No more waiting for tough times to pass
Re: “Be careful of demands in these tough times,” editorial, Aug. 18.
My, how the tune has rapidly changed regarding the “value” of these irrepressible, irreplaceable COVID troopers who stood their ground and carried the load in maintaining everyone’s lifestyle for several years during the pandemic.
Now they are money-grubbing, thoughtless picketers. Imagine having the temerity to demand that your wage package not be disintegrated by seven per cent inflation (maybe worse) and ask that your working conditions (including abuse of part-time workers) be improved.
The editorial disparages the union negotiating position and flouts all the “goodies” the employer is offering and even calls this job action “one of the least well-timed industrial action in recent B.C. history.” We shall see.
Anyone on either side of the negotiating table knows that a “signing bonus” no matter the dollar value disappears like a puff of smoke when spent. Percentage increases are forever.
It’s time for the community and this editorial writer to recognize the contribution of these workers all the time, but especially in demanding times of social stress.
It’s time for all workers to “catch up and keep.” No more waiting for these “tough times” to pass.
Max Miller
Saanich
Bars, restaurants hurt by BCGEU picketing
The BCGEU picketing of Liquor Distribution Branch location has resulted in B.C. Liquor Stores limiting purchases. This is certainly an inconvenience for the public, but not the end of the world as there are many private liquor stores.
More concerning is the effect on bars, pubs and restaurants, which have barely weathered the COVID shutdowns and interruptions. Many workers in bars and restaurants were laid off or on reduced hours. Many owners of restaurants wondered if their business would survive.
Just when things were looking up for the hospitality industry, another disruption. How many BCGEU employees had the luxury of working from home, with full salary during the pandemic?
How many bar, pub and restaurant employees worked from home with full salary? None.
The BCGEU is targeting a profit centre for the government in an attempt to get leverage on the employer. The lack of thought to the collateral damage in the private sector is shameful.
The offer to the BCGEU is an 11 per cent pay raise plus a $2,500 signing bonus. How many bar, pub and restaurant workers would jump at that offer? All of them.
Except they are pawns in a fight with the BCGEU, that never really suffered during COVID, and the government. This strike action is opportunistic and shameful.
Kevin Burns
Victoria
No position to preach on that salary
Re: “Be careful of demands in these tough times,” editorial, Aug. 18.
I find this example rather telling: “employees making $35,512 annually.”
I rather suspect that the writer of this piece makes quite a bit more than $35,212 per year, and is in absolutely no position to lecture others on what they should demand for a salary.
Bruce Clarke
Victoria
Maybe they could walk in the shoes of a senior
I am getting a kick out of the BCGEU strike for higher wages and cost-of-living money. These people should try to live on a lot of seniors’ monthly pensions.
I wrote to the minister of seniors and told her she would have to raise my pension by $600 a month for me to reach the bottom of the poverty level in B.C.
I am a math wizard now who knows how much a day I can spend on anything. With all the prices going up daily, I don’t know what else I can cut out of my life.
A sense of humour only goes so far, then depression hits. Walk a mile in our shoes.
Carol Dunsmuir
Victoria
Remove the roadblocks so we can have doctors
Re: “Physicians trained abroad face hard way home,” Aug. 20.
The B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons needs to come down from its ivory tower and get rid of the bureaucratic nonsense that keeps qualified Canadian doctors and others who are practising elsewhere from returning to Canada.
For the College to reject a Canadian doctor, who studied internal medicine at Georgetown University and who not only practises there but who also teaches medical residents there and who wants to come back to Canada, boggles the mind.
There are many other examples of practising doctors who want to come to work in B.C.
If the College’s role is to “maintain robust standards and requirements for registration and licensing so that B.C. patients can receive the best possible care from their physician or surgeon” it is not working and rings hollow when thousands of B.C. residents have no doctor.
Time for the College to remove these roadblocks, which not only frustrate the doctors but also leave many residents in danger of receiving no medical care at all.
Dorothy Mullen
Victoria
Using a back door to work in Canada
Re: “Physicians trained abroad face hard way home,” Aug. 20.
Let’s call a spade a spade. Students who go overseas for their initial medical training, especially the Caribbean, only did so because they did not get entry into any of Canada’s medical schools.
Often their parents have the money to support them in a back-door entry into medicine. In order to be fair to the thousands of other Canadian students who failed entry, Canada never makes it easy for these often-privileged candidates to sneak back into the mainstream.
Don’t play the “we want to help Canada” card when the real motive is just to squeeze into a system where you previously failed to measure up in a fair competition.
Chris Hoskins, FRCS
Victoria
Need more information about doctor shortage
Re: “Physicians trained abroad face hard way home,” Aug. 20.
Next, please tell us how the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia is constituted and how its membership is chosen, and if the province can override any of these absurd, outdated and expensive requirements for licensing foreign-trained physicians.
In many ways B.C. is an enlightened province, our Medical Assistance in Dying regime is notably progressive, there is an open, forward-looking atmosphere here in many endeavours. B.C. people are friendly, conversational, informed, intelligent, good listeners, compared with many communities elsewhere.
I even heard of surpluses in the provincial budget. So what is wrong with the doctor situation? This article gives us a hint. Tell us also about Doctors of B.C., what does that organization do, and can it help lobby the provincial government and the College?
