Make Good Trouble

The expression “good trouble” means to engage in nonviolent activism to challenge injustice. It’s getting a lot of traction south of the border these days. I think there’s room to make some “good trouble” here as well.

I believe that it was an injustice that our provincial government terminated (at the last minute) a strong case against the rock quarrying at Picton Terminals. I also believe that I’m not the only person in the County who would like to see this case argued in a court of law.  

Mostly, I’d like to be assured that Picton Terminals is operating a business that follows all rules and regulations to ensure environmental and human safety.  Right now this is not the case.

Picton Terminals is an unprincipled and irresponsible private enterprise.  There has already been one oil spill which resulted in shutting down municipal water.  Do you trust that this or something worse won’t happen in the future?   

At the time of writing, the decision on an MZO that would allow for the expansion of the rock quarrying at Picton Terminals has not been made. This gives me a bit of hope that perhaps Minister Flack is considering the public uprising that may result if the MZO is approved. 

On the other hand, it could be that the Minister wants to somehow justify an MZO approval by tying it to funds for Highway 49. 

The one has nothing to do with the other. Approving an MZO to allow Picton Terminals to quarry away Picton Bay need have nothing to do with fixing what should be a provincial highway. 

Please join me in calling or emailing Minister Flack, MPP Tyler Allsopp and MP Chris Malette to let them know loud and clear that the people of PEC are strongly against the expansion of Picton Terminals. 

The Gazette provided a thorough list of arguments in the editorial MZO Taking Points, published June  25. According to tenants of Doornekamp, who live on White Chapel Road, the destruction of homes on the Doornekamp’s recently acquired properties is proceeding at a pace that makes one think the MZO has already been approved. 

Let’s work together to get it denied. Join me in making some “good trouble.” To see and hear more about the rock quarrying at Picton Terminals on Picton Bay, and to have your questions answered, join me on Sunday, Oct 26 at 1:30 p.m. at The Andrew.

Penny Morris, Picton

Let’s Rethink our Crusades

Re: David Warrick’s Last Crusade (Guest Editorial, October 8). I was disappointed by the recent editorial published in memoriam of David Warrick. The language in the piece celebrates colonization and shamelessly promotes the uncritical glorification of Canadian history rather than a balanced approach, at the very least. Even the headline, by using a word like “crusade,” reflects disturbing levels of insensitivity to the ways such words are directly tied to colonial / imperial histories of conquest and violent dispossession. 

I don’t understand why it is too much to ask that we take care with the words we use to tell the stories of our community, and of the figures we choose to elevate. That is particularly important during this moment of proud fascism next door and local displays of hatred, racism and xenophobia. 

The negligible cost of rethinking our vocabulary and national heroes is considerably lower than the cost that Indigenous communities have paid and continue to pay. 

Tala Strauss, Prince Edward County

Tim Hortons and Integrity

Gazette Publisher Chris Fanning, and Editor Jason Parks, dedicated thousands of words across multiple articles this month to an unfortunate episode involving a young Tim Horton’s employee, her manager, and the manager’s brother. They arrived at the following conclusions: the greater Picton area has a racism problem, and individuals without accreditation should not report on local events.

Oddly, the two men were less concerned with the allegation that a girl was solicited for a fraudulent marriage for the purposes of immigration. Whether the solicitor was a Canadian, non-Canadian, white, brown or purple is absolutely and unequivocally secondary to the fact that the alleged solicitation was a criminal act that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. 

Nevertheless, the Picton Gazette, your local, accredited newspaper, is not interested in protecting the rights of teenaged girls.

If you advertise with this paper and you are a woman, have women in your life, or simply respect girls/women in the slightest, perhaps you should ask yourself if the Picton Gazette is something you should continue supporting.  

As for Tim Horton’s, I’ve honestly never been, but perhaps it’s time to support a local establishment that shows some semblance of integrity. It fired the manager who allegedly propositioned a teenaged girl. 

The key word here is not local, it’s integrity. Having integrity, and standing up for the rights of young women and girls is not racist, it’s admirable. 

Steven Ormsby, Prince Edward County