Stranded

A most curious thing happened to me the other day. I was walking along the Lake Ontario shoreline when a bottle with a note inside caught my attention. The contents of the note, I believe, are rather pertinent to many of us in this industry, especially now that the New Democratic Party rules in Ontario and threatens to take power in other provinces as well. I thought I should share it with you.

Dear bottle-finder,

I am stranded on a remote island. It was once a very prosperous place and the chief of the island was wise. He understood that extracting the island’s rocks for export was smart. It earned hard currency for our little island and kept an awful lot of people employed and off the beaches (except in their leisure time).

Extracting the rocks and polishing them required that big holes be left in the ground and ponds be created to hold the dirty polishing water. These ponds also had small amounts of harmful elements. This was the price everyone was willing to pay to get hard currency and keep the people off the beaches (except in their leisure time, of course.)

We eventually discovered that the ecological price of our digging and polishing was too high, however. We began to change our ways of digging and polishing rocks — too slowly for some. Then our chief passed away and a new one took his place.

This chief could play piano and was a friend to all people. He wanted to become even friendlier with all people (even to those who lie on the beaches all the time), so he changed the rules for taking out rocks.

Now it has become so expensive to take out rocks and polish them that no new excavations are possible. Even the established operations are finding it mighty costly, but they have no choice. They say they will carry on until they too become unprofitable trying to cope with every new edict our leader promulgates.

It is said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Our leader was most handsomely endowed with good intentions. On our little island the roads to the beaches must be similarly paved, for many of us now are spending most of our time on the beaches. There is little need for rock-diggers and rock-polishers. The island across the water, once our biggest customer, is buying polished rocks from somewhere else for less money.

There is nothing wrong with lying on beaches, but I’m getting tired of eating bananas and coconuts, and imported tanning lotion costs a mint.

Help.