Canadian Lawyer

letters to the editor Send your letters to: gail.cohen@thomsonreuters.com Article overlooks growing evidence of health risks The Green Energy Act, 2009 has placed citizens of rural Ontario at grave risk. Your article by Jennifer Brown ["The risks of renewable energy," Canadian Lawyer, March 2013] completely overlooked the fact that a rapidly growing body of evidence clearly demonstrates [residents'] health is at risk of serious harm because industrial wind turbines are being located too close to their homes. Nor can the economic impact be underestimated. People are concerned by the fact their homes, their largest investment in most cases, are at risk of being rendered virtually worthless by too-close wind turbines. The Green Energy Act pits jobs against the risks to the health of babies, grandmothers, and families who have no recourse but to abandon their homes or seek expensive legal counsel to find a thus-far elusive legal remedy. But what is the problem with industrial wind when too close to families? Chronic sleep disturbance is the single most-reported issue. Long-term sleep deprivation is acknowledged by the health profession to lead to distress such as high blood pressure, cardiac events, diabetes, loss of cognitive function, and depression. Most of these adverse health outcomes and others are reported virtually worldwide. Yet, what is most notable is many of these conditions go away when people relocate away from the turbines. Meanwhile urban Ontarians continue to scorn the fact their rural counterparts are non-consenting guinea pigs in a risky human experiment. Ms. Brown has done your readership a disservice by not acknowledging the fact while communities' rights to justice are being crushed, the determination of those communities to fight back — has not. When using the pejorative term NIMBY, Brown should know that beautiful rural Ontario has been turned into a living hell for thousands now exposed and many thousands more to be exposed to industrial wind. The scientific and socio-economic research on industrial wind around the world has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the favours showered on green energy at the expense of citizens is an undemocratic, unjust, and untenable system that must be rectified. These are the true risks of renewable energy. Beth Harrington Communications, the Society for Wind vigilance Canadian lawyer welcomes letters to the editor but reserves the right to edit for space, taste, style, and libel considerations. Please include your full contact information in any correspondence. Comments from canadianlawyermag.com Re: Who, now, will defend the indefensible? April 2013 it was entirely legitimate and proper for Doug Christie to represent the various controversial parties in legal proceedings. But he did not stop there. Sometimes evasively, sometimes more candidly, through the years he often either made their views seem to be his own, or at least to be legitimate. in other words, he went beyond the function of a legal advocate, and engaged in public relations or even promotion. He was therefore quite rightly attacked as a proxy for his clients because he presented himself as such. To offer him unqualified praise as being simply a courageous advocate is simplistic and even absurd. — online comment from StePHen SCOtt, professor emeritus of law, McGill university Professor Scott, i humbly disagree with you and would be willing to change my mind if you were to provide any evidence to prove your assertion. i have followed Mr. Christie's cases for 30 years and have never seen or heard he supported positions he was asked to defend, on the contrary, i believe his position was quite clear, freedom of speech in Canada needs support and he intended to give his best effort to that cause. i am objective enough to understand truth and fact and the difference, so please back your opinions with either with corroborating evidence and i will reconsider my position. otherwise, please state you are making your opinion public. your status as a professor is seriously undermined when your conjecture is considered an authority. — online comment from PHILIP KueFLeR This is BS. in his Western separatist days, Christie openly sympathized with adolf Hitler and suggested the Second World War was the fault of those pushing the "holocause." His personal views were as loathsome as those of the people he defended. — online comment from BIGCItyLIB Re: Quantifying value through time codes April 2013 interesting to (finally) hear lawyers talking about using time codes. it may sound like a new idea, but i believe many professional service firms and other consultants have been doing so for decades. Certainly when i practised as a young chartered accountant at a national firm over 30 years ago (before leaving for law school), we didn't perform any of our prefessional tasks on projects without entering our time by code. it was the only way we could measure our efforts against the reasonable project budget our client bought into at the outset. and, without them, we would have have trouble justifying to our client why a quoted fee was exceeded. although lawyers may resist it, why expect that our clients shouldn't requrie the same accountability for our costs (as that is what is really at issue, not time and codes) that they have come to expect from their other professional advisors, for decades! — online comment from RAndy WILLIAMSOn Re: Be a litigation star April 2013 We are delighted to have seen this detailed article about the ontario Bar association's institute 2013 civil litigation program. To watch the online recording of this program, please visit the oBa professional development web site: www.cba.org/ pd/details_en.aspx?id=on_13CiV0207V. — online comment from FILIPPO COnte Re: Hot competition April 2013 no quarrel with the results. it was an honour to be shortlisted with this group. — online comment from ted BeRGeROn www.CANADIAN L a w ye r m a g . c o m M ay 2013 7

• Cover