Premiers need a new sales pitch
Pretend you are a sales representative with a great idea and a great product that you are trying to sell to a big, important client.
An example could be B.C. Premier John Horgan and his sales team, composed of all the so-called leaders of the provinces and territories of Canada. They all travel to Victoria, stay in the best hotel in the city, eat the best food, drink the finest wine and spend two days preparing their sales pitch.
There seems to be one thing missing: the client they hope to pitch. He’s 3,000 kilometres away. Instead of going to where the client lives, Horgan and his sales team spend two days in lavish surroundings, all at our expense, bitching and complaining about their potential client, negative news that travels across our nation.
This is what we have for leadership today? Are you wondering why the whole thing, not just health care, is a financial disaster?
Do you think Horgan’s client, the prime minister of Canada, is excited about his sales ideas and he can’t wait to buy in?
It all came across as pathetic and not much is likely to change because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has nothing to fear politically. He is in bed with the NDP federally, and his opposition Conservatives are a self-destructive joke.
Trudeau might throw doggy a bone, but what we are living with is here for the long haul. Everyone is running out of money.
Jim Laing
Saanich
Want better health care? Pay for it
For years, experts and commissions and groups have been monitoring our health-care system and putting forth projections and recommendations. All of those projections have come to pass, but none of the recommendations have been implemented.
The reason is simple: There’s not enough money, and politicians are afraid to address that problem.
Our premier and his “partners” from across Canada spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at the Empress this week in a political stunt to demand that the federal government do what the provinces have failed to do.
They want the federal government to give them billions of dollars to spend as they please in the name of increasing health care.
That’s it. That’s all they managed to accomplish.
And where would the federal government get the money? From the taxpayers.
At the same time, the premiers want no strings attached, as administering the health-care system is the responsibility of the provinces.
What’s the point of sending money to Ottawa just to have them send it all back? We could raise the same amount through provincial medical insurance premiums.
In B.C., about $5 billion is needed annually, about $1,000 per person. If the provinces would bring back MSP premiums, so we can see what our medical insurance costs are, I would accept whatever is necessary to provide whatever level of care we collectively want, or at least think is needed.
The provinces want control of the system so they should accept responsibility for paying for it — but every premier knows that the surest way to lose their job is to announce a substantial, albeit necessary, tax increase.
Let’s stop demanding that the government do something without assuring them that we will not hang them for charging us what the service requires. It’s time we got our priorities right with regard to our spending habits.
Jack Trueman
Brentwood Bay
Health care in B.C. is a disaster
It is tragic, and brings tears to the eyes, to read letters regarding our health-care crisis. Reading where an unwell older lady with a walker is told to return for blood work in four hours is heart-wrenching.
There is no higher priority in this province than health care. The premier must stop blaming the federal government for this unrelenting disaster and suggesting they are doing the best they can. Their best is quite seriously not nearly good enough.
We have ministers travelling around the province dispensing billions of dollars on their pet projects. The premier proposed spending almost one billion dollars to build a new museum. The highways minister is committing almost $100 million for a flyover on the Pat Bay Highway.
No matter how noble the causes, this government needs to suspend all unnecessary spending in every B.C. ministry until this health-care disaster is resolved.
A logical and simple administrative improvement has been suggested for blood clinics. To that end, let the premier form a body of ministers and stakeholders to immediately come up with the same type of simple improvements in every element of the provincial health-care system.
When high-priority cancer patients cannot even receive a simple and expedient blood test in the largest hospital in the province, to possibly improve their quality of life and/or potentially save their lives, we have an unmitigated disaster at hand.
We need action from this government, and we need it now.
Harry J. Rice
Victoria
No turning back if housing plan OK’d
I attended the City of Victoria’s online missing middle housing information session. I thought staff answers to some questions from residents were vague and even evasive.
I have grave concerns about the impact of this permanent change on many aspects of our beautiful, livable city, including its impact on existing affordable rental housing.
Unlike many other cities, such as Vancouver, Toronto and Portland, Victoria is not proceeding with caution or in stages. It’s important to realize that if council approves these changes and reviews them in two years, as suggested, it will face serious legal challenges to down-zone.
Developers and property owners could sue for loss of investment potential. The proposal is an extreme, experimental, yet permanent, change.
Jean Wallace
Victoria
Cast wider net when changing names
Since politicians in B.C. are determined to rename streets or other place names of individuals who had nefarious history with Indigenous people, maybe they should also focus attention on Spanish names of streets, towns and islands. Do we really know the Indigenous interactions with Malaspina, Quadra, Galiano, Tofino, Flores or other Spaniards that have places in B.C. named after them?
These Spanish explorers were members of the Spanish Empire, which history shows was absolutely brutal to the Indigenous people in Central and South America.
Are there any places in B.C. commemorating U.S. presidents George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or the other 10 presidents who were slave owners?
If we do, then maybe they should be struck off as well.
Bob Enwright
Saanich
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