In my book, it's ok to discuss an issue like a new coal mining operation in Cape Breton somewhere within the vast space between:

• Extreme A: protecting anything with the word "jobs" attached to it like an aggressive Grizzly mama bear watching over her cubs, and
• Extreme B: climbing a Chinese smokestack in scuba gear to insist that burning coal is the devil's will. 

In fact, it's not just "ok" to explore any issue along its entire spectrum, it's a fundamental requirement in order to be effective at any kind of problem solving.

Both of these concerns, at their core, are completely valid. Both extremes are completely non-productive.

At the April 11th council meeting for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, freshmen councillor Kendra Coombes strayed into that area to ask a few questions.

The questions she asked were to explore whether or not the interests of the citizens of the CBRM were being addressed. In so doing, she carefully extracted a little additional information before giving an otherwise uninformed stamp of approval, i.e. the status quo for the prior CBRM council and the bulk of the current lot.

Far too often our councillors are so concerned with not being perceived as unfriendly, disruptive, or overly disagreeable with their council colleagues, that they bite their tongue and back off.

Coombes and each of the new change councillors elected this year are also guilty of it at times. Despite doing so, they are still the key leaders in pressing the issues a little further than the stale lot of councillors typically do. They have the opportunity to do better with our support.

We have two choices. Let them fall into the status quo, or offer our appreciation when they depart from it. Today, I offer my appreciation to Councillor Coombes, and I encourage her to continue pressing even further without regard to what is palatable (or not) to her colleagues.

Change takes disagreement. If we don't disagree with how things are at present, then there is no way to change our conditions in the future. It really isn't much more complex than that.

By now, those of you still reading are probably trying to guess which of those extremes I'm going to cozy up to. However, that's not the case.

Job creation is absolutely vital to Cape Breton, and though green and clean energy is vital to the future of the entire world, we need a short-term trade off. We need those 100+ jobs whether it's pulling dirty (aka high sulfur) coal or not.

However, accepting these jobs doesn't mean we have to shut down the Vershuren Centre at CBU because we've given up on developing and advocating for technologies for a cleaner world.

Nor do we have to abandon the startup and small business community trying hard to grow. If unemployment, poverty, population exodus, and the long term sustainability of Cape Breton were not clear and present dangers, I would opt instead to discourage any additional activity in dirty, environmentally damaging industries.

But we can't afford to do that right now.

That would be like a starving person insisting on free range, organic food only. When you're starving, you need to eat the calories available to you. If you don't die of starvation, you'll have time to figure out how to procure the healthy diet you've always wanted. If you starve, you're not going to be around to change anything.

If you watch the video, Coombes starts out dipping her toes in, testing to see how frigid the waters may be. At first, CEO of Kameron Coal, James Bunn's body language appears to show a little annoyance. Of course, that's subjective. Though we also can't put words in his mouth or mind, you might speculate as to what he could be thinking. Here we are bringing jobs to a rapidly declining region starving for them, and I have to stand here answering soft ball questions from a bunch of local yokel councillors? 

Kendra didn't probe too aggressively, and seemed momentarily as though she was willing to not press on further. However, after a round of follow up questions, she got Bunn to answer on the record about the public consultation process. From his response, it didn't sound like there was much of one, or that he was that excited about characterising the response. Follow the formula. Drop Geoff MacLellan's name and move on. However, if his assertions were valid, they've secured most of the property that would be affected by the bypass road they want to build.

"We are the property owners... and we like the road." - James Bunn, CEO Cameron Coal

As Coombes made the CEO more comfortable, she asked if the CBRM were the only "holdouts" on granting them the land they needed for the road. Bunn responded:

"No, there's a couple more. Just you and Nova Scotia Power, so, no, I'm just kiddin'"

He clarified that the remaining land parcels they need to acquire are with "large corporations".

Without Coombes pressing for answers to these basic questions, James Bunn, would have sat in the gallery and watched while the CBRM council surrendered their typical uninformed stamp of approval.

They gave that approval anyway. However, this time around, the youngest councillor made sure we had a little more information to base the decision on. Not complete information. Just a little more. And that's a good trend that we need to further encourage.

NOTE: The views expressed above are my own and do not represent lokol (goCapeBreton.com). Read more