No to smart meters
This week I received a notice from BC Hydro that it will be installing a smart meter—actually I think it is a dumb meter—on my property [“Smart meters,” January 21]. As with the HST, I felt frustrated that I had not been consulted on something that affects my wellbeing.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission recognize electromagnetic technologies such as this as a health risk with headaches, memory loss, stress reactions and sleep disturbances being only a few of the symptoms that we can suffer from.
In speaking with my neighbour Kitty Clemens she informed me that I could easily obtain a letter of refusal from Citizens for Safe Technology website and I have done so. It was very easy and only took five minutes to download and fill in. Now I have put a sign on my BC Hydro meter refusing to comply with the smart meter installation as it is within my legal right to do so.
I offer this information to others who also feel they want the right to say no to yet another so-called improvement in our life.
Tanis Helliwell
Hollingsworth Road
Meters deliver radiation blast
BC Hydro has notified us that Smart Meters will soon be installed in all our homes [“Smart meters,” January 21].
Unlike the information sheet that accompanies our hydro notice regarding this installation, everything I read about smart meters tells me these meters are problematic for our health, as they blast radio frequency (RF) radiation, at high levels and frequently, throughout our bodies.
RFs are known to cause increased levels of cancer, tumours, interfere with brain waves and cause DNA breakage.
Additionally, the smart meter is a surveillance device which reads our power usage but also provides information to the command centre about what appliances we use, when we use them, how much we use, and essentially, whether we are home or not. It is a violation of our civil rights as well as our Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be surveilled in our homes without our consent.
Incidentally, smart meters are hackable so anyone hacking into the system will also know if you are home.
At some point (after the election?), if we don’t stop smart meters, we will be paying staggered rates for our power usage; much more for peak period usage but less if we are able to stay up very late to do our housework, laundry or cooking. In Ontario, where smart meters are already installed, people are reporting marked increases in their hydro bills.
If you have a smart meter installed on your home you need to shield yourself from the radiation and make certain you or your children do not sleep near the wall where the meter is installed.
You have the right to say “No” to smart meter installation in your home. Contact BC Hydro and Rich Coleman, minister of energy and mines. For information about saying “NO” to smart meters visit the website. There is also an excellent video online that tells you more, found by googling Face to Face With Smart Meters.
Donna Vance
Zilinsky Road
Cartoon inappropriate
I was somewhat distressed to see the editorial cartoon published in the September 14 issue of the Peak, the intention of which seems to be to make teachers look bad because we aren’t interacting with students. In fact, exactly the opposite is true. We are not doing administrivia in order to have even greater interaction with our students.
I’m sure you read over your reporter’s article [“Job action not affecting quality of education; Teachers focus energy on students,” September 14) following his interviews with Jay Yule and myself. Both Mr. Yule and I were very clear that the impact of this job action on students is minimal and that it doesn’t impact the quality of education to which parents and students are accustomed.
Cartoons of this nature serve no useful purpose, particularly in a small community such as ours, where we are all trying to work together to make things better for children.
Cathy Fisher, President
Powell River and District Teachers’ Association
