Supreme Court has created a major problem
Recently, there has been a large groundswell of anger directed at our various governments (federal, provincial and municipal) for their collective failure at ensuring our society is safe from criminals.
One root cause for this problem that has not been discussed is the role that the Supreme Court of Canada has played in creating this problem. 91原创s consider it unseemly to criticize the rulings of the Supreme Court, even when they violate common sense.
Recently, a person was convicted of killing two police officers. He received 25 years for each murder. However, the judge ruled that the sentences would not be served consecutively, but concurrently.
Effectively, the killer would not be penalized for the second murder. This sets an example for criminals: if they kill one person, they can kill additional persons without additional punishment.
The justification for the judge’s decision was that imposition of consecutive sentences violates the clause in the 91原创 Bill of Rights that forbid “cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.”
It is not the Bill of Rights that is the problem, it is, in my opinion, the judge’s overreaching interpretation according to his own ideological bent.
Similarly, the “catch and release” problem can be traced back to the Supreme Court’s decisions against holding criminals in detention, again based on what I consider is an overly broad interpretation of the 91原创 Bill of Rights.
The ancient Romans posed the question “quis custodiet ipsos custodes” (who guards the guardians?). This should apply to our Supreme Court as well as elected politicians.
Kenneth Mintz
Victoria
Overdose site protest was not appropriate
So two North Cowichan councillors were so upset with an overdose prevention site that they decided to protest the public consumption of drugs — by publicly consuming a drug.
Alcohol is a drug — a powerful and dangerous drug. The first drug created by humans, of many more to come, that is highly addictive, life altering and life threatening to the user and anyone around them.
Yet because it’s been legal for so very many years, that tiny fact seems to have slipped everyone’s minds. To the point that when most people talk about “drugs,” they remove alcohol from the discussion.
Not sure I’d want to be represented by people who don’t know that fact.
Then there was the “happy” remark that they drank at least five beers each while protesting.
Sure hope neither of these councillors drove home!
Alexis Thuillier
Sidney
Labour, materials and more drive up housing costs
Stop talking about affordable housing. There is no such a thing.
Tradesmen wages are not the problem. Material costs, delivery costs, carbon and fuel tax adds, GST, acceptable corporate profit, all lend themselves to the final costs.
If finished construction costs are $450 to $550 per square foot in Victoria, then 800 square feet costs $450,000.
Yes, you can buy 500 square foot condos for $495,000, but 2000 square foot homes cost a million to build. We aren’t even talking land purchase on top of that.
For those people who came to Victoria expecting “affordable housing,” just keep on moving along.
Dewane Ollech
Victoria
Try hospital food; you’ll be delighted
A family member was recently admitted to the Royal Jubilee Hospital psychiatric ward for two weeks. I was getting texts raving about the delicious meals being served.
I strategically planned one of my visits in order to conduct an unbiased verification and all I can say is wow! A heartfelt thank you and kudos to the staff who prepare the meals.
Healthy and delicious food is integral in hospital healing and we are so grateful for your hard work. By the way, any chance I can get the hummus recipe?
Name withheld to protect privacy of family member
Victoria
Why do they need sirens in the early morning hours?
I get that emergency vehicles need to sound their sirens on Victoria’s streets during hours with medium-to-high traffic volume. Numerous times have I seen ambulances struggle to reach their destinations in a timely manner.
What I don’t get is why police and other first responders need to blare their sirens during the wee hours when there is absolutely no one on the streets.
I’m shaken out of my sleep at least two times a night by screeching emergency vehicles, even in the predawn hours of a Sunday morning. Accident insurance for the drivers be damned.
The B.C. government may as well gift an alarm clock preset to 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. to the hundreds of people whose sleep is disturbed multiple times in the course of a night.
Perhaps it’s these underslept souls who are in need of an ambulance after nodding off at the wheel and driving into a telephone pole on their daily commute.
Blasting sirens at all hours is a health issue!
