Kamloops Daily
News
Friday June 22,
2007
Editorial
SH: Politics about
issues
both big and
small
The amazing thing about
politicians is that they’re totally capable of dealing with more than one issue
at the same time. Looking for a solution to one problem doesn’t mean they can’t
deal with other problems, too.
So it was an odd comment that
Coun. Tina Lange made this week when council discussed putting more teeth into
its animal control bylaw on the issue of exotic pets.
“We have pedophiles on the street
and we’re worrying about iguanas?” she asked, as her way of brushing off the
topic.
One could apply that comment to
any number of things. “We have pedophiles on the street and we’re worrying about
who gets parking tickets?”
Or, “We have pedophiles on the
street and we’re worrying about putting grates on culverts?”
Or, “We have pedophiles on the
street and we’re worrying about free bus rides on election
day?”
And so on, and so on. Each one of
those examples happens to be something Lange debated at the council table.
Certainly, pedophiles present an important community challenge. So do other
major issues such as affordable housing, managing growth, developing new
recreational facilities, prostitution and drugs.
And, as it happens, a large
number of what we might consider less pressing issues, such as bus rides on
election day, grates on culverts, parking tickets and, indeed, ownership of
exotic pets.
Speaking of which, if Lange wants
to restrict herself to bigger issues this week, maybe she could have tackled the
provincial government’s failure to deal with the exotic-pet ownership issue in a
more timely manner.
Surely, when someone gets killed
by an exotic pet, namely a tiger, confined in a facility that was of
questionable safety standards, as happened recently in Bridge Lake, that’s an
issue worth discussing by our council.
But it’s also worth thinking
about who should be responsible for issues that are of province-wide importance,
and the ownership of exotic pets is one of those.
Nonetheless, in the absence of
provincial action, council was right in reviewing its own regulations. The
current bylaw prohibits exotic-animal performances within the city, and at least
one circus has abided by that bylaw by leaving its animals outside city limits
when it came to town.
It was a revelation, though, that
the same tiger involved in the Bridge Lake tragedy had been brought into town at
one point.
So, clearly, putting a little
time and energy into discussing improvements to the bylaw was worthwhile on a
Tuesday when there were only a handful of items on the
agenda.
The reality is that a great deal
of what a municipal council deals with is of a minor nature, often boring in the
extreme. When was the last time you were held spellbound as council debated the
pros and cons of a new drainage project, or a new records-management
system.
Civic politics is about big and
small, and about managing all manner of issues. If politicians can’t multitask,
they shouldn’t be politicians.