Catalyst needs to commit to North Cowichan
Making the chain
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
Updated: October 20, 2009 8:31 AM
It is with profound relief we greet a judge’s ruling Friday that Catalyst will have to pay every penny of the $6.2 million tax bill presented to it this year by North Cowichan.
Now that the sideshow is over, it’s time for the real work to begin.
For most of its 50-year history, the Crofton pulp and paper has been a cash cow milked by distant owners for huge profits with very little consideration as to its impact on the community.
For most of that same time period the mill has also been milked by a series of North Cowichan councils in order to keep residential taxes in the municipality unreasonably low.
This was never a marriage based on love — a mutually sustaining relationship designed to make it over the long haul. This arrangement was always about one thing only: profit.
Now, the arrangement has run its course. In truth it ran its course a number of years ago.Now it is time for both parties to sit down and see if there is anything left in the relationship worth saving.
North Cowichan needs to understand that the gravy train has ended. Its residents have to understand the same — taxes are going up, regardless of the future of the mill.
Catalyst needs to understand that North Cowichan has always been able to overlook the mill’s failings in the past because of the way it stuffed the municipality’s coffers. Its shareholders need to understand that every dollar pulled out of the local economy lessens the taxpayer’s level of tolerance.
North Cowichan can and should make more allowances for Catalyst. But any future relationship must based on a real commitment from the firm that it is dedicated to Crofton.
Show it, and good things can happen.
v2
