Mathias Tait
With an increasingly growing demand for more public works and government programs, governments relies on a growing economy and a steady source of income through industrial taxes.
This tax income is mostly from industry and the manufacturing of raw materials.
The fact is that a significant amount of taxes paid to the government will have come from industry in some way. In turn a country cannot easily grow and prosper without a strong industrial base.
If you think about it, most tourist economies are not very stable and go through vast financial uncertainty. They usually only grow when other economies based on industry expand.
For example, when the world went through a huge economic recession in 2008, countries like the US and Canada were affected in some ways, but not nearly as damaged as the heavily tourist dependent economy of Greece.
The fact is that most of the strongest economies in the world (Canada and USA) are based on the exploitation of natural resources through industrial productions.
Usually the tourist incomes in those countries are a side income.
Considering when you go back to the 19th century, when the British Empire ruled the world, the country itself was going through the Industrial Revolution.
The United States started to have the greatest influence of the world in the 20th century too, coinciding with their uncompromising industrial, manufacturing base.
Furthermore, they were building the strongest economy the world had known, based on the exploitation of industrial practice and manufacturing.
Without industry no country would have ever grown or even have been formed and we would still be nomadic barbarians fending for ourselves, with no places to call home.
Communities may be smaller and have less to look after compared to their federal counterparts, but they still rely on industry to support their many needed public services.
Towns need taxes from industry to keep the public taxes lower and provide the basic necessities of the town. Industry also provides a base of stable employment for the community, allowing other services and jobs to grow, in turn allowing the community to grow in general.
An example of this need for industry is Kitimat, a town I know and love, which has gone through great economic uncertainty with the two sizable industrial employers reducing in size or shutting down all together.
The town has lost a great tax income and has had to consider the cutting of some public services.
As you can guess the people are not happy about the cuts and demand the upkeep of the services.
There is hope for the town with a new industrial company wanting to come to town.
For cautious reasons some groups of people don’t want the industry. These hesitant people say there is too much of a risk for the environment.
I reply by stating that they are not looking at the bigger picture. There might be an environmental risk, but the town needs to grow and stabilize its economy.
The tree huggers still don’t agree with me and say that if the environment is destroyed then tourist income will fall.
What they don’t realize is, if there’s not a town already there with facilities and hotels to stay at, then how would the tourists be able to come and visit nature in the first place?
In the long term industry is needed to be able to visit nature and the benefits of industry in any town, more likely than not, outweigh the risk.
Industry has, in the past, accidentally ruined the environment for some towns, but every town in all of Canada needs it to provide jobs for its citizens. Without these jobs, people would not be able to afford to, or even be able to visit nature for themselves, let alone live comfortably in their communities.
People all around the world need industry for everything they do in so many different ways it is hard for them to understand.
Individuals not only need industry to make money, but need it to make the every day goods that they need and want.
With the taxes paid to the government and their cities and towns, it allows the public construction of the needed and heavily used infrastructure of the country.
Without that infrastructure, provided through industrial taxes, the society of the 21st century would not survive.
In general people need industry to help their towns and countries grow and prosper. No-one ever wants their towns to go through hardship and force them or their friends to move away.
People are often happy to see new jobs come to their town even if they are industrial.
In all, people need industry to support the modern life of the average North American.
(Mathias is a Grade 10 student at Mount Elizabeth Secondary. The above is a shortened version of his original essay. To receive a copy of the full version, you can e-mail him at tqry2@hotmail.com.)
