MLA salaries need to be this high
I feel the need to remind people again that the reason why we pay our politicians so well is because otherwise we only attract people that are rich to the job.
People that might use the political position to help them, their friends and family, to make even more money.
Bobbi Sheridan
Colwood
Don’t rely on seniors to balance ferries budget
Re: “Sorry, seniors, your free rides should go,” letter, Nov. 30.
I disagree with the statement that the B.C. Ferries policy of free travel for seniors four days a week is a 100% discount that “contributes to the funding gap in B.C. Ferries’ ability to maintain a fully functioning ferry system.”
It’s far from 100%: it only applies to the passenger, not to their car. So a senior travelling to Galiano mid-week saves only $12.65.
An adult with a car going to Tsawwassen pays $99.85; a senior, $80.75. These paltry amounts are hardly going to affect B.C. Ferries’ need for hundreds of millions in future operating costs.
P.J. Perdue
Victoria
Don’t like the fare break? Pay the fare
Re: “Sorry, seniors, your free rides should go,” letter, Nov. 30.
There is a responsible and simple solution for those financially comfortable seniors who call for the discontinuation of free passage for seniors on certain routes on certain days.
Simply do not declare your senior status, pay the non-senior rate, and kindly let the less financially well off seniors continue to benefit from the policy.
Thus the many financially strapped seniors need not feel publicly shamed by such letters nor feel ashamed to claim their senior status.
Simple.
Pauline McCarthy
Salt Spring Island
Consider throughput on McKenzie
Re: “Hard numbers needed on the McKenzie plan,” letter, Nov. 30.
I agree that considering the net throughput of people (not cars, especially once zero-occupant autonomous vehicles hit the roads) is very important when considering making changes to infrastructure. However, I don’t think that should be the only consideration.
When considering the proposed McKenzie bus lanes, we should also consider the improvements to safety. As it stands a large stretch of McKenzie is treated by most motorists as a highway.
The two lanes encourage the left lane to be treated as a passing lane, where driving the speed limit is unacceptable. This sort of behaviour is OK on a highway where there is plenty of space and no destinations lining the roadway, meaning the risk is mitigated (although mistakes still prove deadly).
Unfortunately, McKenzie is not a highway. It is lined by schools, homes, and shopping centres, and has pedestrian crossings and several roads and driveways feeding into it.
Taking away a lane of traffic would stifle speeding, ensuring a safer environment for everyone, especially those outside vehicles who will be killed or seriously maimed if struck by a vehicle travelling 50 km/h or more.
This becomes even more critically important to consider as heavier, larger vehicles have increased in numbers over recent years.
Additionally, a bus lane would be a massive boon to emergency services. Fire trucks, ambulances, and police could pull into it and zip past car traffic and arrive on scene faster. Something to think about if you are concerned about your house burning down, receiving medical care when faced with a life-threatening emergency, or receiving police protection in the event of a crime.
Now if the bus lanes also increase throughput of people, well, I’ll be hard pressed to stand against them.
Alexander Darby
Saanich
Twelve minutes needed to travel two blocks
Re: “Hard numbers needed on the McKenzie plan,” letter, Nov. 30.
Last Thursday, I travelled east on McKenzie at 1 p.m. It took 12 minutes to travel the two blocks from Saanich Road to Quadra Street. There was a vehicle blocking the curb lane at Borden Street causing everyone to merge to one lane.
This was not the morning or afternoon rush hour. It was simply middle of weekday traffic. The traffic heading west on McKenzie was flowing just fine with two lanes open.
These are traffic flow observations, statistics or facts that the letter writer is referring to. Reducing a major traffic corridor to single lane is pure folly.
If 12 minutes was my experience in the middle of the day, I can’t fathom what would happen during rush hour.
John Vukovic
Saanich
Carbon tax helps shape a better future
Recent letters made a strong case for keeping the carbon tax (which taxes a harmful substance and is revenue-neutral), and allocating a mere two per cent of GDP to address the massive global threat of climate change.
Smart government policies like these help shape a better future for us, for our children, and for the world.
The dismal failure of COP29 to adequately support vulnerable nations (who have contributed the least to climate change yet suffer the worst) is disheartening.
In 1990, David Suzuki warned that failure to act on the impacts of climate change and assist the poorest nations would result in an overwhelming influx of climate refugees.
Tis the season of goodwill. If the “angels of our better nature” cannot motivate us to help those less fortunate, then let’s act from a place of (enlightened) self-interest.
The human race is afloat in a leaky boat. We may be in the bow, still above water and the last to go down, but if we don’t all start patching the holes and bailing our fate will be the same as those we see sinking in stormy seas.
Karyn Woodland
Colwood
Carbon tax proceeds go into general revenue
Re: “Dropping carbon tax would be a mistake,” letter, Nov. 30.
The letter asserts that the B.C. carbon tax is revenue neutral. The first thing the NDP government did when it took office was decouple the carbon tax from general revenues, making it a separate tax stream.
Seems to me to be a significant oversight.
Michel Murray
Victoria
Stop collecting tax, just save the money
Re: “Dropping carbon tax would be a mistake,” letter, Nov. 30.
The letter reiterates that the “carbon tax is largely revenue neutral.”
