Feature Article June 17, 2004
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Letters to the Editor
MP Larry McCormick, a man for all seasons?
Election time is the perfect time to remember the dictum: alls fair in love and war. And when we think of our Member of Parliament, we remember the very best and brightest hope that they have inspired in the intervening time between elections, right? Wrong. That is quite a different matter.
I remember Larry McCormick, MP and member of the Liberal Party of Canada. He is very memorable because he insisted on my calling him Larry. And when I first met with him August 2003, he assured me that he was going to shake the Parliamentary heavens (inasmuch as he could find inhabitants in the Minister of Immigrations office!) in order to help my 84-year-old mother who had been a war bride to the United States and was not counted among the Canadians any longer. It seems that when you lose your youth, your money, your spouse, your memory, and when youve lived in Florida for 30 years, you finally lose your Canadian Citizenship! At least this was the federal governments position. And Mr. McCormick was outraged; he was going to get down to the bottom of this chapter and verse of any supposed legislation and help to re-instate Mothers comfort at being Canadian still, at the tender age of 84.
Three meetings over nine months, promises printed fastidiously on numerous post-it-notes and pasted inside the MPs file folder with Mothers youthful passport photo from the 40's, and what a relief. Then reality kicked in: nothing ever happened. There were never the promised phone calls about meeting at the passport office. There was never the touching base about Larrys visit to the Ministry of Immigration. There was only dead air. MP Larry McCormick did nothing because an 84-year-old Canadian widow doesnt bring photo opportunities such as the many he has had with singer Avril Lavine. There are no compelling press releases with helping an old lady who has memory problems.
But I can compensate for her memory problems.
If you need help and your family is in trouble, if you really need to talk to a Member of Parliament who is capable and effective and a person who lives by the words spoken in trust, then dont disturb MP Larry McCormick. Mr. McCormick, while not yet retired from Public Life, is, in fact, detached from the blood, sweat, and tears of his constituents. His promises robbed my old mother of almost one year of persistent attention to her needs. A promise delayed is a lie spoken!
It is time to elect a Member of Parliament for our area who will stand and deliver what he says. Actions speak louder than Liberal promises!
G. Leslie Balogh, Mountain GroveTribute to the VON
Roy Sproule was diagnosed with terminal cancer and his wish was not to be hospitalized but to spend his final days in his own home and be cared for by his family. Dad lived his final eight months with the loving support of his family and the VON nurses from Sharbot Lake and Northbrook. The VON enabled and supported our family in providing around the clock care; with their support Dad received the best possible care.
The VON nurses taught us the essentials of chronic care and provided us with emotional support. All it took was a call to the VON office and what might have seemed like a huge problem to us was quickly dealt with by the VON nurse. Initially the VON nurse visited Dad once per week but as time went along the visits increased and at the very end became a daily routine. He looked forward to these visits and often remarked how lucky he was to have access to the VONs superb health care home service.
In addition to assisting our family to fulfil Dads wishes, the VONs home care service ensured that he was comfortable in his own home and did not require hospitalization. Eliminating the need for hospitalization provides a huge savings to our health care system and is a tremendous emotional benefit for the terminally ill patient and family members. Can you imagine what eight months of hospitalization would have cost our health care system, versus the actual costs incurred through the visiting VON nursing program?
Change is inevitable. We can only hope that the new provider of health care home services in North Frontenac will be in a position to provide home nursing care equal to that previously provided by the VON of Sharbot Lake and Northbrook. This is an essential service, especially in the north where distances to doctors and hospitals place an added burden on terminally ill patients and their families.
The VON enabled Dad to spend his days at home surrounded by his family. For this, we will be eternally grateful and will hold them in our hearts forever with an enormous amount of love.
The Sproule Family
Change needed
Change seems to be in the air in this election, and I'd agree change is needed. But we should think very carefully about what kind of change we want, and how to get it.
It is popular these days to dump on government. Governments often make bad mistakes, but they exist to promote the common good, to represent the vital interests of their citizens. We have to make sure they do that, not make them back off. Painting government as a bully is just a trick used by the
real bullies to get rid of limits on their greed and power. That is what's really behind the push for "property rights" - to allow those with the most property (big companies and the rich) to do whatever they like, while those with less property (you and me) sit by helplessly,
Sure, we can complain about government taxes and regulations. But without taxes most of us would have no health care, no schools, no support for local development, no safety nets for the many times the market fails. Without regulations we'd have even more polluted air and water, even lower wages, and even fewer jobs, as the big corporations make our communities mere pawns in their game, To the extent this is already happening, it is the Liberals and the Conservatives who are to blame, for cutting taxes and forcing us into trade deals like NAFTA which make the rich richer and reduce the rest of us to poverty and powerlessness
Voting for the Liberals or the Conservatives is voting for more of the same. If we want change, we have to look towards a minority government which would be obliged to listen to its citizens all the time, not just during an election campaign. This time, we can vote to make that happen,
Helen Forsey, Ompah
You're Killing Me Bill'
Our Mayor Bill Lake missed his calling. He should have been a comedian. After reading the June 3 issue of the Frontenac News, I found myself laughing so hard I nearly cried. Now Mayor Lake and some of his council are taking pot shots at the Sydenham Safe Water Association (SSWA). Somebody pinch me. This has to be a dream. After all, we are talking about a project that has been going on for three years, so far costing approximately $500,000 of our hard earned tax dollars; and not only do we not have a water system, council can't even tell us how much it is going to cost. In the real world, if one of us tried that at our places of work, we would be fired for gross incompetence.
So, along comes an organization made up of the people who are affected by this whole fiasco, the SSWA. And they try to come up with some cost estimates on their own because we have had nothing from the current council. Then council not only tries to discredit them, they actually try to place some of the blame on them. I find this to be a very interesting tactic. So what are the issues here? First, the Mayor now apparently thinks that anything under $9 million for a project that was originally scoped at $5.6 million should be a bargain, and we should be happy? Hmmm, let me think for a brief moment, uh that's interesting logic Mr. Mayor. Your project, that the vast majority of the 209 individual property owners don't want, is now completely out of control, and we should be happy?
Bill, a piece of advice, take it or leave it, it's not about what YOU think or believe, we elected you to represent what WE think. And by the way, you receive a grade of F minus for your efforts to date.
Secondly, there are some councilors who question the representation of the SSWA, and are now accusing the SSWA of scare tactics. The only really scary thing here is the blatant ignorance or denial of the facts. The SSWA presented the previous council with a petition that 172 out of 209 of the unique homeowners signed (that's an 82.4% response rate). One hundred and fifty nine homeowners, or 92.4%, of those signatures, were specifically AGAINST the project, also known as a VAST MAJORITY. So, I challenge any councilor who questions the representation of the SSWA to either prove their claims or to start listening to the people.
Even better, iIf you want to really know the view of the people, hold a referendum on the issue and settle this once and for all. Your typical response to a suggestion like this is 'It will cost money to do that'. I know 159 homeowners who would be happy to chip in to fund a referendum. So what's stopping you now? One vote per individual homeowner. Majority rules, you know, like in most REAL democracies. Well Mr. Mayor, are you interested in solving this in a democratic way? Or are you and your council going to continue to spend our money, not have any answers, and continue to ignore and deny the facts and the overwhelming public opinion against you?
David Waugh
One of the VAST MAJORITY AGAINST the Sydenham Water Project
