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Letters July 22: Deuce Days a dandy diversion from doldrums; global inflation not the PM's fault

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Northwest Deuce Days participants line up in Ross Bay to take part in the Poker Run last week. DARREN STONE, TIMES COLONIST

Lots of assumptions in Deuce Days letter

Re: “Dinosaur car culture on full display,” letter, July 21.

Contrary to what the writer said, Deuce Days were a welcome event to a city deadened by dreary pandemics, depressing economic doldrums and otherwise deleterious moments in desperate need of dazzling.

And as for the “dude” owners of said Detroit iron — it is a leap of the greatest assumption to suggest that every David, Duke, Doug, Dean or Derek is, in fact, heterosexual. With the numbers of highly polished vehicles, it is statistically possible that at least a small handful of these daring hobbyists fall in part within the LGTBQ community — I mean, duh.

And, if you look closely at many of the owners: Damsels!

Ask any “wife” or “partner” of a Deuce owner and I assure you, they appreciate their focus and concentration on a pastime that keeps them close to home, out of trouble, and not sitting in fancy coffee houses, sending letters to the editor.

Colin Newell
Victoria

Dinosaurs? He’s got the wrong city

Re: “Dinosaur car culture on full display,” letter, July 21.

As a third-generation Victorian, I am unaware of any of us having fought “long and hard to put behind us” an “invasion of older white heterosexual males to parade their fetishized internal-combustion ­vehicles, etc.”

I suspect this contributor has Victoria confused with another city.

In any event, if he doesn’t like the event, don’t participate in it.

John Stevenson
Victoria

Automotive art on show for free

Re: “Dinosaur car culture on full display,” letter, July 21.

The writer clearly demonstrates that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In last weekend’s Deuce Days, the writer saw a “redneck celebration of toxic masculinity” where “good ol’ boys” paraded their “fetishized internal-combustion vehicles,” and was the last thing Victoria needed.

What I and the estimated 100,000 other attendees saw were more than 1,000 unique pieces of automotive art. The price of admission for these $100,000 to $1-million masterpieces charged by their exceptionally generous owners? Nothing.

As for the estimated economic impact of $2.5 million to $3 million, I’d suggest it was something Victoria definitely needed.

John Farquharson
Victoria

International woes not PM’s fault

Re: “Let’s elect leaders who care for us,” letter, July 21.

Who would have thought that picking cherries in the Okanagan would equate Justin Trudeau with the pyromaniac Nero and Vlad the Impaler?

Yes, unfortunately Canada is staring down a recession, but so is the rest of the world. We are part of a global economy and are not isolated or insulated from what happens globally.

There is some small solace in the fact that while our inflation rate is horrendous, it is better than what is being experienced across many other countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States.

The looming recession is a result of two years of pandemic, the war in Ukraine and global warming, not anything specific the prime minister of Canada did or didn’t do.

Picking cherries in the Okanagan showcases B.C.’s agriculture industry and the significant problems growers are experiencing as a result of climate change.

Trudeau is certainly no superhero, but neither is he an uncaring or bloodthirsty monster. He probably doesn’t even know how to play the fiddle.

Pat Jackson
Victoria

Even with the tax, there are empty homes

Re: “B.C. expands speculation tax to more empty Island homes,” July 21.

The story states that the tax was created to reduce the number of empty homes in the province.

If that’s the case, then why have two houses, one on Mars Street in Victoria and the other at the corner of Blenkinsop Road and Cedar Hill Cross Road in Saanich, been allowed to continue to exist with boarded-up windows for so many years?

Jack Knox did a column on the Mars property’s deplorable condition a decade ago.

The photos on the B.C. Assessment website are worth a thousand words apiece: both are decrepit shells, fenced off and/or with trees blocking the windows — one shudders to think about the degree of mould and other effects of long-term neglect that must exist inside.

With the crying need for affordable housing, why isn’t the government insisting that their absentee owners sell these properties so that these eyesores can be torn down and replaced with decent homes for families that really need them?

