What do rehab house NIMBYS oppose?
Editor,
What exactly are Brackendale citizens opposing in regards to the recovery support house intended for a former Brackendale bed and breakfast on Depot Road at Hwy 99?
This will be a well-maintained, drug and alcohol free home full of positive upbeat people on their way to a shining new life. The residents of the house are willingly undergoing therapy and enormous self-work in order to become better partners, responsible parents and healthy members of the community.
The fabric of their futures is being rewoven in the secure and supportive environment of their recovery support house. They will always remember the caring and assistance they received when they most needed it. They will walk away with the tools needed for continued self-improvement throughout their life. And many of these supported recoverees will go on to work as volunteers in the community, on the street, in the food banks, and elsewhere.
I know.
My oldest daughter was a heroin addict in Vancouver. She tried everything to get healthy. Everything. Finally she was 'clean' long enough to enter a support recovery home and it saved her life. She is now 10 years clean and healthy, attending college with a B+ average, happily involved in a 7-year loving relationship and engaged to be married - in short, she is a model citizen - and loving daughter.
I ask you to think about this wonderful, responsible, bright young woman as you nurse your hangover Saturday morning and screech at your family for making too much noise, as you finish your joint and lie to the kids about the smell, as you stack your 3 dozen beer bottles alongside your garage and decide to leave the yard work another week.
My daughter is alive, happy, healthy - everything we can hope for in our children. I am so proud of her! Come on, Brackendale. Time to re-examine what community really means. I hear so many complaints about the meth problem in our city. I was amazed and thrilled to learn of the support recovery house planned for Brackendale, and the location - away from downtown - seems perfect.
This is what back-up is all about, people. And support. And love.
Bravo to the Vancouver Coastal Health, Sea to Sky Community Services, and Community Advisory Committee.
Brackendale Owner/Resident
(name withheld by request)
Do unto others, in your backyard or not
Editor,
I would like to say that I hope none of the people who are against this recovery house ever found themselves or their children in need of such a facility. This would be the "it would never happen to me" mentality. See how they would like to drive to Vancouver to support a family member who is recovered but needs some time to re-enter the real world, with all its dangers, the dangers they have so recently fought to win against. Perhaps then these nimbyites would be demanding that the powers that be are not doing enough for their loved ones. I think the Brackendale residents that are so set against the house should say, there but for the grace of god go I, and let the house help those in need. Because who knows who will be in need next.
"Do unto others as you would have done to you" whether in your backyard or not.
Mary-Ann Wright
Salmon Arm
Private power bad idea
Editor,
Without sufficient background, some people might tend to support the feel-good sentiments in last week's Squamish Nation development advertisement, where Dale Harry is fronting for Ledcor and the rezoning of the Ashlu River for private power.
Although the project may appear to only degrade recreation, tourism and quality of life in the Upper Squamish, people should also realize that every time we approve another private power project, it also pushes us closer to much higher North American electricity rates for every family and business in BC, destroying our "BC Advantage" in public hydro power.
The provincial government is presently putting great pressure on ourSquamish-Lillooet Regional District to force approval of Ledcor's project, while at the same time they are tearing apart the traditional integrated structure of BC Hydro, which protected us from NAFTA challenges and US rights to our all-important BC domestic power.
Most of us are aware that government has already devolved administration of BC Hydro to Bermuda-based Accenture. In addition, a recently released IBM document brags about how IBM has achieved the final technical separation of the BC Transmission Corporation from BC Hydro. BCTC has in turn been subsumed into the American-controlled regional transmission organization GridWest, to facilitate American access to BC power.
BCTC, whose public relations officer recently visited the SLRD to claim that the corporation would "work with communities", is currently facilitating the alienation of electrical power away from Alcan's aluminum smelter in Kitimat for huge profits to the multinational company, but with resulting unemployment in the community of Kitimat and losses in the billions of dollars to the regional economy.
And once BCTC finishes upgrading our Sea to Sky transmission system for private power companies at our cost, those same companies will soon be able to export their power for enormous private profit, but no public return, because they are paying less than one cent on the dollar to acquire the valuable water rights which we used to control.
Private power is a proven bad idea for all British Columbians, including First Nations, and it's unfortunate that Squamish Nation continues to promote this private power project for Ledcor.
Doug Morrison
Squamish
Whose water is it?
Editor,
March 22 was World Water Day.
Whose water is it? It's yours. Whose responsibility is it to guard the fresh water? It's yours. Whose responsibility is to kick people out of town who cause friction amongst communities?
There isn't anything good about Independent Power Projects. There is nothing good in them for our communities that we don't already have. There are 565 private hydropower water licenses on the go in BC. Those who have become informed know why there is so much pressure to hurry these private deals. They are bad for the public. The public is slow to learn. You pay to build them and you even pay their property taxes but don't expect any of those private companies to tell you that.
BC Hydro (that's you) makes power for us that cost BC Hydro about 1cent per kilowatt. BC Hydro (that's you) pay the IPPS $55.00 per megawatt. The US rate for residential electricity today is five times what it is here and has been as much as 20 times higher. Are you getting the picture? Private companies and the provincial government are moving us to the deregulated US electricity model. The reason we have a good economy is because we have a monopoly on cheap power. We don't have to give it away. If you don't get informed and start protecting your water and BC Hydro you'll be sorry.
All of us together should share our resources. We need to fight now for our fresh water as it is not only the last great resource in the public domain but is life itself. All of us together should be fighting to protect the public ownership of our fresh water and our entire electricity system.
May the Wild Spirit of the Ashlu prevail in keeping it free.
Tom Rankin
Upper Squamish Valley
