What will be done with rail transportation?
The New Democrats have promised $5 billion or so for passenger rail transportation for Vancouver, Surrey and Langley. For our Island railway: nothing.
For a tenth of what the mainland is promised, Vancouver Island’s railway can be restored, moving people quickly and safely.
Our single-track railway with passing sidings can easily move as many people as any four-lane highway. It can give fast and frequent inter-city travel from Victoria to Courtenay and to Port Alberni. Our railway bypasses all the highway traffic jams.
With its solid base, our line can be rebuilt in months to run modern equipment. It will employ Island people. It needs no trees cut through Goldstream Park where the province plans a four-lane highway.
In cities across the United States, people flock to ride new rail transportation lines. And the first problem with new lines giving enough service for all the people who come to ride. Those cities which have rail services keep building more lines — by popular demand.
The city rail line in Portland, Oregon, allowed acres of parking lots downtown to become shops and housing. Land along rail transportation lines becomes more valuable.
With our Island’s trains running, we can see economic development following at the stations, as happens across the US.
Bob Trotter
Victoria
Buses trump trains in transport debate
Re: “Re-establishing rail service would generate $470M: study,” Oct. 16.
So, now rail is to be promoted as an economic shot in the arm. Will the rail proponents never stop?
Yes, it would soak up hundreds of millions of dollars (and likely be over budget), but only provide moderate temporary employment for a short time. But that isn’t the point, is it? The money can be better spent on real, ongoing, economically viable projects. The issue never solved is operating sustainability.
As one letter on Friday pointed out, the recent questionable (voluntary) survey didn’t ask the only required question, and nothing to date has indicated any capacity sufficient to remove at least 10,000 cars off the roads during rush hour.
I continue to believe that the only practical solution is a comprehensive transportation plan (see Jack Knox’s comment in Friday’s paper) including large numbers of buses — which have the flexibility to change routes as demographics change over time.
Roger Love
Victoria
Voting systems need to catch up
With over 700,000 vote-by-mail packages requested from Elections B.C., it is increasingly clear that British Columbians are ready for election procedure changes.
Nearly 50,000 packages were requested in the Greater Victoria Area alone.
Surprising to me, is the number of people who were unaware of when the ballot would be counted, or even how it would be counted. I caution our optimism on Elections B.C.’s ability to adapt to this volume of mail-in-ballots.
Had Elections B.C. been given adequate time to prepare for an election during a pandemic, the very capable, non-partisan Office of the Legislature would have effectively formulated a streamlined process to mail-in-ballots.
In the next few weeks we will come to find counting votes, final results and a government formed will be delayed. A clear example of the B.C. NDP undermining an office of the Legislature.
Elections B.C. has already received hundreds of thousands of mail-in-ballots – a significant increase from previous elections.
The timely, accurate and secure counting system needs immediate legislation improvements. Further, these non-partisan offices need adequate funding to move the election process to the 21st Century.
As Prime Minister Justin Trudea plays coy with the idea of calling a federal election, will Elections Canada be ready for the high volume of mail-in-ballots?
Political parties that use the pandemic as an attempt to power grab are shameful. As voters, we see who they are.
In the United Kingdom in 1951, the Labour government called a snap election in the hope of increasing its parliamentary majority.
Labour won fewer seats than the Conservative Party, partly because the people of Britain would not be used in their power grab.
Voters are done with self-serving politicians – changes are coming. Let’s ensure of voting systems are ready for it.
Darren Francis
Victoria
Worker shortage? Look at our intersections
Re: “There’s no pumpkin shortage — it just depends on where you look,” Oct. 16.
How ironic that Rob Galey of Galey Farms hesitated to plant his pumpkin patch this spring until he was confident that workers from Mexico were coming.
Yet every day and at many intersections in the city, I am asked by seemingly able, heathy young men and women for money because they are in need.
It seems to me that in our rush to provide social assistance to any and all, we have forgotten the value and benefit of an honest day’s work.
