Wrong opinion
Re Second Opinion Society:
About 16 years ago, I started to pull together a group of people that came to be known as the Second Opinion Society.
It’s unfortunate that to this very day I still have to contend with people who have the wrong idea about who we are and what we are doing.
This is very frustrating.
The group is for people who have had to press serious complaints about inappropriate medical treatment and other questionable conduct inflicted upon them, especially against their will while confined in any type of hospital.
Please do not quote stupid drivel from people who are not involved!
Stewart Jamieson
Second Opinion Society
Rewarding the bullies
Re Good thing they didn’t lose:
I am not one to send letters to the editor but . . . I couldn’t believe the events that took place at the High Country Inn on election night.
I don’t know Genesee Keevil (News reporter), but I sure did sympathize with her.
She was just there doing her job, keeping the public informed.
To be personally attacked like that is criminal and charges should be laid.
To publicly utter death threats to “anybody” is simply not acceptable.
We instil in our children, in school and in life, that bullying is not acceptable.
So why do these so-called “professionals” think they have the right to harass and “bully” people like this.
As a public servant with the Yukon government, I have personally felt the wrath of the Yukon Party over the last four years.
Now that they have been voted back in power for five more years, the Yukon is in big trouble.
People thought they were arrogant before, just wait, it will be intolerable, especially for government employees.
As a Yukon government employee, pass around jokes on your computer … get suspended or fired.
As a politician or local business person, utter death threats … get rewarded.
What is wrong with this picture?
I have lots more to say, but wanted to keep it brief.
I wish to remain anonymous to prevent being threatened by my employer, the Yukon Party government.
Name withheld upon request.
The bullies have been loosed
I read the letters to the editor in Wednesday’s paper with dismay.
Bullying is taking so many forms, from the mobs of anti-infillers defying anyone to move into their neighborhoods to the political bravado of inebriated victors hassling reporters.
And we have government agencies hiring lawyers to beat up on innocent citizens.
I had my suspension appeal hearing with the Yukon Liquor Board on Tuesday morning regarding the Cranberry Bistro.
I should have hired a lawyer and I should have had witnesses present.
Only the transcripts will tell what was really said.
What the transcripts won’t show was the effect of the constant barrage of legalese and deliberate confusion and mudding of the issues by the Liquor Corporation’s lawyer had on me.
By the end, I slumped in my chair, powerless and defeated.
I had been accused, patronized and told that I was not being prosecuted under the act (in spite of being charged with non-existent violations) and that Supreme Court rulings that had previously overturned the board and the corporation were irrelevant to my case.
I was interrupted, prevented from making certain arguments and badgered.
I believe that one of the two dozen, or so, Yukon government lawyers would never have been so aggressive.
I expected a more collegial and reasonable atmosphere for the hearing.
Problem was, the government lawyers weren’t there. (It is possible that they refused, since in good conscience, they couldn’t accept the corporation’s case).
Instead the liquor corporation went to the expense of hiring outside of the government — a lawyer who would go to any length to win their case for the corporation.
In essence, a bully to beat up on the appellant.
I worry about our Yukon.
Lawrie Crawford
Whitehorse
Hats off to civil servants
I’m a new reader, interested in the Yukon.
In the October 6th editorial, and other articles, your writers say the economy is depressed there, yet they decry an increase in civil servants.
Better that than those government services get privatized to some multi-national horror paying minimum wages, and little or no taxes in Canada.
Be grateful, also, that you have adequate Canadian civil servants.
We don’t here in BC.
Most of the jobs have been annihilated, and the remnants contracted out to scabrous foreigners, while our own people are unemployed.
In one article, there’s a quote by Archie Tannoch, saying that free enterprise is “the best thing going.”
Gads!
If he still believes that, I have a tenement condo to sell him in a one-horse-and- failing-resource industry town (run into the ground by private enterprise, by the way).
There’s no hospital anymore.
No school after Grade 6.
No gas station.
People have been brainwashed by the corporate media for the last 25 years into believing that ‘private enterprise’ runs things better than Crown corporations.
Remember when Air Canada was ours? Maintenance was done right and on time.
The planes were clean.
There was food! Leg room! Air Canada workers were paid well.
Now, thanks to Brian Mulroney, ‘private-enterprised’ Air Canada hovers between bankruptcies, with a multitude of overpaid, indolent CEOs whining over pilots and maintenance staff’s wages.
Look at CN, formerly our CNR.
It has a derailment and chemical spill a week since it became an American private enterprise.
I don’t know why we Canadians don’t keep the companies we started up ourselves, instead of giving them away, along with our resources, to American companies.
Profits could be used for expanding healthcare to include detox centres and denticare; for free post-secondary education for those wanting to become doctors, etc.; better homecare for our seniors and disabled; actual treatment for the mentally ill (many of whom will also need the detox centres); and, finally, unemployment insurance for the unemployed, starting the day they’re laid off, instead of after the bank has foreclosed on their homes.
So, be thankful for Canadian civil servants — they spend their money locally and pay their taxes in Canada.
Susanne Shaw
Kimberley, BC