Lefty opportunists
In your August 28 editorial “A Premier Loses Control,” you suggest Premier Dennis Fentie would look like an opportunist if he called the election now before Todd Hardy recovers from his illness and gives his assent.
I could not help but see the irony when Hardy, as well as your socialist newspaper, have for months now been challenging Fentie to call an early election because you thought it would be to your advantage.
Now you want him to wait to call an election because you think that would be to your advantage.
I am sorry Todd Hardy is not well, but it strikes me that he is the real opportunist trying to leverage sympathy for his illness into votes and a delayed election call.
The real reason for this, as your editorial so clearly suggested, is not so Hardy can have time to recover but rather his hope that voters will be more likely to vote against the government as “the economy weakens, the weather turns bad and municipal elections heat up.”
Oh yes, and those pesky placer miners, whom Hardy thinks are Yukon Party supporters, will be gone.
Isn’t it odd that Hardy thinks an election call would be inappropriate while he is temporarily absent, yet still very much with us as the NDP leader, but it would be just fine with him if he can delay the election long enough to disenfranchise a few hundred voters he thinks will not vote for him.
Everyone has long known Fentie would have to call an election this fall as he is nearly at the end of his mandate, and voters have expected, and I think hoped, the election would come in the early fall, not in November when we will have just wrapped up municipal elections and the weather will have turned bad.
Premier Fentie has been nothing but gracious toward Hardy in his illness. Too bad Hardy and your newspaper have responded in such a curmudgeonly fashion.
Call the election, Fentie. We voters are smart enough to figure out what is really going on and you don’t owe Hardy anything more.
Rick Tone
Whitehorse
Democracy at work
The Whitehorse council meeting on Monday was both exciting and disappointing with regard to the 710 Jarvis Street zoning amendment for a proposed day-care centre.
It was exciting because Whitehorse’s leaders upheld the core concepts of protecting its citizens’ private property rights by not approving the zoning.
It was disappointing because an entrepreneurial group looking to create opportunity and jobs in the community suffered a major setback.
The homeowners around 710 Jarvis had concerns about decreasing property values and also how the proposed re-zoning would conflict with their community’s vision as defined in Official Community Plan.
Although there appeared to be a disconnect between the residents and local government on the proper procedures for contesting the zoning change, the council heard the residents’ concerns during its meeting and, in the end, protected their best interests by denying the amendment.
For most councillors, it appeared the proposed site’s lack of required space as defined by day-care requirements was the key point for the failed proposal.
With regard to the entrepreneurs, hopefully the city and its business support agencies will be able to assist this group in finding a more suitable location for their child day-care vision, and their entrepreneurial spirit, which is critical to the economic growth of the community, will continue.
Richard Runyon
Whitehorse