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Letter to the Editor (the Northern Light Newspaper) from Brenda Kelley

        Bathurst Sustainable Development

        In response to the statements made by Austin Tardif, in his Letter to the Editor, published in the Northern Light Newspaper, May 12, 2004. I was very disappointed Mr. Tardif, to read in your letter to the Editor, the statements that you wrote concerning the Health Study meeting in Belledune, on April 28. It is critical, that statements that you make to the public are indeed credible, verifiable, correct and not misleading to the public.

        First of all, I was there at the invitation of over 25 citizens of Belledune, who were in attendance at the meeting. As you, the 25 other people at the meeting and I all know, what did happened at the meeting is that a few citizens stated their concerns on the issues that you raise. I was not one of those persons and you know it.

        What you omitted to report in your letter, in order for "you" not to be biased, is that, on behalf of Belledune Sustainable Development and the Belledune citizens that it represents, Brenda Kelley openly spoke up in favor of a health study being conducted, and emphasized to the citizens at the meeting the need for the study to be done and the need for it to be the best possible health study including ensuring that it includes an in-depth Child, Adolescent and Adult Questionnaire such as the one from the Vantenna Health Research Clinic, in Port Colborne, which Inco is currently using in their excellent health study being conducted in that community. Representatives from our organization, myself included, met with the Chair of the Health Study, Dr. Christopher Balram and Ivan Brophy in the afternoon and had a very positive and productive meeting with them. A health study has not been conducted in Belledune for over 15 years. There are many children living in the community and for their sake, it is imperative that we assess what is their current health and what is the influence of the current and future contaminates in the area on their life time exposure rate.

        Secondly, I am not responsible, nor can I control, what citizens say at a public meeting or their views concerning their former Mayor.

        Thirdly, the Health Study Open Houses have been designed so that one must stand though out the entire event. A few of us decided to put out chairs so that the seniors and people with back problems could sit down. I hardly consider this a 'hostage taking incident"! We discussed this issue at our meeting in the afternoon with the Chair of the Health Study and he recognizes the need for seating to be available. We also cooperatively discussed other means of improving the information sharing public sessions.

        The proper thing to be done now is for you to retract the malicious and unfounded statements that you made about me in your letter.

 

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