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letter to the editor353

Protect kidsfrom themselvesI am getting sick of hearing about the privacy argument regarding drug-sniffing dogs in schools.

Protect kids

from themselves

I am getting sick of hearing about the privacy argument regarding drug-sniffing dogs in schools.

Last time I checked, schools were public domain paid for by the taxpayers.

Lockers are there for students to use so that they do not have to carry everything around with them from class to class, not a place to keep illicit items.

By the privacy logic, are we then to allow students to keep in their lockers, items such as handguns, pipe-bombs, or any other weapon simply because their privacy rights are being infringed?

Come on. I do not buy that argument for one minute.

As for parents of students who oppose drug-sniffing dogs in schools, whose privacy are you trying to protect?

Are you afraid that others will discover that your kid deals or does drugs or are you really concerned that your drug-dealer child is losing his privacy rights?

Why are we skirting around the issue?

These are adolescents who need guidance, support and education about the detriments of drug use.

Or hasn’t anyone heard?

Crystal meth use is on the rise and it is not going to go away anytime soon. We all ought to know by now how use of this drug and others, such as crack cocaine can be catastrophic to people’s lives.

As far as I’m concerned, the privacy issue is not an issue at all. If we want drugs out of schools and away from our children, there should be no arguments against how to help the situation. Period.

The real issue here is that all children have the right to receive an education without the worry of peers or others attempting to coerce them into a life of drug use or worse yet, drug addiction. That, is the issue.

Lorraine Fraser

Whitehorse

Power-outage questions

I don’t understand how a single squirrel can shut down the power grid for a whole city and surrounding area.

Smaller communities had their emergency power on in minutes, yet the majority waited almost two hours.

Does Yukon Energy have no breakers or trip stations to isolate these occurrences to only part of the grid.

Is our power source that badly engineered?

This seems to me a serious problem if one squirrel can cause such a huge shutdown, or am I missing something?

And why didn’t our emergency diesel power start up?

It was an inconvenience this time, but hardly at minus 30 degrees Celsius for 10 or 12 hours.

It seems to me that the electric company has serious engineering problems to sort out.

Name withheld

Whitehorse

 Fighting cancer

During National Volunteer Week, April 23-29, the Canadian Cancer Society wishes to acknowledge all volunteers for their selfless contributions.

Hundreds of hours are donated each year in Whitehorse by Canadian Cancer Society volunteers and volunteers from other charitable organizations.

Cancer touches just about everyone at some point in their lives. It is a devastating disease and progress is never as fast as we’d like to see.

We know that according to the latest information, 59 per cent of people with cancer survive thanks to advances in treatment and our understanding about some of the causes of cancer. Volunteers are at the heart of this progress.

I encourage all your readers to consider giving their time to serve others, and I thank those of you who already volunteers. Together we’re creating stronger communities and ultimately a better world.

Colleen Killins-Bubiak, Canadian Cancer Society, BC and Yukon Division unit president Vancouver