Rudy 2006-11

Good-bye to Paree Seniors Choice Newsmagazine November 2006 - By Rudy Loeser - "How'rya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?" One minute we had children, raised them, and saw them through school; the next minute they were gone. They had seen the bright shining lights of Vancouver, Victoria, Montreal, Toronto, and New York, decided that there was nothing for them to do in their home towns in the Okanagan, and they left to seek their destinies, getting the degrees they could not get here, and starting on their career paths. Meanwhile, their parents grew older, became senior citizens, sold the houses their kids had been born and grown up in, adding to the estrangement of their offspring by removing all things familiar and comforting. We didn't chase them away, they just contemplated a life of potential bleakness, shunned the idea of manning the counters at McDonalds and Wendy's at ridiculously low wages and dispersed. By so doing, they lowered the average age statistics of their destination cities and, in the process, raised the average age in Kelowna, Vernon and Penticton. In this way they made room for the old folks in the cities to which they had gone, and who now call the Okanagan their home, raising the average age statistics even more. They began calling their hometown "prune city". They dispersed. The origin of the word dispersal is the Greek word "diaspora" which has come to describe the communities of Jews in many parts of the world other than Israel. So the young people who left the Okanagan are out there, in their own diaspora. The question that faces us, their parents, how are we going to bring them back? What can we, what can our communities, offer them to make life interesting, other than perpetual sunshine and ever-rising real estate costs? I had a chat with a man who, I surmised, would have a handle on the question, by dint of being the Executive Director of the Regional District Economic Development Commission. Robert Fine reminded me of the creation of UBC Okanagan, with chairs in English, Medicine, Pharmacy and told me that the estimate for enrolment is 4,500 students by 2010. He pointed to the explosion of the job market that, perforce, had to offer higher wages for more jobs in order to attract applicants. We also discussed the attractions of the Academy for Arts and Technology that had not existed during the exodus of young people, the film commission and the film union's membership of 600 people. We discussed the growth curve of the health care industry which cries out for new health care workers, agri-tourism, and a number of other initiatives, all of which need help. Finally, we discussed low-cost housing. Not charitable housing which brings with it a certain stigma, but low-cost which means, perhaps, smaller condos and houses which people at the onset of their careers can afford. We discussed a more liberal granting of permits allowing the addition of secondary suites throughout the city. This for the benefit of those young people who are coming back after they've seen "Paree", to fill the jobs, to study at UBCO, at the college, at various Academies. I'll start by trying to get my kids here, from Manchester, from Montreal, from Vancouver and even Germany. The publisher of this newsmagazine would probably join in by repatriating her offspring from New Zealand, Australia and Vancouver. If we look at the pattern of most migrations, we see that nothing is impossible. We need to look at what happened when WWII started: People moved from rural enclaves into the city, to work in the factories. After the war, the migration into suburbia started and expanded the limits of the cities, Throughout, families were still a viable concept. People celebrated together, kids played with their cousins and acquaintances became lifelong friends. It's time to look at the picture in our communities. Not the picture as it was ten or even 5 years ago. Look at the picture, which is now getting clearer by the week and the month: the educational possibilities have increased exponentially, the employment situation is healthier than it has been in decades, construction activity is exploding. Now, if we can only stick our heads together to create viable housing for all the people we want to have come home, we'll be the envy of the rest of the country. A shiny beacon of hope that anything is possible. Just image how many senior citizens would welcome their children and grandchildren to celebrate the real meaning of the word family?

 

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