Thunder Bay – Opinion – I am weary. Weary from a pandemic that has worked its way around the world and taken the lives of 1.6 million people to date. In that weariness, I have found myself asking the big questions about life.
The questions that you skip over because you are busy cutting the lawn, shoveling snow, doing the dishes, taking care of the children or grandchildren, heading off to work, or finally to sleep after a long day. In that weariness, there’s not enough energy to fight all the fights that deserve my attention, especially the ones that will have negative consequences for my life if I don’t.
I am weary from the business as usual attitude coming from city hall as I watch an exhausted citizenry continue to fight elected officials and city administration for their voices to be heard. It happens to those standing up for a conservatory, dealing with lead pipes, challenging large infrastructure projects that people believe they can’t afford, or being ignored when asking for answers to leaky pipes across the city. Ignoring concerned voices outside the doors of city hall with a cavalier attitude of just taking the slap on the wrist if projects go wrong has become a somewhat standard political maneuver in Thunder Bay.
It is not business as usual, and acting as if you can move agendas forward with blatant disregard for a virus that has now slipped silently and deadly into a long-term care home in Thunder Bay is the ultimate insult, and delivers irrefutable proof that Thunder Bay citizen opinions only matter during an election.
While this deadly virus swirls in the air waiting to catch the breath of anyone in its path, many citizens are living with a guillotine blade looming large and sharp above them. This blade has a double edge, one that hovers over their financially vulnerable necks, the other a virus called Covid-19 that has already left nine dead.
‘We are all in this together’ is a well-used phrase by leadership in the city in recent months, and I for one am asking them to prove it.
Lori Paras
Thunder Bay
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