Editor:
This is an open letter to our MLA, Donna Barnett.
I was appalled at her last letter regarding the anti-pipeline demonstrators.
She commented that those people were causing hardship to the general public by disrupting public services.
Unfortunately, that is the only thing that gets government attention nowadays.
Go to an office and ask for an appointment with an official and you will be told it takes a month to get in touch with the person who will tell you it will take two years, if ever.
Read More: All eyes on B.C. to deal with protest crisis: MLA Barnett
This is not something new.
How many recall in 1984 when the Bennett administration raised tuition fees and cancelled many grants, and the students tried for months to get an appointment with him?
He managed to duck and cover until, finally, a small group occupied his office and stated they were not leaving until they talked with him.
The police were involved, and such words as hooligans, rabblerousers and trespassers were bandied about.
I interviewed those people, and I found only caring, decent, hardworking students who had exhausted every reasonable path for a conference with the one who was sworn to serve the public.
Same thing today: there are so many levels of bureaucracy that it is almost impossible to get a conference with anyone who has the authority to do anything.
That aside, can Mrs. Barnett have thought through the issues involved?
Those who are demonstrating with an excess of enthusiasm have exhausted all other means of making their plight known.
I close by saying that had I been aware of such a gathering for that purpose, I would have been there with bells on.
Remember the old saying: We did not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
Donna Mae Smith
Williams Lake
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