This letter is in response to Gord Addison’s July 20th column: “Saying no to FortisBC housing plan won’t stop the project, Squamish council.”
Addison argues that should council reject Fortis’s temporary work permit, “it will not do anything to stop the project, and it will send the already desperate Squamish rental housing market into overdrive, making it even more difficult for staff and would-be residents, even the well-paid ones, to find a place to call home in Squamish.”
I firmly reject this ill-informed and frankly ridiculous attempt to quell local and global opposition to the Woodfibre LNG project and the Fortis pipeline, for three reasons.
Firstly, Addison is clearly out of the loop about our local rental market. I know this because I have been renting in Squamish since 2003, enjoying a variety of domiciles and living arrangements. I remember well that in 2004, when Addison claims that “rents skyrocketed due to both workers on the highway project and other workers in town bidding up rents to what we thought were astronomical rates at the time,” I was freshly returned from a climbing trip to Asia, and snapped up a sweet one bedroom in Valleycliffe for $400 dollars a month the day after my plane touched down. Working full-time as a landscaper, I could easily afford to both pay rent and buy groceries. Most workers were crammed into motel rooms in North Vancouver or the August Jack, and their presence in our town only coincided with a slight and normal increase in rental prices.
Secondly, over the past few months, I have kept a daily eye on Craigslist, and have been to several showings of local rental properties. Most available one or two-bedroom suites and condos are owned by young, house-poor couples desperate to pay their mortgages. Desperate as they may be, it has become standard to request multiple work and tenancy references, proof of income and employment, and a long-term lease. A lot of hoops to jump through for a temporary worker. As well, Fortis will want to cram as many workers together as they can. The majority of rentals are marketed as “ideal for a single professional or couple.”
Thirdly, as a long-time resident of Squamish, as a parent, as a global citizen, I reject the assumption that we would abandon our fight against fossil fuels and the climate emergency simply because a failed politician is attempting to scare us into submission. I’d say that Addison’s results in the last municipal election (he came in 8th) reflect our lack of interest in what he thinks council should do. Squamish is better, and smarter, than that.
Rhea Thompson
Squamish
