Letters - March 6, 2014

Mar 05, 2014

Closure of Piccadilly Hall

After reading the recent article in the paper in regards to hall closure it leads me to question the council about their decision. Yes the consultant’s report looked at the halls but in the case of Piccadilly Hall it also affects the fire hall as well. Was this even considered in the equation?? If you close and sell this hall then you are closing a fire hall also or was this the underlying plan? Both buildings run off of the same well and hydro.

In recent remarks made on social media, Mayor Gutowski mentioned moth balling the hall till these issues could be sorted out, if the township did this why not just keep it open and still make some revenue as you will still be paying for heat and hydro? Thoughts of parking and the road being to narrow were also mentioned, which bring yet another question to mind...where is the parking for the Oso Hall? Is it not located on a narrow road as well? This decision was supposedly based on the idea that recently closed school in Parham was a viable option for purchase and remodelling to replace our current hall which the township has said is not economically feasible to keep open?? But where is the money going to come from to buy this building and renovate it to bring it up to the safe standard that is required in this day and age for safety? Yet another example of the unfairness the residents of Hinchinbrooke District face, we have lost our local school, now our community hall and in the long run a fire hall, as well, the replacing of the current Parham fire hall rebuild has been postponed.

My uncle Bill Snyder was a strong man, a man of integrity, he fought for fairness for not only Hinchinbrooke District but also for the whole township. He may have resided on the Oak Flats Road and fought for it and the Piccadilly community, but he was also a man who gave to all. He could be found on many days helping out picking up litter on the sides of roads, helping at the arena with landscaping issues or just helping Jim and Joy with some painting and also painting and maintaining the Piccadilly cemetery fence. He strongly believed in this area. It would sadden him greatly to know that his colleagues voted to close this hall on the day he was laid to rest.

Nicki Gowdy

Re: Quebec secular charter 

Jeff Green covers a lot of ground in his editorial (Secular Charter Does Disservice to Secularists, February 27, 2014), which ostensibly is about the Quebec secular charter but first discusses same-sex marriage. He states that defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman is a religious definition. He ignores the basic biological fact that only a union between a man and a woman produces children and that every single human being has one biological parent of each sex, a mother and a father, whether they know them or not – no exceptions. That is the reason why marriage has always been between men and women in every culture and country, even in those with no religion, or with religions that say little about marriage, such as Buddhism.

It is not just coincidence that as the birth rate has declined, so has the rate of marriage between heterosexual couples.

The state has no interest in religion but it's not stupid either. By following the money we discover the reason for the state's enthusiasm for marriage. The state does not want to have to pick up the pieces and support the adults (usually women), and children who are left behind when their primary providers (usually men) move on.

Therefore since heterosexual couples were increasingly declining to commit to marriage, the state decided to override them and declare them effectually married, even when the individuals do not make that commitment.

It did not even have to take up a shotgun, but in order to redefine marriage, the state had to also override religion, which it was happy to do because religion was no longer saving the state money by successfully convincing people to marry and stay married.

That was the first redefinition, which paved the way for the second one.

However, despite the view of marriage that Jeff Green advances as being little more than a legal contract or religious superstition, I submit that heterosexual marriage also has a second, equally important function in addition to the birthing of children – and that is to bring together and weld together the two halves of the human race.

Jule Koch