South Stormont ON - Education and learning is what provides light in a world of ignorant darkness.  I have had many opportunities to witness first hand just how dangerous it is when people, societies and cultures are ignorant of simple facts and lack common decency in seeing each other as human beings.

So when ignorant comments are made like many of the ones from Tammy Hart, it deeply concerns me.  The facts about the full day kindergarden program coming into effect this year are simple.  The school boards are choosing to  implement this on a much larger scale than what is being funded by the provincial government.

Whether this is a good choice or not is up for debate.  What it does is stretch staff and other resources.  It also raises the question as to where the school boards are taking the money from to pay for the additional offerings?  Of course the boards have elected officials called Trustees whose job it is to oversee budgets and spending on behalf of the tax payers who elect them.  These trustees are not the provincial government.  I am surprised that Tammy, an elected city councillor, wouldn’t know this simple fact about who is accountable for how the schools spend their money.

Perhaps what is needed is for people to take a greater interest in how our local taxes, school levees being a significant portion, are invested.  Perhaps we need to push for greater transparency and better reporting from our school trustees?

Respectfully,

James Borer C.D. – South Stormont Ontario

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Cornwall ON – Not withstanding what appears to be the good intentions on part of the Tories to protect the `innocent’, the current government’s scrapping of the mandatory aspect of the long form census is less than thoughtful or reasoned.

Any one with common sense, or at least asked the folks at Stats Canada, would know that there are chunks of any population that will refuse to do surveys. And those chunks go by location, sex, age and income and many other citeria that will seriously skew any results.

And any one with common sense, or asked any psychology student, will tell you that these chunks of population will not answer surveys even given a carrot instead of a stick. These are not innocent people. They are stubborn! Having the Census embued with penalty is the only way to get the participation rate that the Government Canada requires to gather scientific data in conducting its day to day affairs. The People of Canada have a Right to have scientifically valid facts.

The People of Canada deserve and want data that is better than plus or minus 13%, 19 times out of 20.

But the worst thing of this whole boondoggle is that those that don’t believe they should do census surveys will now be emboldened to refuse and expect that the current government will back them up. So, instead of having a 95% participation rate it will drop substantially and with disasterous effect. Even if the government was to restore the mandatory requirement, they have screwed it!

Sincerely,

Matthew Dubois -Cornwall, Ontario

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Newington ON - If you think Health Care in Ontario is bad, just wait till September when you see how badly Dalton McGuinty has screwed up our Educational System.

$1.5 billion per year is being spent on three and four year olds to attend full day/every day kindergarten.  Teachers making $70,000 plus, ECE’s (Early Childhood Educators) making $47,000 plus and EA’s (Educational Assistants) $30,000 all will be needed to run this program.  Administration will be required to record babysitting costs and attendance in the before and after school component of the program.  Trustees are already complaining of insufficient funding.  Principals are confused as to how the programs will be implemented.   Class room sizes are increased to 26+.  Education Assistants are being cut back, at the same time that school boards are implementing “inclusion” for all special needs students. Private daycare will be shut down.

Full day kindergarten was supposed to assist low income families by eliminating the need for daycare but the cost for the before/after component in most school boards has been set at unrealistically high rates ($29-$35 / day) which is more than most private daycares charge.  This rate is so high because the ECE’s are being paid considerably more ($24/hr) than most daycare workers are paid.  Thus the program which was to help the poor has been priced out of their reach by overpaying government workers to perform the same service that the private sector has been providing for less money.

Our education system will be in the same mess that Dalton McGuinty made our health care system…expensive, inefficient and unmanageable.    It’s disgraceful!

Tammy A. Hart

Newington, On

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Dear Editor:

The McGuinty Government’s handling of the eco fees issue has been a complete fiasco.  There was no plan to protect consumers from being blindsided by these new eco fees on July 1 at the same time as the introduction of the HST.

The Ontario NDP support the concept of producer responsibility for the recycling of their hazardous, toxic products. However, putting oversight directly in the hands of industry is the wrong way to go. This fiasco has once again shown that self regulation by industry does not work.

The industry-controlled Stewardship Ontario should be replaced by a government body that is fully accountable and transparent.   The bottom line is that companies that produce harmful, toxic goods should pay the costs of protecting our environment, not Ontario’s consumers or cash strapped municipalities.  This would certainly give producers an incentive to develop products that are less toxic and better for our environment.

Yours truly,

Brian Lynch,

President,

SDSG Provincial NDP riding association

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Cornwall ON -

The Honourable Attorney General Chris Bentley stated that “no one is going to be left hanging.” in reference to victims of historical sexual abuse in Cornwall.

Well Chris, you’ve left almost 200 people hanging for over 7 months. Remember when you cancelled recommended counselling services  and tried to replace them with a ‘Next Steps” program?

Even though Commissioner Normand Glaude expressly stated in his report, and I quote:
“Client-specific information, expert testimony on counselling needs, the strong Phase 2 submissions in favour of Counselling Support, and the ABSENCE OF COMPREHENSIVE AND REALISTIC SERVICE ALTERNATIVES have convinced me of the need to extend Counselling Support. The period selected for extension is 5 years, with a cost of
approximately 2.7 million for the whole period.”

The Commissioner also wrote that approximately 170-195 individuals were still ‘actively attending counselling”

Only 16 people took part in the Next Steps program. So what happened to the others? Well, I would venture to say that they’ve been left hanging. And I hope to God that their grip is strong. Because it doesn’t appear that Chris Bentley, his ministry or our local MPP Jim Brownell will be reaching out to them any time soon.

