Forest industry numbers stand up to scrutiny
Re: “Move B.C.’s forestry jobs into other sectors,” commentary, Aug. 25.
As a 40-year veteran of journalism and public policy in British Columbia, I must take issue with Anthony Britneff’s claim that the organization I head, Resource Works, has “become increasingly creative in overstating the contribution of the forest sector to the provincial economy.”
Forest jobs pay the highest, $41 an hour, of any industry in B.C.
The province of British Columbia’s own information shows that 18 per cent of our base economy is drawn from the forest sector. One-third of B.C.’s goods exports consist of forest products. The figure of about 100,000 forestry jobs stands up to scrutiny.
These are easily authenticated facts, so we don’t need to argue about them. I do agree with Britneff that an informed public policy discussion is needed on how to transition forest management, particularly with regards to old growth.
By recognizing forestry science, cultural and environmental values, economic realities and the urgency of First Nations reconciliation, it should be possible for the current Intentions process on old-growth forestry to bring about win-win solutions.
Stewart Muir, executive director
Resource Works Society
When will people in Victoria feel safe?
An elderly woman was knocked down on Friday by someone who asked her for money but she didn’t give him any. This occurred on Douglas Street, in downtown Victoria, in broad daylight. Now you know why so many seniors don’t want to go downtown because they are afraid.
This man was apprehended on assault charges but is free until his next court date. What is to stop him from doing it again?
Why aren’t people like that put in jail so we all feel more safe? There is something terribly wrong with our justice system. If the culprit has mental or drug issues, he should be incarcerated.
Linda Romain
Saanich
Get the vaccine or pay the price
We owe the success of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout to Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix. They have done it with respect for all and in the kindest possible way.
The methods used have resulted in more than 75 per cent of British Columbians getting the vaccine — but what about the rest?
Everyone has had more than adequate time and information to make the decision to do the right thing, but how do we now get the 25 per cent that are putting us all at risk to follow in our footsteps?
Let’s give them all the opportunity to get their first shot by Oct. 31 and their second shot by the end of November. If they don’t get the vaccine then they pay for health care, if they get sick due to COVID-19, at the full rate just like an uninsured visitor would have to pay.
Why, when you have had the opportunity to be safe at no cost to you, would anyone feel they have the right to make others sick, create major problems for our health-care system and the poor staff who must deal with this every day.
People might feel this is against their Charter rights, but we are not denying them health care, we are just making sure that due to their negligence, they pay the price for it, not the rest of us.
William Webster
North Saanich
No death wish, please, let’s fight this virus
What is wrong with the population, do they really have a death wish?
I was in a grocery store in Parksville, I could have probably counted the number of masks I saw on both hands.
I went for my vaccinations as soon as I received the information about where to go and when.
Nobody knows when this will end. Do your part in trying to stay safe, not just for yourself but the whole population.
Vivien Sansom
Qualicum Beach
We’ve all been scared by the government
I know this won’t be published: However, if you are so darn scared that you think nothing of taking away people’s right to do what they wish with their own bodies, then maybe the government has done their job of scaring the majority of people.
If you are that scared, stay home and let the rest of the people go in peace!
Donald Weston
Victoria
Too early for parties, given the numbers
The statistics for COVID-19 in B.C. appear quite revealing. What caught my attention, as a 75-year-old double vaccinated man, that of the 4,156 new cases reported August 10-17, 13 per cent, or 540, of those new cases were people that had been double vaccinated.
I think that my wife and I might re-evaluate our vulnerability and maintain very tight COVID protocol. In light of this statistical information, perhaps this is not the time to have double-vaccination parties.
Roger Pinfield
Victoria
Where do they stand on climate refugees?
It’s become apparent federal politicians have lost our attention. Campaign promises of how to allocate future dollars that may or may not be there are ringing hollow.
Politicians cannot seem to think outside the box they’ve grown up in. The box is torn open and on fire, and we need a lot better from our leaders. By the time younger, progressive ideas are holding enough power to overcome the established pattern of thinking, it will be too late.
Canada can be a world leader in steering us to a better place, but seems happy enough to keep pumping oil and ignoring a responsibility to reconcile its past.
Climate refugees will be coming here, soon enough but well outside the coming election cycle. I would like to know what the plan is to integrate them.
Steve Ireland
Denman Island
Recycling water is easy and makes sense
It doesn’t take too much effort to set up a big barrel beside your washing machine and dump its waste water into that barrel.
If you need a hand with that call the plumber. So now you got a barrel full of non-potable, but certainly useful water. Wash your vehicles, wash your windows, water the lawn, scrub your deck, and so on.
This isn’t a bad thing to do any year, not just the drier ones.
Mark Henry
Victoria
Criticizing Zionism, but not anti-Semitic
Recently I wrote a short letter in which I used the phrase: “Annamie Paul, who supports the Zionist view of the supremacy of the Jews over the Palestinians.”
In response, another reader wrote that “Zionism is simply the movement for a Jewish state and its ongoing existence,” and claimed my letter was “borderline anti-Semitic and slanderous.”
In September I will be 96 years old. I am one of the few surviving veterans of the Second World War, in which I lost a lower leg fighting in Germany.
I am certainly not anti-Semitic and my criticism of Zionism is accurate.
