Letters: February 4Flying our flag, Ken McKegney and Faye Putnam Re: Land O’ Lakes Public School on
the chopping block, David Daski Re: septic inspection in Central
Frontenac, Juergen Reinecke Re: Shirley Peruniak awarded Order of
Ontario, Shastri Ablack Re: Harper erodes democracy, Patrick Maloney Re: Ignatieff ignores whole
constituencies, John McEwen Re: X-Ray Machines & the One Metre Initiative, Nancy Smith
 Flying our flag
This letter is mainly addressed to our
Central Frontenac mayor and councilors. We wonder if any of the above
notice the flags while driving around our township. The flag flying
at Long lake beach has not been changed for two years at least and
this is disgraceful. We have included a picture of it, along with our
flag across the road. Even though we are semi-retired, we can always
afford a new flag when needed or we wouldn’t have a flag flying.
Maybe the township should put monies aside in the budget for this
purpose only.
Ken McKegney, Faye Putnam
It appears that a couple of hundred
Land O’Lakes students will soon spend an extra 40 minutes a day
being bussed to and from a mega school in Sharbot Lake. With rising
oil costs and concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, I can’t
stress enough how ridiculous this decision is. Equally as significant
is the fact that removing Land O' Lakes school will just provide one
more reason for new families not to move to our area, further
degrading area viability.
This entire issue was badly handled by
CF council. Instead of recognizing that one or more township schools
was gone, it unrealistically recommended keeping all schools and
at the same time asked for a new school in Sharbot Lake.
Council gave no instruction to Councilor Guntensperger and then
reprimanded him for championing Land O’ Lakes school. It replaced
Guntensperger on the PARC by Deputy Mayor Gary Smith, who has no
interest in the matter. Gary Smith, who should have been lobbying
Limestone staff for the approval of the PARC recommendations, has
done nothing, or so it would appear.
Sharbot Lake, seat of local government,
new fire hall, new medical center, newly redone highway, newly
enlarged municipal offices and now new mega school, and all the while
Arden can’t even get its dangerous sidewalks and bridge railings
redone. This is another example of poorly informed provincial policy
and poor local governance that has had the effect of impoverishing
the western portions of the township to the benefit of Sharbot Lake.
For years the township has been imploding onto Sharbot Lake. Perhaps
if a new mega school must be built it should be built in Mountain
Grove. Mountain Grove is much more geographically central to the
township. Alternatively it should be built in Parham. It should
certainly not be built in Sharbot Lake. For far too long Sharbot Lake
has been the recipient of all provincial goodies to the detriment of
the rest of the township.
David Daski
Re: Septic inspection in Central
Frontenac
To residents of Central Frontenac. I
believe this new development in our township concerns most of us.
In reading the minutes of the
council meeting I read a draft bylaw for a septic system maintenance
program. After just a few sentences I found out that every homeowner
in this township is being looked at as being a polluter of the
environment, and therefore a criminal. I always thought that, being
an innocent citizen of this country, I was protected by our laws.
It seems like if you live in Central
Frontenac, from now on you have to prove your innocence from
polluting the environment. What about being innocent until proven
guilty?
In my opinion this is another nail in
our economic coffin in Central Frontenac.
Maybe it is time to move into another
township. But wait, I can’t sell the house; there is no person in
his or her right mind who would move here.
Now don’t get me wrong. I know there
are septic systems that are polluting our environment, but is our
leadership in this township not able to come up with a program that
improves conditions in this township and does not hinder people from
wanting to move here? Maybe our leadership is not interested in
putting any effort into this community.
Have you seen any incentives to make
setting up residence here easier, or just the opposite?
Let me know.
Juergen Reinecke
I read your article on Shirley
(Frontenac News, Jan. 28, 2010) and was very impressed with her work
and accomplishments. I am relatively new to Sharbot Lake, but
Shirley was my almost immediate neighbour for a few years, and
although I knew she was active in nature's business I never
realized the depth of her activities at Quetico. As a member of this
community, I wish to make a suggestion that Central Frontenac Council
should sponsor a celebration day/evening to honour a
distinguished resident of this community, born and raised in
Sharbot Lake. We should all be very proud of Shirley and her efforts.
