When Canadians cheer the deaths of innocents
Wake up Canada! The exclamations of pro-Hamas support by some Canadians are truly repugnant.
It is one thing to challenge or condemn Israel’s settlement policies but it is another thing to cheer on the deaths of hundreds of innocent kids whose only crime was to have attended a music festival.
The brutal, wholesale slaughter of these kids and all the other civilians murdered or abducted reveals the truth of Hamas and, in turn, the anti-Israeli, pro-terrorists voices here at home.
I wish peace for the citizens of Israel and Gaza but fear that this latest atrocity is another sign of a world gone mad.
Len Dafoe
Nanoose Bay
Their goal is to eliminate the state of Israel
In the unprovoked Hamas attack on Israel more than 900 Israelis were massacred — hundreds gunned downed at a music festival, families slaughtered as terrorists went door to door.
Over 100 Israelis, including children, were dragged into captivity in Gaza. There were reports of rape and torture. Rockets from Gaza targeted Israeli towns. At last count more than 1,500 Israelis have been injured.
Why? Gaza is not occupied. Even after Israel unilaterally withdrew its military and removed all Jewish farmers from Gaza in 2005, Hamas terrorist and rocket attacks on Israel escalated.
The Palestinians elected Hamas, a terrorist organization dedicated to the annihilation of Israel.
Despite vicious propaganda, Israel is not an apartheid state. Israeli Arabs who constitute 20 per cent of Israel’s population have the same rights as all Israelis.
They live in peace. They have their own political parties that are represented in parliament. Israel’s security fence was built to prevent terrorists from infiltrating from Gaza. Essentially, it’s the wall that Hamas built.
Jews in the West Bank, historically part of Israel, live under threat of attack. Israel only took control of the West Bank from Jordan in the Arab-initiated 1967 war.
The Israel Defence Force presence is to protect Jewish communities. The Palestinian Authority is the government in charge with their own armed forces.
From the creation of the modern state of Israel, the Jews accepted a two-state solution. The Palestinians rejected it, wanting a Palestinian state from the river to the sea … Judenrein.
Anita Colman
Victoria
Move auto dealers out, build condos instead
Re: “Development is needed in the right places,” commentary, Oct. 9.
I agree wholeheartedly but I’d like to expand upon it.
If development is needed in the right place, municipal council must also incentivize land owners toward this goal.
It’s discouraging to see that Victoria’s largest and most well-serviced transit corridor, Douglas Street, is littered with huge car dealerships occupying perfectly suitable land that should be rezoned for multi-residential housing with retailing on their ground floors.
To encourage revamping, council should, without being solicited, rezone these properties into multi-residential with stipulation that higher property taxes associated with such rezoned status and the non-complianced use as dealerships would kick in in five years, providing dealerships time to relocate.
Granted, many dealerships have recently constructed purpose-built showrooms, but the hope would be that municipal building departments would work with dealerships and/or developers to repurpose such showrooms into ultimate condo or apartment buildings.
Such vast swaths of commercially zoned properties geared for vehicle ownership are better located on the outskirts of town where consumers of such retailers have vehicles themselves to use to access such dealerships.
Katherine Martin
Victoria
More subsidies given while demand drops
Re: “Batteries get money, the military does not,” letter, Oct. 5.
The letter has considerable merit in noting that Canadians are subsidizing two global automobile manufacturers and one battery manufacturer with some $33 billion of our money while at the same time the federal government is cutting the budget of our beleaguered military by a billion dollars.
One major omission is that Volkswagen is seriously curtailing its production of electrical vehicles because of limited demand and the reduction of government subsidies to support the purchase of same, particularly in Germany.
This was recently reported by numerous European news networks and in North America by BNN Bloomberg. In the meantime, western societies are looking at steadily increasing aggression and growing militarization of both China and Russia.
I suppose that there is some rationalization by those who made these inexplicable decisions but I definitely have to share the writer’s opinion that we indeed have village idiots running this country.
Why the largest vehicle manufacturer in the world requires billions of our dollars to underwrite what is a steeply declining market leaves me absolutely incredulous.
In the meantime, we can all watch the continued decline of our military.
James P. Crowley
North Saanich
End trophy killing of B.C. grizzly bears
The fate of B.C. grizzlies is a provincial concern, not to be divvied up into regional boards.
The language of the proposed framework, a very dense 66-plus page document, clearly opens the door for regional boards to reinstate grizzly killing for resident, non-resident and First Nations groups who want to kill them for trophy and profit.
Threats facing B.C. grizzlies, and all wildlife, have seriously escalated even in the seven years since this issue of grizzly killing arose in 2016-17.
Climate related emergencies, increased resource extraction, and other human incursions continue to disrupt grizzly bears’ access to food, mates and appropriate denning sites.
Science, ethics, common sense and ecotourism all firmly support non-lethal avenues to protect grizzlies rather than to kill them for their body parts.
If government is serious about conservation of B.C. grizzlies, take trophy killing off the table completely, as British Columbians have clearly voiced, and set that intention into legislation once and for all.
Val Murray
Cordova Bay
Royal B.C. Museum is in the wrong ministry
Before the Provincial Museum became the Royal B.C. Museum, it had successful scientific programs in the natural history, study of First Peoples’ languages, anthropology and human history of British Columbia.
The Newcomb Auditorium was where local groups, such as the Victoria Natural History Society, had their monthly meetings.
The role of the Royal B.C. Museum as a scientific organization was gradually declining. RBCM lost its linguistic department, its multidisciplinary publication Syesis, its public lectures program and its connection with Victoria nature or history groups.
Canned exhibits, IMAX theatre, John Lennon’s Rolls Royce, and the discovery of the Titanic became the major themes. The original research and the museum curators were cut to the minimum.
The last mortal blow to any research in the RBCM came last week. The natural history collections must be packed and moved to storage in Sidney, where they remain until a new building in Colwood is opened in 2026.
How can the B.C. students work on their dissertations without examining collections?
How can the RBCM curators continue with their studies?
The Ministry of Tourism officials do not care. The RBCM’s role is defined by the Museum Act, which emphasizes research as a primary function.
The RBCM cannot fulfil many important missions of the Museum Act if it stays in the Ministry of Tourism. Its proper place is in the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education.
The museum is dead as a research institution if it stays in the Ministry of Tourism.
Adolf Češka
Victoria
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