Dear Mr. Williamson,
It is nothing short of appalling that you
would write a letter to the TELEGRAPH JOURNAL calling Save Ocean
Science chairwoman Caroline Davies's statements false. I was
one of the two other constituents what you referred to. We did
indeed meet with you in the St. Stephen office on the 22nd of
August. We DID NOT present you with a proposal. We did present
you with a Business Case For St. Andrews Biological Station Library which
we left with you. We discussed only the SABS Library not budget
changes at the St. Andrews Biological Station. To refresh your memory
the points in the business case were: Background, Impact of Closure
of SABS Library on the Scientific Base Of The Local Economy, Cost of
Maintaining the Library, Cost of Moving the Library to Nova Scotia,
Conclusion. In addition we presented to you a cost analysis of
moving the library operations and a business case evaluation.
At that time you said that you
would support keeping the library holdings here but there was no
money for staffing. We asked if you could set up a meeting with
Minister Ashfield for us. You stated quite clearly that you would
support our efforts to maintain the library but urged us not to play the
"political" game. The last we heard from you was in October to
say that SOS should set up the meeting with the minister
independently.
You called Ms Davies
statement that you responded to the "committees' proposal
without having heard it" false. Save Ocean Science had not even
written any proposal when we met with you in August. Clearly we
spent more time preparing a business case and the proposal than you spent
reading it. Ms Davies statement is true. Yours is
false.
In March we did send Minister
Ashfield a proposal and requested once again a few minutes of his time to
meet with him. You were copied. Again there was no
reply. You and your government could write the book on stonewalling
and arrogance.
Save Ocean Science is frustrated at
your lack of interest in the area of New Brunswick that you were elected
to represent. As I understand it the role of a member of parliament
is to represent the constituents interests and concerns to the government,
not the ideology of the government to the constituents! We are
disappointed in you and furious in your accusations that Ms Davies made
things up when in fact she spoke the truth.
Had you taken time to read the
business case that we discussed with you and more recently the
proposal, you would not perhaps have made the false statements
that YOU made while accusing Ms Davies of making things
up.
You clearly owe Ms Davies an
apology.
Nancy Aiken
Save Ocean Science Committee
Member |
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