‘Frustrating’
Dear Editor:
It’s so frustrating! I’m trying to do my bit to slow climate change by putting solar panels on my roof, installing battery back-up for when the sun isn’t shining, changing how I heat my house to using a heat pump and buying a plug-in hybrid car, and as a result, my personal carbon foot-print has dropped from over 7 tonnes to under 2 tonnes of CO2 per year.
But the Liberals have wiped that out many times over by allowing the Bay du Nord oil development project to proceed. And the Conservatives are just as bad or worse. They want to build a pipeline across Canada to the east coast, so they can supply natural gas for the Ukraine. By the time it is built, if they manage to get it through Quebec, the Ukraine and Europe will have switched to renewable energy.
What don’t the Liberals or the Conservatives understand about the climate emergency and the need to get off fossil fuels now?
It’s not only frustrating, the politicians and the greedy fossil fuel companies want me to pay for killing the planet with my taxes!
Ron Moore,
Hillsburgh
Small and beautiful
Dear Editor:
Friday, April 22, is Earth Day, and we will be encouraged to spend the day thinking about protecting the Earth. The best way to do that is to continue to live the smaller lives that we have lived over the past two years.
Oxford educated economist E.F. Schumacher nearly 50 years ago published Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered. In it he argued that smaller scale, human scale was the way to a beautiful future. COVID-19 has taught us that smaller lives are not diminished lives. Smaller lives can be rich in relationships with neighbours and people who we meet on walks. Smaller lives can be filled with hobbies and exploring craft skills we laid aside years ago. Smaller lives can have less stress as we manage fewer things and have less to worry about.
The best thing we can do for the Earth this Earth Day is commit to living human-sized lives. Lives that leave behind only footprints and meaningful relationships. Lives that rejoice in the simple and small, which are beautiful and fulfilling.
Let us choose for the small and the beautiful.
Peter Bush,
Fergus
‘Sustenance of life’
Dear Editor:
RE: Linton: ‘NIMBY’ attitude a barrier to attainable housing solutions, April 7.
The recent article that forecasts a construction boom of 730 new households per year in our county for the next 30 years, and a recent notice of a complete application as part of this boom, was startling.
I realize that most people do not wish to have changes made to their “backyards” and I am no exception, but I do not understand where the municipality constantly approves the building of an enormous number of new homes in Fergus.
I saw the recent notice for 118 homes to be built in the area surrounding Wellington Road 19 and 3rd Line. I assume this will affect the adjoining open land. I usually watch areas such as this being developed as they will also include infrastructure and outdoor facilities, etc. A relative mini-city to come.
My issue is if land-use were to usurp farmland or greenspace. This is a major issue that should not be ignored. Years ago when I applied for the managed forest program, a presentation showed that in Ontario we are sorely lacking greenspace. As part of this program, I am required to ensure no clearing of my land so that I protect my land for greenspace. Surely any rural area with a “for sale” sign is a sad indication for the environment and for agriculture.
Developers make great profits from massive building projects. The municipality generates high fees and a continued tax base. Yes, the benefits to them are clear, but at what cost to the environment? If we continue to build massive numbers of homes, we drastically reduce all-important agricultural land and greenspaces – the very sustenance of life.
What are the issues that justify massive development projects? I am sure others think this way. We must put essential issues above profit to those in power.
Thank you to all who read this and consider the bottom line.
Carol Turner,
Centre Wellington
‘We deserve better’
Dear Editor:
RE: Guelph/Eramosa councillor voices concerns about COVID mandates, April 7.
An open letter to constituents of Ward 2 in Guelph/Eramosa.
I recently emailed councillor Corey Woods about his comments during the April 4 council meeting regarding COVID-19.
His response was much of the same rhetoric as he stated during the council meeting with the exception of his sign off: “Since I know where you stand, and you know where I stand you have no reason to email me in the future. Have a nice life.”
Apparently if one disagrees with Mr. Woods’ opinion on COVID they lose the privilege of reaching out to him in the future regarding other municipal issues.
There is an election in the fall; we can do better than this.
We deserve better than this.
Jason Vreman,
Guelph/Eramosa
‘Scapegoats’?
Dear Editor:
RE: Guelph/Eramosa councillor voices concerns about COVID mandates, April 7.
