City shakeout
It’s 10:18 am on Thursday, October 18. The bells ring and all City of Powell River councillors, the mayor and city staff fight for space under a big table at city hall. I wonder out loud how many deals will be made while they hide from the imaginary earthquake [“Province prepares for earthquake,” October 10]. A muted snicker, I hear.
I manage to stand in a doorway while other members of the public just sit there waiting to slide into the ocean. Never a dull moment at committee-of-the-whole meetings.
Let’s move onto the 7 pm edition of the council meeting. We have gold medal announcements for beer makers, a great speech on talking trash and then some great stories on the mayor and council at a big gabfest in Victoria. From inviting gazillionaire Chinese to Powell River, voting on decriminalizing pot, and an announcement there is plastic on every beach known to mankind, we get to the real problem in Powell River: those silly rats that can multiply faster than the debt of the United States of America.
The chickens have come home to roost with a new proposed bylaw for residents. I guess it’s cheaper than buying them from the store. Oh, and by the way, no roosters allowed. Not a great time being a man these days. Yikes...
Cleve Hamilton
Stittle Road
Free and vital water
I would like to applaud Trish Cocksedge for her well-written and well-researched letter [“Nudging Nestlé’s nervous system,” October 24] in response to the letter “Water Bottle Industry” published October 17 defending bottled water.
In my youth I lived on a small island where no fresh water was available from rivers or significant underground springs. Residents relied on unpredictable and often violent rainfalls as well as the government’s desalinization of sea water. The tap water, while potable, was very distasteful but it was something that residents got used to. As more and more tourists visited the island, the local population acquired a taste for bottled water. Soon, empty plastic water bottles became quite ubiquitous. Eventually, since there was no attempt at recycling, the bottles ended up in the landfill and more often washed out to sea.
In Powell River we are blessed with great tap water and have absolutely no reason to spend money and natural resources to have water with a nice label on the bottle which tricks us into believing that we are actually drinking better water. I am not going to reiterate the reasons that Cocksedge mentioned in her excellent letter but suffice it to say that water is a free and vital resource; it should not be bottled and sold.
Nestlé Waters Canada’s representative in the October 17 letter hoped City of Powell River council will see to it that a ban on bottled water is not passed. That we have corporations dictating or influencing our council on decisions that affect everyone is nothing new. That council may be swayed by such arguments also may not be new. What may be new would be if council was guided solely by concerns for our environment, especially while balancing budgets.
A ban on plastic bottles, shopping bags and Styrofoam-packed meats in our grocery stores will not likely take place until all communities within a 100-mile radius opt for the same. Or maybe this time Powell River can take the initiative. What we can do in the meantime is try to shop less frequently at those places which support these products.
Charles Macelli
Saskatchewan Avenue
Wrongful death
I am grateful for the story “Family fights for accountability” by Chris Bolster, published in the Peak on October 24.
It was wonderful that he brought to people’s attention the need to update the wrongful death act as it now excludes anyone not earning an income, such as children, seniors and the disabled who do not represent a monetary loss.
I would like to encourage readers to go to the Advocates for Legal Rights, Responsibility and Recourse website and please sign the petition “call for a new act.”
What happened to my mom does not reflect the good quality of care given at Olive Devaud Residence as the staff is very caring and kind. It was the actions and decisions of one person.
However, when you delve deeper you have to ask why are the number of accidents in hospitals, care homes and the work place increasing? I think some of them are a direct result of increasing workloads. As workers struggle to find ways to keep up they may devise ways to cut corners, sometimes with disastrous effects. I read that the E. coli outbreak at XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alberta, was partly due to increased production without increasing the workforce.
The only people who can “fix” these problems are upper management and government as they are the only ones with the power to make massive changes, including increasing the frontline workers and reducing the number of low-level managers. The failure to act will only result in more preventable accidents.
Gwen Law
Huntingdon Street
