You can dress it up but open-pit mine will still be ugly in the morning

Winston Churchill said many clever things, but one of the best-known stories involved a woman who accused him of being drunk.

There’s some dispute as to whether his accuser was Labour MP Bessie Braddock or Lady Astor, but accounts of his reply are pretty consistent: “Yes, Madam, I am drunk,” he confessed.

“But in the morning, I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

Much like an open-pit mine. You can dress it up with finery about what a fine addition it will be to our economy, and you can accuse its detractors of exaggeration, but in the morning it will still be ugly.

People like Richard Boyce of the United Steelworkers suffer from a rare form of myopia. In their idea of vision, the distance is blurry; only objects — such as dollar signs — that are right in front of their eyes come into focus.

He said at a Rotary luncheon this week Kamloops risks becoming a backwater — a “have-not” community, to be exact — if the Ajax mine is turned down.

Really, Richard? The very future of Kamloops depends on an open-pit mine? This would be one sadly inadequate city if all it had to look forward to was a big hole in the ground.

Boyce reflects a certain view, which is that the only hope for our children is this mine, and that those who oppose it should ‘wait for the facts.’ For those in favour, no need to wait.

Opponents of the mine are “a machine,” he was quoted as saying. Pity the ninth-largest copper producer in the world with its bottomless public-relations budget and only the likes of the chamber of commerce, one of the most powerful unions on the planet, and — at least indirectly, the premier of the province — to speak in its favour.

How can they possibly stand their ground against a coalition of TRU profs, Aberdeen residents and a couple of hundred members of a citizens group that isn’t even registered as a society yet? Such a machine.

Boyce is correct on one thing — there will be economic benefits. If that were really the only issue, then let the blasting begin.

Not everyone, though, is of the opinion that a mine is essential to the survival of the community. Why does that merit an accusation of being “anti-industry,” as Boyce called them this week?

Even if the project passes environmental muster under the less-than-perfect system of review, there’s something else to consider, namely that vision thing.

The fundamental difference, vision-wise, is between the close-up focus on immediate and tangible benefits versus the long-term vision of lifestyle and the everyday feel of the community — what we see, feel and hear around us.

Those of the latter view struggle with fitting a giant open mine pit and all its attendant unsightliness into their vision of Kamloops. They can’t understand why Kamloops can’t grow and prosper without this particular project. They think our economy can accommodate resource industry, just not within municipal boundaries. It’s about location.

The world needs mining. Kamloops has mining. Do we need or want more of it, especially beside the city’s biggest residential growth area? That’s their question.

They’re asking, “Who wants to sleep with an ugly step sister snoring in the next room?”