Let me dive in as my iPad battery may race me to the finish. 

CBRM cannot consider the environment when making planning decisions. 

I do not believe that this is true. 

But the case of the Big Pond RV park now rolls slowly toward the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, leaving this question behind, hanging in the air.  

So let me ask the question in a new way. 

Could the CBRM Council consider what the Collaborative Environmental Planning Initiative (CEPI) has to say about development on the Bras d’Or Lake?  

Why, yes, yes they could.

And did. 

CBRM Planning wrote a reply to some of the questions and concerns raised at the public meeting concerning the proposed Big Pond RV park and this excerpt is from that work. 

So, Planning plucked one standard from the CEPI guidelines for development on the Bras d’Or Lake - that a buffer from the high water mark should be 20 metres (or maybe much longer) but no others. 

An analogy. I claim that I do not have the jurisdiction to wash dishes. I just do not have the power. But then I wash one plate. 

Huh?  

I either have the jurisdiction or power to wash the dishes or I don’t. 

CBRM Council and Planning either has the jurisdiction to consider the environmental health of the Bras d’Or Lake or not.  

This important question really needs to be answered. The lake is a brilliant natural asset for Cape Breton: One of 18 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Canada. 

OK, this may seem like a random question at this juncture: Have you ever been blocked from Councillor Steve Gillespie’s Facebook page? 

I have been. And, yes, it does have to do with my trying to get the important question answered. 

I think. 

I will write about how this blocking came to be in my next post. 

And, Councillor Gillespie, if you should see this post, know that I am simply trying to get an important question answered. 

Stay tuned.