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6 - The Oakville Beaver, W ednesday, N o ve m b e r 6, 2002 ED ITO R IA LS AND LETTER S the iiiMiiii: m m Recognized for Excellence by IAN OLIVER Publisher N EIL OLIVER Associate Publisher TERI CASAS Office Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief STEVE CROZIER Circulation Director MARK DILLS Production Manager ROD JE R R E D Managing Editor K ELLY M ONTAGUE Advertising Director R IZIERO V E R TO LLI Photography Director 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 337-5610 Circulation: 845-9742 Metroland Printing, Publishing & Distributing Ltd., includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News, Barrie Advance, Bany's Bay This Week, Bolton Enterprise, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Burlington Shopping News, City Parent, Collingwood/Wasaga Connection. 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A ja Canadian Community Newspapers Association |oakville galleries | (Saki'iUe (&Qwarik R » BUSINESS E XC ELLENC E w m R o ta tepaurlavta 0 © SKI Suburban Newspapers of America The Oakville, Milton and District m as Hydro going to pot? The escalating costs of hydro is idents feel about the surge in just one more good reason to help hydro costs. Halton Regional Police shut Police estim ate each grow down illegal drug-growing oper house harvest uses $15,000 ations. worth of electricity, or enough to There are some groups -- par operate about 20 homes. A mari ticularly a vocal segment from juana harvest takes 3-4 months. British Columbia that e-mails the So that's about $3,500-4,000 per Beaver on a regular basis -- month on the electric bill. which believe the police have far The potential for a deadly fire more worrisom e crim inals to and theft of electricity are two chase than the folks who choose compelling reasons to put an end to grow marijuana for a living. to such activity in your neigh This editorial, however, is not bourhood. about debating the issue of Halton Police are hoping to decriminalizing pot. hear from residents who believe a Instead, we want to reiterate the grow house is operating on their danger these grow houses pose to street. Operations Green Sweep otherwise quiet, safe neighbour 1 and 2 wiped out a number of hoods as well as the cost of steal marijuana labs, but investigators ing electricity. remain convinced there are still Often the electrical power sup more out there. ply meters inside the houses are When the police raids were gar altered so that sufficient power nering headlines earlier this year, can be routed into the grow house the public was quick to call into w ithout it registering on the police with tips. Those calls, meter, explain police. however, have dwindled. If you Not only does this method of have concerns about a home on sourcing electricity create a fire your street Crime Stoppers is just hazard, it also steals hydro from a phone call away. the utility producing it. This in Closing down grow houses is turn increases power usage and not about the pros and cons of can affect power prices. And we legalizing pot. think we know how Oakville res It's about safety and theft. LETTERS T O TH E ED ITO R Canadian Jewish Congress responds to IWPS letter Barbara Bakewell of the International Women's Peace Service in her letter of Oct. 23 puts forward her rather distorted version of Israel-Palestine history. Israel stole Palestine in 1948thanks to the British, and then grabbed the rest of it in 1967. Please let me present your readers with a half dozen points, which provide an accurate overview of this hundred-year-old conflict. · Israel was not created in sin. All efforts for accommodation by moderate forces within the Zionist movement met with noth ing but rejection from the Palestinian community. · The Arab world rejected partition in 1947-1948, just as it had done in 1936-1937 (on more favourable geographic terms) and tried to destroy the newly created state of Israel. As Benny Morris, the most prominent of the Israel school of "new histori ans" has convincingly shown (in his book on the 1947-1948 period) the Palestinian refugee situation was created not by design but rather as a by product of the war itself. · Israel has not been an expansionist state. Rather Israel has had to fight numerous defensive wars. The 1967 war was one of those and it resulted in Israel occupying the West Bank because King Hussein of Jordan chose not to stay out of the war. · Efforts to conclude an Oslo "final status" agreement came to a head over a year ago at Camp David and Taba. Afarat rejected the Clinton bridging proposal, which would have given Palestinians a state in 97 per cent (according to no less than Nabil Shannth, a prominent Palestinian Minister and negotiator), plus the Arab parts of east Jerusalem (which along with contiguous Palestinian villages would have become the capital of the New Palestinian State.) Why did Arafat reject this historic and honorable offer? Because the Palestinian Authority insisted on sole sovereignty over the Temple Mount and most importantly on a Palestinian refugee "right of return" to Israel itself. · For the two years the region has witnessed a new Palestinian intifatah and a much more violent one at that. Whether or not Arafat engineered this uprising or not, he clear ly gave it much encouragement and has done almost nothing to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure within his jurisdiction. · There may well be a day that the proposals of Camp David and Taba will be revisited but it will not be tomorrow or the day after. As the prominent academic Sari Nusseibeh, the new Palestinian spokesperson for Jerusalem, the Palestinians need to regain the trust of Israeli moderates. To do this he said the Palestinian authority must quickly bring this pointless and destructive uprising to an end and cease demanding a "right of return" to Israel. Nusseibeh, a most courageous individual, is regrettably very much a lone voice in the Palestinian wilder ness. SIMON ROSENBLUM DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AND ISRAEL AFFAIRS. CANADIAN JEWISH CONGRESS, ONTARIO REGION Charting fluctuating gas prices Attention, oil company executive. Attention Oakville MP Bonnie Brown. Please take the time to answer the ques tions that most Oakville residents are asking. Over a period of approximately two years I have graphed the prices of gas at the pump (Petrocan Dorval and North Service Road) and oil per barrel at the New York stock exchange and found the most economical time to buy gas is on Sunday or Monday. On July 2001 crude oil was selling at $27.02 per barrel and gas at the pumps sold for 60.9 cents a litre. On May 2002 crude oil was