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www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, March 25, 2010 · 6 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5571 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate.The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary Letter to the Editor NEIL OLIVER Vice-President and Group Publisher, Metroland West DAVID HARVEY Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager The Oakville Beaver is a division of The time has come Provided the process is democratic and transparent, I think the idea of municipalities directly regulating local pollution is an idea whose time has come. Of course, care should be taken not to unnecessarily antagonize employers, since people need jobs in addition to clean air. It strikes me as odd, however, that industrial sources of air pollution are receiving so much attention when vehicle emissions are far more significant. Even when compared to the combined emissions of the Top 16 industrial polluters listed, vehicle emissions generated 188 times more PM 10, 218 times more PM 2.5, five times more VOC and 140 times more NO2. It would seem to me that if we are serious about addressing air quality (and as the father of an asthmatic son, I take this very seriously), we should also have a plan to reduce vehicle emissions. One way to do this is to encourage the development of `walkable' neighbourhoods. My wife and I raise our two children car-free, using a mixture of transit, biking, but mostly, walking to get around. We are fortunate, however, to live in the Kerr Village, where there is a large variety of small stores and other facilities close by. Commercial areas and community centres in Oakville tend to be concentrated in a few large `islands' in a sea of residential areas. This leaves shopping, recreational or employment facilities too far away to walk or cycle to, while the transit system can take too much time, leaving the car the default option. This situation is unfortunate because walking has a number of benefits beyond improving air quality. Walking promotes physical health, encourages residents to get to know their neighbours and supports a greater diversity of small, local businesses, rather than having people isolated in their cars as they drive long distances to big box stores. Living sustainably and building healthy, vibrant communities requires us to rethink the notion that `bigger is better.' Shrinking our neighbourhoods down to a more human scale, with a greater mixture of commercial and residential areas, would help to reduce the vehicle emissions that comprise the vast majority of local FPM, while also going a long way to make Oakville a more `livable' city. JAMES EDE, OAKVILLE OAKVILLE NDP WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com Suburban Newspapers of America Media Group Ltd. RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville ATHENA Award MICHAEL IVANIN / OAKVILLE BEAVER NEW LOOK FOR OLD FRIEND: The May Court Club shop at 200 Kerr St. may bear the name Nearly New Shop, but the store itself has a brand new sign. Here, Eleanor McMullin, left, shop director Jeanne Edmonds, Judy Berube, and Oakville club president Cathy Doucher gather in front of their new sign. Volunteer Club members have been running the shop since 1957. Proceeds from sales at the consignment shop go back into the community. For more information, visit www.maycourt.ca. There's no expiry date on heated argument over cold chicken e were having a heated discussion over a cold chicken. The fact that it was a small chicken did not stop my wife from calling me (among other things) a big chicken. Well, she can call me anything she likes. In this discussion, I was completely in the right. Which, of course, put her wholly in the wrong. You see, she was trying to serve me the leftovers of one of those roasted chickens you buy pre-cooked in a grocery store. Trouble is, I had espied its best-before date, and was well aware that this little clucker had long since passed its prime. "You're trying to kill me." I said. To which she replied: "It's perfectly fine. You're such a big chicken." Okay, let's get this out in the open: although it may seem to some to be a bit Seinfeld-ian, a bit paranoid and over-cautious, a bit, ah, chicken, I don't ever knowingly eat or drink anything that's passed its expiry date. Oh, my wife and others of her adventurous (insane) ilk, their cavalier (crazy) kind, will attempt to convince me that expiry dates are but arbitrary numbers or, more moronically, some massive plot cooked up by the food-and-beverage industries (in cahoots with the government, no less) to get us to chuck old food W and buy more, new food. Furthermore, they'll try to convince me that the food/drink in question is perfectly fine -- their deep scientific insight based on, well, it smells (looks, tastes, feels, sounds) okay. But I know better. I know that those mutant microbes -- your basic E. coli and coliform et al -- don't always Andy Juniper announce themselves with obvious rancid smells and such. No, they're way more devious and deceptive than that. You know, I forgive my wife for trying to kill me. She comes by her food-craziness honestly. It's inherited. Her grandmother, who lived through the Second World War and learned the hard way that you should never waste food, would never, ever throw out anything. Regardless of what was festering in it, or growing on it. Alas, while I fully understand her way of thinking, I personally cannot buy into it (or stomach it, for that matter). I'm sorry. Call me wasteful. But, for me, mould and fungi will never be acceptable food toppings. Even if they are the base properties of penicillin, as I'm so often reminded. According to a recent article in Maclean's magazine, there are growing numbers of people who, in these austere economic times, are living on tight budgets and shopping for bargains, which oftentimes means buying food that's been discounted because it's about to pass its expiration date. There's even a Facebook group called "Expiry Dates are Just Numbers." Granted, there's also a Facebook Group called "I Want to Punch SlowWalking People In the Back of the Head." While it's absolutely true that there is no pure science in determining when most food items will pass from the realm of acceptable to don't-make-any-plans-that-include-leaving-the-bathroom -- the exceptions being perishables like milk and meat, which cross to the dark side on a more calculable timetable -- those who are phobic about being sick believe that it is always better to be safe than sorry. Personally, when it comes to food, I refuse to play... chicken. Andy Juniper can be visited at www.strangledeggs.com, contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com, or followed at www.twitter.com/thesportjesters.