Friends and Neighbours:

Thanksgiving is nearly over. The fridge is stuffed with leftovers from
our big meal.  I hope your Thanksgiving dinner was as
family-warm and satisfying as ours was.

This was not, for many of us, an ordinary Thanksgiving. The dark
cloud hanging over our heads, the monstrous tower that Telus
wants to build across the road from us, was often in our
thoughts. After a three-week flurry of activity in getting our
submissions ready for Telus's September 30 deadline, we have
entered a period of reduced activity while we wait for some
response to our petitions and letters.

Thanksgiving has also brought with it a chance to reflect on some
of the larger dynamics behind the tower siting process. Telus's
proposed tower is, we know, part of an effort to blanket
the more densely populated regions of Canada with wireless
telephone coverage. The backing that telecoms such as Telus,
Bell, and Rogers receive from the federal government is
necessary to keep purely private interests from overriding public
interest. This is true not only of a communications infrastructure,
but also of railroads, automobile road systems, pipelines,
hydroelectric dams, and national defense installations. Few
of these national infrastructure efforts, unfortunately, can be
pursued without some damage to local interests.

Any large state, of course, has the power to build large-scale
public works. But there are differences in the ways that states
create these infrastructures. Some do it in a heavy-handed way.
The Nazi Party in Germany had a vast program of national
projects. So did Stalin in the USSR and Mao in China. Their
infrastructure programs succeeded, but only at the cost of tens of
millions of lives. The more open societies, the ones that have
come to dominate modern world economies, construct their
national infrastructures in a different way. They use methods
that take into account the impact that these infrastructures have
on individuals and local governments.

In the case of Canada's cellular tower infrastructure, Industry
Canada, as an agency of a democratic state, has a dual charge.
One of its mandates is to ensure that cell towers get sited and
built. Its other mandate is to find the paths to its goals that have the
least impact on local populations. You can see this dual charge at
work in the CPC radiocommunication guidelines published by
Industry Canada. The telecoms, the guidelines say, are required
to conduct public consultations that give people who are affected
by proposed towers a say about the tower locations. Telecoms are
also required to work closely with local land-use authorities to ensure
that the body of wisdom that has been expressed as community
plans and by-laws is respected. Up to this point Industry Canada
has failed to carry out the public side of its mandate. It is
allowing Telus to conduct a less-than-bare-bones public
consultation. Now it is giving Telus permission to ignore the by-
laws of the Metchosin Council. This is not the role of a federal
infrastructure agency in an open society.  These kinds of actions
are the norm in closed, despotic societies.

One of the casualties in this heavy-handed process has been the
concept of public space. When the Telus proposal arrived on
September 8, my first response was focused on the effect that
the intrusive tower would have on my personal and family life. I
didn't give much thought to the way the tower was viewed in the
wider community. Since then I've been able to chat with dozens
of other Metchosin residents about what is happening.
Interestingly, I have yet to talk with anyone living in Metchosin,
even among those residing outside the shadow of the proposed
tower, who want to see it built at 4537 Rocky Point Road. I also
discovered that the Metchosin Council members had the
opportunity earlier this year to have the Telus tower sited at the
back of the municipal property, on a spot not far from the
currently proposed site. They turned Telus down. I know why
I don't want a tower at the proposed site, but why, I wondered,
would all of these other people have such strong opinions
about the location of a tower that will not have a direct affect on
their own residences?

The attitudes of my neighbours and the Council are conditioned,
I think, by what they regard as suitable structures for public
spaces. Metchosin may be a small community, but those who
have chosen to live here have a genuine sense of public space,
one just as strong as that of any resident of a large city toward
his/her own city's public space. "Downtown" Metchosin is our
statement, the place where residents of Metchosin announce to
visitors who we are and what we value. We have a general store,
a serve-everything café, a coffee shop, a tack shop, a school, two
museums, an art space, modest district government buildings,
fairgrounds, a fire hall, a historic church and churchyard, two
public-use buildings, and walking trails. You won't find in our
public space any large-scale industry, business towers, high-
density apartments, malls, statues to generals, or manicured
parks with fancy fountains. To the outside world we may look
underdeveloped, but our public spaces are, in fact, carefully
designed, the result of more than a century of thoughtful choices.
What we have allowed to be built in our public space and what
we have chosen not to allow is a direct reflection of our rural values.
This is why, I believe, so many Metchosinites find the idea of a cell
tower in or near our public space, our "downtown core," so
offensive. The industrial and commercial message in the tower's
architecture is simply not consistent with our public self-
awareness. In some cities a highly visible cell tower might be
part of the public image that the inhabitants wish to project.
Here it is not.

At this Thanksgiving, then, I look at the proposed tower in a
wider, less-personal context.  As a citizen of an open society, as
a resident of rural Metchosin, I find the proposed tower and
the methods being used to ensure its construction inconsistent
with my values.

                                       Kem Luther