selling at 28 /29 per barrel and gas at the pumps sold for 66.9 cents a litre. On September 2002 crude oil was selling at 30.77 per barrel and gasoline at the pumps was 72.9 cents a litre. On Oct. 31, 2002 2002 crude oil was selling at 26.81 per barrel and gasoline at the pumps was 73.9 cents a litre. The Toronto Star business section stated that demand for crude oil weak ened in the second quarter. In the past few months newspaper headlines have read Hurricane Lili did not happen. Oil prices dropped (Oct. 5). USA invento ries swell. "Lots o f oil available. " (Oct. 26). Oil prices rises on Iraq war fears (Aug. 3). Why don't our leaders simply tell us the truth? Marketing 101 gas prices will be "what ever the market will sup port." Not war, not surpluses, not hurri canes, not supply and demand. "Just charge the customer and Oakville will pay." If this is the truth the people of Canada can take appropriate action. You can make a difference. It's not like hydro, you have a choice, use your power. Please think before you fill up. PAUL LOGAN Trafalgar Moraine's boundaries well-documented Further to the issue of The Oakville Beaver, dated Nov. 3, I would draw your attention to page 4 of that paper. You note at the top of page 4, in bold characters, that "boundaries of Trafalgar Moraine still unknown." This assumption is apparently derived from comments made to you by Mr. Peter Cheatley. These com ments are reported, in part, in that edition. Mr. Cheatley can, I am sure, speak for himself, but his quoted comments can in no way lead to your headlined conclusion. You specifically note he is of the opinion that "mapping out the boundary of the moraine is difficult since a firm edge is non-exis tent along the area." This comment by Mr. Cheatley is, in my opin ion, correct and sustainable as a study of the professional papers in existence concerning this land form will confirm. The boundaries of the Trafalgar Moraine are defined, for all practical purposes, in the numerous papers presented to govern ments and other statutory and professional bodies. These studies were carried out for very specific purposes not related directly to present discussions. For current purposes, the study completed by Ostry R.C. in 1979 for the International Field Year of the Great Lakes (IFYGL) established the Trafalgar Moraine as that height of land to the north of the current study area with the following char acteristics: Crest 640 ft. a.s.l., Relief (height) 35 ft. Base 605 ft. a.s.l., Width 1/4 mile approx., Lake Ontario had an elevation of 245 ft. a.s.l. in this study. Other notable authors -- Funk G., Karrow P.F., Chapman and Putman -- report on this moraine without the above level of detail and report it as "a low-lying moraine composed of Halton till, rep resenting a brief halt in the recession of the glacier." The area south of the moraine is described as being a ground moraine of similar soils characteristics, i.e. Halton till of variable thickness. The Physiography of Southern Ontario uses the moraine only as a minor example of a till moraine as against the Oakridges moraine which is the prime example of a Kame moraine. Our consultants, Morrison Environmental, in their December 2001 report, chose to follow precedence and classify the Trafalgar Moraine as those lands, in the north of the study area, with a base elevation in excess of 183 metres. The minor differences in base elevation of the moraine as used in the various studies is academic and I recommend that we, at all times, use the Morrison definition to define the southern limit of the Trafalgar Moraine. This defini tion has been derived from qualified sources and will permit us all to have the same scientific basis for ongoing detailed discussions on the future use of this vital area. To spend time to try to further define and refine the details of the southern limit of the Trafalgar Moraine is a futile operation. The staff and consultant's presentation at the Town Hall last Wednesday was excellent and certainly indicated that Oakville is indeed doing its homework in a thoroughly professional manner, while ensuring ongoing ratepayer participation. 1 For those readers who do not wish to be bothered by cold facts, a walk, cycle ride or drive up the Sixth Line will clearly show the change in slope -- defining the base of the Trafalgar Moraine. This change takes place just below Bumhamthorpe and the moraine then extends northwards forming the crest in front of the observer. A.H. MCCALLUM Little late for hydro protestsfromTories When I recently read Gary Carr's comments about skyrocketing hydro rates, I and several others are probably wondering if whether he actually agrees with how his government initiated the entire new regime to begin with. Although it is true that he does not always agree with the government he represents, he is nevertheless a member of the Ernie Eves' Government who brought us the increases. The government he represents insist ed that the new deregulated regime would be fair and his leader Ernie Eves promised lower hydro rates. Carr now admits that the entire issue has become a disaster. The only group fighting for con sumers right now seems to be the Ontario Liberals. They are at least try ing to offer a different solution that hopefully would protect consumers while at the same time understanding that we will never be able to go back to the days of regulation. Statistic Canada reports that electric ity prices rose 9.2 per cent from June to July and another 18.3 per cent in August. According to the Ontario Independent Market Operator, the cost of power has increased 21 per cent since May. Although I hope our MPP Gary Carr has success with his own fight against these increases, I still think he should explain to people in Oakville about how he thinks his constituents can be helped if he is still supporting the Eves govern ment. DEL MCINTEE Pud SUDPEN U R 66 TO SLEEP`HL NOON AMD SPEAK IM X HAVETHIS By STEVE NEASE Le Dome made fundraiser a success As a volunteer at Ian Anderson House, I helped, as well as attended, a very successful Bridge and Euchre afternoon on Oct. 23. This event took place at Le Dome in Oakville. After being on the helping end of this event, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the management of Le Dome.They provided the space,they arranged for tea and coffee and they set up over 50 tables and chairs for us. They did all that at their own expense and time.We did not have any requests that were too small for them. It is gratifying to me to know that there are people in our com munity that are willing to contribute their time and energy to this worthwhile charity that I hold so dear.Also, many thanks to all the 6RUNTS...