How many readers of the Western Producer buy this nonsense by governments that deep cuts in medicare are due to lack of funds, when governments spend lavishly on wealthy corporations? It’s all a matter of priority. In times of restraint, why should grants be wasted on multiculturalism or used on a second language which has been labelled a dismal failure in Western Canada?
In this area, wings have been closed in the former hospital in Yorkton with more surprises still to come. Under attack now is the Preeceville Union Hospital which has maintained itself and has managed to produce a surplus in funding.
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Since the last provincial election, St. Anthony’s Hospital in Esterhazy together with St. Peters Hospital in Melville are threatened. … As far as I know, the Langenburg Union Hospital was closed without consultation. Is this democracy in action or has dictatorship crept in?
In this day and age, couples usually both require jobs in order to survive, so who would be in charge in such a home to attend to a stroke patient or one with terminal cancer?
Not only would such patients be alone, no home has the equipment found in hospitals to cater to these patients. With couples employed away from home, even brief daily visits by Home Care are not the answer.
What’s the point in travelling long distances for help in a hospital? By the time one arrives, the suffering patient is turned away due to lack of a bed.
It makes no sense at all to close wards and lay off staff.
Saskatchewan has a reputation for losing its young people who look for jobs in other provinces. More staff layoffs will increase that number, to say nothing of the physicians and surgeons that will be lost.
Senior citizens find this situation scary. They do not know who to approach and the fight has gone out of them. Will anyone in the provincial or federal governments listen?
– Minnie Mack,
Langenburg, Sask.
Crow loss
To the Editor:
In your front-page coverage of no one knows how to split Crow cash, Sept. 7 issue, being we acquired land on April 1, 1995, we are not entitled to any payment through the dead Crow.
This dead Crow payment, I thought, was for people delivering grain in the future to help pay for delivery as the Crow is gone.
The government decided whoever had the land at Feb. 28, 1995, gets the payment. But what happens to the new land owners or renters after that date? They don’t get anything and they’re the ones that have the expense of hauling the grain from now and into the future.
The governments are made up of wise people, or supposed to be. Why didn’t they take the tax notices or permit books to find out who’s going to have the expense of hauling this grain?
It could be done every year or so as land changes hands. The simplest is put the Crow back.
– Elaine Cozart,
Brownlee, Sask.
Say no
To the Editor:
I read with interest the opinion columns of Garry Fairbairn and Verna Thompson Aug. 31. First and foremost I am not in any way anti-Quebec or anti-French but very pro-Canada (I have relations by marriage who are French).
I agree with the other premiers at a meeting a short time ago when some of them told “wannabe” president Parizeau that all deals are off and Quebec would be the same as any other foreign land if they separate. They also would take their share of the debt and of course have their own currency and keep their fingers out of the till at Ottawa.
I cannot understand why secretaries in federal offices in English Canada are compelled to answer the phone in French. (I personally know one in Saskatchewan and one in Ontario who had to do just that). I also have a cousin who had to call a federal office in Quebec and guess what? The phone was answered in French.
So much for Pierre Trudeau’s bull about a fair and just society for all Canadians.
Also, tradesmen from Quebec can come to other provinces to work, yet I have been told tradesmen from Ontario cannot go into Quebec to work. I still hope that they say “no” to President Jacques, but maybe they should be told to fish or cut bait.
– Arthur Garland,
Cargill, Ont.
Fear not
To the Editor:
While I enjoyed reading Garry Fairbairn’s article on page 6 of the Aug. 31 Western Producer, “Hard talk needed about separation,” I couldn’t help but wonder why people have lived in fear of Quebec’s separation for so long.
The world will not end if Quebec separates.
Neither will it end if Western Canada becomes part of the United States or goes back to being the Northwest Territories.
Looking back at the policies of the Ottawa government and their general disregard for western Canadians, I don’t see where the east really has shown the desire for a unified Canada.
The one single blow that will change the view of westerners towards the east is the end of the Crow Benefit. Our symbol of unity has been our national railroad system. The West joined Confederation on the promise of a national railway.
I think the West would do much better on its own. The days of wine and roses where the less fortunate provinces receive benefits from the wealthier ones are over. The east is looking out for their own interest, and I think the four western provinces should do the same.
Our fortunes lie in the south!
– John Hamon,
Gravelbourg, Sask.
Rail deal
To the Editor:
… Now the government wants to mess around with the National Railway among other things. No one owns the National Railway, least of all the government! It belongs to the Canadian public. Leave it alone, Mr. Government!
Here is another one of your headlines, “U.S. railways wooing Sask. grain farmers.”
Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. …
– Paul Kuric,
Vega, Alta.
Keep Quebec
To the Editor:
It is appalling that we stand mutely by and watch our beautiful Canada in dire danger of being broken in two. Is there nothing we can do?
If I were wealthy, I would buy time for a message on the CBC telling the French Canadians that we don’t want them to leave. How can they know that very many of us in the west who are true Canadians really care about Quebec – our beautiful big sister province and a part of Canada for 128 years? …
I am not French. I am a fourth generation Canadian of Swiss-German-Scottish origin and my husbands’ people were English.
I heartily approve of bilingualism. It was a foresighted, intelligent idea, and had it been enforced, we wouldn’t have had all this trouble.
Fellow westerners, if you have friends or relatives in Quebec, let them know that you want them to vote “no” to the referendum. …
John Diefenbaker said when elected: “I have but one love – Canada; one purpose – it’s greatness; one aim – unity from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”
Perhaps if he were here, he could help us now.
-Jessie Sargent,
Borden, Sask.
