Wharf solution as easy as pie

The contortions that our government goes through to avoid common sense are mind boggling in the extreme.

The Digby wharf is falling apart and the federal government refuses to spend any money on repairs or dredging as long as the wharf remains in private hands. That much makes sense.

No one is suggesting that good money be thrown after bad. The big question is how do we get the wharf back in public hands. Seems a simple question to answer. The public has to buy it. And the public would love to buy it, if they only had a pocketful of cash.

And yes it is easy to understand the government’s reluctance to buy the wharf after a former government gave it away. Again, no is asking the federal government to buy it.

Just loan the money to a universally recognized community group that has stepped forward to manage the wharf in a transparent, democratic and responsible manner.

And if “loan� is the wrong word according to some bureaucratic dictionary, then figure out some complicated word that makes everybody in Ottawa happy and put the money in the hands of the local community group.

The locally community group will then pay the government back from the $275,000 in yearly wharfage fees that are going to the private owners under the present arrangement.

Let me go over that again. Right now the private owners are collecting $275,000 a year in wharfage fees. That’s $275,000 the community never sees again. That money is going going gone.

But, if the government could find a way to loan, let, mortgage, advance, or give the community group, let’s say, $500,000 to buy the wharf, then the community group could start collecting the wharfage fees and start the repairs.

It is not more complicated than that. The conflict in Afghanistan, climate change, health care wait times – those are tricky problems.

The Digby wharf is as straight forward as apple pie. It’s an easy one.

With hardly a thought, the government could scratch this little problem off its to do list and get busy worrying about the complicated ones.



jriley@digbycourier.ca