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Downtown Swift Current March 24, 2003 |
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Swift Current Civic Election and the Casino |
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| Brendaren Farms - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - by: Edwin Wallace | ||||||
Many of us well remember the excitement and pride exhibited when Swift Current was designated by one of the national magazines as the best or one of the best places to live in Canada - perhaps the world. |
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It would now seem that some of our fellow citizens who celebrated that 'best kept secret' need another shot of national boosterism. |
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Likely you will find those of whom I speak affiliated with that triad of negativism, the Downtown Business Association, Action Swift Current and the Swift Current Chamber of Commerce. To hear this bunch talk it is difficult to keep in one's mind's eye the small, beautiful, healthy, vibrant community that Swift Current really is, when they refer to stagnation and lack of growth. It is very difficult to feel confident that we are in fact living in one of the finest communities of Canada - at least - when we have a former seeker of the Mayor's chair (Robinson) declare that if Swift Current doesn't have an outside controlled gambling establishment we are all going down the tubes. |
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Mind you, the Downtown Business Association, Action Swift Current and the Swift Current Chamber of Commerce isn't that crass. The triad talks of millions of dollars of investment and the "Extraordinary Benefits" that an outside controlled, gambling, establishment would bring us. In a recently distributed pamphlet, "Vote to Grow", the three organizations point out that Swift Current's population has been more or less fixed at around 16,000 during the last 20 years. |
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Has that got anything to do with the 'Good Place to Live' reputation of our fair place? |
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Downtown Business Association, Action Swift Current and the Swift Current Chamber of Commerce members have stated to me Swift Current must grow. My question to them is, why? Most of them don't know. |
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I am told that there will be hundreds of new houses if an outside controlled gambling casino is established here. Questionable! (As are all the projections for a casino driven wealth ridden future.) But, say that is right, do we start building sufficient infrastructure for that increase now. |
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Infrastructure: Nearly every urban community in North America is faced with daunting future expenditures for the maintenance of the infrastructure now in place. Sewer and water utilities, roads, sidewalks all take a great deal of maintenance. Some communities have gone broke trying to cope. There is evidence that "growth" of a community usually significantly and negatively impacts the well being of ordinary residents in the form of much higher property taxes. Successful communities have let natural growth and not artificial stimulation be the controller of additional infrastructure. |
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If we vote to grow, as the pamphlet admonishes us, there will be short term benefit to some of the business community. There may be some long term benefit to them too. Herein lies a possible future problem. If the effort of the Downtown Business Association, Action Swift Current and the Swift Current Chamber of Commerce to get an outside controlled gambling place established is successful, will the Downtown Business Association, Action Swift Current and the Swift Current Chamber of Commerce not be a strong lobbyist for the lions share of any inflow of cash? Home owners, these are things to consider. |
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Swift Current is a very 'nice' little city. It has most of the facilities of any other community; large or small. Those facilities it has are the result of hard work and dedication. None of the past, up to the present, has depended on outside control and something for nothing incentives to achieve the status Swift Current enjoys - a good place to live. That same hard work and dedication could give us a performing arts center - when we can afford it. |
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Swift Current is a good place to live because. in part, it has no sleazy pall hanging over it. I don't mean to moralise, I don't care if you gamble or not. But gambling is sleazy. Not many years ago it was relegated to smoky back rooms and Vegas - a creation of the "Mob". Gambling is not a past time of happy people. Most local people I talk to have no intention of gambling. |
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Not all the costs of gambling, economic and social, have been tallied. They won't be by the Downtown Business Association, Action Swift Current and the Swift Current Chamber of Commerce. |
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So it is up to us to give the matter serious thought and be sure to vote on October 22. |
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I'm Edwin Wallace |
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loyal Canadian |
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| References: | ||||||
Swift Current Chamber of Commerce web site. |
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The City of Swift Current web site |
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Swift Current Online |
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Action Swift Current web site |
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July Press release (PDF) by Action Swift Current on Plebiscite on First Nations run Gambling Casino |
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An un-named promotion of a Casino for Swift Current that came from the "speedycreekonline.com" server. |
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Minutes of July 14, 2003 Swift Current council meeting when the Casino promotion was pitched. |
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Squires, Jim, Proof to the Swift Current Advantage, June 2003, Speedy Creek News, South West Centre for Entrepreneurial Development |
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Swift Current Online, Full House at Casino Meeting, August 22, 2003 |
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Shire, Timothy W. Dry Southwest, as agriculture's wounds devaste business, March 25, 2003, Ensign |
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