If we can reach the moon, then the E&N can work
Some people are big fans of the E&N Dayliner, while others feel they’ve been taken for a ride on an invisible train that comes with a lot of baggage.
Since 2011, taxpayers have paid $7 million annually for a ticket for a train that has gone nowhere. Has it become the invisible train like the one in Old Town at the Royal B.C. Museum? When the Dayliner ran, it was almost empty, ran in the opposite direction to rush hour and the ticket reservation counter was back east in the twilight zone.
Here’s an idea: The government should create a scratch ticket to support the rebuilding of the Via Rail transportation link. The bonus section on the scratch ticket might include the words Breakdowns, Blockades or Bankruptcy to indicate the costs and reality of operating a train. When the train is resurrected, it could carry a dining car offering Island- produced food, wines and craft beers. The government might gamble by carrying a casino car. The caboose could allow for cannabis. These passengers wouldn’t care what time the train arrives.
The sin tax profits would ensure that there would be a light at the end of every tunnel. The supply-chain train must be electric and plug in at various towns as needed.
Refurbished sleeper cars could be dropped off to provide affordable housing to remote towns that need summer farm labourers or temporary winter accommodation for those working at resorts and spas.
Tourists and locals could shuttle in comfort from storm watching, biking, skiing or Malahat road closures. Perhaps old-growth forest tourists could volunteer getting a free ride and become tree planters.
The $90-billion Canadian National railway corporation could provide expertise and financial support.
An efficient commuter train could provide additional tourism, carry museum artifacts for display, mobile medical care and doctors without buildings.
For national security, it could rapidly deploy military or rescue personnel for washed-up hazardous ship containers, intrusive foreign fishing vessels, earthquake disasters or a portable bomb-removal unit when needed.
If we can put a man on the moon and a rover on Mars, surely we can engineer a train that could remain on track or, at least, break even.
Art Bickerton
Saanich
Giving a used home a second life
The discussion around the City of Victoria’s deconstruction ordinance has not appeared to include any mention of Nickel Brothers, the house movers.
When I wanted to build a new home in Fairfield 16 years ago, Nickel Brothers cut the existing 1955 small stucco bungalow house from its pony wall, concrete footing/foundation and brick chimney, and moved it away. This was a complex project as both tree branches and hydro lines were in the way.
If memory has not failed me, they paid me $1 and the house was barged to new owners in the San Juan Islands. I believe this saved about $25,000 in demolition and dumping fees.
My contractor’s excavation/demolition sub contractor came by and pulled the one-metre-high concrete basement retaining wall and slab away. A few taps with his backhoe reduced the 50-year-old chimney mortar to dust, freeing most of the bricks which were sold for 25 cents a brick.
The concrete walls had no rebar, clearly an oversight by the original mid-century builders. The concrete slab had only wire mesh reinforcement. While Douglas fir strengthens (perhaps that aids in barging) as it ages, poured concrete deteriorates.
The dumping fees for that dusty rubble and the retaining/basement walls were relatively modest. The house itself, I assume, became someone’s island retreat.
Nickel Brothers is still working in our community. I hope the utility of their services makes the City of Victoria’s environmentally positive deconstruction ordinance an easier mouthful for building contractors to swallow.
Every aspect of house construction is expensive. House removal and relocation have given many historic homes and even a few modest stuccoed bungalows like mine a second life.
Andrew Beckerman
Victoria
Don’t blame Raeside for dividing the country
So two letter-writers are concerned that Raeside’s cartoon is dividing us more than bringing us together.
In my opinion it is the so called freedom fighter, anti-vaxxers and convoy protests that drove us apart in the first place.
It’s time for the disgruntled to realize that they live in the most democratic and free country in the world. The government imposed mandates, mask wearing and vaccines to slow down and eventually end the devastating effects of the COVID pandemic, and it worked.
As containment progressed, mandates were dropped. Most Canadians did the right thing for themselves and their fellow Canadians by adhering to the advice of our health-care experts.
Were some of the rules an inconvenience? Sure, but the end result was Canada was successful in saving lives and blunting the pandemic.
Despite this we had a very vocal minority challenge the rules and demanding they have the right to put Canadians at risk by not getting vaccinated, not wearing masks and not following health guidelines.
They held Ottawa hostage, blocked border crossings and harassed health-care workers while ignoring that mandates, masks and vaccines saved lives.
What did convoys do other than create noise pollution, air pollution and disrupt Canadians by blocking streets and local businesses?
They hijacked the Canadian flag by tying it to a hockey stick in the back of a pickup truck as a symbol of protest.
I don’t think a cartoon is keeping us apart.
You want change, you have the opportunity every four years to vote in a new government, but remember that majority rules. As a proud Canadian I do have hope that all Canadians can work together in the future for a better country, but it is not a smooth road.
Doug Puritch
Campbell River
Let’s have a new flag for the protesters to use
Instead of allowing the use of the Canadian flag for protests, why not have a contest to design a protest flag? This would leave the Canadian flag to be used as an expression of love for our country.
The protest flag would be instantly recognizable as a symbol of hate for all the things that disgust the protesters.
That way we can return to flying our country’s flag without fearing repercussions.
John Adlersparre
Sooke
A thank-you to staff at VGH
I recently had major surgery at the Victoria General Hospital and want to thank the amazing OR staff and the staff on floor 7A.
