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Letters, week of Feb. 19

Why CCAC workers are on strike Sir: Wow, in the last week I have learned a lot about what the papers and radio report. So I now want to speak. My colleagues and I who work for the Erie St.
Letters to the editor

Why CCAC workers are on strike

Sir: Wow, in the last week I have learned a lot about what the papers and radio report. So I now want to speak.

My colleagues and I who work for the Erie St. Clair Community Care Access Center (CCAC) are not striking for the moon, we are striking for fairness. We are striking for you, the citizens of Ontario. We are striking for the best health care we can provide and that you deserve.

We have talked with you, have met your family and heard your fears for your mom, dad, child and yourself. We work hard to make sure your health care needs are there when you leave the hospital or doctor's office.

We are skilled professionals with many years of experience working with your aging parents, vulnerable teenagers, special needs children and our aging population, with airway diseases and congestive heart failure, so they can have the best quality of life and be able to stay at home.

We are there when you have to make that decision for your loved one entering long-term care.

We have an amazing, professional team of Care Coordinator Registered Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, Occupational Therapists and Social Workers that are there when you have to say goodbye to a family member. We work for you.

So imagine how we felt when your Ministry of Health gave our CCACs money for deficit reduction and the first thing our CEO did was give each director and manager a 3% raise, and bonus initiatives to reduce program costs. Is this why we were directed to cut home care services to our patients? Is this why we had to put in weekly/monthly stats to managers, reporting patient cuts, even though we did not agree? Is this why part of our CEO's hiring included cost reduction incentives? This is public knowledge on the CCAC website. They call it transparency.

I am your Care Coordinator, the person you call when you need help. I am asking for your help now. I am asking you to go to the website of our union, the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) at www.ona.org to read about the issues, to Google CCAC strike and read the good and the bad.

And then I am asking you to support us.

Sue McCabe

Bright's Grove

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Stop viewing our neighbours as enemies

Sir: After reading Nathan Colquhoun’s guest column I was struck by the bias that each and every one of us carries, whether we are recent residents (1860 to present) or native. We are so certain our view is the right view.

The decisions and actions taken by the government and its agencies towards the natives throughout the history of Canada have always been horrific and untenable. Yes, if these crimes, which they certainly are, had happened to the recent residents all would have been up in arms, court orders, law suits and smiling lawyers all around.

However, as citizens of Canada, all of us, the generations that have followed since the idiot decisions made by a government we have so little control over even now, is there no statute of limitations to the demands for reparation?

Is it right to demand an eye for an eye when we're not dealing with the people who committed these crimes, let alone their relatives? Do we punish the new owners by trying to make two wrongs make a right?

The time for drawing a line in the sand has past. Stand down and stop viewing our neighbors as our enemies. Live and let live.

Shelby Sim

Sarnia


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