Is it that the College of Physicians and Surgeons is hampered because its governing body is too busy in ERs, practising medicine, or burned out running our one medical school and mired in academic politics and decision-making, which anyone who has experienced it knows is time-consuming?
Please, College of Physicians and Surgeons, UBC and the Ministry of Health, do something fast to change this situation.
It is strange we have not heard any statements, replies, comments, explanations, nothing from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, or the University of British Columbia — and aside from the excellent establishment of the Urgent and Primary Care Centres, also short of doctors, only some hand-wringing from the provincial Ministry of Health.
A month or two back a letter or opinion article appeared in this newspaper from a retired doctor regarding an unsuccessful attempt in the late 1990s to establish an additional medical school in Victoria.
UVic’s campus is large, lots of room for a building or two, a university hospital. Make it easier to welcome foreign-trained doctors. Isn’t it time for something to be done?
Janet Doyle
Victoria
Father fought at Dieppe, then landed at Juno
Re: “80 years after Dieppe, postcards share stories of soldiers who died in deadly raid,” Aug. 19.
My father was there, serving with the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada. He fought and, though wounded, survived to make it back to base in England.
Later, dad landed at Juno Beach in Normandy, fought through the low countries and helped to liberate Holland.
Back home in Canada after the war, dad didn’t talk much about the war, and the traumas he witnessed. He started a business and raised a family, receiving a small veteran’s pension for his sacrifices. I believe that most war veterans were able to put their experiences behind them in order to start a new life.
On Nov. 11, I’ll be remembering dad and all the others who selflessly served their country.
Mike Lane
Saanichton
One family’s connection to the Dieppe raid
Re: “80 years after Dieppe, postcards share stories of soldiers who died in deadly raid,” Aug. 19.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, my Dad and his three brothers enlisted in the Canadian Army.
In January 1940, Gordon, Hal, Walter and Lloyd were shipped overseas and joined the army stationed in the U.K.
Their sister Violet had met an Englishman before the war, emigrated to England and settled in Nottingham. The young men regularly visited their sister. Hal met and married a young English lady, Gladys.
Gordon and Hal were riflemen in the Royal Regiment of Canada. Their unit was selected to participate in the Dieppe raid. Gordon and Hal were in the same landing craft coming ashore when their boat was hit by gunfire.
Hal was injured and Gordon told his younger brother to stay in the boat when it reached the beach. Unfortunately, Hal was lost and his body never recovered.
Gordon made it ashore safely, but was captured and spent the rest of the war as a German POW.
After the war, I got to know my Uncle Gordon. He was a real gentleman, but he never wanted to talk about his war experience.
I never got to meet my Aunt Gladys. However, I visited Dieppe in 1987 and paid my respects at the Canadian War Cemetery.
There were many unmarked graves and I surmised that one of them may have contained my Uncle Hal.
Lloyd Barnes
Saanich
Japanese determination led to U.S. decision
Re: “Another look back at the war with Japan,” commentary, Aug. 19.
Forty years ago, while visiting Nagasaki, I met the owner of a large department store, who told me of his wartime experience in the Imperial Japanese Air Forces.
He was a glider bomb pilot. I responded that flying aircraft must have been harrowing. He said, no, you misunderstand me. My task was to lie on the winged bomb and, when released, to guide it down to the target.
He commented that he was still in training for this task when the war ended.
I am of the belief that it was this determination and willingness to die for their country that led to the U.S. selection of the two nuclear bombs as being the lesser evil for both warring parties.
Robert Stacey
Victoria
Not enough experience to run ferry corporation
Re: “B.C. Ferries profit jumps, now MacPhail plots more ‘people-centred’ course,” Aug. 19.
The story tells of an economically sound transportation company with no mention given as to why.
Board chair Joy MacPhail gives no credit to the leadership of former CEO Mark Collins for steering that company through the worst economic times in B.C. history.
That’s because MacPhail does not understand word one about operating a business successfully, because she has never operated one. Her plan is to take a sound business firm and turn it into Happyland, with some goofy idea that if all the ferry staff is hugged and kissed on an hourly basis, that everything will be peachy.
The smartest thing this NDP “feel-good club” could do? Stay out of this, hire a non-NDP person as CEO and get out of the way.
MacPhail has no record of successful business management, and she will take this currently financially sound company back into the mess it was in when the NDP almost bankrupted the firm years ago.
Jim Laing
Saanich
Oil-spill response does not bode well
Re: “Public urged to report whale sightings as San Juan oil spill spreads to Canadian waters,” Aug. 20.
This story clearly illustrates how difficult and ineffective oil-spill cleanups really are.
While both we and the U.S. claim to have “world-class” oil clean-up equipment and techniques, odds are any clean-up effort will be less than 20 per cent effective, and this was a very small spill in relatively benign weather conditions.
Imagine a large freighter or an oil tanker foundering during a storm, when such an event is most likely. How effective will our oil cleanup be then?
The San Juan spill should be a wakeup call illustrating just how vulnerable we are.
It should also lead us to consider putting more effort and resources into wildlife rescue, since cleanup obviously has very limited success.
S.I. Petersen
Nanaimo
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