Letters to the Editor – August 9, 2023

Most grateful

Dear Editor,

On Friday, July 28, my husband Eugene and I were travelling west on Hwy 148, just west of Shawville, when a giant oak tree fell across our trailer which was carrying our lawn mower during a horrendous wind and rain storm. We were most grateful that we were nanoseconds ahead of the falling tree. Neither we, nor our truck were injured.
Then an amazing thing happened. Men began producing chainsaws from the back of their trucks, and a man appeared with a huge tractor with a front end loader. By the time response to our 911 call arrived, the road was almost cleared. Amazing cooperation.
We were able to obtain only a few names of the “angels” who appeared to help. John and Marlie Armstrong, who live where the accident occurred, thank you for your hospitality and friendliness. And Rob Beck, the man with the tractor, thank you for your expertise in getting the road opened in record time. To all those men with chainsaws, those who helped clear the branches off the road and the women who were caring and supportive.
Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone. We are most grateful.

Joan Lemay
Renfrew, Ont.

Grubby hands

Dear Editor,

How obscene! Amazon accepting donations for Bouffe Pontiac, THE EQUITY, July 26.
Money is one of the slave-drivers of our society, and Amazon is one of the biggest “fat-cats” of all. Amazon is dangerous. Amazon would buy priceless wetlands to build their mega-warehouses. Amazon will ship nearly anything to a customer, almost anywhere. This drives businesses out of existence because the owner of the product shows the item(s) and Amazon gets the sale.
To Bouffe Pontiac I say that I belong to two churches and every week I put $20 into the donation bottle for Bouffe Pontiac. More is given at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I am not alone. These are gifts of money, not just for its buying power, but more, as an effort to share our God-given resources with those in need.
Amazon, you are making money on the backs of well-intentioned people, and it looks so easy. Get your grubby hands off that which is sacred.

Rev. Mary McDowell Wood
Shawville, Que.

Backed up

Dear Editor,

Here’s your chance to prove yourself more intelligent, better suited to life in the modern world than I am. All those pictures and text files that you treasure and intend to finish and safely store…make sure they’re backed up to another storage medium.
The short-term convenient way is to continually pile new photos and documents on the hard drive on your computer. But when (not if) that hard drive decides to quit working, those files you didn’t have stored on an alternative storage device may be lost forever. I’ve done my own research on this phenomenon because I wasn’t sufficiently impressed by it happening to my friend last week.
We need not worry about being eaten by bears or wolves these days, but we do have to protect ourselves from our own naivete. If you rely on communication devices, make sure they are reliable.

Robert Wills
Thorne and Shawville

Petition rejected

Dear Editor,

We would like to inform the people who signed the petition to have the R.A. hall in Campbell’s Bay named after Cletus Ferrigan that it has been turned down by the Campbell’s Bay council.
We would like to thank the people who took the time to sign the petition and for showing interest in our project.

Terry Frost
Comittee to Rename Campbell’s Bay R.A. Hall

English rights

Dear Editor,

The judgment by the Quebec Superior Court striking down most of Bill 40 (‘An Act to amend mainly the Education Act with regard to school organization and governance’) is a rare victory for minorities in this province. The bill would have replaced elected school boards with school ‘centres’, effectively removing the right of the English-speaking community to govern local education (with an exception for parents of current students).
As commissioner for ward 3 of the Western Quebec School Board (Bristol, Clarendon, Shawville, Portage, and Thorne), my role has been to represent the interests of our community at the school board level and make decisions regarding governance, and I am pleased that I can now continue in this role. In this letter, I am speaking on my own behalf and do not speak for the WQSB.
Unlike the French language community, who can now only exercise influence on education through their MNA (and ours is, much to his credit, not a member of the current government), those of us in the English speaking community can both run to be a representative at the school board and participate in elections. We cannot take this right for granted, seeing how close we were to losing it.
The right to control minority-language education is guaranteed in section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. To exercise this right, you must be registered on the permanent list of electors of the Directeur Général des Élections du Québec. If you live in Western Quebec and have children enrolled in a WQSB school, you are automatically on the list. If you don’t have children in an English school, you are by default on the list of electors for the French language school board (and in effect, thanks to Bill 40, have no right to vote). You can, however, choose to be placed on the electors list for the WQSB by submitting a form (found on the WQSB website at https://westernquebec.ca/about/governance). You can check if you are on the electors list at https://westernquebec.ca/elections.
There are also other ways to help our schools, including joining the Governing Board of your children’s school, and through them, the Parents’ Commmittee and Special Education Advisory Committee. These groups do excellent work at supporting and promoting quality education in our schools.
It is my hope that the next school board elections in a couple of years will see multiple candidates for every position and a high voter turnout. We have been blessed by exceptional schools, staff, teachers and administrators here at our English language schools in the Pontiac. Now we have to do our part.

