‘Pause for thought’
Dear Editor:
I was happy to see the recent legislation introduced by the province to provide oversight to adding bike lanes in towns and cities across Ontario.
While the initial focus will be on cities that have removed traffic lanes to add bike lanes, this will hopefully bring a much needed pause and perhaps have our municipal council utilize some common sense to decisions on where bike lanes should be added in the future.
If you have been near St. David Street between St. Andrew and Garafraxa Streets lately, you can see how adding bike lanes along this stretch is going to affect this roadway. This design was approved by our previous council but is also supported by our current council, despite a survey showing only 15.6% of respondents (104 people) were in favour of adding bike lanes and despite that more than 1,000 local residents signed a petition asking council to “not add bike lanes on a provincial highway.”
It remains to be seen how much these new bike lanes will be utilized and how much this new road design will impact traffic.
But it is confirmed in the township’s “master transportation plan” that separated bike lanes will end at St. Andrew Street and there are no plans to continue these any further at this time.
Based on this, secondary roads would have been the better option to add bike lanes across town to connect our trails and to route cyclists to local shops and schools.
I hope this latest development gives our own council “pause for thought” so they can make the right decisions concerning the future of active transportation in our community.
Edward O’Shaughnessy,
Fergus
‘Neglectful’
Dear Editor:
Re: Storybrook subdivision residents concerned about speeding drivers, Oct. 31.
Lindsay Duncan seems to think drivers in the new Storybrook area are speeding at 80km/h? Does she have a radar gun? I for one have never seen anyone driving at such overly exaggerated speeds.
Do you want to know what the real problem is in the Storybrook area? It’s not the “so called” speeders, it’s the irresponsible dog owners who neglect to pick up after their dog and leave it on the sidewalk, someone’s lawn, or pick it up and then leave it in the bag on the sidewalk.
Neglectful dog owners need to hit the brakes and be “speedy” picking up after their dog!
Sara Fraser,
Fergus
‘Cutting funding’
Dear Editor:
The government, from the Liberals under Wynne to the Ford government, have been continually cutting funding to Community Living associations in Ontario.
Community Living Guelph Wellington (CLGW) has been cutting services to our intellectually challenged sons/daughters for years due to the funding cuts from the government.
I am an 88-year-old mother who is very worried about my son being homeless if CLGW is forced to sell the home he is living in due to lack of funds.
Parents and caring staff at CLGW are acting to right this wrong done to our sons and daughters. Our executive directors have been advocating with the government over this crisis to no avail.
This is very serious and concerning to parents like myself as well as the people supported by Community Living Associations in Ontario.
Sylvia Quinn,
Guelph
‘Time for a change’
Dear Editor:
RE: ‘Bluff and fluff,’ Oct. 31.
I want to respectfully disagree with the writer .
Lets begin with the facts of the last couple elections. The Liberal party won a minority government with a substantial fewer amount of votes than the official opposition. Don’t get me wrong, I totally accept the Liberals won. However, a reasonable person would assume that the message would be that the Liberal Party policies and platform were both barely acceptable, with a majority of people wanting a fair portion of the policy of the official opposition.
At that point you would think some sort of step back from the track you were on and begin seriously working first with official opposition and of course having a bit of an ear to the NDP and even a bit from the Bloc due to strong Quebec leaning that way. That would truly be governing.
Fast forward, we know that is not happening. Instead the Liberals are working almost full stop with all of their original continued agendas as the fourth-place party and racking up the worst debt of all time.
The carbon tax is not working. It’s been here for several years and it has not reduced, even a little, severe-weather events. Canada’s footprint in the world is less than two percent.
The Liberals a few months ago introduced a separate increase for seniors over 75, excluding those 65 to 74. A reasonable person would know that would create backlash.
The scandals are too many to name.
Now lets get to the security clearance issue. Let’s just say Pierre Poilievre got it and he even took one of his MPs and sat them further away in the house, do you think that Trudeau would not try and bring the security agencies down on him? What information would really be shared at all?
