In my hometown’s weekly newspaper, a summer-resident or cottager is upset that some people don’t like cottagers.

My hometown has around 15,000 residents through the winter and 150,000 in the summer.  These summer-residents do pay taxes that help run our town, but they also vote for things that affect them to the detriment of year-long residents.  I didn’t live in town as an adult for long enough to have a strong opinion of the cottagers, but i do recall cottagers voted  for an official who would prevent a new resort from opening up, thus denying locals a new source of jobs.

Even if I were strongly in the pro-cottager camp (I am, in fact, a fence-sitter), I wouldn’t be too upset about free speech.  If Mr Wilson wants everyone to publicly agree on everything, he should move to the very rural country just north of the one I currently live in.

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UPDATED MAY 8

Members of the Muskoka Lakes Association are upset about the early closure of the locks in Port Carling.  They will close at midnight, remain open 24 hours.

The decision, made this March, has upset many, according to Lake Rosseau cottager and Muskoka Lakes Association board member Phil Harding.

“People are coming to the cottage now and … welcome again to the way the district and the township do things. They make all the changes when no one is here to hear about it,” said Harding.

The small lock used to be open 24 hours a day. Now it will close at 8 p.m. during the peak season. The large lock will be open longer hours to compensate, but cottagers will be stranded if they want to use the locks past midnight on the weekend. The locks opened on April 15.

The change in hours comes after the small lock began to malfunction and was out of operation at times beginning in the fall of 2008 and in 2009.

My favorite part is “They make all the changes when no one is here to hear about it”.  Yes, there were people around to hear about it.  The people who actually live there, you pompous ass!

Local people, people who may need the locks to work, need the locks to function consistently.  Should the locks be used 24 hours a day and break down, who would Harding blame then?