Week of Sept. 15

Proposed dog park in Germain must be stopped Sir: Re: the proposed dog park at Germain. The city held a Sept 8 meeting at the Strangway Center to discuss the off-leash dog park proposed for Germain.

Proposed dog park in Germain must be stopped

Sir: Re: the proposed dog park at Germain.

The city held a Sept 8 meeting at the Strangway Center to discuss the off-leash dog park proposed for Germain. But it wasn’t a meeting to hear objections; it was a ‘You-Will-Like-It’ meeting.

They only wanted to hear how to improve the plan and make it more acceptable.

Despite earlier attempts for dog parks that failed at Centennial and Clearwater, they once again have not asked the opinion of sports groups, neighbourhoods and the teachers and parents at St. Matthew school (directly across the street) who will be impacted.

Instead, they will advise all parties after the fact.

City staff says this is a one-year trial. But they aren’t going to spend all this time, effort and materials only to take it down. The group that has forced Sarnia taxpayers through this for three years, using valuable city resources, will not be denied!

They say Germain isn’t used six months of the year, and the dog park will only be used from dusk till dawn. That’s 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in winter and 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. in summer. How are they going to regulate that?

They say dog owners will clean up, which we know doesn’t always happen. When asked how often and at who’s expense the wood chips will be changed, there was no clear response.

They say noise won’t be a problem because the dogs will be too busy running and having fun. But the neighbourhood dogs will be a problem, barking at those in the fenced-in area.

Sarnians should not be responsible for the exercise and entertainment of other people’s dogs. Dog owners should use private facilities. There are many “dog daycares” where dogs can run and socialize with other dogs. One even has a splash pad!

City resources would be much better spent repairing or replacing Jackson pool, or putting a splash pad for people in Germain.

If this is to be stopped, people must make their concerns known by using Facebook and Twitter to let others know. And email and call city hall!

Marian Glover

Sarnia

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MP Gladu hardly clarified pay equity issue

Sir: I read with interest the Aug. 25 letter from Trina Smith in which she critiqued MP Marilyn Gladu’s vote against a February, 2016 NDP motion to recognize pay equity as a right and establish a special committee to conduct hearings. I then read Gladu’s response.

Currently, neither pay equity nor pay equality laws are standardized across Canada. While the NDP pay equity motion passed the House of Commons, MP Gladu and the Conservatives voted against it.

Gladu said the motion “falsely suggested the Conservative Party had removed Charter rights from federal employees.” However, in 2009 the Conservatives giant omnibus Bill C-10 hid within it changes that removed pay equity from the Human Rights Commission and put it into the Labour Relations Board. The issue is about human rights, not labour rights.

That the Conservatives had made pay equity a labour issue was the premise of the NDP motion and what it aims to reverse.

MP Gladu implied that the Canadian Human Rights Act cannot be infringed upon, yet the Conservatives’ C-10 bill did ban people from taking pay equity issues to the Canadian Human Rights Commission; so on one hand the MP says Conservatives did not remove Charter rights from federal employees while at the same time defended a Conservative bill that banned employees from taking pay equity issues to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. I see no clarification here.

Gladu also opposed creating a special committee on grounds of a ‘waste of taxpayer money’ and that the Status of Women committee (to which she was subsequently named chair) should do the work.

The reason for the Special Committee on Pay Equity is to add profile to this issue and give it the attention it requires. MP Gladu’s amendment to revoke these items from the motion was overturned on the grounds her amendment would impede the Special Committee from going forward on this issue at all.

A recent Committee report indicated 2009 Conservative pay equity changes resulted in “lengthy, costly and contentious disputes between employers and bargaining agents” and recommends the 2009 Conservative Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act rammed through hidden in C-10 be repealed while also recognizing that pay equity is a legislated human right.

Stanton Earle

Sarnia

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Ministry numbers show SCITS closure was based on faulty data

Sir: As the school families of SCITS and St. Clair become one, tensions ease and a new balance is found.

Many concerns were put forth about the children and how this marriage of necessity might divide and alienate. But young people are resilient, and after an initial period of adjustment, anxieties subside and everyone can get on with the business of learning and making friendships.

What got lost in the lead up to this merger was the release of the Ministry of Education’s recent evaluation of the state of repair of provincial schools, called the Facility Condition Index, or FCI.

SCITS sits atop all Sarnia secondary schools, receiving an FCI of 22%. (The lower the number the better the school’s condition.) St. Clair came it at 38%.

At the time of consideration, the board claimed SCITS had an FCI of 59%.

The group Save SCITS questioned the validity of the figures presented by the board, claiming it to be 22%, which has now been validated by the ministry.

Throughout the accommodation review process the board revised the FCI for SCITS eight times, and at the time of deliberation, no hard number was provided to the trustees.

The vote to close SCITS passed 8 to 2.

This pertinent detail has received little play in the headlines and garnered no response from the board.

Seeing that its argument for closing SCITS was predicated on the belief St. Clair was the better building, questions arise about the crass and incompetent mishandling of the process.

Opponents were obliged, disdainfully, only to fulfill the requirement for public consultations.  The board appropriated only information that served its end, framing the discussion and airing their personal bias in local media and accusing SCITS supports of being sentimental and nostalgic for nothing more than “bricks and mortar.”

In light of this new information, the board should be held to account for imposing a superficial plan for progress that put too much faith in the promise of a new shiny building.

Tax money would be squandered and the resulting renovation to replicate what already exists at SCITS would prove inferior and unnecessary.

Brad Cullis

Sarnia