Let's focus on the positive aspects of the public inquiry

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

Letter to the Editor

24 May 2008

To the editor:

Kudos to the Standard-Freeholder for the insightful editorials (May 10 and 12) about the staging of the RBC Cup in our community and the lessons we can learn from it.

The editorials point out that to improve our image, it is most important to look at what we ourselves think of Cornwall.

We can change our attitudes that create "an aura of negativity that permeates our community" to the ones that emphasize the positive.

In this way we are better able for example, to host large scale events, such as the RBC Cup. But let's back up here a moment. We already have an important endeavour in our midst that potentially could have far reaching positive implications for our community, and other communities, if we can stickhandle it appropriately.

I am talking here of the Cornwall Public Inquiry.

Certainly, the inquiry has an aura of negativity surrounding it, perpetuated by those who want to only deal with the inquiry's cost and the time the inquiry is taking, instead of also looking at the benefits that the inquiry can bring to our communities and other communities.

(Just a small thing perhaps, but why can't a story be done on the local economic benefits of the inquiry, as was done for the RBC Cup?) Of course improving Cornwall's image is only part of the equation.

That image has to reflect the reality of the situation and, in the case of the RBC Cup, there were concerns about the community-wide support for the event.

In that case of the Cornwall Public Inquiry, remember that it was set up in large part due to the substantial support of citizens, including survivors: a 12,000 signature petition representing half the households in our city.

Yet there are those that want to create a negative representation of the inquiry- what does this say about our community and its image? We're in overtime folks, it's the Negative Neanderthals versus the positive Progressives.

Who will win? Will it be the status quo all over again or, as the Standard-Freeholder editorial says,"the first step in a project with a long term goal- the renewal of our community."

Paul Scott

Cornwall