Greg Graham
Commissioner, Western Quebec School Board

Smoke and mirrors

Dear Editor,

I am writing in response to the editorial “A question of process” (THE EQUITY, July 26) outlining the MRC Pontiac mega incinerator process to date.
What an inciteful and accurate assessment of the complete lack of proper process and good government that has occurred under MRC Pontiac Warden Jane Toller’s leadership.
The cornerstone of democracy is open and transparent government. This Warden Toller mega incinerator process is the antithesis of good government.
Warden Toller handcrafted a motion, in support of her mega garbage incinerator, presented it to and requested all her 18 municipal councils vote to support it by the end of June 2023, per her email below:

From: Jane Toller prefete@mrcpontiac.qc.ca
Date: Tue, May 30, 2023 at 3:36 PM
Subject: Resolutions supporting Energy from Waste
To: Maires Maires@mrcpontiac.qc.ca
Hi everyone-
Please submit your resolutions on EFW by the end of June. I will be going to Sheenboro June 5th- l’isle du Grand Calumet June 12th Thorne June 6th and waiting to hear back from Bryson and Fort Coulonge. I have visited everyone else. Please ensure all letters are sent to the MRC.
Thanks
Jane
Sent from my iPhone

Did Warden Toller even consider for a minute that any of the 18 lower tier councils could reject supporting her handcrafted motion that declares the Pontiac willing hosts and supporting the establishment of a mega incinerator here?
Did Warden Toller insist that full public consultations be given to our residents, prior to Council’s blind votes of support for the mega incinerator?
Even odder, the first opportunity Warden Toller took to talk to the Pontiac public was at her first Mega Incinerator Public Information meeting on June 19, 2023.
For an incinerator project Warden Toller claims she has been advancing since 2017, it is six years later that Warden Toller has finally decided to speak to the residents and reveal her plans and actions taken.
When Warden Toller was asked, she could not show us that any feasibility or research study that has ever been conducted that addresses the merits of a mega incinerator in the Pontiac or its environmental impacts.
Even odder, at the information meeting, Warden Toller neglected to mention that she already had 17 municipal councils vote in support of the mega incinerator in advance of the public information session. Council votes started in February 2023 and continued up until just weeks before the information session.
And who really are what Warden Toller calls “her partners” in bringing their residents garbage to the Pontiac?
Gatineau Council has not publicly supported a Pontiac incinerator. Neither have the three other MRCs that will supposedly truck garbage here. Nothing to show us from Renfrew or Pembroke Councils.
Have any of them done a public consultation with their residents on trucking and burning their garbage here?
Is this all just smoke and mirrors?
Which municipality has publicly stated they are going to bring their garbage here?
Ottawa Council is not strongly supportive as Warden Toller claimed at the Shawville information meeting.
Ottawa Council has never even discussed the Pontiac Mega Incinerator and Warden Toller’s plan to take Ottawa’s garbage. Yet, Warden Toller says without Ottawa’s garbage, Pontiac’s mega incinerator project is not viable.
Indeed, a retraction and clarification of those claims had to be given by Warden Toller to other local media. Warden Toller had to admit this is not the case that Ottawa has given strong support and she misspoke on Ottawa Mayor and Council’s position.
Warden Toller now claims she simply has had informal contact with Ottawa. Great work after advancing an incinerator she says since 2017, residents of Ottawa and Ottawa Council knew nothing about it.
Kind of the way we the residents of Pontiac knew nothing about it until we were told we were willing hosts and supported building a mega incinerator here at her information meeting.
I would appreciate hearing from you at wqccdavis@yahoo.ca as we press forward to bring accountability back to the Pontiac and stop this runaway train until all our legitimate questions and concerns are properly addressed.

Linda Davis
Former Regional Councillor
Kitchissippi Ward
City of Ottawa
Resident of Shawville