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Th ursday, November 16, 2017 • WATERLOO CHRONICLE • 9Serving your community since 1856 It's always disheartening to see peo-ple like Ed Grootenboer using the 'let them die as a message' argu- ment when it comes to addiction and drug use. It's kind of like those old argu- ments that the death penalty will stop murders or abstinence only education stops teen pregnancy. � ey don't. People have to stop acting like drug use and addiction are these very nar- row, black-and-white issues that have simplistic solutions. Addiction is a disease. It needs to be treated like any other disease. As Violet Umanetz from Sanguen Health Centre said, "We're talking about human beings. People that live here and have every right to be there". Dealing with opioids and many other drug related issues is compli- cated. We have law enforcement dealing with the illegal distribution. We have mental health services dealing with the addiction aspects. Safe injection sites are simply one effective part of the overall strategy. Let's stop stigmatizing the su� ering of our neighbours. Doing nothing and letting more people die doesn't � x the problem, it makes it worse. People need to get educated on the reality of these situations instead throwing around the same old argu- ments that do nothing to help. Larry Lootsteen Waterloo Welcome back Hardy Willms to the Waterloo Chronicle. Your column in the last edition was most informative for the readers, the subjects you write about are very good. May I suggest to the editor that you must be invited back on a regular basis. Small Business is very important to all of us because that's what runs this country, and there should be more stories about this subject and how this government is screwing them out of making an honest living for them- selves. � e prime minister and the house leader should smarten up and start to listen to them more and also to the public. After all, they want to get back into o� ce the next time, and that may be di� cult for them. But if they continue on the way they are going they will not get back in, as the honeymoon will be over. Trudea is all talk, and so far no action. Alf Ash Waterloo COMMENT WATERLOO CHRONICLEWATERLOO CHRONICLE LETTERS TO THE CHRONICLE I love the serenity of Laurel Creek, a biological treasure tucked into the northwest corner of Waterloo. � at's why I jumped at the opportunity to join the K-W Bilingual School's � eld trip to the Laurel Creek Nature Centre with my daugh- ter's Grade 6 class this past week. � e goal was for the class to develop a deeper understanding of biodiversity -- the variety of all living things. Students learned about everything from tarantulas, pythons and cockroaches to sugar maple trees, Eastern white pines and the emer- ald ash borer. After a full day of fun outdoors (where the students got their hands dirty looking for leeches, scaven- ger beetles and water scorpions), I chat- ted with some of my daughter's class- mates about their search for native spe- cies. "Laurel Creek was awesome," said Anupam Chettimada. "My favourite part was when we got to catch inverte- brates and caught a huge cray� sh with eggs. I also learned that cray� sh are very defensive and try to always protect them- selves." Michelle Owen added: "We got to see some amazing creatures like snails and insects in their natural habitat. I also saw what salamander eggs looked like and learned that salamanders bury their eggs under rocks and wood to protect them from predators." The students (and I) also learned about invasive species not native to the area, like the many Chinese water snails students found in the pond. Hiking deep into the woods along the Discovery Trail, students searched for terrestrial non-vertebrates, lifting rocks and rolling logs with a partner. "If somebody found something interesting, they would run o� to the teacher and tell others on the way, to come and look what they've got," said Layla Boutaba. "When we would � nish looking, we would roll the log or rock back to its original position. We found earthworms, nematodes, spiders, and a whole lot of lizard eggs and learned about conserving their habitat. One of the things that we saw that amazed us was a fungi jackpot, where there were more than 100 mushrooms stuck to one fallen tree." Layla then told me a joke: "Oh, and speaking about fungi, why is the mushroom always invited to parties? Because he's a fun-gi! Get it? � at joke was one of my favourite things I learned from Laurel Creek." Fun guys and girls from the class got to experience the range of biodiversity that lies just on the outer edge of our urban areas, which sometimes we're too busy or distracted to appreciate. From my perspective, the lessons the students learned were not just about other species, but also about our species, and the key role we play as caretakers of the Earth. All too often we humans consider ourselves as outside of a given ecosystem, rather than inhabitants of it (and often destructive ones at that). By getting their hands dirty in nature, I believe the students learned essential, experiential lessons about how important it is, especially nowadays, to be responsible citizens of the fragile ecosys- tem that sustains us all. ••• Marshall Ward is a freelance writer and artist. Email is welcome at marshall_ward@hotmail.com. Restorative justice is a di� erent approach Could you sit across the table from a person who vandalized your home? What about someone who stole from you? These are tough questions, that people face every day in our community. If you are like most people, your initial -- and enormously human -- reaction to these questions is an absolute -- No. Our justice system -- in its historical form -- embraces the "eye for an eye" men- tality. Throw the books at them. I want that person to pay a price for their actions. To su� er the consequences. To be punished for what they did. I used to see things that way as well. Until I started watching my students, as young as grade school, face challenges and, oftentimes, su� er punishments that served only one purpose -- completely derailing their young lives. I have a story to share. One of my kids su� ers from a mild anxiety disorder, which has caused us signi� cant concern over the years. (I'm going to share this story here, with the gender-neutral pronoun "they," instead of "he" or "she," for obvious reasons.) Once, in Grade 12, they panicked as they went to write a math exam … and they took o� , for hours, before we found them. Their teacher was very angry with them, threatening to fail and suspend them, which may have ended their motivation for and hopes of going to university. � ankfully, the guidance counsellor o� ered an alter- native solution. Once we found them, they were invited back to school for a meeting with all of us, to talk about the situation. � ey were given the chance to tell us all what hap- pened, apologize to the teacher for their choices and to help make a plan to right the wrongs. That plan included several things, including an opportunity to write the exam and rejoin the classroom, in a respectful way. It was a bene� cial conversation for all -- allowing the anger and fear around the table to dissipate. Now, this may look like a minor situ- ation, but I can assure you that it wasn't. But in the grand scheme of life, it's a small example of how a restorative approach to "justice" can make a big dif- ference. And it also served to provide a stepping stone to a much better place for my child -- they have since graduated from university and are looking forward to a fantastic adult life. Restorative Justice Week (Nov. 19-26) is here, the perfect time for us to consider alternatives to our tra- ditional models of dealing with crime, conflict and justice. Find out more at www.cjiwr.com. ••• Karen Scian is the co-founder of the Talent Business Solutions, an educator and a recovering city councillor. She is also chair of the Waterloo Public Library Board. You can email her at beinscian@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @karenscian. BEIN' SCIAN KAREN SCIAN Learning a little about biodiversity MARSHALL WARD MARSHALL ARTS We can't just let people die Letter policy Letters to the editor must contain the writer's full name, address and telephone number. Letters may be submitted by email to editorial@waterloochronicle.ca Liberal government seems out of touch