I commend Guelph/Eramosa councillor Corey Woods for publicly stating his truth regarding federal enforced mandates against the unvaccinated.
The unvaccinated are being used as scapegoats with smoke-and-mirror mandates.
The tyrannical behaviour of our prime minister’s global agenda continues to deteriorate our democracy.
Joyce Sloat,
Mapleton Township
‘Accepted narrative’
Dear Editor:
RE: “Woods should resign” and “Inappropriate rant,” April 14.
Susan McSherry states, “Woods is now on record as someone who hates Canadians for how we are.” She called Woods’ statement “hate-filled speech” and took offence to his reference to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a dictator. Did she notice that bank accounts were frozen, personal info revealed and the Emergencies Act invoked, as well as no public transport without proof of vaccination?
Woods mentioned a number of things: hates the division, blaming; shot or not both transmit and get ill; media sources with fear mongering. Remember the phrase “tsunami of Omicron?” How they’d all get the same name? Fear mongering!
People having three shots or more are getting it. Any mockery McSherry suggests would be to those who simply took the media’s word.
Woods apparently sees the propaganda, chose to speak up – good on him! Addressing the issue of freedom of speech, McSherry fails to understand what that entails, ironically calling for Woods’ use of that right to be cause to step down.
Margaret Iutzi shared her disdain that the past two years must have been difficult to balance between the “supporters and naysayers.” Exactly! To speak truthfully would be career suicide. Repeat the accepted narrative. They’re all doing it.
Iutzi noted that no other councillors commented, stating “perhaps the reason for that is because they wish to get elected.” Evidence that freedom of speech is out the window. Do we desire elected officials to puppet an “accepted narrative,” rather than truth? That’s revealing of where we are at and certainly worthy of some thought.
Bonnie Hollinger,
Minto
No warrant?
Dear Editor:
Fifty years ago an inmate incarcerated in the provincial system could be charged under 23-1 (g) “Acting in a manner detrimental to the institution or the institutional program.” Later this catch-all charge was deemed to give the officers too much discretionary power and removed. Bill 100 introduced by Doug Ford will allow police to arrest you without a warrant.
Chris Woode,
Fergus
‘Imagining the worst’
Dear Editor:
I enjoy reading respectful opinions of other people; lively debate is the true spirit of free speech!
I feel I need to respond to the statement by a contributor about “5,000 Indigenous children’s remains buried without ceremony or markings of any kind”. This, unfortunately, is a common narrative. What evidence do you have for this opinion? None of us were there.
A hundred years ago people, including children, sadly died of diseases including the flu, especially Indigenous people who did not have the immune system for European diseases.
At a Christian residential school, regardless of what we think of their ethics, a child who died would have been mourned and given a Christian burial. This was the rule of the Church.
The child would have had a small wooden cross on the grave. Marble markers such as we would see today were not feasible, so no, there are no marked graves today. The little crosses would have disappeared long ago.
It is good that we are finding and recognizing these graves, and mourning the loss of the children. But I feel we would do well, in this instance and many others, to avoid the temptation to imagine the worst and assume that it is true.
Claudette Liske,
Mount Forest
Wind/solar problems
Dear Editor:
RE: “Time to ditch them” and “Let’s not delay,” April 7.
Both of these letter writers want to stop the use of fossil fuels right now and replace them with “clean” energy like solar panels and wind turbines, thus stopping global warming – as if that’s even possible.
That is also the attitude of our prime minister and many leaders in the Western world, and is a big part of the reason the world is such a mess today.
Germany was a leader in renewable energy, and was so confident in solar and wind power that they closed half their nuclear plants. That left them so short of power that they now must buy fossil fuels from Russia, while paying exorbitant costs for electricity that is powered more by high polluting coal than by wind.
Clearly, unreliable wind turbines and solar panels, most components of which are supplied by China and require fossil fuels to build and maintain, are not the answer.
Canada under Trudeau and the U.S. under Biden have both discouraged gas and oil production through stopping pipelines and onerous regulations, thus reducing world supplies and enriching Russia through higher demand and prices. Had they not done so, they could have been in a position to supply the oil and gas to Germany and other European countries who are now forced to buy from Russia.
Perhaps this would have caused Putin to stop his invasion of Ukraine.
Henry Brunsveld,
Puslinch