Editor, The Record:
Re: Stop the Wal-Mart and drive-thru hate already, Sept. 8 edition.
With respect, Ms. Hanley, although you purported to respond to my letter, you wrote about things to be found nowhere in my letter.
I wrote exclusively about the effect of a large U.S. chain store on my community and its members, both business owners and workers, while you wrote largely about yourself.
Mine was not a personal statement; I didn’t base my argument on my own desire for a Wal-Mart, and I ended with an analogy that accurately reflects what Wal-Mart has done to most of the towns it has entered: destroyed, or at least hobbled, almost all local businesses that sell the same goods.
You, however, wrote about how you want a Wal-Mart so that your needs, and those of your children, can be served when and how you want them to be.
I wish I could convince you that the Mission you have lived in for many years of your life is better served by local and Canadian businesses, and a thriving downtown core.
But I fear the task is futile, as you state constantly in your letter that you are mainly concerned with yourself, and the convenience — or lack thereof — of your daily life, even going so far as to hope for a new Tim Hortons (a model Canadian company, by the way) so you don’t need to leave your vehicle in order to receive your coffee.
We have two very different visions of what a community looks like, and are unlikely to convince each other of anything.
I sincerely hope, however, that your vision of a Mission full of big box stores and drive-thrus never comes to fruition.
Steve Moore
Mission