To the ministry responsible, cut the list of exemptions, or should I say loopholes, that have allowed these owners to escape their responsibilities for four years now, and fulfil the purpose of this tax.

Lorraine Lindsay
Saanich

A private clinic helped a return to work

Re: “Where is logic in fighting private health care?” letter, July 20.

I agree. We already have to pay for so many treatments and yet if we are desperate for surgery we are forced to wait.

Our son (a bush pilot) injured his back and was signed off on worker’s compensation. He was told it would be two years before he could see a surgeon and was prescribed painkillers.

He spent one year off work, losing his mind, before he managed to get into the Vancouver Cambie clinic that is about to be shut down. A small operation later, he was back at work doing what he loved and off pain medication.

How could this be wrong? What is wrong is expecting a young person to live for two years on strong pain medication with the possibility of becoming addicted.

Lisa Miller
Victoria

Follow Cuba’s model in health-care service

There is an obvious and easily accomplished solution to the shortage of family doctors, which is being strenuously opposed by the political belief systems of vested interests which are determined to maintain the counter-productive status quo.

The health care of a country’s citizenry must surely be at the top of its list of priorities. For that reason governments, federal and provincial, must immediately start building many more medical schools with free tuition and living expenses for all those who qualify for admission.

We don’t really need any more rainbow crosswalks, sensitivity training programs or overpaid thought police in universities. We need to spend money on immediate life-and-death issues that confront us.

Cuba, with all its obvious shortcomings, has managed to figure this out. Despite its endemic poverty, it has in the past been recognized by the World Health Organization as having the best public health system in the world. The country has so many general practitioners and specialists it is able to share these with other less sophisticated Latin American and even African countries.

Graduating doctors must practise in remote rural communities for five years before assuming a setting of their choice. This caveat ensures that such communities will always have access to first-rate medical care, as new graduates will replace those who have completed their period of indenture. Not surprisingly, many who have fulfilled their obligation to the state choose to remain in their rural settings, within which they have become integral parts of their communities.

We need to distance ourselves from the ruinous U.S. mindset, which bankrupts thousands of people when they are confronted by crushing medical expenses that ought properly to be assumed by a caring state.

No one should needlessly die simply because they are poor.

John C. Simpson
Victoria

A decision that thrills clinics in Bellingham

Last Friday, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled against a lawsuit arguing that Canadians are denied their Charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person when the public health-care system fails to provide adequate care.

More than 11,000 Canadians died in 2020-21 waiting for surgery or specialist appointments, a fact acknowledged by Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon. Yet the court ruled against allowing patients denied public care to pursue a private alternative, an option available to the people of almost every other developed country.

Let that sink in. The court decided that the principle of free-only health care is more important than Canadian lives.

The ruling established no conditional boundaries: the health-care system could literally collapse and this judgment would still impose no legal compulsion on the government to improve matters or allow citizens any recourse.

But there has always been a private option for the very wealthy: To cross the border, and this decision was surely greeted with glee by clinics in Bellingham. Why must so many Canadian health-care dollars continue to be spent on Americans?

Don’t they have enough already? Isn’t it time that money went to Canadian doctors and nurses?

Peter Scott
Victoria

Why is there no progress on the Roundhouse?

When my wife and I moved to Vic West three and a half years ago we were excited to see large billboards advertising the eminent development of the E&N Railroad Roundhouse Marketplace.

It seemed to us that this might be similar to Granville Island in Vancouver or The Forks in Winnipeg. We later were sorry to hear that the billboards had been up for years with no real progress.

We would like to know the reason for the delay. If the city is opposed to the project, then it should state the reasons. Perhaps the developer could make changes to their plans that would be acceptable to the city. We also heard that a component of the development would include “affordable housing,” which is desperately needed.

If I have the opportunity, I intend to ask the candidates for the fall election.

Terry Imhoff
Victoria

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