Letters: Apr 25/13

Apr 25, 2013

Conservative Ad welcomes Mr. Trudeau

I think the ad that is running welcoming Mr. Trudeau is an outrage. Last week, Mr. Harper was saying that we need to put an end to bullying. He might want to stop engaging in insulting, irrelevant and bullying behaviour himself. Shame on Mr. Harper and his party for lowering the political conversation in this country to new levels. They are making Canada a far worse place when they should be making use of the opportunities offered to them to make it better. We expect everyone in our communities, whether young or old, to be respectful of those they work with, play with and otherwise interact with. We expect at least that much from those who are our representatives in government. They are failing to live up to even minimal expectations.

Annie Peace-Fast

 Re: Democratic Decisions

Kudos to Paul Isaacs for thinking "outside the box" and putting forward his ideas on democratic decision-making (April 18th). To pursue this important dialogue, though, some statements need to be corrected.

The claim that a deadlock in the House of Commons would lead to a decision being passed on to the Senate, and perhaps eventually to the Governor General, is simply wrong. I checked with the Information Service of the Library of Parliament, who confirmed my understanding that in the rare case of a tie vote in the House, the Speaker breaks the tie. This is also the rule in the Senate, since the Speaker is actually the Chair and does not vote except in the case of a tie.

Secondly, the notion that the Governor General ever gets to make any decision on legislation or policy matters is also just dead wrong. In our parliamentary system, the Crown can make decisions only in extremely rare circumstances - on questions of procedure where our democratic Constitution itself is at risk. The only such case in Canada in recent decades was Mr. Harper's outrageous 2008 request to the Governor General to prorogue Parliament so that he could avoid being toppled by a vote of non-confidence. His request defied the democratic principle whereby it is the elected House of Commons that decides who governs the country. Mme Jean made a huge mistake in allowing Mr. Harper to subvert that principle and avoid certain defeat in the House we had elected only two months before. Her failure to enact the constitutional safeguard of the Crown's "reserve power" in this case allowed the government to remain in office and continue thumbing its nose at democracy.

Mr. Isaacs has rightly flagged the lack of real democratic decision-making at multiple levels in this country, and his promotion of "due consideration, accommodation and reconciliation" is most welcome. I look forward to further fact-based discussion on how to bring this shift about.

Helen Forsey

KFPL Survey – “you see what you want to see”

Like other Frontenac residents, I was recently assailed by a Kingston Frontenac Public Library telephone survey that left me feeling unheard. A young, gentle voice asked me many, many questions of the “strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree” variety that we are all so familiar with. Although I shouted “you closed my library” in apoplectic fury, there was no place on this poor young woman’s form to record my unhappiness.

In calmer moments, I remembered an old Harry Nilsson lyric from the 1973 The Point – “You see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear”. The library’s survey is designed to tell their board just that, their own preconceived (in 2004) ideas of what will serve rural Frontenac. There was just one open-ended question of the twenty or so before I abruptly quit the situation – “How could your service be improved?” My answer – “Give my volunteer local library interlibrary loan service”, but of course that would make no sense to their survey, since volunteer libraries don’t exist.

It will be interesting to see how they interpret the results of the recent survey. The results of the 2010 survey showed plenty of bias. Then they asked 83 rural respondents if they preferred expanded services in fewer locations, limited services in current neighbourhood locations, or improved services without closing local libraries. Many keen library users would have known already whether they were slated for fine new facilities (42% by population), closure (11%), or no change (47%). This we knew from the very controversial 2004 consultant’s report. The results – 46% favoured fine new facilities in fewer locations, 26% limited services in local libraries, with no citing of those requesting no closure.

And so they closed Ompah’s branch – perhaps you agree with their interpretation of that result. But remember – Parham, Mountain Grove, and Arden are their next closure projects.

Janice Arthur

ATV accident

As a resident of North Frontenac and an avid outdoor enthusiast, I have the privilege to use our many backwoods lakes as well as ATV trails on a year-round basis. On a recent ice fishing trip I had the misfortune of having an ATV accident, resulting in a broken hip. Being approximately four km from an accessible road offered many challenges for our first responders. I would like to thank the many folks who were involved with my extraction and rescue: The Ompah firefighters, Amber, Alex and Stan. These dedicated volunteers worked into the night with dropping temperatures to get me to safety. Let us never take the first responders for granted. We are fortunate to have such dedicated volunteer firefighters in our community. Let’s support them at every opportunity we can. They are a vital part of our lives when needed.

Randy Shirley