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Letters - December 18, 2008

Letters: December 18

Fed Up, Elinore Duncan

Harper and Mugabe, Doug Steele

Thank You Sydenham Safe Water Association, Pat and John Haney

Re: Letter Democracy is a Messy Business, Wolfe Erlichman

Fed Up

During the last election campaign the Conservative Party's diatribe directed primarily at the Liberals and NDP and also the disrespect for the Green Party and the French was difficult to condone. Now the malicious attack on the Liberals, NDP and the French is unacceptable.

With regard to the current economic situation, how can the Conservative Government be trusted to plan our economic future when they have disregarded the opportunities to make so many corrections in our economic system while in power.

They include:

  1. Available Skills Training for unemployed workers and young people;
  2. Access for universal childcare to better allow for people to go to work;
  3. More affordable housing;
  4. Providing a single tier medical system and easier access to medical school education so there are sufficient numbers of doctors to include preventative and acute care for all citizens;
  5. To correct the shameful treatment of Aboriginal peoples;
  6. Opening the NAFTA agreement for re-evaluation and change;
  7. Make adjustments to the (EXCUSE Me) Employment Insurance Act for the unemployed.

It might be time for the Transnational Corporations to discontinue the right to decide the Economic and Social life for Canadians.

Elinore Duncan

Harper and Mugabe

I am blown away by the unreasonable and irrational comments made by all political parties as if their main purpose is to destroy Canada.

I am disappointed in the Conservative Party since they called the election in September. They have engineered a media campaign of browbeating and smear similar to Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe’s government in Africa, without the guns and murder. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe’s economy has gone from bad to worse to disastrous in recent years. Is this what we can expect?

I support the coalition as I will not be bullied by Conservative arrogance. I believe that if one can get the majority of political parties to agree on any issues, they should form the government. The coalition group has agreed to govern and they will do as good a job as a group of bullies whose aim is to destroy all future opposition to their control of government. Harpers’ Conservatives and Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF Party have so much in common.

Doug Steele

Thank You Sydenham Safe Water Association (SSWA)

As newer residents of Sydenham my husband and I have listened and read about the ongoing water debate that has taken place in the village. We
also learned about the Sydenham Safe Water Association (SSWA) and found it amazing that a small group of people, a committee elected by the local homeowners, have spent countless hours on behalf of the people of Sydenham, investigating and presenting their findings to the Township Council. 

In spite of the MANY reasons for not building the system, including the fact that the population is not large enough to support such a scheme, (recently substantiated by the Ontario Government) and without popular support, the township went ahead with the expensive project. So now it's done and it's not working too well. It's full of a chemical that causes cancer and recently the SSWA were at least able to convince the council that the plant was overbuilt and that the current residents should not be paying for water that future developments will be using. Because of their work the costs to Sydenham householders was reduced quite a bit. Now the Council is having a study done on the possibility of an old landfill at the Point leaking into our drinking water. From what I heard the SSWA warned them about that from the start.

The purpose of this letter is to thank the SSWA for their determine efforts on our behalf and time spent without expecting any recompense. They've saved us money, held a concert to help low-income families whom without help may lose their homes, they keep on top of the health situation and also, as a footnote, I noticed in a local paper that our council is to conduct a water review on an updated settlement area that may connect up to the water system, resulting in future revenue. Can we perhaps give credit to the SSWA for this also?

Thank-you for fighting our fight, thank-you for saving us money, thank-you for keeping an eye on a situation that needs watching.

Pat and John Haney

Re: Letter to the editor, December 11,
"Democracy is a Messy Business"

   Mr. Cameron refers to the, "failed economic theories of the NDP". Since there has never been a federal NDP government, it would be difficult to have failed theories at the federal level. Provincially, there have been  successful NDP governments and some which were not so successful. Of course, the same applies to Conservative and Liberal governments.

   If Mr. Cameron was a little more charitable about the motives of politicians, he would not be imputing bad motives and using pejorative phrases such as, "cadre of insiders". After all, Mr. Harper is famous for being a cadre of one inside the very tightly controlled Conservative Party.


Wolfe Erlichman