Pride is a simple word that takes on different interpretations on several fronts.
Community pride is something we need to talk about this week dear diary.
What are we good at? What can we point to within our community with a sense of pride, with a sense of understanding that we are among the best at what we do?
We know it's definitely not roads or clean air. Our sports teams are well known but on that front we haven't really exceeded expectations, or is often the case, even met them.
Drama, music? A little bit, but no exceedingly long streak of national recognition.
It seems what we're good at around here is drilling for oil in a conventional manner and producing power from coal.
It may not be Champagne from France or peaches from interior B.C., but we can lay claim to having the best damn thermal power production system in Canada now that our power company has made a real-life commitment toward real-life clean coal electrical production, none of that pretend stuff others claim in their clever but vague television commercials.
Perhaps we should take ownership of this fact as a community and drum the bejeezes out of it. Why not a civic campaign aimed at masses, supported by our Crown Corporation partner?
Real Clean Coal Works, We're Proving It, could be our motto, mantra or war cry in response to the Neil Youngs and Robert Redfords of the world.
By the way, I haven't seen Neil, Robby or the rest of the celebrity environmentalists taking their road shows into China and berating them for their green house gas regulation-breaking practices. They like to pick the low hanging fruit in North America for their photo opps and lectures, even though North American power plant builders and oil producers are among the cleanest and best regulated in the world. But I digress.
Why don't we take ownership of, and show a whole lot of pride in what is happening under our noses each and every day. We all know someone who helps produce electricity every day. Let's prove to the world they are the best. Tell the world to come and visit us and see for themselves. We're doing it for our friends in industry, why not the great unwashed public? We are already participating in industry tourism to a modest degree, so why not expand this to include a pleasure tourism package. We have the best arena and event complex in southern Saskatchewan that is currently underused. We have golf courses that take no back seat to any other in the province. We have a dirt track speedway and live theatre productions in the valley.
We have environmental practices here that others could see and learn about.
We have a story of big equipment, draglines and huge haulers that may cause a yawn among the local population because they have been in our backyard for decades, but are really jaw-dropping items for the casual visitor. It doesn't take much to turn what we might consider to be a boring story line and turn it into an exciting one.
P.E.I. did it with Anne.
We're Doing Power Right, could be our second mantra and visitor-building catch phrase. We stand out from the pack. We just have to start acknowledging that fact and building on it.
There is no harm in cashing in on local advantages. I just can't figure out why we're not doing more of it, especially when the weather and business climates are in our favour.
