A mess in Windsor
OK, enough is enough!
Whoever is responsible for the death trap on Highway 101 passing Windsor had better start doing something. Driving home from Halifax at night a week or so ago was an absolute terror.
I would like to declare this an absolute disaster area to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). Apparently, this is the place where most of the blame lies. But there is a lot of blame to go around here.
And why on earth did Nova Scotia’s Department of Public Works start ripping and tearing up the highway before they got the go-ahead from DFO? Answer me that one.
This is the Public Works department which is now saying it has its act together and is almost ready to send off the final information to DFO and everything should be hunkydory and finished by the 202526 construction season. Are you kidding me – 2025-26?
Why is the mayor of Windsor not sitting in Premier Tim Houston’s office night and day begging, pleading, harrying and being downright nasty about this?
Complaints have come from the pumpkin race people, the farmers upstream and the fishers. And all those folks who expected the “lake” to remain forever – and built houses overlooking that nice little body of water – are mighty angry now too.
I may have missed comments by the Progressive Conservative Party’s MLA for the Windsor area, Melissa Sheehy-Richard. I wonder if she has been asking her fellow compadres in the hallways of the legislature, “Hey, how’s it going with the highway project in my constituency?”
And who is the MP for this riding? Why it’s Kody Blois, a Liberal, who is quoted as saying he will be leaning on his government to see that the provincial government’s submission to DFO is dealt with expeditiously – which is on its way, apparently. I wonder where he has been if he’s just now going to be leaning on one of his government’s departments.
So, the provincial Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage is busy working on their 2023 tourism campaign. How’s that going, folks? Have any of you driven down Highway 101 past Windsor lately to see Grand Pré, or the Michelin plant where the new exit is going so it will be better for local folks dealing with those terrible big trucks?
And I suppose that same tourism department will be mentioning Fort Anne and
Digby scallops and the Wharf Rat Rally and Briar Island and all the other terrific places for tourists to see in those TV ads and in the online Doers & Dreamers Travel Guide. And of course, there’s the wineries. And Acadia University in Wolfville along with the theatre there.
Good luck tourists. We love you and we want you to have a good time. Oh, and by the way, watch out for the deadly construction zone as you go by Windsor. We wouldn’t want to lose you.
PS – I sure hope the great folks who drive the ambulances with patients who have to go to Halifax for emergency surgery are safe along with their passengers.
Anne Crossman is a former journalist and media manager. She now does volunteer work in her community of Annapolis Royal.