The Cadre, December 2, 1975,

mends that "unless greater attention is given to pas- senger amenities on board vessels and at terminals in the future, the ferry experience will shift from pleasant to boring to dis- agreeable for tourists

and residents alike." It calls for carpeting on vfloors and live entertai— nment during the tourist season.

This would be fine if the Northumberland Strait were the Rhine River or the English Channel, the Irish Sea or even the At— lantic Ocean between Yar- mouth and Bar Harbour, Maine. What is important for Islanders is that our transportation porblems be solved by issuing a pass to anybody with an Island license plate or by designating certain fe- rries for Islanders and people travelling without

[camper trailers and equip—

ment which takes up more than a reasonable amount of space. ' ” Finally, under Transp— ortation, we are hard put to find any justifiCation for the now discussed fe— rry service between West Prince and New Brunswick. Once again this appears to be proposed for the conv— enience of tourists and at great cost to the local

people. The development of to—

urism under Phase I of the Development Plan has pro— bably exhausted most, if not all, of the more por- mising aspects of tourism. With this in mind we urge the government to seriously consider just what is the saturation point for tou— rism on P.E.I. We are not impressed with the claim of the featured speaker at a recent P.E.I.T.A. con— clave that Prince Edward Island is_nowhere near the saturation point in tourism. The Caribbean Islands are seriously questionning their promotion of tourism, in an effort to put the

Hartshorn Cont

volts me. He has not looked at the facts,but given a judgement based on a few opinions. sure the Yearbook and Cadre may suffer some, but

it is the Photo Club who has giVen the executive no chance but to shut down the Photo Club, for

if they had not done so, they would be poor ad- “ ministrators, and that is why we elected the executive, to administ—

rate.

pag'é 83 '

rights of the local people first. This is being done in Cape Cod, Maine, Sweden Barbados, and a hpst of ,other countries. McGill University researchers, L. Hills and Jan 0.J. Lundgr— en, set the limit for to-»

- urists per year at a num— ber equal to that of the residents. Given those figures, P.E.I. already has too many tourists for the general well being of the Island.

Costs of TnuHsnI

The Island is in danger of losing the good quali-

ties for which it is known.

We are our own people. Tourism leaves us with the feeling that we're being paid to do what comes nat- ural to us, i.e., being hospitable. We don't have to get paid for that.

The work which is off— ered by the tourist indus— try is for the most part poorly paid, domesticating very seasonal, very unpro- ductive, and consists of keeping the place the way the boss wants it.

During the summer Isl- anders get the distinct impression that our needs are secondary to that of the tourist, who is brou— ght here not on the terms of the local people but on the terms of the Dept. Of Tourism. This feeling was aptly described by a delegates from Fiji at an International Seminar held in Vancourver in August

id

You HAD YOUR FUN, Now BACK To vouR CAGES!

‘ « “ .2 ' r t;

' Propo sa‘l” continued-Needs inf lsfllranders

1975. "Like animals in

a zoo, the Islander is 10— oked at, but does not profit much thereby." Could it be that we Will come to the same conclus— ion as the Prime Minister of St. Vincent's, that "the tourist dollar is

not worth the devastation of the people?" What Pri— nce Edward Island needs

is creative forms of de—= velopment investment, li-

nked with our primary in—,,

dustries of farming and fishing. jWe do not need service industries or Br— icklin type developments. We simply are not big enough to get the maximum benefits out of tourism without destroying our way of life.- In 1973 So- uth Africa invested $7,100 million dollars on a tourist industry which attracted 610,171 people. South Africa di dthis be- cause it needs foreign exchange. There is no boycott on the Canadian dollar. We cannot afford the kind of investment wh— ich tourism requires and that is why the Minister is now seeking DREE loans. - All of thisleads us to ask why we have a Ministry of Tourism in the first

place? Comparisons with other provinces reveal

that we lack some very important departments in our government. Why not replace the Department of Tourism with more import— ant departments such as

s'p/n'r of 76? . w

Co—operatives, Culture, a full Housing Department Or a Department of Human Re- sources, all of which are more deserving of a full ministry, in our estima~ tion: I Promotion of tourism on small islands from the Car ribbean to Hawaii to Fiji has been tried and found to be destructive to the way of life of the people. Why then do we insist of wasting research, talent and money on the promotion of tourism on Prince Edw— ard Island? Does the P.E.I. economy, like the Hawaiian economy, have to

-be described as a "term—

inal case" in its vulne- rability to unforeseeable changes in tourism?

Recommendatmns

We recomment that each of us as Islanders consi— der the so—called benefits of tourism as opposed to cost, e.g., changing life— style, practical implica— tions for Islanders during the summer, increased co— sts of food, inconvenient ferry connections, empha— sis only on tourism "fa— ntasy lan " while many of our local people str— uggle to be heard. recognize that The tourist dollar is not worth théhm‘ devastation of the people. Our concern as Christians must not be directed by individualistic gains, “but rather by the needs facing us as a community of people.

We must