Letters for Oct. 21
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A compromise offered on HST
I am not convinced the proposed HST is a good thing.
If it was right, the B.C. Liberal government would not resort to such deceit by announcing it post election.
The proposed benefits go solely to big business which are supposed to pass on those benefits to the public, but they have a regrettably poor record of doing that sort of thing.
However, a compromise may be possible.
Why don’t we wait a year before introducing the HST to see how well it works in Ontario and who benefits from its introduction?
I’m willing to bet the public will have a net increase in a vast number of items and receive little back from big business interests.
Or am I alone in my total distrust of both our provincial government and big business?
M.J. Lewis, Victoria
Desjardins truly is ‘people’s mayor’
Re: Esquimalt receives $2 million for Archie Browning upgrade (News, Oct. 2)
Mayor Barbara Desjardins fought for and won retention of this most important civic facility. Now, with council, she has achieved mightily for the people of Esquimalt. Well done, Mayor Barb!
Lincoln proclaimed, “...of the people, by the people, for the people.”
I suggest the Township of Esquimalt has a people’s mayor, indeed.
Stephen Lamb, Victoria
Let’s not forget Tommy’s fight
Can medicare be saved from privatization? Perhaps.
Every Canadian needs to know of the fight Tommy Douglas won against the doctors to give us free health care.
Let’s fix it. Let’s keep it.
The only single thing every Canadian has in common is a body, which needs care.
Let’s not go the American way and have to pay, pay, pay.
Anita Bundy, Victoria
Don’t vilify Suzuki, praise him
Keith Sketchley accuses David Suzuki of scaremongering, because he works so hard to warn the world of the perils to come if we don’t tackle the climate emergency with the seriousness it demands. (Letters, October 16)
To the contrary – David Suzuki is in reality acting as Winston Churchill did when he tried so desperately to warn the British people in the 1930s that Hitler was re-arming, only to be met by a “now, now, calm down” response from people who thought he was scaremongering, and preferred to think Hitler was a reasonable human being.
Suzuki is right – and he is doing us an enormous service by telling us what we need to know about the climate crisis.
It is Mr. Sketchley who needs to stop scaremongering by suggesting that tackling the climate crisis will “hurt humans by taking away their mobility, shelter, and other life-fostering products of industrial civilization.” What nonsense.
Since when did making our homes more energy efficient and using renewable energy deprive us of shelter? Since when did shifting to electric vehicles, transit and more cycling deprive anyone of their mobility?
Mr. Sketchley can huff and puff all he wants about supposed government interference, and how environmentalists are “control freaks”, but he can’t make the reality of the climate crisis go away.
When we apply the creative human mind to the problem, which I have been doing for the past 20 years, what we find is truly hopeful – that we are on the threshold of an amazing transition to a green, sustainable world that will no longer destroy the atmosphere and ecosystems our lives depend on. The sooner this happens the better, for the consequences if we do not are every bit as dire as the world’s climate scientists are telling us.
Guy Dauncey, Saanich
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