Trudeau’s own people said Poilievre would be gagged. Yet Trudeau has the legal authority to unclassify all of it this minute with no repercussions. It’s a sham and a trap.
And yes, the house commons is testy, but although aggressive I find Poilievre is quite calm and yes, short and sweet. On the other hand, our prime minister is far from the cheerful “sunny ways” guy from 2015.
Time for a change.
Doak McCraney,
Guelph
‘Buying us off’
Dear Editor:
Premier Doug Ford announced that everyone in Ontario who qualifies will receive a $200 cheque, a refund from a “cash flush” government according to Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy. The cost will be about $3 billion.
Put this together with the $1 billion that cancelling the cost of license plate stickers lost and $4 billion is gone from provincial coffers.
This is the amount transferred from the federal government to Ontario during COVID. That $4 billion was to provide help for Ontario’s citizens like those vulnerable old folks dying in senior’s homes in Ontario. No one has accounted for the whereabouts of that transfer, however.
Citizens get $200. What to do? Donate to Habitat for Humanity who are actually building much needed housing rather than paying off developer friends with a destructive Highway 413 or making empty promises?
Or donate to the Wilmot farmers who are trying to save their farms from a provincial land grab with no agricultural impact assessment, setting a precedent that means no farm is safe in Ontario?
Save it for private health care as our system is chronically underfunded so that privatization continues to take over? Buy medical supplies for home care that the provincial “cash flush” government seems unable to do?
Donate to a teacher for classroom repairs or resources?
Or donate to Nature Canada, Environmental Defence, a conservation authority, Seniors for Climate Action Now, or any local group doing their best to protect and preserve our environment from short-sighted policies and destruction?
Or pay for groceries from grocery chains making unprecedented profits?
As our provincial government buys us off cheaply for our votes, our province and its people continue to suffer from governance by self interest and ignorance. The attempted Greenbelt swindle is the tip of the iceberg! Investigators cannot keep up with the scandals like the Science Centre, Ontario Place, Highway 413, and so many more!
But $200 for almost 15 million people, right? Ralph Klein would be proud!
Donna McCaw,
Elora
Returning rebate
Dear Editor:
With the Ontario rebate of $200 per person this winter, I presume Premier Doug Ford is contemplating a tough season of high energy costs and unemployment.
Excluding his cheap ploy for votes, the premier is wasting $3 billion. Studies have shown that “windfall” rebates are spent on cigarettes, alcohol and dining out. Mr. Ford’s criteria for this rebate is about as simple as possible – file your tax return and stay out of jail.
This week, several police forces and the Ministry of the Attorney General expressed their concern regarding the lack of facilities to incarcerate criminals (those charged and those convicted).
Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Ford could see the stupidity of this rebate and spend the $3 billion on a jail? After all, 2,100 people have awakened in Ontario this year to find their car missing. Two hundred dollars won’t help them.
I’m returning my rebate so that it can be used with some forethought, not wasted on impulsive pleasures.
Jim McClure,
Crieff
‘Hard to believe’
Dear Editor:
Sometimes actions by the government don’t make much sense.
Although it was eventually repealed, not too long ago the Doug Ford government enacted Bill 124, a law that capped salary increases for public sector workers at one per cent per year for three years.
The Ontario government’s explanation was that the law was necessary to address the province’s fiscal challenges.
Now, suddenly, the government has enough spare funds available to issue $200 cheques to every resident of Ontario? It is estimated that this will cost the province over $3 billion.
How did this happen, going from being short of funds to having an overabundance of funds? Mr. Ford says this expense is not to buy votes for the upcoming election. Somehow, based on the facts above, I find that hard to believe.
Anthony Martins,
Elora
‘Bumbling group’
Dear Editor:
RE: Council gets into weeds of procedural bylaw, eventually upholds Bissell park decision, Oct. 31.
