I am submitting this letter in response to a letter written by Darrell Trenholm in the May 21 edition of the ECA Review.
I share with Mr. Trenholm the same anticipation of reading this community paper. I also respect the different opinions found in the editorials even when I don’t agree with some of them.
However, unlike Mr. Trenholm I feel I must defend Mr. Schwenk’s columns as he is able to offer an opinion and then back it up with credible facts.
I think it is very unfair of Mr. Trenholm to denounce Mr. Schwenk as anti-Trudeau and anti-Liberal.
I think a more accurate description would be that Mr. Schwenk is anti-corruption.
To accuse Mr. Schwenk of being a climate change denier is also false.
In fact, he has said climate change has been occurring since the beginning of time. He has supported his opinions with data and with facts. Whereas, the editorials provided by Ms. Schimke who is highly espoused by Mr. Trenholm, consistently conveys a left-wing opinion based on emotion and hyperbole which is a common trait of the liberal mindset.
I will use a couple of examples as set by Ms. Schimke’s last editorial.
For example, Ms. Schimke created a narrative that the employees that work at the Cargill plant in High River are underpaid immigrants working in “conditions where viruses thrive and spread”.
The implication is clear in my mind and plays to a sympathetic audience.
However, I have never been paid a wage of $20/hr which is what the lowest wage being paid at Cargill.
The plant would be operating under Alberta Government guidelines so to infer that their working conditions were in some way disease-ridden is misleading.
Another statement made was how “some died”. Actually, two died as of May 7 and a third I believe was linked to the plant a few days later out of approximately 2200 employees.
Views can be skewed and manipulated by all the information that we are constantly bombarded with.
I have come to the conclusion that the only way I will keep myself sane in this highly partisan world in which we now live in is to rely on my own common sense and support those like Herman Schwenk who relies on facts and not on ideologies that contradict common sense.
Alana Stefanik
Big Valley, Alta.