AS LONG AS THE SUN SHINES AND THE RIVER FLOWS: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A GOOD STEWARD, MR. HARPER

Dear Prime Minister:
People I know, newspapers and commentators from all over the world, echo the charge that closing the ELA is an “appalling travesty.”
But scorn, reason and the demand for evidence-based decision making have had no effect on you, Prime Minister.
So let me appeal to your sense of patriotism and to the roots of conservative thinking.
Kenora residents, Darlene Stepanik and Teika Newton, have told readers of the Miner and News that ELA is Northwestern Ontario’s “gem” and “treasure”.
ELA produces world-class freshwater science which protects the earth, gives employment to and teaches school children from Northwestern Ontario, provides training for scientists, like the Van Walleghem sisters of Dryden and is something which the world admires and respects.
Canadians take pride in the ELA.
Patriotism is built on pride in institutions which preserve and conserve traditions which are emblematic of our shared values and sometimes, as with the ELA, produce excellence and greatness.
The Government spent how much helping us recall, with pride, the war of 1812?
The government was prepared (perhaps still is) to spend 65, or is it 85 million, for a single F35 fighter jet—enough money to keep the ELA running for at least 30 years.
We need more than guns and planes to defend our land: we need science.
So why not, Prime Minister, actually make the “conserve” in conservative resonate with patriotic Canadians and preserve one of our best and brightest?
At a time when Canada, in its quest for Keystone, is selling itself as an environmentally friendly good steward, when the ELA could be used to do the science on oil sands pollution, why not take one important, one small but credible step, towards proving our “greenness” to our American friends?
Why not do the patriotic thing—the conservative thing?
Remember, that the United States uses ELA science: it has sent its scientists to ELA to do the science on mercury emitted from its coal stacks.
Some see the death of the ELA as part of a war on science. Prime Minister, you must know that this is a war you cannot win, and in fact, do not want to win if you are intent on following the lead of the United States on global warming and reducing carbon emissions.
Speaking of a warming climate, Prime Minister, tell your fishing buddies, that ELA’s climate studies show that the increase in water temperature in the ELA lakes since 1969, has reduced the cold water habitat upon which lake trout depend.
The war on science makes you appear, Prime Minister, both unpatriotic and despotic.
Put the rancour aside. Instead of locking them out, let the Trent University science team do its nano-silver work and others continue their long term research. Open the gates to the ELA or the studies will be lost and compromised, money wasted, dreams shattered, careers frustrated and our health put more at risk.
Open the ELA. You have nothing to lose.
Sincerely,
Peter Kirby
Kenora, Ontario