That the revenue collected from the carbon tax is paid back to the taxpayers by way of rebates and income tax deductions. This is an extremely inefficient, ineffective, costly, time consuming, staff intensive, process of collecting a tax and paying it back.
Solution? Don’t collect it in the first place!
Bev Highton
Oak Bay
Province has taken the carbon tax money
Re: “Dropping carbon tax would be a mistake,” letter, Nov. 30.
The letter stating that carbon taxes are revenue neutral is deeply flawed. The professor claims the majority of taxpayers get most, all, or more of the carbon tax back.
What government would give it all back, plus pay for the administration of the program? Federally the cost was more than $82 million, with 465 employees in 2022.
What would be the point in collecting money and giving it all back or more? That borders on absurdity.
In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the B.C. government expects $1.56 billion in excess revenue from the carbon tax. People need to know the true costs.
Darcy Guillemaud
Texada Island
Governments, go after fossil fuel industries
The Nov. 30 edition reported that “a Supreme Court of Canada victory has cleared a ‘pathway’ for governments across the country to go after opioid makers … for damages arising from the opioid crisis.”
By this reasoning governments across the country could (read should), go after the fossil fuel industries for damages resulting from rising CO2 emissions.
The evidence of damage is everywhere, just ask the insurance industry. After all, many more people will suffer than those now unfortunate enough to be damaged by opioids.
In many parts of the world people are already suffering. Are you listening, Premier David Eby? Premiers everywhere?
Claudette Preece
Courtenay
Look to Europe for new trade deals
Let’s not sweat Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs, it’s just another Trump ploy to scare us!
What he intends is likely a 10-12% tariff so he’s giving himself negotiating room. Regardless, even if he applies a lesser tariff, we should immediately cancel deals with U.S. companies and start dealing with Europe.
Maybe a bit more expensive but offset by not paying his bullying tax, and mostly better quality and service.
Michael Holt
Victoria
Look offshore for cheaper executives
While Canada Post is less than transparent on the matter, current estimates of their CEO’s salary are in the neighbourhood of $700,000 a year.
Why so much? The executive classes are usually quick to point out that such sums are necessary to attract the kind of towering genius that such a position demands.
Unfortunately what the taxpayers have received for their largess is not towering genius but year upon year of burgeoning financial losses despite ever increasing prices and ever decreasing service.
Perhaps it’s time we started offshoring the executive suite. I’m sure we can find an industrious third-world CEO who would be happy to make do with a paltry $250,000 a year.
Next up: B.C. Ferries.
Robert Smith
Victoria
Canada Post, employees hurting the season
Thank you Canada Post, striking workers and the Canadian government for making Christmas a less happy time.
Yes, Virginia, people still do know how to write and send real cards, letters and packages; sadly, none will get delivered this year, at least not by our national postal service.
It’s shameful and an insult to all Canadians. Maybe I could write to Santa and ask him to make my deliveries. His letters seem to be getting through.
I no longer have confidence in our government (all parties) nor most people, for that matter, including all striking workers, especially those who choose to make life more difficult for millions of people.
If you can’t come to an agreement after over a year of talks, maybe you should consider divorce. It really can make a world of difference and sometimes parting ways is the best outcome for everyone.
In the meantime, I am wondering if I can get a refund of $154.90 for the postage stamps and prepaid boxes I recently bought. Looks like I won’t need them this year or maybe not anytime soon, since there seems to be no end to this labour dispute.
Lumps of coal to everyone.
Penny Linders
Victoria
Esquimalt bike lanes not the real issue
What people don’t realize is that Esquimalt citizens are talking about bike lanes and that Esquimalt is talking about developing the corridor.
If you are within 400 metres of an active transportation network, you can reduce parking requirements, infrastructure upgrades and increase height and density.
They haven’t put in a bike lane for actual cyclists in quite some time. This network is integral to the development the Esquimalt corridor with six- to 12-storey buildings.
Concerned citizens should start asking about this aspect of the lanes, at least you’ll be talking about the same thing.
A perfect example of a “development bike lane” is the Lampson/Tillicum corridor. No cycling advocate would have chosen that route.
You must go up and down an easily avoidable mountain twice. The Tillicum lane is an ill-conceived, quasi-protected route, bad for both cyclists and cars. I think it is dangerous and somebody could get seriously hurt. So, when they try to reason with Esquimalt about moving the lane to Lyle Street, they are interfering with long-term development plans. Also, if you move it to Lyle, based on the “community plan” you can now put six storey buildings in Saxe Point, because of proximity, and that is never going to fly.
If the community plans are about anything, they are about over-developing lower-income neighbourhoods and leaving the more affluent neighbourhoods intact.
I am a lifelong cyclist, have never owned or operated a car, so this isn’t an anti-bike lane-rant. I love the ones that work.
I guess an unintended benefit is that people get mad at folks on bikes instead of over-development and the roughly 5,000 more cars being registered every year in the region.
Vernon Reed
Esquimalt
Trump was elected, so get over it
Judging by the letter writers lately, there are many afflicted by Trump Derangement Syndrome.
There are many mental health practitioners that can prescribe the correct drugs for these deranged people, who need to learn to cope with hearing and seeing things they don’t agree with.
Or they should just grow up.
Dan Andrews
Colwood
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