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EDITORIAL Nkt Aur Geo ADVERTISING Fax DISTRIBUTION Fax 250 Industrial Aurora ON L4G 4C3 Editorial Editor Aurora Jeff Bower Editor Newmarket Editor Georgina Tracy Kibble com Production Manager Jackie Smart Advertising Retail Sales Manager Dave Williams dwiUiams9yrmgcom Classified Manager Bonnie Rondeau brondeauGyrmgcom Administration Office Manager Judy While Distribution Distribution Manager John MacKinnon Circulation Manager THE ERA THE BANNER York Region Media Group community newspapers The EraThe Banner published Tuesday Thursday and Sunday are of the Media Group Lid a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporation The Metroland family of newspapers is comprised of community publications across Ontario The Region Media Group includes The Liberal serving Richmond Hill and vaughan MsrtrJtam Economist Sun SttuffvMe SunTnbune Georgina Advocate of the City and York Region Printing LETTERS POLICY All submissions must be less than words and include a daytime telephone number name and address The EraThe Banner reserves the right to publish or not and to edit for clarity and space Write Letters to the Editor The EraThe Banner Box 236 Newmarket 4X1 mm NION Established 1853 THE ERATHE BANNER vvTvwywkregioncom 580 Steven Crt Newmarket ON 250 Industrial N Aurora ON L4G 4C3 Publisher Ian Editor Chief Kelly Business Manager Robert Director Operations Barry Black Director Advertising Distribution Gord Paolucci Director SaleSTMarkettng Classified Todays Homes Debra Weller LETTERS TO THE EDITOR MP never around when businesses need her Where is Lois Brown Jan 11 I along with many Main Street business owners attended the community urban spaces project meeting at Newmarket Town Hall Many hardworking entrepreneurs made arguments about the lack of parking spaces which is obviously an issue that affects many businesses on Main businesses that are work ing to stimulate business in this hard economy But I was dismayed to see MP Lois Brown wasnt there She likes to promote her federal dollars granted to the town but when it comes to using the funding wisely she is no where to be seen Who is standing up for the busi ness owners Certainly not Mrs Brown When I called her office I learned she apparently was in Taiwan How disappointing to see a Mem ber of Parliament shamelessly pro mote herself but when business owners truly need her she is no where to be seen STEPHANIE GEORGES NEWMARKET Municipal ward system provides fair representation He East Gwillimbury voters want to move away from at- large system to ward style Dec 8 A ward system for the Town of East Gwillimbury is the only solution to fair representation of all residents Now if you as a resident need your concerns met you need to locate one of the councillors In a ward system a councillor is elected to represent a ward How wonderful would it be to be able to hold someone accountable If the councillor could not repre sent his ward appropriately he may not be reelected With the future growth of our com munity I vote yes to the ward sys tem and would like to thank Jim and Lynne Sullivan for their initiative to begin this process MARYANN THOMAS SHARON ITSSUPWSEP TOStf ALLPAY Open up to change imagine brighter future In our short time on Earth humans have emerged from a chaotic world imposing order and meaning in a myriad of ways imagining the world into being That was our great gift As we enter the second decade of the 21st century will we prove ourselves to be imaginative beings capable of creating a better world Our challenge is to imagine a world where our wealth is in human relations and where we learn to live in balance with the rest of nature By imagining a future we can make it happen as we always have If we continue though to set human borders and the economy as our highest priorities we will never come to grips with the destructive- ness of our activities and institu tions In imagining a better future we must open ourselves to the idea of change And wed do well to remem ber people with vision have been overturning outmoded ways of thinking and acting throughout our brief history on this Earth often in the face of great resistance It wasnt long ago people in coun tries such as the believed slavery David Suzuki with Faisal was an economic necessity and abol ishing it would destroy the economy and way of life of its free citizens As far as the cost and the speed of acting in our own best interests con sider how quickly the US was able to build its space program after the Rus sians launched Sputnik I in 1957 In putting tremendous energy thought and resources into getting people on to the moon the US also sparked innovations such as 24hour TV news channels cellphones and GPS navigation On the environmental front world leaders came together in Montreal in 1987 to confront the effect humans were having on the ozone layer with our use of The international treaty they signed used trade sanctions and incentives to get countries to phase out the use of chemicals that were contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer And that agreement allowed devel oping countries to take longer to phase out CFCs because the industrialized world had disproportionately contrib uted to the problem We really do have to think big to imagine what a future that offers the most good to the most people and to all life on this planet would look like Obviously reducing poverty con flict and humanrights abuses is para mount Environmental problems exacer bate those issues and so must also be dealt with Part of the problem is many of our political leaders are stuck in the mindset that constant economic growth is essential For example consider what Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a speech to South Koreas National Assembly in late 2009 Without the wealth that comes from growth the environmental threats the develop mental challenges and the peace and security issues facing the world will be exponentially more difficult to deal with But with constant growth comes depletion of and increasing competi tion for scarce resources as well as more waste in other words increased environmental threats developmen tal challenges and peace and security issues Constant growth is just not possible in a finite world with finite resourc es Our focus on constant econom ic growth also leads to some bizarre anomalies War and natural disasters for exam ple can contribute to economic growth by creating employment and resource- use activity In thinking beyond these artificial parameters humans have set we can imagine a more sustainable way of liv ing as York University economist Peter Victor has done in his excellent book Managing Without Growth Slower by Design Not Disaster As Dr Victor points out we cant change overnight but by imagining a future in which humans live within the Earths capacity to provide for our ongoing needs we can steer ourselves in the right direction Daw Suzuki writes an occasional column forThe AdvocateThe BannerThe Era Or Faisal Moola is director of at Suzuki