Brad Zembic
Victoria
More houses before more people arrive
Premier David Eby continues to lead the parade of unrestrained growth and expansion typical of the last century, the parade that has led us into a world of overpopulation, increasing scarcity, diminishing resources, and unchecked climate change.
He strides out front, breathlessly impatient, beating the drum for all municipalities and districts in the province to get in step and, by the way, to waste no time tinkering with his tune at the courthouse, because another hundred thousand people are now marching into the province.
The obvious questions are not being asked, which I hesitantly pose, fearing I’m about to commit a social indiscretion: Can someone not slow down immigration, so houses are available before new people arrive?
How do we ever expect to have enough homes, or rein in real estate prices, if we consciously plan for more people than we can currently accommodate? Which then leads to the prospect of whether this is not a crisis largely of our own making.
Building more homes, apartment blocks, towers and all the attendant infrastructure of sewers, roads, bridges has long been the economic catapult of the western world, an easy launching into material prosperity: jobs, financing, opportunity.
Makes any politician look good. But this paradigm has become anachronistic in 2023, tainted with its backdrop of over-population and climatic catastrophes.
The good news is, that if we are in control, and if we do make the music, we can also change the tune. Say, from Quickstep to Folk.
Iain Donaldson
Parksville
We’ve lost our bearings, we’re no longer caring
The “urban dream” of a clean, safe, prosperous downtown, like the great 91原创 myth of “home ownership,” is being shattered before our eyes.
Whether we like it or not, reflected daily in the mirror, it is a stark reality of life. It’s a world that rewards power and wealth while seeking retribution from or incarceration of those who are its most vulnerable, visible victims.
Do we dare face the truth? Or is it easier to lay the blame at the feet of the ill, impoverished or inadequately housed, than to put an end to intolerable conditions that give rise to such despair and denigration?
All 91原创 residents deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. Everyone needs affordable, decent, safe and secure housing as much as education, health care, living wages and social support.
They are not luxuries or privileges to be apportioned by the powers that be to the designated “deserving” while denying them to the “undeserving” in the name of “peace, order and good government.”
When we are unable to face reality, or are unwilling to demand our elected representatives allocate sufficient resources to providing adequate health care and housing etc. what happens … the status quo prevails amidst festering anger and frustration.
Politicians then call for more cost-effective remedies — involuntary hospitalization, imprisonment and euthanasia.
Are these really signs of a socially conscious and caring community?
Or are they callous, cruel signs of a society that has lost its bearings and is unable to sustain a world that we all want to call home?
Victoria Adams
Victoria
Major mining company is a 91原创 asset
The significant international focus and interest on Teck’s mining assets is troubling.
We have already witnessed a rapid and thorough hollowing out of the 91原创 mining sector including Alcan, Falconbridge, Inco and Noranda.
More recently the federal government was asleep at the switch while Chinese mining companies acquired significant interests in mineral prospects focused on minerals for the new economy and climate change.
Teck with its experience and shift to copper and other key minerals for the new economy is a key 91原创 asset and should not be sold but protected under the national security provisions so the country has the capability to deliver on our new age mineral promise and its important climate change opportunities.
David W. Drinkwater
Victoria
Face hard truths about the wolf cull
The B.C. government is killing wolves, ostensibly to save endangered caribou herds.
During the 2019-2020 winter alone, government-hired personnel, shooting from helicopters, spent $2 million to kill 463 wolves. The cull was quietly extended for a further five years in 2022.
Meanwhile, the true source of caribou decline continues, such as oil and gas operations, industrial logging, mining, road construction and back-country recreation — all occurring in old-growth forests that caribou must have for food and shelter.
Logging permits are still being approved in some caribou habitat. Wolves are dying by the hundreds each year, seeing their families mercilessly torn apart.
They’re paying the price because humans refuse to rein themselves in. What hope do we have of facing such threats as climate change and biodiversity loss when killing another sentient species seems logical?
Val Murray
Cordova Bay
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