Cavers has right to express his opinions

Armchair Mayor column published in The Kamloops Daily News, Jan. 24, 2012.

In his very first column for The Daily News, Coun. Donovan Cavers has managed to stir up a pretty big nest of hornets.

Cavers is one of several City councillors who will take a turn at writing for us in our Monday editions, and he kicked things off yesterday with a few swings at Ajax — and he pulled no punches.

Basically, he told KGHM to stay in Poland and its partner Abacus to stay out of town.

“And so I say to mine proponent spokesperson Jim Whittaker, ‘Drive safely as you return to your home as the Coquihalla is icy. But please, I’d rather you didn’t return to our community,’” Cavers summed up.

Which brought some swift reaction by phone and on our website. One caller said Cavers’ criticism of the project’s ownership amounts to being “against Polish people.”

Another caller suggested, “the Kamloops Daily News should be ashamed for running it.”

On the web, a reader wrote, “Shame on The Daily News, shame on Mel Rothenburger, and shame on Donovan Cavers.”

“Wow! This tripe from a sitting councillor,” wrote another. “Who voted for this guy?”

“Stick to your day job Donovan,” advised yet another. “You may not be a great councillor, but you are definitely an awful writer. The mayor should be disappointed in himself for giving you permission to write this drivel.”

“This is so juvenile,” concluded another.

It should surprise no one that Cavers opposes the mine project; he made that clear during the election campaign. What’s surprising is the vehemence of the reaction.

An Ajax proponent could take any one of his list of reasons opposing the mine and refute it with the opposite opinion. Because that’s what it is, opinion.

(Cavers acknowledges to having been corrected yesterday on one of his points, the one in which he says that “no mine this size has EVER been excavated in Canada within 10 kilometers of a municipality’s outer limits.” He should have inserted a reference to “healthy community,” he says.)

Other points made by Cavers — such as the abortive plan by Ajax officials to meet privately with candidates during November’s civic election, aren’t new. Some people thought that would have been beneficial to the candidates, some didn’t.

If anything else is surprising about Cavers’ debut, it’s that he used such plain language in stating his case. Politicians who write columns for newspapers tend toward being diplomatic for fear of losing votes the next time they stand for re-election. An argument can be made that candor isn’t an entirely bad attribute for a politician.

Will other councilors do likewise? Maybe, or not — the purpose of inviting members of council to write columns for us is to provide information on the workings of City Hall, as well as to express opinions on matters of interest.

In Cavers’ case, he went for it, but the point is, he was providing his own views and those views are open to being refuted by anyone who wishes to do so.

The invitation to councillors wasn’t restricted to expressing opinions that agree with mine or yours, or to topics we deem worthy.

Cavers offered his honestly held opinion. And he certainly got everyone’s attention.