Letter to the Editor re: Hosmer Fire Department
Residents of Dicken Road and Hosmer, you have all received notices how the Hosmer Fire Department needs 15 new members before April 15, 2016 in order to survive. Since the free supper in February, they have had two members sign up. I went to the insurance office and if the fire department folds, your house insurance will at least double. We have a lot of young men and women in the area, so can we not at least get six to commit. Both genders welcome. My husband, who is retirement age, went to a practice. Let’s not lose this valuable association. Please show up at the Hosmer Fire Department Tuesday nights at 7 p.m.
Heather YoungDicken Rd.Fernie, B.C.
Letter to the Editor re: National Water Day
Fellow Canadians! National water day Mar. 22, 2016 is upon us. Please take a moment to reflect on how very crucial our survival and daily lives depend on pure clean healthy water. It is up to us as humans, as Canadians as communities, to take responsibility to make aware our federal and provincial governments that now is the time we need to take action. Everything in our lives depends on access to pure clean water.
If all Canadians lose access to our water, animals, people, plants will obviously die so then the economy and everything else doesn’t even matter. It sounds silly but it’s the truth and we can’t run from it and we can’t hide from it. We can’t even wait till it gets bad. There are countless reasons to protect and preserve our water sources. Our bodies are made up of 80 per cent water.
If we lose access to pure water we will die. I feel we can argue we can negotiate and contemplate this issue much too long but there isn’t time for that.
Let us join forces and recognize we have the power to do the best for our people and our country. And call upon our people in power to notice how much we really care about this issue. Please Canada wake up! What could be more important than water?
Just think about it. Take action and write letters to your local and national papers take time and notice in your community rivers, lakes, streams and clean them up from pollution. Notice if they are being dumped in and take a stand. If we don’t do it who will? We can surely choose to hit a ball game or watch a TV show instead, it is a choice. Act now.
It’s time for the federal government to implement the right to clean water in Canada by passing an environmental bill of rights that respects, protects and fulfills our right to a healthy environment, including the right to clean water.
Amanda IngFernie, B.C.
Letter to the Editor re: World Tuberculosis Day
The prophets of doom have been proven correct: largely due to global apathy, tuberculosis has become the world’s greatest communicable killer, even greater than HIV/AIDS.
For years the wealthy nations of the world have stood by and dismissed TB as a third world problem, considered only after such things as local politics and geopolitical considerations have been dealt with. But just because the world stands still doesn’t mean the TB bacillus does, and ever-increasingly virulent strains have evolved, overcoming once-effective antibiotic treatments.
TB is a disease of destitution, and while treatment can often still be effective, the disease thrives whenever deeply impoverished living conditions are found, which is why it remains endemic in many of Canada’s Aboriginal communities.
Mar. 24 is World TB Day, a chance for Canada to publicly renew its commitment to global TB treatment via the Global Fund, now due for replenishment. But as TB is a symptom of deep poverty, these funds must not be diverted from other development programs. For many years now, Canada’s aid budget has operated from a place of robbing Peter to pay Paul, while our total commitment to foreign assistance has declined to the lowest of all major industrial nations.
Nathaniel PooleVictoria, B.C.