Since 1948 the Zionists, not supported by all Jews, have colonized Palestine, and established a state that oppresses the indigenous people of Palestine.
The Zionist state carries out a steady policy of taking Palestinian lands and resources, while covering up their achievement of apartheid by pretending to support a “Two State Solution,” in which there would be a Zionist state and a Palestinian state, living side by side.
This story is now revealed to be false since the land of Palestine is now fully occupied except for a shrinking area of unoccupied West Bank plus a shred along the Jordan River and Dead Sea.
Further, Israel has passed a law that defines it as the State of the Jews. Currently about 20 per cent of the citizens of Israel are Palestinians and the vast majority of Palestinians are not citizens and have no rights in Israel. I note that the total populations of Jews and Palestinians in the land called Israel is about the same.
Please point out and correct which aspects of my description of the situation are incorrect or incomplete.
Edwin Embrey Daniel
Victoria
Hey, Greens, what about those other countries?
I have a simple way of approaching the concept of anti-Semitism and the logic of this method is foolproof.
By this simple logical thought process I arrive at the fact that the Green Party, or at least much of it, is anti-Semitic, and as such I could never vote for one of its candidates. Here is my thought process:
If a person, party, or group criticizing Israel does not give equal time and concern in their debates, pronouncements, and opinions about human rights, to China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, the Southern U.S., Central American dictatorships (of the left and right), North Korea, Syria, now the Taliban, not to mention Hamas in Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, then they are clearly anti-Semitic and biased against Israel the state, whether out of hatred, ignorance or naivete, which makes no _difference.
The Green Party’s endless targeting of Israel and the time they spend on the issue is a clear indication of their anti-Semitism, intended or not.
Richard Volet|
Victoria
Secondary status and no regard for rights
A letter-writer puts forward a distorted notion of Zionism, claiming that it is “simply the movement for establishment of a Jewish state and its ongoing existence.”
This overlooks the fact that Zionism has created a state whose Basic Law (effectively, its constitution) gives the right to self-determination exclusively to Jewish people.
The 20 per cent of Israel’s population who are Palestinians — the indigenous people of the region with an ancestry going back many centuries — have entirely secondary status and live under a form of apartheid.
The more than three million Palestinians in the West Bank who are subject to Israeli military occupation are controlled by martial law, and the two million who exist in the Israeli-imposed prison of Gaza have no rights whatsoever.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly declared in 2019 that “Israel is not a state of all its citizens.” To criticize Israel’s discriminatory nature is not anti-Semitism, it is respect for human rights.
Larry Hannant
Victoria
Just one question for Green candidates
With a Green supporter making an anti-Zionist point in the letters section, the issue of anti-Semitism was bound to arise in response.
Of course it will be claimed that a person can oppose Zionism without being an anti-Semite. While that sounds like a logical conclusion, in practice separating the two is not that simple.
Have no doubt there are significant forces in which anti-Zionism equates to the destruction of Israel and forms a key element in a global anti-Semitic objective. The Greens must disavow connection to such currents, no matter how tenuous.
With this issue now arising in the Green camp, we need Green candidates to answer one question: Do they support the right to the existence of the state of Israel?
The lack of an affirmative answer by Green candidates points in only one direction. Without acknowledging Israel’s right to exist, there can be no peace in the Middle East.
Paul Walton
Nanaimo
A celebration of telephone operators
A friend complained the other day about trying to contact someone in a business enterprise on the phone and getting caught in an endless litany of instructions, and was finally instructed to either go to a website or leave a message which could take some time to return.
No doubt we have all had a similar experience.
I was reminded of an incident at the age of three, when my grandmother was away for a while and left the maid to keep an eye on me.
She refused to let me go out to play. Upset, I climbed up on a chair, standing on tiptoe to reach the telephone, and cranked the handle. The operator came on the line and I said: “I want to talk to my Grandpa.”
Without hesitation, the operator said: “Just a moment, dear” and put me through to his place of business.
It causes one to wonder if we have really made progress when it has become nearly impossible to talk to a human being.
Shirley McBride
Victoria
Universal health care is on the minds of voters
Canada’s universal health-care system has finally been placed under scrutiny.
Tim Houston, Nova Scotia’s newly elected premier, campaigned on his party’s commitment to fix an ailing health-care system and won.
A recent report by the Commonwealth Fund ranked Canada’s health-care system as 10th out of 11 “high income countries.”
Canadians love our health-care system and often say that it is superior to America’s. Well, America was ranked 11th. Are we going to boast that we are 10th?
We need to address the elephant in the political room: Our universal health-care system is failing, and we are falling flat on important health care issues.
Chrystia Freeland, the finance minister, tweeted a video, flagged by Twitter as “manipulated media,” touting Canada’s health-care system. “Canada’s public, universal health-care system is one of our greatest strengths,” she asserted.
Has she even read the Commonwealth Fund report? Canada’s universal health care has had problems before, but this pandemic has laid bare a system that is now incapable of delivering its health-care outcomes.
Houston was listening when Nova Scotians complained, but apparently Freeland is not.
Universal health care should be one of the top three concerns in this election, and Canadians need to make their voices heard.
Jacqueline Foster
Duncan
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