LETTER

Jean Baptiste, no longer for ordinary folks?

 

Once again Jean Baptiste comes around, but as a boozy party supported by the City Of Gatineau for only those with money to spend.  I have no problem with a party, but when my taxes are being burned up to gate off my park and my marina for a fun fair that is exclusively for the affluent, then something is wrong with this picture.  

In this era of skyrocketing rents, Phoenix payroll fiasco and payday loan scammers, the pricey $20 ticket – each -- makes attending more than a month’s worth of disposable income for any family like mine, after essentials like Hydro and rent are paid.  Some of us still work for a living, often shovelling fries on minimum wages or in self-employment jobs that pay well below that, yet it is hard to see how any family on less than $20,000 a year could possibly afford to attend the party down at the Marina where not a single event, ride, nor coconut sky was available to low-earners.  Indeed, I don’t know of a single person whose family could afford to attend this year.
    
And, as a 6-year old child bawls her eyes out  because she can’t go to the fair with her friends, just how does her father explain that she’s not worthy to be part of la fête nationale, as his hours were cut last week?

Is this really the sort of socially divisive binge that we should encourage?

Robert L Thompsett
Aylmer