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Move to annex lake is likely money driven

Ken’s
Korner

Over the weekend a series of public meetings took place in the region to inform the public of the intentions of local municipal leaders to annex property on Lake of the Woods.
While the jest of what they are saying sounds sounds alarm bells on a couple of fronts one has to wonder if there are not alterior motives behind Kenora’s grab of most of the most valuably developed portion of the lake.
The towns claim they are doing this to control development on the lake for environmental reasons and to protect the pristine alure of the lake for future generations.
However, there surely is a great deal of tax money to be made by Kenora and some more for Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls and Lake of the Woods Twp.
I would like to think that their intentions are good and that they truly are only doing this for the environmental reasons they have cited. However, in recent years the

provincial government has been downloading services to the municipalities and they have had to work hard to cut costs and find the dollars to pay for services that they can not control the costs of, like 24 hour a day, 7 days a week ambulance services. All the while they have had to fight the province to get them to remit monies for the unorganized townships’ share of those costly services. That fight has been to little or no avail.
Now the towns have the opportunity to get some of that money pouring into their coffers. In all likelihood the suggestion that they are doing this to protect the lake for future generations is secondary to the fact that there is a great deal of need for the tax dollars on the lake, that now flow directly to the very body that has forced the hand of the townships; the provincial back account.
–Until then,
Ken