READERS WRITE
The real impact of our pipeline-phobia RE: PIPELINES
On a recent trip to Vancouver I learned that Alberta’s oil sells for roughly half the world price, we have only one major buyer as we have to pipe south through the States and that’s capitalism. Way over in Ontario I hadn’t ever heard that and expect many Canadians haven’t. Including many in the anti-carbon lobby.
I have to wonder whether the average Canadian appreciates how much better off we could all be just selling what we sell now at world prices, even without increased production? What could that revenue do to our deficits and social services like health care? I’m wondering about it this weekend as I sit at home on call but unable to operate on needy patients like the two critical cases on the “Urgent List” because my hospital is full. Hopefully their neurological deficits won’t get too much worse while they’re waiting.
Concern that piping through Vancouver might not be the smartest is understandable but again does the average Canadian know that oil has been flowing through both Vancouver and Montreal for decades without problems?
Let’s use the conduits we have, sell at market price and benefit all of Canada not just U.S. middlemen. And maybe open a few hospital beds in this wonderful screwball nation that has fewer beds than any other developed country.
Drew A. Bednar, Ancaster
Main Street West repairs are a must RE: HAMILTON STREETS
The eastbound lanes Main Street West in front of McMaster Hospital may be the worst stretch of road in the city — and that includes the side roads our rural neighbours put up with.
Main Street West between Cootes Drive and about Haddon is no longer simply afflicted with potholes.
The road surface, particularly in the curb lane, has broken down entirely, with large craters, loose road material and a surface so uneven it could shake fillings loose. An attempted patch job a few weeks ago seems to have made it worse.
This is not about a bumpy ride. Cars — and now, reportedly, HSR buses — are avoiding the curb lane, swerving into the middle lane to avoid tire, wheel or alignment damage. In a busy, bottlenecked stretch of main road, that hugely magnifies the risk of an accident.
The city cannot claim this is just freeze-and-thaw damage. If that were true, we’d seem similar damage elsewhere. Main West is almost unique in the level of deterioration, which leads to a strong suspicion that someone cheaped out on materials or didn’t install the road properly.
Either way, the city MUST do something about this stretch. Repaving is supposed to wait until LRT time, which is not feasible. The city has to fix this now before municipal taxpayers are on the hook for damage — or worse, injury, claims.
Rob Howard, Hamilton
No road left, but we’ll have LRT RE: HAMILTON STREETS
The Main West road stretching from Cootes drive to Longwood is splitting down the middle and the potholes are impossible to avoid because there is not much road to drive on. When I called city maintenance they said they would be filling up the holes with asphalt which they did. This solution did not work because it has loosened up and we have the same problem as before. This stretch of road was in bad shape two years ago and should have been paved at the time. Now we are being told that it will be done when the LRT is completed. By that time there won’t be a road but we will have the LRT.
Steven Agro, Dundas
Forget LRT, fix the roads
RE: Hamilton streets
The huge amount of money that would be wasted on LRT should be used to fix roads properly, not just keep patching all those potholes, and then get pollution-free battery-operated buses that would provide a much better inner-city transit system than LRT would provide at a tiny fraction of the cost and without the incredibly huge disruption to peoples’ lives and traffic that LRT would cause, not only during many years of construction but forever after.
Stephen Parazader, Dundas
Canada’s really the Evil Empire RE: TRUMP PRESIDENCY
All right Donald Trump you caught us red handed. Canada really is the Evil Empire. For decades we led you to believe the U.S. was buying up Canadian corporations, natural resources, mining, land and water rights, while we secretly planed to annex the U.S. into the metric system.
We made you believe our military might was non-existent, that our rescue helicopters needed to be rescued, our submarines sunk when mixed with water and our naval ships needed to be towed to shore during war game exercises. While countries like North Korea threaten to annihilate you with nuclear warheads we made you think that a whole country got excited beating the United States in curling. We have bullied and intimidated the most powerful government in the world with one tenth the population and a currency with the value of monopoly money. You’re right President Trump, you really are a genius. Bonjour. Ellie Chase, Hamilton
Bitcoin opportunity for Ontario RE: ICELAND’S CRYPTOCURRENCY (FEB. 14)
Dear Kathleen Wynne: Can you spell OPPORTUNITY? Take one industry (bitcoin mining) that has an everincreasing need for massive amounts of energy, and combine it with one electric-generating system (Ontario Hydro) that has a constant surplus being sold at a loss.
Ontario should immediately offer the bitcoin industry competitive rates to bring them here in droves.
Lee Fairbanks, Hamilton