John H. Râtel
Victoria
Are lives worth the cost of a coffee?
Are our government workers’ lives worth a buck or two? That seems to be the case in B.C. At the start of a second wave of a global pandemic senior civil servants have elected to begin bringing workers back to the office.
There must be an urgent justification for bringing staff, who have worked successfully and safely from home for eight months, back to cramped offices draped with makeshift barriers made from vinyl shower curtains.
That is what you would hope to hear. Instead, we are told that workers safely ensconced in their homes must pack up their laptops, keyboards, and mice once per week and drive downtown to satisfy the lobbying interests of the Downtown Victoria Business Association.
Sending people to an office just so they can spread tax dollars and germs around the downtown core is reckless. The initiative might as well be called “Coffee with COVID and Co-workers.”
Our society is being forced to reorganize around our new reality. Should we sacrifice lives to prop up some businesses for a few more months? There are so many people who can not stay home. We all need to do our part to keep them safe.
Our best tool in that fight is eliminating unnecessary gatherings. The last eight months have proven the traditional government office to be exactly that, unnecessary.
Are the lives of our friends and family are worth the cost of a coffee and blueberry muffin?
Jonathan Hugh Noakes
Victoria
Seeing colour, acknowledging bigotry
Re: “You can see colour, and not see it as well,” letter, Oct. 20.
I was so disappointed when I read this letter. The writer missed the point that visible minorities have been trying to teach people.
When you say you don’t “see colour,” what you’re saying to people that have suffered from bigotry and bias that their experiences aren’t real.
As an old white lady, I know that most of us do treat all people the same but there are way too many among the white majority that don’t!
It’s so demoralizing and upsetting when being treated as less than others and it takes a lot of positivity to counter it.
So let’s support these minorities in every way possible! It’s comparable to the “black lives matter” movement, of course, all lives matter, but black people have been made to feel that their lives don’t matter as much as whites.
Visible minorities want you to see colour and acknowledge that they have a more difficult time moving through society and being treated with dignity than the white majority experience.
In fact, we really cannot even imagine what it’s like to walk in their shoes.
Roberta Sheridan
Colwood
Greens are giving B.C. Liberals an opening
I was appalled by the leadership debate, the main reason being that I did not agree with the Green Party position of attacking John Horgan and the NDP.
Yes, it was probably not a good time to call an election, but it is happening.
I expected the Green Party to use the valuable airtime to demonstrate the benefits of having worked for more than three years in a collaborative manner, resulting in great strides. The Green Party wasted a lot of money in the TC just before the debate, stating its disagreement with the early election, losing the opportunity to promote the Green platform.
The preceding 16 years of the destruction of B.C. by the “liberal” party was hard to follow for the NDP government and it hasn’t been perfect, but the worst thing we could do now is encourage voters to vote Liberal, which would result in dismantling valuable progress made in B.C. in three years.
I am more determined than ever to support the NDP, and like many B.C. people care about this province, this country and I cannot see any viability to the Green Party in B.C. with this destructive, self-centred approach.
Doreen McConachie
Victoria
Many thanks to health care workers
Just had yet one more occasion to be under the care of our health-care workers.
As an 83-year-old with broken bones (four), stents (four), emergency ECGs (many) and more stitches than Frankenstein’s monster, my hours in hospitals and clinics are impossible to tally.
In all these events, not once did I ever feel that they could or should be doing more for me. Better care would be impossible to imagine. Always cheerful and efficient, even under the most trying, stressful times. To be fortunate enough to live in B.C. or even the rest of this great country is indeed to be blessed by God Herself.
So to all our doctors, nurses and all hospital staff; cleaners, janitors, maintenance and administrators, as well as the paramedics and fire rescue members; sufficient words of appreciation elude me, so as a retired Navy bloke I can only offer one great honkin’ “Bravo Zulu” to you all.
Ben Weber
Mill Bay
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