Price gouging? Not with these cookies
Supermarkets are using many excuses as to why food prices are rising. We have heard them all.
Here is an interesting case. Six years ago, and maybe before that, a local supermarket chain was selling Dutch-produced Speculaas cookies for $4.99 a package.
About a year later they lowered the price to $3.99. Today, five years later, the price is still $3.99!
How do these cookies get here? Are they not affected by fuel costs, carbon taxes, etc? Is the baker not having to pay more for ingredients or labour? As stated, they come from Holland and are not baked domestically.
I am certain the supermarket didn’t have six years in stock. If they did, they would raise prices. The whole talk of gouging comes to light in this example.
Now, when you go to buy your Speculaas, don’t be surprised if the price has suddenly shot up. It’s my fault.
William Jesse
Victoria
This new holiday costly to business
B.C. Labour Minister Harry Bains says he is both proud and humbled to be part of what he considers a historic step, as a British Columbian to follow the introduction of a holiday to recognize the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
I wonder if Bains ever considered the cost to employers, in the sum of multimillions of dollars to fund yet another holiday.
Many businesses are still struggling to overcome some very difficult years and now the uncertain financial climate of the future. This one extra statutory holiday will cost my medium-sized business over $35,000.
Do I just absorb this cost, or do I try to pass it on to customers? Could we have not just observed the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation without declaring it a holiday?
Tim Hackett
Brentwood Bay
Talking hasn’t deterred Putin’s ambitions
Re: “Tanks but no negotiation is bad news for Ukraine,” commentary, Feb. 1.
Although it was understandable considering William S. Geimer’s dangerously naïve admonition to try negotiations with Russia rather than supplying better weapons, I was still disappointed in the response from Orest Zakydalsky, senior policy adviser for the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.
Geimer is at least correct that in this war, as in all wars, propaganda is the primary weapon. This is what birthed the old adage that truth is the first casualty of war.
But we have ample empirical evidence to discredit Geimer’s thesis. Talking has consistently been going on, hence the prisoner exchanges, the movement of grain out of Ukraine’s southern ports, and Western leaders talking to Putin, but it hasn’t blunted his determination to carry out the task he openly set out on almost 20 years ago.
Ukraine is awash in journalists, independent think-tanks and Western officials who have witnessed a sea of devastation and gruesome carnage.
But Zakydalsky’s admonition of the Times Colonist for printing Geimer’s op-ed is poorly considered. Geimer may be wrong, but he has that right and the paper has the duty to print his opinion. It is how discussions advance in a democracy. I would suggest that, rather than rolling over for Russia, NATO and its allies should be openly and aggressively training Ukrainian fighters in advance on the use and maintenance of its best weapons — including the F-16s and even the F-22 — so that next time a belated decision is made to send advanced tanks and missile systems, there is no delay in getting them into the fight so Russia doesn’t have an open opportunity to capture as much ground as possible before the weapons can stop them.
Gerry Klein
Maple Bay
Explain the politics behind the slogan
Re: “Individual actors should be blamed for anti-Ukrainian harassment on campuses,” commentary, Feb. 6.
Kudos to Tyan Cherepuschak for pointing out a regrettable trend in today’s political environment.
Too often, if a group or individual finds themselves facing challenging political criticism, the tendency is to shout to the skies about being harassed, having feelings hurt, or being “unsafe.”
Based on his experience as the former vice-president of the UVic Ukrainian Students’ Society (USS), Cherepuschak makes it clear that what’s going on at UVic is political contention, not harassment.
So UVic’s USS will need to come up with a political argument why it publicly supports a slogan like “Slava Ukraini” that reeks from its long association with far-right and antisemitic politics in Ukraine.
Larry Hannant
Victoria
Topic of museum(s) brings opportunities
Learning of the possibility of the CPR Steamship Building becoming the new home for the Maritime Museum of B.C. is exciting and certainly a perfect location on the Inner Harbour. But I couldn’t help but feel that the Bateman Gallery needs a setting of significance.
As an apprentice carpenter, I worked on an addition to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in 1978. A new art gallery with its exhibitions of Emily Carr, Indigenous and Asian collections, joined with a Bateman exhibition in a new waterfront location such as the lower Wharf Street parking lot could be a world-class attraction bringing many benefits to the city.
Having the Royal B.C. Museum, Maritime Museum, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and a new performance area at Ship Point all within walking distance on the Inner Harbour would be appropriate for B.C.’s capital city and would make Victoria a world-class city for the arts, provide much enjoyment for local residents and ensure success for the tourism industry for decades.
Wayne Cox
Saanichton
Health minister must take action quickly
From 1989-2001, I was a general surgeon in Victoria, but chose to leave at age 55 for the United States. This was mainly due to long hours and not being able to advocate for timely care of those patients referred to me.
Waiting lists for elective cases were six to 12 months, urgent cases were being done after dark and on weekends due to lack of beds and nursing staff. Places in long-term care were not available for those taking up a hospital bed in acute care.
The only difference now, 20 years later, is that the situation is worse.
This has been brought home to my wife and me, now both 76, as she awaits surgery. I will not spell out her condition as this would unfairly lead to attacks on the surgeon she has been referred to, who like all surgeons has zero influence on the waiting lists.
This fault lies with the Vancouver Island Health Authority and its senior administrative staff and board of directors. The same people who have allowed the situation to get this bad are still in charge.
It is time for the minister of health to either receive their resignations or fire them as has happened next door in Alberta.
Throwing more money at hospitals will not change what is happening. Adding more doctors, especially surgeons, will not help as there is only a limited amount of operating-room time to be apportioned among all the players.
As a retired colleague from the Maritimes wrote to me recently, it is hard to be self-righteous about health care in Canada right now.
Those who stand up for universal health care clearly do not have the remotest understanding of the true state of affairs. The pandemic simply exposed the depth of the problems that have been present for a generation.
Politicians see only a short way down the road to the next election. The minister of health needs to take drastic action to address the situation and not simply adopt more of the same.
Bill Dunlop
Parksville
Let’s face the facts: Jupiter as a moon hog
I am howling at the moon about a recent article in the Times Colonist informing us that Jupiter now has 92 moons.
By Jove, how much cheese can one planet eat? The gravity of this situation eclipses all other celestial concerns.
One planet in the solar system having such lunar bounty, while others go with one moon, or in the case of our neighbour Venus, no moons, is unacceptable.
In dealing with this situation, as with any moon-related endeavour, I suggest a phased approach.
Firstly, we should send a strongly worded letter to the Jovian authorities. Secondly, we should send all our elected officials to Jupiter for in-person dialogue (which will have the added benefit of ridding Earth of its elected officials).
Thirdly, and only in the eventuality that nothing else has worked, we should take to social media with a frenzy of biting memes mocking Jupiter and her many moons.
Yes, the time for simply mooning about has passed; it is time to shoot for the moon and let Jupiter know the honeymoon is over and that our patience is waning.
There are 219 moons in our solar system (not counting shunned Pluto’s five moons); surely a more equitable distribution is not mere moonshine.
Let us work together to get beyond this dark side of moon matters, and return to a solar systemic sea of tranquillity.
Michael Erwin
Saanich
Earth
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