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Letters Nov. 17: How much should Victoria city councillors be paid?

Making a part-time job into a full-time job Re: “Victoria councillors seek public support for 50% pay hike,” Nov. 15. Victoria councillors are grumbling that the burden of office is not commensurate with their remuneration.
Photo - Victoria city hall clock.
Victoria City Hall

Making a part-time job into a full-time job

Re: “Victoria councillors seek public support for 50% pay hike,” Nov. 15.

Victoria councillors are grumbling that the burden of office is not commensurate with their remuneration. They knew what the terms were before they offered their services to the voters. Now, after being elected, to seek a big pay increase is a bit rich.
I am sure that these councillors are finding that the task is taking up far more of their time in 2019 than it did in 1919. The city has grown in size and complexity.
But this situation also illustrates a case where the councillors have worked hard and cleverly to turn a part-time job into a full-time job, a path followed by many elected politicians around the world.
Victoria has big-city problems, due to being part of a much larger urban area beyond its control and oversight. Amalgamation — offering the opportunity for better long-term planning and a more effective, professional municipal staffing — would allow our elected officials to do a better job of high-level political oversight, rather like a board of directors. But this is not in the interest of councillors anxious to turn a part-time job into a full-time job.

Boudewyn van Oort
View Royal

Keep council pay raise to inflation rate

Some Victoria councillors want a 50% pay hike. No way! A pay raise to keep up with inflation is more appropriate.
Their $45,000 a year for a part-time job is more than I make in a full-time job.

Paul Crozier Smith
Victoria

Do the job because of passion and love

Victoria councillors — you took the job as part of your passion and love of community, did you not?
As a sport coach, I put in many hours for my love of sport.
I don’t get paid for the extra time. It is to give back to the cause.
 
Ed Bakker
Victoria

Deal with the police budget first

Before we increase Victoria councillors’ salary by 50%, I think we should deal with our police budget and approve what the chief wants.
It is incredible, councillors have the audacity to ask for such an increase. I am a senior citizen, my income does not increase every year, but my taxes do.
Coun. Ben Isitt should be impeached for suggesting such a ridiculous idea.
Catherine Holt from the Chamber of Commerce put it in the right perspective. If councillors are working 60 hours a week, they have nobody to blame but themselves.
This is a part-time job and should remain a part-time job.
I cannot wait for the next election.

Dominique Chapheau
Victoria

A subduction zone running through Victoria

Re: “154 rental units pitched on former recycling site,” Nov. 13.

I am not writing in favour or against this proposed development in Victoria. I am writing to clarify a statement in the article that says: “A key issue is that the site comes with what Mancini [the architect] describes as significant geological challenges because it is close to the Juan de Fuca fault line.”
The “fault line” in question is actually the Cascadia Subduction Zone that extends approximately 1,000 kilometres from northern Vancouver Island to northern California. This subduction zone has been responsible for many large earthquakes in southwestern B.C. in the past, and will be responsible for many more in the future.
It is not a challenge limited to the proposed development site at the corner of Vancouver and View streets in Victoria.

Doug VanDine, PEng, PGeo
Geological engineer (retired)
Victoria

Advances in how patients are cared for

Re: “Compassion as key as nursing in providing patient care,” Lawrie McFarlane column, Nov. 10.

Regarding nursing care, hospital infections and early discharge of patients: I could not believe, as a nurse, Lawrie McFarlane’s farcical comment that the reason newborns and mothers stayed in hospital four or five days in the past was because “nurses on
the maternity wards loved having young babies around and were loath to see them go.”
Treatment and care of all patients have advanced greatly in the past 35 years. Patients with gallbladder surgery were in care for at least 10 days; hip replacements were much longer, and cataract surgery was well over a week, with no head movement for several days, and being fed as well.
Today, hip patients go home in one or two days, and cataract surgery is a day procedure.
Mothers post partum were observed for bleeding, infection, release of milk, etc. Today, medications and home follow-up, if necessary, is far advanced.  
The doctor was sacrosanct and he decided how long a patient stayed in hospital, according to the best practice of the day, not according to “loving having young babies around.” Most nurses were busy — and still are — juggling a hectic life of career and children (their own babies to hug).

Barbara Zielinski
Saanich

Hong Kong bombing triggered war with Japan

Re: “B.C. engineers a coup; After the Pearl Harbor attack, province lobbied Ottawa for displacement of Japanese Canadians,” Nov. 10.

John Price’s series tells a story left out of many general history books of the period. The second article explains the part played by the British Columbian government of the day.
However, his first paragraph is misleading. Price implies that Canada acted to restrict Japanese Canadians because the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, a U.S. territory, on Dec. 7, 1941.
While it is true Pearl Harbor and other U.S. territories in Asia were bombed on Dec. 7, that is not the reason Canada declared war on Japan.
Within hours of the raid on Pearl Harbor, Japanese planes bombed Hong Kong, a British Crown Colony. At the time, two battalions of 1,975 Canadians were stationed there — mostly composed of soldiers from the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles from Quebec, only recently arrived to help Britain defend its colony.
That evening, then-prime minister Mackenzie King declared war on Japan by Order-in-Council, asserting that “Japan’s actions are a threat to the defence and freedom of Canada.”
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a declaration of war against Japan a day after Canada had. Two hundred and ninety Canadians died in defence of Hong Kong.
Canada reacted, not because of Pearl Harbor, but because our troops were attacked and killed. Canada went to war against Japan to defend the British Empire, not the United States.

Gordon Switzer
Victoria

B.C. LNG could help combat global warming

Asia needs electrical power. Their well-being depends on it. Their leaders must provide it.
Asia has coal. It is low-grade coal that burns at temperatures unsuitable for smelting iron but quite suitable for boiling water and generating electrical power. Unfortunately, the burning of that type of coal is highly polluting for our global atmosphere. Asia has no choice. They must pollute because they must generate power.
Suppose Canada on its own halted all use of fossil fuels. Canadians would suffer greatly. Starvation and exposure would maim thousands, but the global atmosphere would be two per cent better. Is that worth our sacrifice?
But suppose Canada sold much cleaner natural gas to Asia, thereby reducing their coal-burning pollution by 90 per cent. That would be hugely significant.
Canada could make money selling our gas and, at the same time, help to save our planet. Just think, we could use the profits to finance other green initiatives and, in the meantime, our people would not need to suffer in order to make a positive contribution to fighting global warming.
Asia wants our gas to generate electricity and we have huge reserves in northern B.C., but we can’t pipe it to our coast for shipping.
Why can’t we build LNG plants that would help to combat global warming? Because eight hereditary chiefs say no.
All the First Nations along the route are in agreement to allow the pipeline, but these eight don’t seem to care that Asian coal-fired electrical generation plants continue to spew 90 per cent more pollutants into our shared atmosphere than they need to.

Don Boult
Saanich

More daylight than California in summer

Re: “Sun will rise earlier in California,” letter, Nov. 9.

The writer is correct saying the sun rises earlier in southern California than it does in Victoria due to it being closer to the equator, but the system works both ways.
They get an earlier sunrise than we do and get more hours of daylight in winter, but in the summer months, the system is reversed, because the further you go north in summer, the closer you are to the top of the world and the North Pole, which lets us get the benefit of longer daylight hours than the south.
It’s not unusual to see Yukoners and Alaskans mowing lawns at midnight, because they get almost 24 hours of daylight.

Alex Badiuk
Saanich

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