Editor:
We the silent majority who make up 20 per cent of the population… 65-plus years old.
We have lived through times like this in the past, different pandemics like flu, polio and most childhood communicable diseases before vaccines were found.
Now a small segment of our community feels their rights and freedoms are being denied because of Public Health guidelines.
As seniors, we feel our Charter rights and freedoms have been greatly impeded and disrespected by those individuals who independently decide Public Health guidelines are an infringement on their rights.
They are putting others at risk, parents, grandparents and children with immune-compromised conditions.
They are denying the greater good of our community for safe health and putting everyone they come in contact with at risk of COVID-19 spread.
And this while our health workers and essential service providers are struggling to support all of us.
Our rates of infection are now the highest per capita in the province and patients in our community are being medevaced to beds in other hospitals and health districts.
We would like to know as protestors what rights are you being denied? If you become ill, do you expect to receive government-subsidized health care? Do you follow the requirement to wear a seat belt when driving, to maintain the posted speed limit and adjust your driving as road conditions worsen? Do your children wear helmets as required by some sports?
We represent a generation who remember or were affected by world wars.
People made sacrifices for the greater good of their community. When the sirens blasted out during the Second World War, people in England headed for the nearest shelter.
COVID-19 is more dangerous than those bombs dropping from the air because you can’t see or hear it coming.
What do we sacrifice for others?
“It is a luxury to put our interests first. It is an honour to put the interests of others before our own.” - Simon Sinek.
Why aren’t the honourable citizens of our community making the headlines instead of the disruptors?
Barbara Campbell & Linda Olafsson
Smithers