The Oct. 28 Centre Wellington council meeting about the Bissell Park ice pad fiasco was a clear example of people in charge of a multi-million dollar operation who know nothing about municipal regulations or rules of running a meeting.
The leader, Mayor Shawn Watters, takes off and declares a conflict of interest and leaves a bumbling group in charge of spending your hard-earned tax dollars. Remember, this is the same gang that gave themselves a raise in pay before really starting the job.
It should be a prerequisite before becoming a councillor to take a course (at their expense) on municipal regulations and a course on Robert’s Rules of Order so they know how to run a meeting.
J. Alexander,
Fergus
Teach the history
Dear Editor:
Why is it that whenever we are frustrated with the Middle East we bash Israel?
Colonizers? Occupiers? Apartheid? Really? One in every five citizens of Israel is Arab, with the full rights and privileges of all Israeli citizens. The Israelis totally left Gaza in approximately 2005, when the terrorists seized control of that region. The only time they entered Gaza was to bring sick children and adults to Israel’s hospitals for medical treatment.
Where are the adults, teaching the history of the country to every child, so they don’t go off the rails and don terrorist clothing and call for Israel’s destruction?
When Britain decided to restore Palestine to its original people, the United Nations created a tiny sliver of a country for the Jews, who have lived on that land for over 3,000 years. It was created by drawing a line around the communities which were primarily Jewish, resulting in an odd hourglass-shaped nation that is extremely difficult to defend.
They are the Indigenous people of the area, restored to a fraction of their original homeland that was called the Land of Israel for centuries. The day after it was created, it was attacked by neighbouring Arabs who disagreed with the United Nations decision. It has had to fight to maintain its existence ever since.
As for the current war, Hamas could end it any time by laying down their arms and releasing the hostages that they haven’t killed. Israel is doing its best not to harm civilians. Did we demand our World War II troops stop fighting while the Nazis were still fighting?
Claudette Stevens,
Southgate
‘Basic human rights’
Dear Editor:
RE: ‘Hindrance to peace,’ Oct. 31.
Barbara Cooper states there is no greater hindrance to peace than Palestinian terrorism. Was it not terrorism when Israel expelled thousands of Palestinians from their homes in 1948? Many of these refugees now live and are dying in a place which some would say, with some justification, is the largest prison in the world.
Is it not terrorism what is happening in the occupied West Bank, where again Palestinians are being expelled from their villages to make room for an ever increasing number of Jewish settlements, which is against international law?
Would it be fair to say that the bombing of schools, universities, sewage works, not to mention the many journalists and aid workers that have been killed, is an act of terror?
After being under a military occupation for over 50 years is it any wonder that the horrendous act perpetrated by Hamas happened on Oct. 7?
When one is properly informed about the history of this troubled land one can only concur that the Palestinian people have endured persecution and denial of basic human rights for far too long.
Mark Purshouse,
Puslinch
‘We Remember Them’
Dear Editor:
To those who answered the call to duty
When their country called upon them
To join up and serve, our freedom to preserve
We remember them.
They gladly traveled to foreign lands
Into harm’s way they went
To deliver a blow, that would vanquish the foe
Of this, they would never relent.
We are a grateful nation
Of this there is no doubt
We’re thankful they served, our nation preserved
We remember them.
To those who made it safely home
Into the arms of loved ones
Have nary a fear, for they’d quickly volunteer
Once again, to take up their weapons.
To those who did not make it home
Who paid the ultimate price
Our gratitude won’t cease, may they ever rest in peace
We remember them.
Dennis Bridle,
Mount Forest
Speeding concern
Dear Editor:
I am very concerned about speeding on Cork Street in Mount Forest by the arena. The township put up a digital speed sign but that does nothing! Monday morning when I was out for a walk with my dog, a Wellington North pickup truck was digitalized on the sign at 62km/h at about 8am.
If the township employees don’t follow their own rules, who else will?
Ed White,
Mount Forest