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Facts not checked

I was incensed and disgusted by Tom Fletcher’s article, smearing the good name and wonderful actions of Jane Sterk and Elizabeth May.

Dear Editor,

I was incensed and disgusted by Tom Fletcher’s article, smearing the good name and wonderful actions of Jane Sterk and Elizabeth May.

He mocked science, showing he has insufficient intellectual curiosity to confirm any of the information which he has found at some industry-funded site. When he says that a 2b carcinogen means nothing by saying this includes pickled vegetables, I knew immediately this is a person who wouldn’t have bothered to check that the pickling classification applies to a specific agent in China that has been linked to cancer. Neither would he bother to check to see that this same classification belongs to DDT, lead, gasoline exhaust, and many industrial chemicals because he has been to lazy to confirm the information that the industry has fed to him to reduce the impact of this very important information. All the hacks have used the same comparison.

The public is being inundated with expensive ads showing  beautiful pictures of shiny smart metes on their homes, and lies by BC Hydro about how green these things are, how much money will be saved. Ms. Sterk and Ms. May are the first politicians brave enough to call it as it is – a boondoggle. One that honest, real newsmen should be investigating. Real newspapers should be alerting the public to the financial, privacy, and health risks.

But Mr. Fletcher was too eager to show how deft he could be at cutting and pasting from the corporate text.

He does not deserve to be called a legislative reporter. This title implies some level of ability and integrity which is sorely lacking in this article.

Sharon Noble

Victoria, B.C.