SEEKING A CHANGE

PICTOU - Forty years ago, few ventured down to the Pictou waterfront near the tracks, unless it was a necessary trip. It wasn't the picturesque tourist destination, the home of the Hector and the deCoste Centre, which it is today.
Ralph Ferguson remembers it as a place 'you just didn't go' in Pictou. As he recalls, it was Jock deCoste who, back from Charlottetown, smitten by the development along the waterfront there, that began to change it.
"He was just absolutely amazed with what he saw," Ferguson said.
"He came back to Pictou, got himself a big piece of plywood and designed a waterfront. He put a theatre on it, a wharf, this that and the other thing."
The carved version of the Pictou waterfront went on display at Pictou's town hall. People came to view what deCoste had put together.
"They said, 'Wow, we could build this here."
This year, Ralph Ferguson of Pictou took up the task of advocating for community development.
He's sent our newspaper several letters, tackling anything from enrollment in public schools to the activities of local agencies charged with economic development, such as the Pictou Regional Development Commission.
He tells the story about the waterfront in order to illustrate what he feels was a general feeling of development at the time.
Ferguson is no stranger to municipal politics; he was an elected councillor in the town of Pictou during the 1980s and 1990s.
"So, now I'm off council, I've been off council for quite a bit. And I've been listening to what's happening in the community - and it's been going downhill, if you ask me."
Ferguson's notion of community development has to do with planning along sectors. For example, education could be considered a sector.
"Our education - used to be very very much a part of the community. Kids used to learn as much from their parents and uncles and so forth as they did in school," Ferguson said.
"Now, we've taken them out of the community and we've put them in a big bubble school somewhere and we teach them math and spelling, and all these other good things that they need to know - but they've lost their community education."
The economy is also considered a sector, he says, and it's the one everyone seems to be preoccupied with these days.
Ferguson's just getting started, but he's motivated to make local and regional politicians take note.
"In 12 months, I can see, I hope, some of the municipalities looking at this in a serious way and change the way they're doing things," he said. "I plan to go on from this. I've just started, about a month ago I said to myself that I was going to get into this in a big way."