Opinion

Editor: The Stephen Harper government, contrary to his election promise for openness and transparency, has negotiated the most sweeping trade dealsince NAFTA,with China, and he is about tocommit Canada to it,without a single debate or vote.

Editor: On behalf of the Elves Club I am writing to ask Coast residents for their financial support to help with the Christmas hamper distribution.

Editor: The Narrows Inlet hydro project is proposing to drain three more alpine lakes to generate power in addition to the one they are already draining, Tyson Lake. They call these projects run-of-the-river, but this is a misnomer.

Editor: I have a few questions for MP John Weston regarding the Canada-China Foreign Investment and Protection Agreement (FIPA). I hope he reads local papers. The government of Canada has tabled FIPA without even a press release.

Editor: Without bothering to involve Canadians, even in Parliament, about a Canadian trade deal with China, the federal government has yet again crossed the line for undemocratic action.

Editor: Wow, now that was an Art Crawl. I would like to give ahugethank you to all who participated, crawled, volunteered, sponsored, tweeted, blogged, went on Facebook and told everyone else the places they just 'could not miss.

Editor: A pity Michael Maser could not stay on topic in his comments about my previous letter on the Gospel Rock public hearing ("Democratic duty of citizens to scrutinize," Coast Reporter letters, Oct. 26).

Editor: After many years of being active in the Sechelt Inlet waters, I'm very disappointed with the Narrows Inlet hydro project. In my opinion the proponent is ruining a delicate fjord and river valley, and destroying alpine lakes.

As our thoughts and prayers turn to remembrance in the coming days, we all need to stop, pause and reflect on those we have lost and those who continue to be in harm's way to ensure our freedom.

There's a crisis in our country that sooner or later is going to hit all of us right where we live. I'm not talking about super tankers, China trade agreements or whether or not you have enough dog food for Fido to survive the big one.