Two petitions worth signing
Last week 23 officially bilingual municipalities across Quebec, led by Cote Saint-Luc, launched a lawsuit challenging several aspects of Bill 96 that affect municipalities. These include search and seizure without a warrant, forcing Anglophone employees to write and speak to each other in French, the threat to withhold grants if a bureaucrat feels a town is not French enough, the danger to official bilingual status and the list goes on. Hampstead alone among its neighbors (Montreal West, Westmount and Cote Saint-Luc) has refused to join the lawsuit.
Why? The only reason I can think of is to save a few dollars. If the lawsuit wins, Hampstead will benefit and it won’t cost them a penny. Hampstead has some of the wealthiest residents in Canada. Can’t they afford to pay their fair share? Hampstead also has one of the largest percentages of Anglophones in Quebec, so this is important for their residents. In the past Hampstead was a leader in the fights against Bill 21, Bill 96, the unfair Quebec electoral map and more. This reversal is shameful.
What you can do
Please click on the link and sign the petition. If you can, attend the July 5 council meeting at 8pm in the Hampstead Community Centre at 30 Lyncroft. It is all too easy to lose our rights. All it takes is for good people to do nothing.
Should only the rich get cochlear implants?
As many of you know I have bilateral cochlear implants and they changed my life. I was the politician who led the long and ultimately successful battle to get the surgery preformed in Montreal as well as Quebec City. It was my pleasure to do my part especially since I knew first hand how life changing cochlear implants can be.
In Quebec, all costs for implants are covered by the government. Not only is that humane but it saves the government money in the long run. After all, most profoundly deaf people are under employed or unemployed. After the implant(s) the recipient will most likely make more money and pay more taxes. In my own case I could never have become a Mayor without hearing. The extra taxes I paid on my mayor’s salary over 16 years covered the cost of the implants many times over. I was 57 when I got my first implant. Now imagine how much extra tax a child will pay over his/her lifetime.
In Ontario, I was shocked to discover that they pay only about 45% of the cost for bilateral implants. That means many parents can’t afford them for their children who are deaf. That is tragic. Please click on the link and sign the petition. You don’t have to be a resident of Ontario. We are all Canadians and we should support those in need of our help. Imagine that you were the parent of a child needing implants but you couldn’t afford the cost and your child would be deaf.
Please share/forward this e-mail to as many of your contacts as possible. Governments listen to the people provided the people make their voices heard.
2 Comments
Why are the petitions solely in French?
They shouldn’t be. The one by Harold Staviss re Hampstead was bilingual with English first. The one about CIs in Ontario is English. Both are from Change.org and maybe that has something to do with it. I can’t check because once you sign you get a different page.
Dr. Bill Steinberg
Dr. Steinberg has a BSc from McGill University, a PhD in Psychology from Northwestern University, and was a professor at Concordia University. He was Mayor of the Town of Hampstead for 16 years and led the demerger battle. He was was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal and is currently President of the Cochlear Implant Recipients Association.