The Horrors of Speaking in Front of People - Costs and Benefits of Speaking Out

Last evening at the town hall meeting for the CFGG, I was especially struck by hardship cases of the local residents who were adversely affected by the major improvements to the town's services. Every time the village has a major improvement, it is likely that the benefits and costs will be spread unevenly.

I have worked for governments on projects before and I have worked on some infrastructure projects around the world. Before a large project relative to the size of a community's undertaken, there needs to be economic, engineering, financial, technical, feasibility and environmental analyses.

Some people confuse economic and financial analyses. They are almost totally different. These days economic analyses need to be done in conjunction with environmental assessments and environmental economic assessments. These can be also very different. Economists are particularly keen these days to evaluate the costs and benefits of what are termed externalities.

Externalities arise with projects and they can be the undoing of the benefits of projects, for example if a project requires a wood to be cut down this would have externalities for the people near the wood and the creatures occupying the wood. Engineers make bad economists because they don't examine externalities carefully and frequently limit their economics to the effects associated with the price mechanisms.

That the loss of vegetation results in changes that cannot be easily priced or compensation paid means that such aspects are ignored. Waste products are dumped and both people and the environment suffer outside the price mechanism. Most environmental damage occurs outside what traditional economics and engineering would consider as important.

This is at the root of the enormous damage done to the Ontario environment over the past fifty years. Much of the damage is not paid for by those doing the damage. There is a big debt to be paid, but no one is handed the bill. This again is because people are not made accountable for the predictable results of their actions.

Large projects are enormously destabilizing for creatures and people without a voice, the underrepresented population who must ultimately bear the cost of other people's profits and income. That the world suffers from over investment is almost a truism. So much has been created and done in the name of progress which we have to correct.

These environmental and social costs are almost never recovered, but should be. It is just plane wrong that the weak and poor suffer at the hands of those claiming the benefits of so called progress.

Thus, when at the town hall meeting, we heard from at least three people say that the costs of the sewerage project were underestimated, it was good to have this break the surface of people's understanding. If one has any conscience at all, one has to feel for the many less well off people in the community that are harmed by projects others benefit from, but who never pay the full price.

It was good for these people to speak out because they and their families and the families of their offspring will ultimately bear most of the costs. We wonder why some people remain poor relatively. Well this is why. It is the disproportionate distribution of costs to a community so that the real costs fall on those well off and least able to voice their objection. Some, like the forests full of life, stand silent until they are decimated.

Of course, the beneficiaries of large projects, the engineers in fancy vehicles and the politicians want these projects because they are blind to, or put their blinkers on, to the full costs and damages. They would not, I can assure you, want to pay for them out of their own pockets, and it is not good enough to pay token attention to these important costs.

In some other societies, the many externalities must be given greater weight because of the relative numbers of people affected.

It is in developing countries, such as Canada and Quebec where the costs are not reaching the surface of consciousness.

Notice that I did not ignore the externalities of the project of Quebec. Notice I said Quebec, and this is because Quebec is a developing country. It may not have it's independence, but that is by choice. It is a country developing within another country called Canada. It is like the country of Scotland developing within the country of United Kingdom, developing within the country of the European Union.

In societies where social costs are ignored by the beneficiaries, there can come about a violent redress of the imbalance, a restructuring of the playing field, a social and environmental disaster that can be avoided by a more disciplined approach to development that gets everything out in the open on the table and discussed by all those that may participate. Openness and transparency are thus at the heart of democratic progress and development and without openness violence to the environment and to people results.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.