There is a lot of huffing and puffing these days about equality.
A cartoon on Facebook put it in perspective for me.
The first panel showed three men standing on boxes in front of a solid fence. The boxes were of equal height. The men weren’t.
The tall man towered over the fence top and had a good view of the other side.
The middle-sized man’s head and shoulders cleared the fence top nicely but the short man wasn’t even close, all he saw was fence. This panel was labelled Equality. The next panel showed the same three men, same boxes and fence, but the tall man was standing on the ground, his box had been put on top of the short man’s box. Now all three could see equally well.
This panel was labelled Justice.
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We British Columbians rely on California for 30 per cent of our veggies and fruit, so the state’s drought is affecting its production and our prices.
The cost of imported produce has risen six to ten per cent in the past year according to recent reports, and economic experts believe they could climb another 20 per cent this year.
Some predict a head of California broccoli could soon be $7 a pound.
What can we do about it?
Well, studies say we could be self supporting if we brought 240,000 more acres of prime irrigated land into production. We have the land. We have water and the climate. What we don’t have is the will.
We prefer to industrialize farmland, like flooding thousands of acres of prime farmland in the Peace River for Site C to produce electricity we don’t even need.
Food Security isn’t high on the provincial government’s agenda but there is nothing stopping local governments from making it a priority here.
What do our candidates for city, CRD and school board have to say on the matter?
Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.
