Of whingeing...of ignorance..and of purposeful Hope

I

The Stoney Creek News headline read 'Dairy stays, customers sour about Quebec sale'. And within the article, anger, frustration...and a hint of incredulity-cum-ignorance regarding the impending loss of part of a local tradition.

The issues I get excited over -health, fitness, education, community, societal value shifts to name but a few- often have me scratching my head. Because so often, people fill up with the above emotions when a pretty easily predicted or reasonably expected result unfolds, and I scratch my head wondering 'What's fueling this; a general lack of comprehension about how things work, or a need to rail, to complain, to whinge...to blame?'

An example? Sure: people with fitness and weight problems who are seemingly unfamiliar with the topic's basic concepts and ruling truths: calories ingested vs calories expended, the long-term effects of a sedentary lifestyle, how 'unnatural' food products usurp the natural processes of the body, how mind, spirit and physical form are inextricably connected...the very reality of us being biological animals first and foremost. They're unfamiliar, ignorant, dismissive...and then, when they don't get the results they crave, shock, umbrage...and anger results.

Stuff like that.

So, reading the Stoney Creek Dairy headline and its article, I had to laugh a tiny, admittedly dismissive laugh even as I did my whole 'scratching of the head' thing. It would so, so easy to assume that people don't understand how the world works, don't understand the very culture they're constantly helping continue to exist; the free-market, vote-with-your-dollar, capitalist society. (I've long believed that we need to incorporate an aspect of our education system that deals with the basic precepts of all this, a sortakinda 'civics' course on 'Our Economic World'.)

I get that people aren't happy that the manufacturing plant is being shut down and the operations are being moved elsewhere. I get that this means that a certain number of people are going to lose their current livelihood. I also get that people don't like change, that they don't like the loss of tradition much either, that something is being taken away from them, something they have varying degrees of emotional attachment to. But seriously...

Nothing remains the same forever. The economy shifts, the market migrates, consumer demand either wanes, disappears entirely, or switches to the Next Coveted Item...or multinationals invoke an agenda that is so not in line with history or habit or a community's expectations, governments attempt to 'control' trade through 'agreements'...and suddenly the playing field has changed. Not only that, but the game being played has changed, too; what was once baseball is now football, or lacrosse or rugby or cricket...or polo.

II

I don't know if I'm missing something, but it seems to me that in the reporting of the Dairy's change of circumstances, the facilities were going to be moved. Glanbrook was floated as an option, didn't pass muster, and Lachine was chosen. But the facility was sold, and it was clear that the production required by the new owner's stakeholders couldn't be met at the Stoney Creek location..or anywhere else in Ontario; my interpretation of the available news coverage was that it was a provincial issue of various operating costs being too high. So Glanbrook, Binbrook, Collingwood, or anywhere else within these borders, it wouldn't have mattered...the plant was leaving.

Is there a villain here? Not from what I can see. And really, anyone with a working understanding of how commerce works ('It's not personal...it's business') shouldn't be spending energies bemoaning something not any more complicated than a simple business decision..regardless of how 'sour' it tastes.

III

Instead, how about looking at this situation as an opportunity?

How about re-envisioning this incredible parcel of land in a way that creates Hope in the community?

Look; we're keeping the Dairy. You know, where customers have always purchased their cones, shakes and sundaes from. It's not going anywhere. The ice cream might be made in Lachine in the near future (and I'm sure they'll be doing their utmost to ensure both quality controls as well as the continuation of the Dairy's home-spun traditions), but it's not like an entire institution is entirely vanishing. And...

...and until arbitrary and probably myopic plans are announced regarding development of the production facilities land...

...why don't we take some of our umbrage, morph it into chutzpah, mix it in with some pro-active imagination, and come up with a solid -and inventive- plan about how this unfortunate development can be turned into one of the gems of Stoney Creek?

There's nothing stopping us...but inertia and lack of initiative.

Which is why this weekend, I'll be sending off an email to M. Georges Gaucher, president of Lachine-based Creme Glacee Lambert, enquiring as to the plans for the soon-to-be-empty ice cream factory...investigating the prospects of turning the property into something special for Stoney Creek.