To the Editor,

Cutting to the bottom line: There is no state of emergency that justifies sweeping away Canadians’ basic freedoms. No war, no natural, no environmental or no manmade disaster here in Haliburton.

No emergency can override the meaning and spirit of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and any enshrined riparian property usage rights.
Our government is based on the consent of the governed. We decide. We aren’t property of the state. We aren’t products shaped by the state. We weren’t born to be to be in “greenbelt shoreline lockdowns” and pseudo-science test subjects in some grand utopian vision dreamt up by CHA and facilitated by our local part time politicians – those whom we can replace in two years if we feel betrayed.

We are in a tunnel. We are carrying the light. Around us are sheep and doomsayers and hostile actors. They have redefined freedom in Orwellian terms to mean obedience. They now see privation and shoreline lockdowns as consecrations to a new cause: allegiance to a brand new manufactured set of enviro-standards that have suddenly washed ashore.

Instead, we have to rise up. We have to live life, move forward and above all keep our cottage dreams and lifestyles alive by raising our collective voices against this new wave of oppressive forces that will deny your long held and valued rights and freedoms as cottagers and elsewhere.

David Hopkins Howe
Minden Hills