BAN PESTICIDES
Re: Manitoba pesticide ban consultation.
I fully support a ban on cosmetic pesticides. Pesticides are dangerous substances and must be applied only by trained operators. All children and pregnant women must be kept away while the chemical is active.
I have strong concerns that cosmetic pesticides are being applied carelessly and that children and pregnant women are being exposed to dangerous chemicals without their knowledge and consent.
I have seen pesticides abused by too many people who should have known better. I have seen pesticides applied in schoolyards, while child-ren played close by. I have seen pesticides applied by parents while barefoot children followed alongside.
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I have seen pesticides sprayed into rivers and even into drinking water reservoirs. The labels on pesticide containers strictly forbid such actions, and yet the warnings are ignored.
There is no way to protect the vulnerable from careless pesticide use, except for imposing a strict and complete ban on all cosmetic pesticides in Manitoba.
Cosmetic pesticides should not be available for sale to the general public. Pesticides should only be applied by trained and licensed operators. All areas where chemicals are applied should be fenced off and posted to exclude children for the length of time stated on the warning label.
I am a responsible farmer and I fully support a ban on cosmetic pesticides in Manitoba. We owe it to our children.
Kate Storey,
Grandview, Man.
ORGANIC NOT ABOUT STATUS
As an urbanite living in rural Alberta, I regularly enjoy your newspaper as a source of information on what is going on in the communities that are close to me.
There is a growing trend of polarization of opinion among different groups, and I find it to be particularly troubling when the media is sowing seeds of such a divisive nature.
I am taking issue with a cartoon, on page 10 in the Sept. 13 edition of the WP, that characterizes urban people who choose to eat organic as shallow and narcissistic.
Many people that I know who choose to eat organically do so be-cause they believe that it is a small way to support land stewardship and rural communities. I don’t know anyone who eats organically so that they can flout their consumption as a status symbol.
I would like to remind any of your readers who are lucky enough to own land that this is a privilege that many people in the city would love to have. Please don’t belittle those who pay a premium to eat organically in the hopes of supporting healthy lands and the long-term viability of rural communities.
If you make fools of those who eat organic, you are paying disrespect to your neighbours who take risks and work hard to grow these products.
Iraleigh Anderson,
Vermilion, Alta.
STUDY GM FOOD
The people of California will soon start voting on Proposition 37, which is the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.
Major corporations are pouring millions into a campaign to try to stop having to label their products that contain genetically engineered material.
Ninety percent of the people want their food labelled. This is the first time there has been any opportunity to voice their wishes.
According to the Organic Consumers Association, there is a report that a long-term French study found that rats fed exclusively on GM corn suffered liver and kidney damage and died prematurely
It is time that the governments of Canada and the United States started doing their own long-term studies instead of accepting the corporations’ statement that GM food was substantially the same as non-GM.
We need legislation to force all food companies to label their products containing GM material. That way people could make their own decisions.
If GM grains are as good as the corporations say they are, why are they campaigning so hard to convince people to vote no on Proposition 37?
Jean Sloan,
Lloydminster, Sask.
SASKTEL DISAPPOINTS
To the Editor:
Is our provincial government turning its back on rural Saskatchewan?
SaskTel, a crown corporation, has been there for the people of Saskatchewan for decades, but are they abandoning rural residents now?
Thankfully, SaskTel has supplied Saskatchewan with high speed internet.
Urban areas are wired but many rural subscribers are supplied with wireless off cellular towers.
To get this service, we have bought our own equipment and paid a monthly fee, which we did so we could enjoy the same services as our urban brothers, even though at a higher cost.
Now these rural subscribers are receiving in the mail a letter stating that as of Dec. 31, this service will be discontinued.
Apparently, the federal government has gone and sold the spectrum band that SaskTel wireless operates in to another party.
Is our provincial government so spineless that it can be dictated to by the feds?
I do not understand how the provincial government can stand idly by and let the feds run roughshod over SaskTel like this.
Even though many Saskatchewan residents have backed SaskTel by standing by them and not switching to competitor services, we are now to be thrown to the wolves.
Where we once enjoyed unlimited services on wireless, we are now going to have to subscribe to slower speeds at limited service caps (20 or 30/mb) at higher monthly costs. We also get to throw the equipment that we purchased in the trash.
While SaskTel advertisements flood the airwaves of radio and TV bragging about supplying 4G services to Saskatchewan residents, we in rural areas will be knocked back in services and have to pay higher rates.
Ironically, our choice of new services seems to be owned also by SaskTel.
At this time, it looks like rural residents will have only one other option of recourse, that being to check out the competitor services and then abandon SaskTel as they have abandoned us.
Robert Schultz,
Choiceland, Sask.
Editor’s Note: The broadband spectrum mentioned above was available to SaskTel through a public auction process, but the crown corporation chose not to bid on it.
HARD TO SWALLOW
The issue of pardoning criminals is hard to swallow. For the prime minister (Stephen Harper) and “puppet” (agriculture minister Gerry) Ritz to continue to lie and misrepresent the facts cannot be condoned in our Canada.
Obtaining export licences/permits when exporting goods is the law of the land and applies to all individuals or business.
Perhaps the Canadian customs personnel made a mistake and should have allowed the trucks to cross the border without the permits. U. S. customs (would have) seized the trucks and the smart-assed farmers would have looked down the barrel of a gun had they attempted to steal the trucks out of their compound.
Harper’s fate had he intervened — who knows?
A. J. Leahy,
Fort St. John, B.C.
