Letters to the editor

Group is dedicated to fighting artificial turf proposal



To the editor:

Save The Park! Sauvons le parc! is a citizens’ group formed to protect the integrity of Westmount Park which is endangered by the City’s proposed replacement of grassland by artificial turf in the whole southern section of the park.

Begun in 1899, and inspired by the principles of Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Mount Royal Park, Westmount Park is a recognised jewel of North American landscape design.

Save The Park! Sauvons le parc! aims to inform the widest number of people about the threat to this heritage site, and our group is a member of the National Association for Olmsted Parks in Washington, D.C. (naop.org).

We believe that the Westmount community needs to have a thorough, public discussion of the social and ecological issues involved before spending any more taxpayers’ money on a project which is slated to cost $1.7 million.

We urge Westmounters who feel as we do to contact our group at 514-932-2026, 514-937-2868 or 514-932-0308 and to visit our website www.savewestmountpark.com.



Leslie Barker, Patrick Barnard, Graham Donnelly, Elizabeth Duperé, David Fielding, Marilynn Gillies, Brian McCordick, David Parsons, Mavis Young







Cruel acts outweigh fair play



To the editor:

Your Oct. 5 editorial on public protests at two Westmount homes by animal-rights activists says that cruelty to animals at any level is deplorable, cowardly and depraved. Good.

But your claim that taking the fight against cruelty to private residences "absolutely crosses the line" errs on two counts. The first battle line was drawn when so-called scientific research targeted animals that cannot speak or demonstrate for themselves.

Second, the extreme suffering animals endure far surpasses the character of routine public protest. Researchers aren't asking Fido for an extra hour's unpaid overtime guarding the house, or to agree to a 10 percent clawback in his daily Eukanuba rations.

Indeed, nothing "crosses the line" more than the pain inflicted on such creatures by those who'd prefer their neighbours and children don't know that Daddy is alleged to be commercially affiliated with a company whose work involves torturing animals. Or that the very houses in question might thus be indirectly and partly subsidized by such cruelty.

Animal experimentation is not elegant. It has progressed little since the 17th century, when French mathematician Rene Descartes insisted animals are essentially "machines" that don't feel pain. Four centuries later, scientists refer to them as "models," and, recently, McGill University researchers proudly reported the ground-breaking discovery that laboratory mice feel empathy toward other such models upon whom pain has been inflicted.

The Examiner claims demonstrating at private homes is "cowardly" because innocent people are being inconvenienced "in the place where they are meant to feel safest." On the contrary, legally protesting on public property outside a private home is noble compared to disfiguring, maiming and otherwise brutalizing defenseless animals in the place where they're meant to feel safest -- their own skin.

Thus, no comparison can fairly be made to demonstrating outside the Quebec Premier's home, unless, of course, he were to engage in similar human-rights atrocities. As long as they obey the law on Roslyn and Victoria avenues and target the right parties, animal-rights advocates should be lauded, and will ensure that shrill talk of "threats" lies strictly in the eye of the beholder.

The many animals blinded in the name of science should be so lucky.



Peter Sauvé

St. Ignatius Avenue