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Big questions
Regarding the article Big bucks to sell big cop budget (Sept. 17)
Why do taxpayers have to foot the bill for the budget sales job? Was it not a good idea?
How is this possible? Is city council a super secret organization? What specific services were provided, on a line-by-line basis?
City council is not living up to its mandate of representing the people who elected them. The entire bill should come out of the salaries of those who approved it, the increase to the police budget should be reversed in its entirety or at least frozen until this is all brought to light.
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Police board members are chose to oversee the force, not hire others to do their job. If there are functions in the job description that are beyond their ability, they should resign and not serve again until they have acquired those skills. Who’s hiding what?
William Ovens, London
Time to stop it
Regarding the article Thames Valley director defends Toronto retreat (Aug. 28)
Has anyone noticed how when caught with their fingers in the cookie jar, directors and board chairs say the same thing: “It’s an industry standard.”
Or, as a 12-year-old would say: “Everyone is doing it.” Since when did public services become an industry?
Schools, hospitals, universities, police services, yes, everyone is doing it.
Being irresponsible with public funds is what everyone is doing.
What about accountability? Did the police services board show accountability?
Did the school board show accountability?
Passing the buck and blaming everyone outside of yourself is not accountability.
It’s little wonder the public is fed up and believes they are all in it for themselves. Shame on them.
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Betty Wright, London
Work for peace
Regarding the article Group fights to shield names of Nazis (Sept. 14).
Although I am the child of Holocaust survivors and the grandson of a woman who died in a Nazi concentration camp, I do not think the names of the Ukrainian Nazi supporters who came to Canada should be published.
Many of those immigrants are dead; the survivors are probably old and feeble. There is nothing to be gained by punishing their families. Those who know anything about their ancestors’ Second World War activities will have heard whitewashed stories that portray their ancestors as heroic resistance fighters. Why hurt them?
However, it is important that the stories of those believed to be Nazi supporters be made known. Library and Archives Canada should commission a group of authors to investigate these people and prepare a book of anonymized chapters about them.
Canadians need to know what they did, why they did it, how they were able to come to Canada and what they did after they got here. We should know how many returned, either to the Soviet Union or to Ukraine. We should also know what happened to Nazi supporters who did not come to Canada.
Any crimes Ukrainian immigrants committed happened when the Second World War was raging, with Ukrainians fighting on both sides. Naming past perpetrators will accomplish nothing, but explaining what happened can help to bring peace in the future.
Dave Parnas, Ottawa
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