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6- The Oakville Beaver, Friday September 28, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com OPINION & LETTERS The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: The Oakville Beaver is a division of IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. NEIL OLIVER Publisher 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 ALEXANDRIA CALHOUN Circ. Manager Running for the Cure Sandy O'Reilly has one million reasons to put her faith in the collective hearts of those who gather in Burlington's Central Park this Sunday. The run director for this weekend's Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure anticipates the $1 million fundraising mark will fall when women and men, girls and boys, and the young and old from across Halton unite at 10:30 a.m. in Canada's largest single-day fundraising event in support of breast cancer. O'Reilly also knows that for all the advances that have been made toward beating breast cancer - its mortality rate is at its lowest since 1950 -- it is a disease that will personally impact one-in-nine Canadian women over their lifetime, with one in 27 losing the battle. It's not difficult to understand that for every woman (and man) struck with this terrible disease there is a devastating ripple effect in which countless lives will be forever changed. While financially supporting breast cancer research, education, diagnosis and treatment is the primary goal of Sunday's fundraiser, there is a deeper and equally important spinoff of this annual gathering. We remember those whose lives have been cut short by breast cancer, we celebrate those who have survived life-and-death struggles with the disease and we realize that we are not alone in the effort to create a future without breast cancer. Last year, the Hamilton/ Burlington/Oakville site contributed $922,000 of the $23 million raised at some 50 sites across the country. With the support of thousands of Burlington, Hamilton and Oakville residents the local contribution -- and the hope for a cure -- will continue to grow. The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish a letter. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR I read with great interest The Oakville Beaver article (Wednesday, Sept. 25) on increasing the tree canopy coverage in Oakville. The article was extremely informative in providing the tree canopy density of various areas of Oakville. As I have been maintaining for some time, south and south east Oakville are very close to or exceed the targeted tree canopy coverage of 40 per cent, while the areas of greatest concern are in north Oakville (especially close to Dundas Street) and in the Shell Park area. The mayor should be Protect trees from developers and not homeowners commended for obtaining this data which goes along way to helping identify the true problem. Is is noteworthy that "Ward 5 Councillor Tom Adams points to a development technique he calls moonscaping as a major contributing factor for poor soil and soil compaction. While most of south Oakville was developed by digging foundation by foundation, Adams said areas north of the QEW were levelled, built upon and then landscaped." Councillor Adams seems to confirm what many of the Oakville property owners already knew, namely that the problem is largely due to clear cutting by developers and not individual property owners. With these numbers and a growing sense of the true underlying cause of the problem, it remains only to require the developers to make a major contribution to restoring the tree canopy for those trees destroyed during development. Tie the replenishment of trees to the building permits (for large scale and small developments alike), perhaps with a requirement to replace two to three times the number of trees destroyed during development. Let's place the focus where it belongs and not on the individual property owners who clearly are not the culprits. All in all, these numbers and the growing sense of finally identifying the true underlying cause should give us all a reason for hope. It's looking more and more like we might actually get it right this time around. Time will tell, but at least there is a light at the end of tunnel. PETER SWIRZON Pud BY STEVE NEASE snease@haltonsearch.com 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.