Residents betrayed by their former district rep

Dear editor,

We, residents of the Hawkins Greenway/Beech Street neighbourhood, feel shocked and betrayed by our former regional director Barbara Price, current chair of the sewage commission. Price has made it her goal, along with Comox councillors Ken Grant and Maureen Swift, to keep the sewer pump station outside the limits of the town of Comox.

The pump station provides no benefits to residents of Area B, and will only benefit Comox constituents.

In her self reassuring attempt to explain her motives in an article published in the Record (March 23), she spins decision making and the political attention paid to sewer with this statement, 鈥淚t is this

attention that has led to some challenging decisions in the last few years.鈥�

She explains that, 鈥渋t鈥檚 about a regional government working to make the right decisions for the region as a whole.鈥� While she relates these decisions to the region of the Comox Valley, they will only

benefit her constituents in the town of Comox. The most honest statement Price made was, 鈥淯ltimately, no one would choose a pump station for their neighbourhood.鈥� This statement is right on the mark, especially if you have invested your personal funds into your own septic system and have no need for a regional system.

How challenging was it to choose a property without informing residents living near that property, purchase that property in secret, and rule out all properties in the town of Comox? (鈥�with support from all Comox sewer commission members, while having no citizen interaction with Beech street residents until after a decision was made and imposed upon them?)

If this decision was really about a solution for the region, we are sure our elected representative Rod Nichol would bring this to our attention and involve us in discussions and negotiations.

We, her former constituents, are extremely disheartened and disappointed by Price鈥檚 decision as chair of the sewage commission. We know that Price has always been an advocate for democracy, but this process has been far from democratic for the citizens of our neighbourhood.

Michael Smith,

Henriette Beaudoin,

Pat Guillo

Area B

Letter writer is the real bully

Dear editor,

Re: the letter In Support of the Catholic Church Values.

Marlene Felsing, we are not 鈥渂ullying you鈥� as you say. If you don鈥檛 want to use MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) when your time comes, don鈥檛 use it. But please, don鈥檛 try to manipulate the situation saying you know three people who had terminal cancer who survived. If they survived, they did not have terminal cancer!

The issue here is about the four hospice beds at St. Joseph鈥檚 Hospital that will continue to be used for hospice purposes after the new hospital is in operation.

All terminally ill people have the right to use this hospice so that they can die as comfortably and with as much dignity as possible, with or without MAiD. These beds were built and are financed by taxpayers money of which a strong majority support MAiD. If anyone is the bully here it is you, pushing your religious values on 82 per cent of the local population who do not support your views on MAiD. You have no regard for the law and are trying to prevent myself and many others from using MAiD when it is our time to go.

You say 鈥渁s long as there is life, there is hope.鈥� My mother died before MAiD became law. My mother rode her bike across Canada from Victoria to Nova Scotia when she was 61 yrs old. She was an inspiration and a independent woman if there ever was one. But when she knew she was going to die and was in so much pain, I only wish MAiD was here to satisfy her wish to die.

Laurel Rousseau

Courtenay

Not too late to stop Site C Dam

Dear editor,

The Site C mega-dam on the Peace River in northern BC, is a financial, social and environmental mega-disaster in the making. Energy demand in B.C. has been flat for a decade; if it should rise, there are many cheaper and greener power alternatives available than Site C. Yet BC Hydro is borrowing $9 billion at taxpayers expense, in order to build a dam to create electricity.

Harry Swain, chairperson of the joint (federal-provincial) review panel, (JRP), said, 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 even have to think very much about the environmental and aboriginal cost of Site C because the economics are so awful.鈥�

Yet the other costs cannot be ignored.

The Peace Valley has some of the best farmland in the province; flooding it is almost unthinkably stupid and will result in food having to be imported from elsewhere. Flooding will destroy critical wintering and calving habitat for moose, elk, mule and white-tailed deer. There are 63 鈥榮pecies at risk鈥� in the Site C project area, including 30 migratory bird species. The JRP Panel states the dam will have 鈥渟ignificant adverse effects on migratory birds which cannot be mitigated.鈥�

The United Nations recently voiced concerns that the project threatens the flow of water through the world heritage Wood Buffalo National Park.

Site C is opposed by First Nations; up to 337 archaeological and burial sites may be flooded.

Building Site C is a purely political decision, championed by BC Liberals to make up for the lack of LNG facilities promised in the last election. It was not sent to the BC Utilities Commission, (which turned the dam down in 1983), even though the chair of the JRP strongly and repeatedly advised that it should be. It is this same political agenda that is now pushing to get the project beyond the point of no return before the next election. But it is not too late to stop it. Both former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen, and Swain, say the smart move is still to cancel the project.

The Peace River Valley, once destroyed, cannot be replaced. Ask yourself if you, your children and grandchildren really want to be on the hook to pay for this abomination? Then vote with care.

AJ Vaughan

Black Creek