Letters to the Editor

A D V O C A T E

You can’t buck city hall

Judy Paul was clearly inspired by her reading of Teardown: Rebuilding Democracy from the Ground Up (May Advocate). I wish her and her companions every success in their efforts to “bend the rules” to achieve positive ends in her community.“You can’t buck city hall” is an expression that describes her challenge which, in an age of thousands of government-imposed regulations, is more daunting than at any time in the past.

Author Dave Meslin identifies the hegemonic powers of the major political parties as well as the well-established and rigid authority of related public institutions as the main obstacles. Having been a minor party candidate in seven elections, I sympathize with his frustrations. I have not read his book (yet) but I wonder if part of Dave’s vision is to reduce the scope, size and cost of our multiple levels of governments.

The best and most enduring way to restore the individual freedoms and personal responsibility that his followers evidently crave, is to repeal any and all legislation that has granted unfair and undesirable power privileges to the most powerful political groups and their cronies. Only then will the voices of people like Judy Paul and her friends get the attention that they deserve.

According to Paul, civil disobedience seems to be central to the theme of Meslin’s book. This surprises me because, if advocated by libertarians like me who want less government, it would likely be described as “radical” or “anti-establishment.” Do Meslin and Paul secretly (or not so secretly) harbour libertarian sentiments in this age of ever-expanding governments? Gene Balfour, Fenelon Falls

Neither author Dave Meslin nor I are arguing for less government but for meaningful ways in which citizens can engage in decision-making beyond the voting cycle. ~ Judy Paul, Haliburton

Travel and see the evidence of climate change

Re: Gene Balfour’s letter in May edition of the Advocate (“Life is stressful enough without believing in climate change”).

It is sad to give closed-minded people a public voice. At the same time, it is nice to see open communication in print. So I will give it a try. If you can’t see climate change then let’s call it air pollution like the old days. Travel as I have to the Arctic Ocean and speak to the people struggling there to move their homes. Or, paint your skin orange and move south. Because sorry — we can’t have it both ways. Mark Lowell, Fenelon Falls

Joe Keele: Lindsay’s unknown war hero and Renaissance man

Readers of the Advocate may be interested in Joseph Keele, an Irish immigrant who lived in the Lindsay area. In the late 1880s, Joe was a private in the 45th Battalion of the Midland Regiment in Lindsay. On April 3, 1885, the headlines of the Lindsay Post shouted: “Our Volunteers Off to the Northwest.”

The Lindsay Company travelled by train to Swift Current, Sask., and by steamer to Batoche. Batoche, held by Louis Riel and supporters, was taken on May 12 after a charge through the rifle pits by the Midland Regiment. Joe was in the thick of the battle and was later awarded the Imperial 1885 medal with clasp inscribed “Batoche.” This medal, approved by Queen Victoria, recognized his service as a corporal under

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fire. The “Heroes of Batoche” were back in Lindsay on July 24 after three months and 21 days in the field.

Joe had other heroic and extraordinary accomplishments such as: 1. saving two children from drowning when their sailboat overturned at Sturgeon Point. 2. graduating from University of Toronto with honours as a Special Student in Architecture in 1893, with an honour B.A.Sc. in 1894, then teaching at the university for the next four years. 3. breaking through internal reluctance to win the position of surveyor and geologist for the Geological Survey of Canada, working in eastern Ontario and the Yukon. 4. leading an epic traverse across the Richardson Mountains as the surveyor, mapper and photographer. He and Jim Christie, a Dawson voyageur, lived off the land, constructing cabins and canoes as they advanced through the mountains with a dog team during the summer and winter of 1907. They reached the Mackenzie River in late summer, 1908. 5. studying – he would later specialize in clay deposits for GSC; received an A.M. degree at Cornell University in 1911 and came back to GSC. At the start of First World War, he was transferred to the Mines Branch as Chief of Ceramics 6. being a world traveller who witnessed the opening of Tutankhamen’s tomb on February 16, 1922, as reported later by the Ottawa Citizen with headlines and photos.

Joseph Keele died after a heart operation on June 11, 1923, and is buried in Little Lake Cemetery, Peterborough. Alan Gregory, Lindsay

(Joe Keele was also a geologist. Gregory read of Keele’s clay expertise while studying at the University of Toronto in the 1940s. He later discovered Keele was his cousin twice removed.)

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