Cleanup announcements seem to hug elections
Letter to the editor from D. Victor Tomiczek
Cape Breton Post
Thursday, May 20, 2004
There seems to be no end to the
arrogance and hypocrisy of the federal
Liberals and their minions.
To all those who actually believe
the Sydney tar ponds will somehow
be miraculously cleaned up to
become this wonderful picture postcard
as suggested in the recent
mailout, all I can say is: "Don't hold
your breath."
The timing of this announcement
is party politics at its worse.
This is not the first time the Liberals
have announced the final
cleanup of Canada's worst toxic
dump and it's not a coincidence that
it always seems to come on the eve
of an election.
It goes to show how stupid the
federal Liberals think we Cape Bretoners are!
It exacerbates the situation when we see the result of the
photo-op of MPs Rodger Cuzner and
Mark Eyking viewing the tar ponds
site.
I wonder who drove them to this
area. In all my years of activism I
have never seen either Cuzner or
Eyking involved in anything regarding
the tar ponds or their cleanup.
Now they are portraying themselves
as our saviours.
The Liberals are once again
pulling the wool over our eyes and I
hope this time we will not reward
them.
Now a government agency is
spending thousands of dollars on
propaganda postcards, printed in
Halifax, and Parker Donham of the
Sydney Tar Ponds Agency doesn't
have the decency to tell us how
much this is costing.
Let's not forget that the Liberals
sent in their hatchet man, Ralph
Goodale, to close our coal mines
even though we are sitting on millions
of tonnes of coal, and now oil
prices have surpassed $40 a barrel.
Who profited from this decision?
Ships registered in foreign countries
to avoid paying taxes to Canada,
and owned until recently by
Paul Martin, the prime minister, are
hauling coal from outside the country
into our Sydney piers while our
miners are idle. Many have faced
welfare or have left their homes for
work outside Nova Scotia.
If there was ever a time to have a
strong voice in Ottawa carrying our
message, it is now. We need someone
to tell Ottawa what we want, not
puppets to tell us what Ottawa is or
is not going to do for Cape Breton.
D. Victor Tomiczek
Dominion
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