Shying away from celebrating our flag
Adrian Raeside hit the proverbial nail on the head with his Feb. 15 cartoon about the Canadian flag.
Never thought I would see the day where I too might shy from flying our flag due to the anti-vaxxers and Freedom Clowns!
Sad state of affairs. Let the majority of us be heard.
Mike Irwin
Sidney
COVID-test lottery is a costly waste
On Feb. 12 I arrived at the Victoria airport on a direct flight from Puerto Vallarta that was only two-thirds full of vaccinated and COVID-negative travellers.
I had taken a PCR test ($150 Cdn) within 72 hours of departure and had completed the ArriveCan app. The negative results were written on the hospital letterhead. I am asymptomatic and triple vaccinated.
At YYJ the agent looked at my passport and took the travel documentation filled in on the plane, but never looked at my PCR results or asked other questions.
He thrust six pages of testing instructions and a cardboard box at me and waved me on my way. I had won the “selected arrival testing” lottery.
I had 24 hours to submit the self-administered swab to comply with the instructions from a quarantine officer or I could be “transferred to a quarantine facility, face fines and/or imprisoned.”
I completed a virtual swab test and packaged the sample back into the box. My husband delivered the FedEx package to a local lab.
I am quarantined until I get negative results faxed to me. This could take up to five days.
What a colossal waste of money — the virtual interview, the fancy testing kit, the postage and the lab work to take a test that I just recently completed.
The PCR testing upon leaving Mexico, or any other country for that matter, makes sense, although at the cost charged seems to be a money grab as much as a deterrent. While I don’t support the truckers’ blockades, it is easy to understand why the general population is getting frustrated with the COVID mandates.
Anne Boldt
James Bay
Our freedoms are being eroded
I was rather surprised to see so many letters from writers who do not support the Freedom Truck protests.
Obviously there are many Canadians who have no idea that our freedoms in Canada are being eroded constantly, and that soon Canada will be a country that is unrecognizable from the one we had just a few years ago.
I suggest that all Canadians look into the details of the Trudeau government legislation making its way through Parliament. Specifically Bill C-10 and Bill C-36.
If nothing in the wording of these bills worries you, I guess that you really put little value on your personal freedoms.
We get what we vote for. Thus, we get leaders we deserve. And the whole nation will pay the price.
Bill Wilson
Saanichton
Don’t take away freedom from others
Growing up, freedom was described as the right to do your own thing, as long as you did not infringe on other people’s rights and freedom.
When a protest takes away your freedom of movement or ability to go to work, who protects your freedoms? The police? The law? Politicians? Courts? The answer is: Nobody.
Watching those we think would protect our freedoms is like watching poorly co-ordinated people play dodgeball. Politicians claim it is not their jurisdiction or they do not interfere with policing.
Police claim they have no authority, direction or resources. Attorneys general claim they do not get involved with policing. Courts simply refuse to provide deterrents.
As the latest protest tramples on the rights of the 80 per cent of Canadians who did the right thing to protect themselves and others, it’s hard not to think of what happened in the U.S. capitol.
Those who scream freedom while disregarding rights and freedoms are hypocrites.
Arthur Duhame
Campbell River
Freedom fighters need to follow new leaders
A simple message to the protesters who block our streets and highways here and in our nation’s capital.
They say they are demanding freedom to do what they want. Their strategy is to hold the rest of Canada hostage through blockades until their demands are met.
They, and we, should all understand that if our government caves into their demands, freedom as we know it will be gone.
Giving into their demands would set a precedent to all other fringe groups that this is the path to achieving their desires.
We as Canadians should never be held hostage to anybody, anytime. Our freedom allows us to hold political demonstrations; however, blockades and abuse and destruction will never achieve positive results.
So to all those people involved in these “hostage takings” who think they are freedom fighters, take my advice and find some new leaders who can show you the best way to voice your concerns instead of following the internet wackos you appear to be following now.
Go home, your strategy is not working.
Shan O’Hara
Langford
Bouncy castles are not a threat
It’s a sad day when a prime minister says a peaceful protest with bouncy castles is a threat to democracy.
Art Dennison
Sooke
College has brought in retired doctors
The registrar and CEO of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. seems to suggest that the shortage of doctors providing primary care is being alleviated by “re-registering eligible retired physicians and surgeons to assist with the pandemic response,” and goes on to note that more than 470 of them have signed up to “support health authority resourcing, contact tracing and vaccinations.”
Really? How does this help with providing primary care to people?
As a retired but able-bodied nurse I, as well as many of my colleagues, was available and perfectly able to do the kind of support that the letter-writer noted.
Retired RNs, LPNs and RPNs are able to contribute to the pandemic response, yet we were not called upon to do so, even as many of us put our names forward.
What we can’t do is provide primary care, the care that doctors provide. Whatever the letter-writer was thinking, there is still no solution to the lack of primary-care doctors.
Tsiporah Gottlieb
Sidney
Closing of clinics should bring new thinking
After having read many letters pointing out the silliness of expecting doctors to be small-business people and running offices on top of running a medical practice, it seems to me there’s an opportunity here.
When I look at the project about to be approved in Colwood, more than $1 billion in development, surely there was some possibility there to require the developer to allocate some of the space to a medical office.
Either the community could ask the developer to donate the space or the provincial government should take over the expenses of it. The doctors could come and practise without worrying about all of the overhead.
Combine that with a provincial plan for administration of medical offices, sharing the workload and centralizing a lot of the records, and surely the overhead costs could be brought down considerably.
It’s time for some creative thinking.
Peter Jennings
Saanich
Family physicians need appropriate pay
I have noted with interest further closures of medical clinics and the severe shortages of family physicians in Victoria.
One of the factors influencing these closures is the inappropriate payment of the online virtual episodic contact with random physicians versus personal face-to-face care by your family physician.
It is time to reduce the fee to physicians for phone calls and virtual service. The money saved should be reallocated. Family physicians deserve and need to be paid more for their valuable face-to-face services.
Medical services plan could make these adjustments to the fee schedule very quickly.
If medical services cannot pay our family physicians sufficiently, it is time to consider direct payment for patients to receive proper health care from their family physician.
If we are willing to pay substantially for tradesmen and other professionals for their services, why can we not pay our physician appropriately as well?
Dr. Donna Wallace
Retired family physician
Victoria
Where is the sense in new dairy fees?
Can someone please explain the logic in a purchase I made?
I bought a one-litre cardboard container of 1% milk and a one-litre cardboard container of 10% cream. Apart from the labels telling the content, the cartons were identical. Nevertheless, the cream carton was charged a six-cent ecological fee and a 10-cent refundable (if cashed in) deposit whereas the milk carton was not charged anything extra.
Yes, I know those are the new rules. I want to know the logic in them, since it is supposedly the container that is charged, not the contents.
Saying it’s the difference between milk being a beverage and cream a coffee additive isn’t necessarily so. I use milk or milk and cream in cereal and never drink them and drink my coffee black.
If the deposits are worthwhile, put deposits on all the same type of carton, regardless of size and regardless of content. And skip the ecological fee. It’s a six-cent price grab with nothing more of value then previously.
Iain Barr
Victoria
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