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Frank Smith gets it right
A non-politicized, wonderful, real magazine article. I’m referring to Frank Smith’s opinion piece, a teaching article. (“The Big Lie says ‘progress’ is good” June edition of the Advocate.) Hear it loud and clear folks, there are “only four things that we really need... Everything else is superfluous.” Joe Berta, Bobcaygeon
Indigenous wisdom would be a welcome addition
We should want nothing less than to investigate the lands and documents of every residential school in Canada. Since 1954, we successfully branded ourselves around the world as peacekeepers in the spread of Western philosophy. The proof of our true commitment to “Westernization” of the world and the lie of Canada in the role of “chief peacekeeper” can be found within our own borders. This falsehood continues to this day. It must stop with us. We say it with our admired immigration policies but perpetuate the opposite with our schooling and collective conventional wisdom about the Indigenous and other cultures. If we adopted a fraction of Indigenous and other cultures’ wisdom, Canadians would be infinitely better off. Wesley Found, Lindsay
Federal and provincial support needed in the cultural sector
My sincere appreciation to publisher Roderick Benns and associate editor Nancy Payne of The Lindsay Advocate for the opportunity to contribute to the recent article, “State of the Arts: Do we support Arts & Culture strongly enough?” The article was a thorough and fair representation of the accomplishments and challenges within the sector, providing an accurate overview of the past and present status of the sector. However, for myself, the question regarding our municipality and its support of the cultural sector goes far beyond the borders of our community. Our municipal government has done an excellent job of working to increase support for the cultural sector, even throughout the economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic; however there is a much larger, critical issue of a lack of support for many
rural organizations within the levels of federal and provincial support for rural municipalities.While the levels of funding within the various funding opportunities are healthy, the flow of monies into rural communities is restricted due to being overlooked by disconnected levels of decision-making within our federal and provincial levels of government. With limited insight into the challenges of being an organization in a rural municipality, geographical parameters are set for the various federal and provincial funding bodies that have smaller rural organizations competing with large urban organizations, with the rural organizations only being successful at being consistently denied. How can we continue to ask more of our municipality when our federal and provincial governments do not support our rural communities strongly enough? Susan Taylor, Lindsay Executive Director, Kawartha Art Gallery
Fund physiotherapy for stroke survivors
As we approach Ontario’s election day of June 2, 2022, a campaign question should be, “Which political party will finally provide OHIP funding for physiotherapy for stroke survivors between ages 20 and 64 and eliminate age discrimination in Ontario stroke treatment?” Jim McEwen, Bowmanville
Councillor’s ‘defensive manner’ questioned by reader
I have been following the off-road vehicle task force and the recommendations it has made to the city and to city council and the submissions to the Advocate from various sources identified in your magazine. It would be reasonable to believe that the members of the task force were likely selected for their interest in the subject matter, or their expertise or familiarity with the activity and the related impact the activity would have on the participants and the affected community. I am therefore quite surprised at the comments Councillor Pat Dunn made in response to Dr. Natalie Bocking’s recommendations. Dr. Bocking was quite clear that her recommendations were health and safety oriented with the only mention of legal consequences being made in her reference to “enforcement of the rules must be stringent.” It is unclear why Mr. Dunn would immediately respond in a defensive manner asking Dr. Bocking “Is it appropriate to punish those who hadn’t committed a crime?”
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