Editor:
On behalf of the Sunshine Coast Clean Air Society, congratulations to Coun. Alice Lutes and Sechelt’s Mayor Milne for the open burning ban bylaw (“Sechelt Briefs,” Oct. 30). Hopefully the mayor can persuade the SCRD directors from the rural areas to loosen purse strings for a regional clean air strategy. Many local seniors are still suffering from health effects of the last fire season, which reminded everyone on the Coast that we are always only a matchstick away from disaster.
Last week, Garden Bay’s Edith Daly, 98-year-old widow of Frank White who recently passed at 101, asked me to write a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reminding him of a series of lengthy research pieces on air pollution she wrote for the New Yorker magazine beginning May 7, 1964. She wants me to say that over dinner in her New York apartment a half-century ago, she discussed air pollution with his father, Pierre Trudeau. Edith hopes Justin will continue to follow in his father’s footsteps when he represents Canada at the Paris Climate Summit next month.
Edith Daly’s writing (published under her maiden name, Iglauer) was so influential, it set off an avalanche of political action leading up to both the Canadian Clean Air Act and adoption of President Nixon’s Environmental Protection Act (EPA) in 1970.
Which raises the whole issue of responsiveness of our local governments. The Coast needs more leaders like Lutes, Milne, and Edith Daly willing to fight to their last breath for common sense when it comes to public welfare. Too often local politicians are so paralyzed by fear of critics they become part of the problem, rather than the solution.
Here’s hoping the SCRD leadership will act as decisively as Sechelt in 2016. When it comes to health dangers, doing nothing is unforgivable.
Joe Harrison, Garden Bay