Shastri Ablack
Your
letter writer Edward Kennedy needs to acquaint himself with the
workings of the Parliamentary system that we have here in Canada
before vilifying last year’s attempted coalition as “tyrants
conspir(ing) to destroy the democratic process”. He might not like
those who proposed to form that coalition government but they were
all duly elected Members of Parliament, therefore the proposed
coalition was completely legal and not without precedent (1864-1867,
1917-1920, Ontario 1919-1923 & 1985-1987, Sask. 1999). The fact
that a coalition wasn’t specifically voted for is irrelevant. Such
a possibility always exists when a minority Parliament is
returned. The Prime Minister of Canada is not elected by the
citizens of Canada; he is appointed to that position after having
first been elected as a member of Parliament by the citizens of his
riding and, most importantly, the Prime Minister serves at the
pleasure of the House of Commons. Therefore when he no longer has the
confidence of the House he must either step aside or request that the
Governor General dissolve Parliament and call an election. Barring
that, the opposition is perfectly within its rights, in fact its
duty, to propose an alternative government that meets with the
approval of the House. The proposed coalition easily met that
criteria. The Liberals and NDP would form a govt. and the Bloc agreed
not to defeat them on motions of confidence for a 2-year term. Mr.
Harper side-stepped those time-honoured conventions when he sought
prorogation to avoid a motion of non-confidence. Not since
J.A.MacDonald in 1873 has a Governor General been asked to allow such
an aberration. Mr. Kennedy also needs to understand the definition
of the word dictator. A minority Parliament can force an election by
defeating certain motions of confidence but Mr. Harper circumvented
that once already and continues to conduct himself very much like a
dictator while voter apathy and opposition party finances make those
other parties reticent to force such an election. Convenient
prorogations to avoid legitimate scrutiny; muzzling, firings and
defamation of critics; stone walling or canceling Parliamentary
committees including concocting a 200 page booklet on disruption
techniques; constant abuses of access to information; gagging
Ministers and running the government through the unelected PMO are
all examples of dictatorial behaviour. Were Mr. Harper a more
honourable man he would accede to the wishes of the electorate and
conduct an inclusive Parliament such as the voters selected when we
voted twice for minority government. This recent prorogation
caused 36 bills to be canceled at an estimated waste of $50 million.
Many of those bills were supposedly vitally important to Harper’s
much touted law & order reforms. Two wrongs do not make a
right, but if Mr. Kennedy wants to rant about the sins of former
administrations he need look no further than the recent Harris
Conservative government in Ontario and the Walkerton tragedy and the
illness and deaths of innocent citizens - three significant
members of that government now serve as cabinet ministers under
Harper.
Patrick Maloney
Re: Ignatieff ignores whole
constituencies
I must correct Brent Cameron’s
accusation that "Ignatieff ignores whole constituencies"
(Letters, Frontenac News, Jan. 28). Mr. Ignatieff was the LFL&A Liberal
Riding Association's guest speaker February 15, 07 in Smiths Falls
at the Manhattan Restaurant. The event was open to all members of the public and
was well attended. We try to advertise our events and meetings as much as possible, and
I'm sorry that Mr. Cameron missed that one. For future events I suggest going to
www.liberal.ca and follow the links.
John McEwen
Re: “Unoccupied” Parliamentary
seats
John McEwen seems to be troubled by
"Unoccupied Parliamentary Seat" (Letters, Frontenac News, Jan. 28), as noted in his quibbling
in your January 28 edition wherein he complains about Randy Hillier
being banished from Parliament until October 2011.
Actually Randy was doing his job
by telling the truth that McGuinty is a liar and was banished for
stating the facts. Were I John McEwen, I would be more
concerned at McGuinty and his cohorts being on the job and the
damage they are causing the Ontario economy, their assault on basic
freedoms, the money they are wasting, and the increased taxes they
are imposing on the people.
So what is worse, being paid for
telling the truth and being banished or being paid to screw
everything up? The answer is apparent to all but the insane.
Edward Kennedy | 