) ski resort ["Anti-GAS groups get corporate grant," The Chief, Dec. 4, 2009].
If there is one thing I know, it is pretty hard to supply objective information when your financial backer has already stated how they want you to use the money they just gave you.
In the end, I have been constantly taken aback by the anti-GAS members who publicly claimed at previous GAS open houses that there are very few, if any, local supporters of GAS.
Well there are, and I am one of them.
We are the hard working people of Squamish who support GAS. We are busy commuting, paying our property taxes, volunteering, and being with our friends and families. We're sick and tired of being told we that we don't care about the environment, that we're going to destroy Squamish, and that we're elitists.
We are doing our best to find a realistic approach to saving the environment while trying to stop this town from bleeding jobs. All the while this small, but very vocal, group of anti-GAS members is doing their best to rip the band-aid off and expose the open wound.
Sam Gerski
Squamish
