Once again I have been closely following the commentaries on the ongoing Aurora Place debate. I was profoundly struck by one recent letter in which a resident claimed his “right” to live in St. Albert because he had “worked hard” and that if someone else had not quite worked as hard or had not academically excelled sufficiently to afford the local cost of living they should obviously move to another community more conducive to their present self-inflicted financial situation.
What most disturbed me was the underlying assumption that one had a “right” to live in St. Albert exclusively based on the balance of one’s chequebook. This assumption took for granted that the ability to attain higher education was a given (an option ‘clearly’ available to all) that others were just too lazy to aspire to. This assumption also took for granted that one’s ability to work hard and receive a substantial paycheque to cover all the necessities, to be nurtured in a stable and loving environment setting a foundation for life success, and that one’s own personal mental and physical well-being are not a gift given but instead within an individual’s own personal power to achieve.
All these gifts — the stable childhood, parental emotional and financial support, a prosperous stable and loving community, the opportunity to even go to school at all and the physical and mental abilities to think critically within that school setting, the ability not to be so focused on one’s own daily survival and assume the essential true universal rights of man would be provided for (food, shelter and clothing) — are not within one’s own reach or ability to attain by personal effort to grant them the “right” to live in St. Albert.
The community of St. Albert is such a rich resource to help the youth of today become the productive, dreaming, pursuing and achieving citizens of tomorrow. We have the ability here in St. Albert to take the seeds that have been so badly damaged early on in life when they had no choice but to be subjected to it and plant them in tender, rich and loving soil. Why do we not wish to share our beautiful and bountiful land?
Today I attended a talk on sustainable housing initiative Potter’s Hands that is flourishing in Red Deer. They have taken vulnerable, tender shoots and given them the opportunity to feel the dignity of owning your own home — even if it’s an apartment. These are not people that are different from ourselves and have less of a right to the basic necessities of life, so why is it that St. Albert can declare itself a place where not everyone has an equal opportunity, or even a fighting chance, to live in and experience what it feels like to be supported by a rich and flourishing community full of community activities such as the beautiful Family Day snow festival put on by local volunteers recently?
If you and your family felt loved and cared for by this festival and other services (such as well kept city trees, walking paths, flowers, barbecues at Lions Park, free childhood library programs, a beautiful Servus Place always hosting one activity or another, and a thriving arts community at the Arden Theatre and beyond) how much more loved would a family feel that never experienced what it felt like to be so showered in abundance, care and love?
I hope you will join with me in welcoming with great joy and open arms the families who will be moving here, too, and need more than anything to know what it feels like to be granted dignity, respect, worth and not only acceptance but the healing love of a community that wants to better not just our personal but our community’s tomorrow.
Genevieve McNab, St. Albert
