Re: mandatory Septic Re-Inspection

Jul 17, 2014

Public servants, including police, conservation and by-law enforcement officers, are ill served by the letter from Edward Kennedy of July 10, 2014, which, in addition to being irresponsible, is replete with factual inaccuracies.

Public servants acting on behalf of elected government at all levels, including those at the municipal level, rightly enjoy and deserve the protection of the law with all its rigour when that is necessary in the discharge of their duties. Their job is frequently difficult and is made more hazardous by those who take it upon themselves to engage in illegal and dangerous activity, and who attempt to derive comfort and self-justification from the selective anarchism which appears to be condoned in the aforementioned epistle.

Contrary to Mr. Kennedy's opinions (Re: Mandatory Septic Re-Inspection,  July 10/14), officers acting on behalf of the Crown, directly or indirectly, at any level, have sweeping powers to enter upon private property when the circumstances so demand. Property owners in Canada do not have absolute rights on their land but only residual rights. It is illegal to discharge raw sewage onto land whereby such discharge threatens aquifers, public health or safety. Furthermore, residents downstream of such discharges, and neighbours, deserve to be protected, at source, from such noxious effluents with their potential for cholera and dysentery which took the lives of so many of our recent ancestors. Property owners are not the only persons to pay taxes in our society and citizens at all levels many of whom shoulder quite onerous levels of other kinds of tax, and their children, are entitled to protection from the Medieval notions of 'Droit de seigneur', so beloved by some of the landowners' groups so popular in eastern Ontario until recently.

If Mr. Kennedy is desirous of furthering his own brand of freedom and justice, he is fortunate enough to be living in a country where he is at liberty to place his own name on the ballot for the forthcoming municipal elections, rather than depending on Randy, Scott or someone else to turn back the tide of 'fascism' on his behalf. This course of action would be eminently more democratic and effective than inciting others to treat the law and those charged with enforcing the law, with selective disregard on a personal whim.

Adrian O'Connell.