Need to be positive to move ahead

Pretty much everyone can agree they want to see Pictou County move forward. One complication that became painfully apparent in recent months is that we have different views on how best to help the area prosper. Still, a unified effort can only help the cause.

Picking up from where it left off following the recent plebiscite, some of the key members of the ANTY group are busy with a follow-up to their bid to persuade people that amalgamation as proposed was not the way to proceed.

Granted, there were residents in the four municipalities involved who indicated they weren’t interested in change.

But that wasn’t the view of this group. Brian White, chair of the Amalgamation No Thank You Society, says the objective was never the status quo. The group’s new initiative is the launching of what it calls the Pictou County Possibilities Project.

The aim, according to those heading PCPP, is to engage county residents in broad discussion to help establish values and identify problems people see as impeding progress, and then work toward solutions.

That has generally been the approach of a number of groups that have sprung up in Pictou County in recent years. We have, for example, Pictou County 2020, which has held a number of sessions to bring community members together and assemble constructive ideas.

We also had a committee put together a couple of years ago to look into ways to attract more industry to the area.

The positive energy and brainstorming are essential. But we have to acknowledge communities across the Maritimes are facing the same challenges, and achieving concrete results is the tough part.

As difficult as it might be this soon after a starkly divisive time, one essential starting point in the way forward is to put aside hard feelings and try to forget the factions that grew out of the debate leading to the plebiscite.

A lot of data and ideas were compiled on this recent civic exercise, and although the transformation proposed was ultimately rejected, we should expect the parties examining the details have valuable information on file that will prove useful.

Rather than continuing with who’s right, who’s wrong, people with an interest in progress need to be open to others’ ideas. The energy has to be positive if it’s worth harvesting at all.