Truck light-up parade has bright side

Re: Costs of truck parade greater than benefits (Letters, Nov. 18)

It appears that the writer (and Coun. Jensen) is concerned about carbon dioxide emissions generated by the trucks. Things might not be quite as dire as they both fear.

Carbon dioxide emitters can buy carbon off-sets. Although this makes no sense to me, it’s an accepted practice. It takes quite some time to decorate the trucks, and while they are being decorated, they are not on the road, and so they are emitting no carbon dioxide. Perhaps this can offset the emissions they produce during the parade.

It doesn’t seem fair to single out the truck light-up parade and not include the Oak Bay Tea Party parade. I won’t get into the Victoria Day parade or why Santa has to arrive at Oak Bay on a fire engine.

Sauce for the goose.

John Owen

Oak Bay

Meeting about more

than just sewage

Re: MP Savoie grilled over hot topic (News, Nov. 18)

It is unfortunate the busy schedule of the reporter who attended my pre-budget forum at the Windsor Pavilion permitted her to only stay for a brief part of the meeting.

Sewage treatment was only one of many other important topics raised by Victorians. At the Saturday meeting, as well as at one held two days earlier, the discussion centred on the need for a society with more fairness, where economic and social disparities are reduced and where climate change is taken seriously and tackled.

I will be forwarding these priorities to the federal finance minister, along with creative suggestions by constituents as to how to meet those goals. I will encourage the minister to consider these seriously in drafting February’s federal budget. I will also communicate the concerns about the cost of sewage treatment, which I share, and the need to ensure that resource recovery be the preferred model.

Denise Savoie

Victoria

PM’s role in Afghan crisis shameful

Canadian Ambassador Richard Colvin’s testimony that Canada was complicit in torture in Afghanistan has been corroborated.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is accused of being complicit in the torture of hundreds of Afghan civilians.

Domestically, the PM’s cold indifference to suffering was already over-the-top with regards to botched pandemic vaccine planning, listeriosis deaths and the cancellation of Atomic Energy Canada Limited’s nuclear cancer medical program.

Now, corroborating testimony indicates that the prime minister was knowingly complicit in apparent war crimes against a civilian population abroad.

Mr. Harper’s brutal management has harmed us domestically and globally shamed our nation.

Eugene Parks

Victoria

Goal of power projects

plain old capitalism

Contrary to popular belief, private power projects are not environmentally benign. These run-of-river schemes have a massive impact, involving hundreds of kilometres of roads, tunnels and transmission lines.

Run-of-river projects generate power primarily in the spring, when the dams are full and we already have plenty of electricity.

Since you can’t store bulk power, these companies will be forced to export the excess electricity to the U.S. Plutonic Power, one of the main run-of-river developers, has already said “one would have to be in a coma” not to know this power was for export.

The province is giving some of the last untouched wilderness on the face of the earth to foreign corporations for mega-development, to produce power the B.C. Utilities Commission says we don’t need, with a net result of higher electrical bills for B.C. taxpayers.

Gordon Campbell’s thin cloak of green has fooled many world dignitaries, including Prince Charles.

The premier’s real agenda is becoming all too clear – extreme free market capitalism and profit above all.

Richard Brunt

Victoria