Gabriel Riviere-Reid – Cornwall Ontario

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Gabriel Riviere-Reid

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Cornwall ON - I wish the anti Oil sands bloggers and most of the media,radio,t.v. and newspapers would please get it right.I am sick of hearing the term tar sands by people who should know better.

“The hydrocarbon mixtures found in northern Alberta have historically been referred to as tar, pitch or asphalt. However, ‘oil sands’ is now used most often to describe the naturally occurring bitumen deposits. This helps distinguish it from the other terms, which are associated with distilled or man-made products, such as the mixtures used to pave roads.

“Oil sands is an accurate term because bitumen, a heavy petroleum product, is mixed with the sand. It makes sense to describe the resource as oil sands because oil is what is finally derived from the bitumen.”

Earle Macpherson  - Cornwall,On

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Newington ON - Premier Dalton McGuinty created a lucrative program called “microFIT” for small producers of solar electricity across Ontario.   A producer would be able to benefit by selling the electricity on the grid for a subsidized price of 80.2 cents per kilowatt hour.  That’s 20 times the price paid for nuclear power.  Most of the 16,000 applicants were farmers.  An urgent meeting was called in Kemptville this past week warning farmers that things had changed.

OPA (Ontario Power Authority) was concerned that the subsidy could cost Ontario electricity ratepayers an additional $1billion over 20 years, so they slashed the price from 80.2 cents a kilowatt hour to only 58.8 cents per kilowatt hour for farmers only, while still forking out 80.2 cents for electricity generated from the roof-mounted solar panels in urban areas.

Farmers will only make an 11% rate of return on their investment at 58.8 cents compared to the “exorbitant” 25% – 30% at 80.2 cents.  Liberal MPP’s across Ontario have been bombarded with calls from farmers who are outraged.  They feel they’ve been lied to and betrayed.   Where is the justice?  and guess where McGuinty gets most his votes?

Tammy A. Hart - Newington

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Letter to the editor,

Kudos goes out to Prime Minister Stephen Harper for choosing our new Governor General, David Johnston.

David Johnston has a distinguished academic record; he is a legal scholar and was president of the University of Waterloo.  He is 69 years old, married to a doctor and has five daughters all in university.  His greatest asset is that he loves hockey.  A proud day for Canada!

Tammy A. Hart

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Mr. Bentley:

We have written numerous letters to your office in the last seven months, some as private letters, but mostly as letters composed by our committee.  They have gone unheeded and we continue to get back as a resource a Transition Services List that includes few agencies that even come close to dealing with childhood sexual abuse trauma.  The other agencies cited do not have therapists specialized and skilled in treating this type of trauma. A few agencies were even surprised they were on such a list.  Not to be disrespectful, but do you know how much of a joke this list for transition services is.  It is an insult to a person’s intelligence.  Survivors are not stupid; far from it.  They are quite capable of seeing a ‘con’ when it is happening.    GIVE US A BREAK!

It also has come to our recent attention, that different available funding through the Victims Services Unit was not made known to survivors, since the Public Inquiry was cut off in January, 2010.  Two members of our group only became aware of this funding around the beginning of May.  As a result they will only have benefit of this funding until July 15, after which no further funding will be made available.  One of these survivors had been without any resources whatsoever to continue therapy and struggled painfully for those 4 months in her daily life;  the other survivor had been paying for her therapy out of her own pocket putting a financial stress on her marriage (her partner is a pensioner and she is unable to work due to traumatic flashbacks).

Why was this new available funding not made public and why were the survivors not informed of this option? In fact, how many survivors made use of this new funding because they were aware of it?

Some survivors are eligible for Compensation from Criminal Injuries for 52 weeks of one hour therapy sessions, but what happens to those survivors when that funding ends before the trauma is dealt with; what happens to the survivors who aren’t eligible for Compensation because the abuse happened outside the province of Ontario?

Again, the government hides all the information in order to cut costs and to minimize spending of allotted budgets for programs.  No one at the higher levels seems to realize that these are real people that they are dealing with, not just numbers.  These are people who fell through the cracks as children, and “Guess what?’ they still are being ignored and swept under bureaucratic carpets.

We know that there have been recommendations implemented to help the children of the future, but what about the children of the past?  Those children of the past still need the chance to have the trauma treated and to live a productive and peaceful life.  They won’t go away.  Without proper treatment survivors will put further strain on an already overburdened correctional system, welfare system, health care system, addiction programs, shelters, Ontario Disability Support Program, Canada Pension Plan Disability program, Employment Assistance Program, funeral homes, etc., if the government continues to refuse funding for treatment of childhood trauma.  Do you know how much income, income tax and functionality down the road would be generated by survivors who get proper treatment through specialized therapy?

There are deep wounds that will never be healed by band-aids (current services available for survivors); however, with qualified psychotherapists of the survivor’s own choice (as recommended by Commissioner Normand Glaude), healing will happen.  It is critical that this be dealt with immediately.

It is strange that $50 million could be spent on an inquiry that resulted in recommendations that are completely being ignored.   You may think that it is okay to maintain the status quo, but we do not agree.

It is time that everyone knows the truth.

Enough Is Enough – Stop the Silence

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Regarding the recent announcement of the new “Police Motorcycle”, really begs the question, why are we not sharing this service with the OPP?

Recently, our city police force gave up on our “police dog” program, opting for sharing the service with the OPP.

Our taxpayers are being stretched to the limit and it’s time we consider all our options, with respect to any of the services our city provides.

Mark A. MacDonald

Councillor, City of Cornwall

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