Provincial budget could’ve been better spent
To the Editor,
With this week’s provincial budget reflecting a record deficit, we would like to say how upset we are with Doug Ford’s government blowing millions of dollars fighting carbon pricing, repealing the successful cap and trade system with Quebec in California, building an unnecessary highway, and now with all this self-promotion we are being inundated with on TV and radio.
This money could’ve been better spent supporting our public healthcare system, addressing homelessness, shoring up our social programs, keeping our farmlands, and most importantly addressing climate change.
Action is required now, not only for ourselves, but more importantly, for our children and grandchildren’s future.
Doug and Flora Miller – Hagersville
The impact of eliminating cashiers
To the Editor,
I first want to start off by saying that I ‘love’ our local Food Basics that is in Dunnville. What I find offensive is what Metro Head Office is doing to the store, the promoting of self-checkouts and cutting back on cashier hours. (I teach at the local high school and several of the cashiers attend the school and made mention of this information.)
The Saturday after Good Friday where the store was closed for a day, there were only three cashiers working. Each of them had at least a lineup of five people deep. Even the self-checkout had a lineup of about two people.
Why weren’t there five cashiers? Or more?
By trying to eliminate cashiers you are eliminating the ‘human’ experience. Elderly come through the checkouts, know the cashiers, have a little conversation (does not work that well with a machine). By eliminating cashier hours, you are affecting a lot of young people’s means of paying for post-secondary education. And Saturday everyone was inconvenienced because of the lineups.
The real question, why? So that Metro’s profits increase. (I guess the millions that you make in profits aren’t enough.) Sometimes there are things that matter as much as money, or even more.
I doubt this letter will have any impact on the giant known as Metro, but your decisions are affecting small communities. Which I am sure you have considered.
The plea: please consider your decisions and the impact it has on the people of smaller communities.
Thanks,
K. Lohrum – Dunnville
Re: Brady questions Hewitt’s seat at Ontario Land Tribunal
To the Editor,
Reading about MPP Bobbi Ann Brady calling out the Ford government’s appointment of Ken Hewitt to the Ontario Land Tribunal makes me once again glad that she ran and won as an independent in the last election. This has freed her from the shackles of being part of the muzzled PC caucus and instead allows her to speak her mind on behalf of those people who elected her.
That Mr. Hewitt is pro development was made quite clear in his earlier call to abolish the OLT, on the grounds that it impeded development; a view he held at least until he was made part of it. So now that he has been placed there, by his same political master who previously bypassed the local election committee to have him run for the PCs in the last election, I think there can be no doubt as to how he will vote on any issue brought before the tribunal in the future. As a creature of a premier who has never met a bulldozer he didn’t like, Mr. Hewitt’s appointment is just the latest naked attempt by Doug Ford to appease and please his donor base in the construction industry.
Ms. Brady’s ability and willingness to challenge what should have rightfully been the party she represented, has been a plus for Haldimand-Norfolk and something that I sincerely hope she is not tempted to forsake in the next election.
Robert Sorrell – Caledonia
