Springtime must have arrived in the prairies, not with the emergence of the groundhog, but with the emergence of tunnel-vision socialists.
Mr. Lindenback, “Health costs,” (Open Forum May 12) … quotes the “Leader Star” news editor as saying that reports of runaway health costs are a myth.
Has it been forgotten that Saskatchewan’s NDP government has increased overall taxation by 25 percent and provincial sales tax by two percent since taking office?
Has not the province also dropped crop insurance for farmers? Has not this government closed 52 hospitals out of 125? Terrible Mr. Klein of Alberta has closed one hospital and changed the capabilities of four more and no increase in taxes and no sales tax.
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Crop insurance’s ability to help producers has its limitations
Farmers enrolled in crop insurance can do just as well financially when they have a horrible crop or no crop at all, compared to when they have a below average crop
British Columbia is patiently waiting for the NDP to call an election so the voters may turn out the incompetent, blundering, scandal prone group of socialists whose main accomplishment in four years has been to double the provincial fixed debt.
Ontario served Bob Rae and his fellow socialists up on toast in their elections. In four short years they took Ontario’s fixed debt from $45 billion to $97.5 billion.
Socialism is like a virus. It eventually makes ill all those who come in contact with it.
– R. H. Eldridge,
Victoria, B.C.
Plains Hospital
To the Editor:
Recent announcements by the Regina District Health Board that it wants to close the Plains Hospital and even speed the process up, are wrong.
The Plains Hospital was built as a base hospital for southern Saskatchewan and the “bogeyman” excuses for the closure of the Plains are not justified, compared to the age, the condition and location of the two old hospitals, so old that the Heritage Committee wants to retain a portion of one that was built 70 years before the Plains Hospital.
I would like to ask the Regina Health Board members if they were in a highway accident, would they want to go to the Plains Hospital, where an ambulance can maintain maximum speed until it is less than minutes away from the emergency door, or get caught on the Lewvan at Agribition time, or try and find a route to the other hospital.
Rural Saskatchewan has had its hospital system gutted by this government. At least leave the Plains for rural Saskatchewan. It has clean air, low noise levels, excellent parking and the best ambulance accessibility of any major hospital in Saskatchewan.
It is time some common sense was used in this issue, I believe we have a health system overloaded with high-priced administrators and advisors.
Please, readers, help save the Plains at least for rural Saskatchewan residents.
If the Regina Health Board doesn’t want the Plains, then it should be established as a base hospital for southern Saskatchewan by the government and removed completely from the control of the Regina District Health Board.
I live 90 miles from the Plains and have had two major operations and can give the Plains thanks for at least 10 years of added life.
I can name at least 10 people from this small area that have had their life extended through the care received at the Plains.
Write the Minister of Health and request that the Plains stay open for the people of southern Saskatchewan which it was originally built for.
– Ken Pottruff,
Brownlee, Sask.
WWF propaganda
To the Editor:
The World Wildlife Fund (Canada) has run a well-funded campaign against the use of pesticides in Canadian agriculture.
The campaign has disappointed farmers – not because of its condemnation of pesticide usage per se, but because of the manner in which falsehoods and deceptions have been used so prominently in this activity.
We are disturbed that the WWF (Canada) has used the high credibility which WWF enjoys internationally – credibility based on a history of well-researched environmentalism – as the base for a Canadian campaign against farm pesticide usage which reflects anything but sound research.
Two high-profile anti-pesticide publications which WWF (Canada) released in 1994 contain many examples of inadequate research and misleading statements.
For detail, readers are referred to an analysis of these by Dr. Freeman McEwen, former Chair, Department of Environmental Biology, and former Dean of Agriculture at the University of Guelph, and a past president of the Agricultural Institute of Canada.
The World Wildlife Fund (Canada) has placed advertising inserts in the Toronto Globe and Mail each spring, funded by corporate sponsors including Price Waterhouse and Petro Canada.
The 1994 and 1995 inserts both contain articles which strongly condemn farm pesticide usage, and both include statements of “fact” which are misleading at best, and in several instances, just wrong.
The 1994 insert, for example, “informs” readers that “standard crop insurance actually compels farmers to employ chemicals,” which is simply not true.
The 1995 insert states that 99.9 percent of applied pesticides leach into ground water or otherwise pollute the environment, that newer pesticides are more dangerous than the older ones, and that Canadian farmers should take guidance from their European counterparts on how to reduce farm pesticide usage.
Indeed, the WWF (Canada) has brought farmers from places such as the Netherlands, to Canada, to emphasize the latter point, conveniently ignoring statistics showing that the intensity of farm pesticide usage is 18 times higher in Holland versus Canada (higher, also, in virtually everywhere else in Western Europe).
Interestingly, while WWF (Canada) continues its tirade, WWF officials from Europe and the U.S. have visited Ontario farm groups to learn about pro-farm-environmental initiatives (including activities related to responsible pesticide usage) occurring here, which are considered to be at the leading edge internationally.
The Ontario Corn Producers’ Association has written the president of World Wildlife Fund (Canada) to express disappointment, and to inquire why its campaign against agricultural pesticide usage has ignored the concerns for accuracy, fairness, and sound research which generally characterize WWF activities elsewhere.
We have also written to Price Waterhouse and Petro Canada to inquire why they chose to finance such anti-farm-pesticide advertising by WWF (Canada).
– Jim Johnson,
President,
Ontario Corn Producers, Guelph, Ont.
