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Letters Dec. 6: MLAs should sing; work of local authors; pandering to Alberta

MLAs should start day by singing Re: “Prayer routine adds non-religious reflection at legislature sittings,” Nov. 30. I suggest that the MLAs start each day in the legislature by singing together.
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A B.C. legislature sitting in 2016.

MLAs should start day by singing

Re: “Prayer routine adds non-religious reflection at legislature sittings,” Nov. 30.

I suggest that the MLAs start each day in the legislature by singing together. Studies have shown that singing together is the best bonding exercise for a group of people. If the MLAs started the day singing together, they might treat each other with more respect and be able to work together more effectively for the benefit of British Columbians.

The songs could include hymns, traditional cultural songs, odes to nature, etc. We could invite a diversity of choir leaders to lead the MLAs in a song each morning.

At the end of the legislature sitting, the MLAs could give a concert on the legislature steps of all the new songs they have learned.

It would be awesome.

Wanda Erikson
Nanaimo

Important stories told by local authors

Re: “An important retelling; Authors fill in the gaps of original accounts of Tilikum voyage,” review, Dec. 1.

I enjoyed reading Dave Obee’s review of Around the World in a Dugout Canoe: The Untold Story of Captain John Voss and the Tilikum. I’ll be sure to look for it next time I’m in my local bookstore.

These are the types of books we should be seeing reviewed much more frequently in the Times Colonist — local authors and regional stories.

I just finished a fascinating book by UVic professor Wendy Wickwire about James Teit, a Renaissance humanitarian who lived in the B.C. interior at the turn of the previous century. The book is called At the Bridge: James Teit and the Anthropology of Belonging.

At the centre of this work is a compelling recount of one man’s selfless political courage to right the massive wrongs against the Indigenous peoples of B.C., who were treated as sub-human and had their property rights stripped away by both the provincial and federal governments.

This transplanted Shetlander learns numerous local native dialects, immerses himself in their daily lives and aids in establishing ethnographic studies of tribes throughout the B.C. interior. He also becomes a translator and messenger for Indigenous delegations lobbying governments for restitution and compensation for misappropriation of their lands as well as other abuses (potlatch ban, conscription, disenfranchisement, etc.).

Prof. Wickwire has not only thoroughly researched her subject within the context of his time and place, but has written an entertaining tale. James Teit deserves to be rightfully ensconced in the historical record of B.C. and the Tilikum needs to be on display in a local maritime museum.

John Plas
Victoria

Trudeau government pandering to Alberta

As we watch Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bend over backward to appease Alberta and Saskatchewan, we need some parental judgment telling it like it is. The evidence that oil is a sunset industry is everywhere, especially low-grade tar sands oil. A worldwide oil glut makes dilbit unappealing. Its mining cost is higher than its sales price, since we haven’t built the refineries that would make it more marketable.

Trudeau bought the aging TMX pipeline that no one else wanted for $4.5 billion, though it runs well below capacity. Now Trudeau is bent on twinning it. Getting this one up and running will squander billions more.

Alberta’s tarry glory days are over, along with its sky-high wages. Time for some tough love. Alberta squandered its prosperity fund. Jason Kenney chants “cut, cut, cut” everything social and educational. He will not institute a sales tax to cover the slack. It’s for the rest of us to shoulder his intransigence.

I, for one, have little patience for pandering to an adolescent premier’s poor-me demands. And I haven’t even mentioned the climate crisis.

Dorothy Field
Victoria

Duck plan out of sync with existing building

Instead of putting the proposed renovation and addition to the Duck Building on pause, the council should put it on stop. When I first saw the rendering of the proposal in the paper a few days ago, I couldn’t believe that any self-respecting architect could do such a crude and insensitive addition to a building in Old Town. I also wonder how the heritage consultant could let it get to this stage.

As an architect myself, I have no problem with gutting the old structure because it makes sense structurally and will guarantee the longevity of the building.

However, everything about the esthetics of the proposed addition is completely out of sync with the scale and character of the existing building. Firstly, the height of the addition should not exceed the height of the old structure. Secondly, the emphasis on verticality and the size and spacing of the windows in the addition are in direct conflict with the horizontality and the smaller, closely spaced windows of the Duck Building.

Lastly, the large areas of blank, ochre-coloured walls are also the wrong choice when compared with the fine texture, the fine detailing and the colour of the existing.

This proposal should be sent back for a complete redesign.

John Crowhurst
Sidney

The ‘storeys’ we are told

The old tale is that a frog in a pot will not realize that the temperature is rising and will just sit there until cooked.

We in our Victoria pot are now at 25 storeys and getting used to it.

How “high” will our pot go? Fifty storeys? Seventy-five storeys? Each future development reaching for water views until a major earthquake “cooks” us.

Dave Caddell
Saanich

False reasoning and redistributing wealth

Re: “Poverty and the fallacy of Olympians,” Trevor Hancock column, Dec 1.

Trevor Hancock says: “First, we are not born equal because we differ genetically. Some people are bigger, faster or stronger than others because they got the right genes.

“And it’s not just genes for physical attributes, but also for psychological traits.”

This is the genetic-difference logic used to justify claims by folks like Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein and many others who believe “IQ scores had a strong genetic component and were a major determinant of people’s success in life, that economic classes differed in their innate (genetic) levels of intelligence, and that society would see increasing stratification and the creation of high and low castes based on inherited intelligence.”

We also don’t need to be reminded that this logic was used by eugenicists to promote social and political policies based on claims that some classes, nationalities and races were genetically inferior to others.

Thomas Bouchard’s “Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart” (MISTRA) is not only out of date and seriously discredited, reference to it keeps alive the very destructive belief that it’s possible to condemn entire groups of people based on genetics.

A “fair, just and compassionate society” doesn’t need fallacious reasoning in order to redistribute wealth, power and resources.

Ken Dwernychuk
Esquimalt

Downtown bus depot is looking busy

I recently have started paying attention to the new bus depot as I drive north up Douglas Street out of James Bay. What used to be run out of a bus station is now being run off the street.

At times, that lane of Douglas has three or four buses lined up, 30 people waiting on the curb, and cars and taxis dropping off or picking up people.

Is this the answer to bus transportation? People may have thought that out-of-town buses were getting obsolete but I see multiple companies growing the business and it is happening on a very busy street at an iconic corner.

Paul Best
Victoria

Making a muddle of Victoria’s streets

Re: “Victoria bike-network upgrade push has cyclists, drivers fretting,” Dec. 5.

Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of Victoria business shuttering their doors for good because residents of Oak Bay will no longer bother trying to drive downtown after the mayor and council are done with destroying Richardson Street, which just happens to connect with McNeil Avenue behind the Tweed Curtain.

Richardson Street/McNeil Avenue is basically a straight shot to the Oak Bay Beach Hotel from Cook Street Village.

Adding bike lanes, removing parking, and making Richardson Street both slow and dangerous to navigate for drivers is lunacy.

Trevor Amon
Victoria

Food for thought, the green one

Why do they even make green wine gums? No one likes green wine gums.

Mike Erwin
Victoria

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