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The most common question we hear from tourists isn't where is the falls, but rather, why is the Canadian side of the cataracts so much nicer than the American side?
The answer is rather obvious.
When it comes to tourism, Canadians have their act together. From Parliament Hill in Ottawa, to Queens Park in Toronto, to City Hall in Niagara Falls, their elected officials are all on the same page.
Take a motor ride from Fort Erie to Niagara-on-the-Lake and you will see perfectly manicured parks from one end to the other, a beautiful Fort Erie Race Track that now offers slot machine betting, championship golf courses that rival those in Myrtle Beach, a bustling private sector with four-star hotels and gourmet restaurants, the very successful Casino Niagara with a second casino resort under construction, a butterfly conservatory, and a world-class Shaw Festival theater that's practically sold out from May to November.
Take the same trip on the American side from Buffalo to Youngstown and you will see abandoned industrial factories that have been idle for years, at least a dozen Superfund waste sites, including Love Canal, parks that are so poorly maintained that even birds and squirrels find them wanting, commercial areas with boarded-up store fronts, and Artpark in Lewiston that has gone from presenting the Bolshoi Ballet and the New York City Opera Co. to musicals that most theatergoers have seen time and time again.
Our Canadian friends hire professionals based on experience and academic credentials to direct and manage their parks.
Americans hire politicians, like Bernadette Castro and Ed Rutkowski, based solely on how much money they can raise for the next campaign, and who, in most cases, could never hold any other form of employment.
The Canadians have decentralized decision-making from Ottawa and Toronto down to the Niagara Parks Commission, where local people decide how to spend the money and what to do next.
The Americans have centralized all decision making in Albany with little if any input from local people.
The difference between the two sides of the falls is so dramatic that it makes us want to vomit.
And what do our three state reps, Maziarz, DelMonte and Brown, do about this?
Absolutely nothing.
They remind us of eunuchs at a stud farm. All they are capable of doing is standing around and watching while Pataki, Bruno and Silver continue to put a screwing to us.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 6 2002 |