To the Editor,
I recently went to Cornwall along the 417. As I went by Casselman I couldn’t stop remembering the last forestry coverage report we had back in 2014. The number for Casselman was 4.6 per cent, when just around then, a report was released at a town hall meeting by South Nation Conservation stating that the bare minimum number should be 30 per cent for a barely healthy land.
I’ve been trying for years to get information about forestry coverage numbers, but to no avail. Was the service cancelled by the provincial or federal governments for cost cutting, or were the numbers so terrible they figured ignorance is bliss?
Our land is really taking a beating. Granite mining in Québec, mining in the Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario, pipelines in the west. Will Indigenous people be able to stop the carnage? I don’t think so. Will we honour their treaties? No. Some groups do well, but many more don’t and they are our last line of defense to save our land, our lakes and our rivers from the imminent industrial invasion.
We’ve become cold and uncaring in so many ways and the information we receive in the news depends on the flavor of the month.
What’s going on in Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Ukraine or Cuba. Empathy has left the building perhaps for good.
Normal weather patterns are pretty much non-existent, everything is extreme, the wind, the rain, the heat, nothing is the same anymore. Nothing but trees, always there for us, always working every hour, every day, for their whole lives. I’ve often wondered why some people hate trees so much, maybe it’s hereditary. Their grandfathers hated trees, their fathers did too, so why shouldn’t they.
We’re not joined at the hip anymore; we’re joined at the hype. Sports betting, same day deliveries, fast food, cellphones, iPads, AI, meta, TikTok, Google, and on and on.
What’s right, what’s wrong. What’s real, what’s not.
Be your guest, not mine.
Andy Perreault