I’ve been hospitalized many times and never have I seen so many cheerful faces! My surgeon, anesthetist and the other OR staff made me laugh and encouraged me before putting me under, and did an excellent job with the surgery.
The nursing staff on 7A were short-staffed for a portion of my stay and patient beds lined the hallways, but they were unfailingly kind, compassionate and pleasant.
I am sure they have stresses working in an understaffed and underfunded system, but not once did I feel they were handling it poorly.
A job well done. Now, Health Minister Adrian Dix, let’s reward these excellent people with the resources they need.
Leanne Parrott
Victoria
Thanks to those keeping others healthy
“Freedom” has nothing to do with masking and vaxxing. We mask to prevent ourselves from infecting others. We get vaxxed so that if we catch COVID, we do not wind up in the hospital.
Once vaccines became available and since, the vast majority of people hospitalized with COVID became the unvaxxed.
My aortic valve wore out last September and had to be surgically replaced. If local hospitals had been overrun with COVID patients, there would not have been a bed for me, my heart would not have been repaired, and I would be dead.
In addition to thanking the amazing team of doctors, nurses, surgeons, support and administrative staff at Royal Jubilee Hospital and Island Health, I want to thank my fellow citizens who understand we mask and vax to support each other’s health and made it possible for RJH to accommodate me at a moment of dire need.
Bill Appledorf
Victoria
Don’t talk of freedom when taking it from others
Taking away my freedom to drive on a public highway, to get to the hospital for long-awaited treatment, or to a loved one’s funeral is not a “freedom” convoy.
It is a selfish activity that takes away the freedoms of many of your fellow citizens whose lives are disrupted by these actions.
Time to stop and consider the rights of others for a change.
Dorothy Mullen
Victoria
Working together with specialists
Re: “Change the rules on referrals to physician specialists,” editorial, June 24.
The Victoria Division of Family Practice shares the perspective that gatekeeping access to specialists through re-referrals is not the best use of family doctors’ time.
This system stems from a time when access to primary care was widely available to patients and this mechanism made sense.
The editorial suggests that re-referrals every six months are in the interest of family doctors and that family doctors can bill for such repeat referrals.
Fact is that family doctors want to focus on providing excellent longitudinal primary care to their patients and not on unnecessary paperwork. In order for a specialist to continue to see a patient after six months regarding the same medical condition, a re-referral process is usually not medically required and adds to the administrative work physicians are already overburdened with.
Furthermore, family doctors are in fact not able to bill for these re-referrals. If a re-referral is made as part of an appointment, family doctors receive compensation for that appointment. In most cases, however, re-referrals are admin work that is done outside an appointment, without any compensation.
Local family doctors have no interest in maintaining the current re-referral system. Rather, we would like to see representative family doctors and specialists working together with support from all organizations involved to improve the outdated system of gatekeeping access to specialists.
Drs. Tim Troughton and Caroline van Es
Co-chairs, Victoria Division of Family Practice
Where will that museum money be spent?
Premier John Horgan’s admission that he made the wrong call, and his decision to stop the $1-billion misallocated expenditure to replace the Royal B.C. Museum, were absolutely right.
Unfortunately it should have been unnecessary if essential services priorities were top-of-mind with this government. Clearly this was not the case, and apparently continues to be.
Horgan insisted that the funds allocated to the RBCM replacement were not “an either/or proposition.” He stressed that it is one per cent of the capital budget and it does not come at the expense of meeting other essential needs.
Taking him at his word, now that these funds are no longer earmarked for the RBCM replacement and they are in the budget, will he commit to reallocate these funds to health improvements?
Don’t hold your breath. They will be squandered on other non-essentials. The next election is not soon enough.
N.G. Giuliany
Colwood
A question: Where do deer go to die?
I’ve always wondered why we don’t see deer carcasses, skeletons or buck antlers in our neighbourhoods, parks and forests.
Every year the bucks shed their antlers, and hundreds of deer must die of old age, illness or accidents. I assume it would take some time for a large deer to decompose or be eaten by predatory animals.
Think of all the deer in residential Oak Bay and the Uplands, and not a forest or large park within miles. One would think there should be buck antlers and rotting carcasses lying everywhere, plus vultures circling overhead. But there aren’t.
Can someone answer the question and put me out of my misery?
N.J. Hughes
Victoria
Push government to deal with the climate
One of the most significant collective projects in the history of humanity can be summed up in three words: flatten the curve.
Another curve has been concave up since the 1950s: the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The curve shows that as the climate worsens, the faster it changes.
The pandemic provided an opportunity to rehearse future collective actions. Mitigating climate change by bending the CO2 curve downward is the collective project of our time.
Our individual participation matters, but our ability to push government to make significant policy changes matters even more.
Kip Wood
Nanaimo
Who pays the bills when the street name changes?
When it comes to renaming Trutch Street in Victoria, does the city pick up all the fees and lost time of the residents of Trutch when it comes to changing all their legal documents, such as driver’s licence, passport and banking information, just to name a few?
Once again city councillors are putting their own agenda ahead of the citizens of Victoria. But I guess they are used to it by now.
Steve Harvey
Saanich
Canada’s national bird? Here is an idea
On the basis of the way our governments at all levels have been performing lately, I think our national bird should be a turkey.
Mike Holt
Victoria
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