LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Art show

successful

On April 15, during the Artists’ Association’s 25th annual spring exhibition, the proceeds from a raffle, of a painting donated by me, was given to the West Island Palliative Care Residence. A cheque in the amount of $1,460 was presented to the hospice. The winner of the watercolour painting of a sunflower was Laura Feulner. In the name of the Kirkland Artists’ Association and the Palliative Care Residence, I would like to thank The Chronicle for helping us fulfil our charitable endeavours. I would like to especially give thanks to reporter Andy Blatchford and photographer Stéphane Brunet for the beautiful job they did promoting our event and the publicity did make a difference as so many people commented on the article.

Murielle LeBlanc

Kirkland

Sopranos stereotype

Re: ‘Police accountability,’ letters to the editor, The Chronicle, April 11.

In his diatribe on police ticketing, Tony Shafir suggests that the police go after ‘real crime’ and not motor vehicle offences. The problem is he only refers to the Italian mob (Mafioso family) when defining ‘real crime.’ Seems to me that he spends a little too much time watching The Sopranos.

Here are the facts: in Canada, less than .02 per cent of Canadians of Italian origin have criminal records. And according to 1999 FBI statistics, in the U.S., home of Tony Soprano, only 1,150 Italian Americans out of nearly 15 million are convicted criminals. That’s .0078 per cent of the total Italian-American population.

Sharif was making a good and valid point by suggesting police focus on criminal rather than civil offenses, but he lost all credibility when he essentially singled out one group.

Peter Mattoscio

Kirkland

Potty memories

I got a kick out of reading Marc Lalonde’s Parenting column, ‘Adventures in potty training,’ in The Chronicle’s online edition. It certainly brought back memories.

The picture of the clearly labelled potty, which was referred to as a “throne” in the article, was hilarious. As a retired teacher, it also reminded me that the Action démocratique du Québec party is in town with their own list of things that belong in the potty.

Looking forward to these almost daily online articles from The Chronicle. Keep up the good work.

Chris Eustace

Pierrefonds

Restore

the Rex

The contentious issue of parking meters recently installed in St. Anne de Bellevue could be resolved by city council designating a sufficient portion of the revenue generated by these meters to restore and re-open the Rex Theatre. The taxpayers need to see a portion of their money spent locally to restore their community after the merger/ de-merger fiasco. West Islanders are tired

of all their taxes used to finance an un-

workable agglomeration council and feed bloated local bureaucracies.

Tim Lysyshyn

Beaconsfield