LETTER

Bulletin’s reporting of Destination Vanier 

The last few editions of The Bulletin presented a glorious opportunity, with the Destination Vanier project scheduled for this Autumn, to question planning decisions and look deeper into the rezoning and the surprises in store for local residents.

Instead, the Bulletin chose to not rock the boat, not ask nor demand answers to deeper questions – or speak to our councillors about this. Did you ask about increased traffic and what the city or developers plan to do in an already congested area?  

Your December 12 editorial was all good news. The STO will have more routes there, the streets will be lined with trees and more bike paths. I hate to break the news to you (that’s your job), but adding more homes, condos and stores to the area already congested, is a bad plan. People will drive. That means more cars idling on a single lane road.  Increased STO and bike lanes are pie-in-the-sky thinking.

In your February 19 edition, the development had front-page coverage, but the article was nothing more than an infomercial about a coming info-session.  The article was almost pro-developers – as if they were paying for an advertisement on the front page of the paper.

It seems no hard questions were asked, and if they were, they were not written.  What ever happened to the W-5’s that good reporters used to ask?

In the February 26 edition, again, there was no sign of any in-depth, hard-hitting reporting, just more coverage of the info-session.  

I have to quote “reporter” Helene Périers when she wrote, “Despite all the aspects worthy of interest mentioned above, [which were few] nothing flamboyant emerges from this project, which is definitely not very innovative.  It remains in the traditional SmartCities tradition.”

She continues, “The effort to open up the project’s promoters must be underlined. The media were there.  On the other hand, the same cannot be said of the citizen presence:  citizens seem less inclined to come and talk to each other in person than to express themselves on social media.”

Despite the bad grammar and editorializing, one has to ask:  Is it not the responsibility of the newspaper to ask the tough questions and then to report it to the public?  Sure, it would have been great to see hundreds of citizens show up, but, like she said, the media was there. I wonder if the half page ad the developers took out had any bearing on your lack of transparency?

Colin Clarke

Aylmer