Cc: letters@cbpost.com, fjackson@cbpost.com
Subject: An open letter to Cape Breton Islanders and the Premier of Nova Scotia
Dear Premier,
At what point will Cape Breton Islanders dismantle the causeway? What will it take?
It’s sad. There is no hope on the island for young people, largely due to the mismanagement of natural resources. Clear-cutting scars the highland hills. And strip mines, which predate the mining moratorium, continue. The strip mines are managed with neither the environment, nor the well-being of islanders, in mind. The hills are being chewed up, wells and brooks are being poisoned, and communities are becoming absolutely uninhabitable due to the constant and thunderous incursions of dangerous and unsightly machinery. For mere gravel to build new roads! Roads that only increase the efficiency with which the forests are clear-cut.
The strip mines have illegitimate environmental-impact assessments, which means that they are unregulated, but there seems to be no political will to put an end to the destruction. Most (if not all) of the strip mining operations on the island were approved AFTER extraction was already well under way. They got the "rubber stamp." If that isn’t illegal, it ought to be. I worry for the future of the island.
Sincerely and respectfully,
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