Native plants offer plenty聽of flowers
Re: 鈥淣o flowers, please, in the new Victoria,鈥� letter, Jan. 28.
Native plants boast no colour? Perhaps people do not realize what plants are native to the area, not surprising perhaps given the rampant development destroying the native environment.
But before dismissing native plants, try looking up 91原创 rhododendron, red flowering currant, camas, yellowbell and chocolate lily, satin flower and blue-eyed grass, the shooting stars, Columbia lily, balsamroot, Indian plum, ninebark, the fawn lilies, the native onions and the honeysuckles. The聽big problem is not in finding flowers amongst the natives, but where to stop.
Brett Foord
Saanich
How ready are understaffed hospitals?
According to all government health departments, we are ready for the coronavirus. Well, we have patients in the hallways, not enough staff for hospitals, and we can handle an influx of patients needing isolation?
If any of us believe that, I have a bridge to sell. Just name the one you want.
Norma Reimer
Parksville
Bike-lane money should have gone to homeless
Re: 鈥淕ood ideas amid bafflegab in city plan,鈥� editorial, Jan. 26.
Your editorial board cites the need of the city to deal more with 鈥渋ssues like homelessness and unaffordable housing,鈥� and less with 鈥渞unning after every emerging fad.鈥�
So here鈥檚 a question for the august on council.
How much has been spent on bike lanes? $15 million? Something like it, for a publicly funded private gym that should be paid for by users, not residents.
Council should do some research on the economic status of the cyclists one sees out there, on occasion, in good weather, in racing and combat gear, some on electric bikes that can cost thousands.
Compare the findings with data from (say) the homeless. Who was in more need of this $15 million?
Brian Nimeroski
Sooke
Norway leads the way with zero-emission ferries
Re: 鈥淣ew hybrid-electric ferries get ship-shape at Point Hope Shipyard,鈥� Jan. 29.
It is rather interesting that B.C. Ferries now showcases two new ferries that burn about 20 per cent less low-sulphur diesel than conventional ferries.
Meanwhile, Norway has ordered a hydrogen system, which has zero emissions, from Burnaby鈥檚 Ballard Inc. for one of their 80-car, 299-passenger vehicle ferries.
Glen Parsons
Comox
Personal tax exemption and minimum wage
Re: 鈥淭rudeau, ministers head to Winnipeg for cabinet retreat, western outreach,鈥� Jan.聽19.
Among the issues discussed at the federal cabinet meeting was the troubling decline in the standard of living for Canada鈥檚 working class.
Skyrocketing housing, fuel and grocery costs have all played a major role, but equally as damaging is our government鈥檚 decision to disproportionately tax low-income 91原创s.
Since 1980, the consumer price index has been under-reporting the real inflation rate. Initially, this was done to help reduce inflationary pressures by suppressing wage growth, but it also allowed Ottawa to engage in tax-bracket creep.
What this means is that even as wages fail to keep up with the actual increase in the cost of living, it also allows Ottawa to tax 91原创s as if they are doing well.
For instance, a minimum-wage worker getting $15 an hour full time will make about $30,000 per year, depending on which聽province they reside in, and that worker will pay $5,000 to $6,000 in income taxes.
To be fair, the government recently announced an increase in the basic personal tax exemption from approximately $13,000 to $15,000, although this increase will be phased in; it won鈥檛 be $15,000 until 2023.
If Ottawa wants to help low-wage 91原创s who are struggling paycheque to paycheque, it could align the basic personal income tax exemption with the minimum wage of around $30,000 per year.
No one earning a minimum wage should be expected to take food off their own table to pay for the lunch of government.
Phil Venoit, RSE
Business manager/financial secretary
IBEW Local 230 (representing 1,300 electrical workers on 91原创 Island)
Slow cleanup response a聽warning for larger spills
Re: 鈥淣ot everyone has a Dorothy to tackle oil spills,鈥� letter, Jan. 29.
I am so glad that this letter chronicled the absolute lack of competence displayed in the cleanup of what can only be described as a very minor oil spill on Gorge Creek.
This spill, though very critical to the habitat in and around the creek, pales by comparison to the potential massive heavy-oil spill that could beset the Salish Sea from a tanker accident. God help us.
Mike Wilkinson
Duncan
In absence of Social Credit, B.C. needs Greens
I applaud Cowichan Valley MLA Sonia Furstenau鈥檚 bid to become leader of the B.C. Green Party. She says B.C. needs a new style of leader who listens to evidence and communities. B.C. desperately needs a third party to break the gridlock that encompasses this province.
Personally, I would favour a new Social聽Credit Party with a mandate to expand on their last promise of ballot initiatives and new mega-projects that would serve community objectives.
However, that party is presently dead on arrival, as it seeks no members, candidates or money and has no website.
So Green is all we have at present offering any alternative. Good luck to her.
Chuck Beyer
Port Alberni
We must keep fighting for聽democratic rights
In the Jan. 26 Times 91原创, Geoff Johnson鈥檚 thoughtful article on how and why we need to protect our fragile democracy was next to Ian Ferguson鈥檚 powerfully wry examples of the challenges faced when one attempts to call truth to power.
Both articles remind us of the need for vigilance against the erosion of liberties and institutions we often take for granted.
Elsie McMurphy
North Saanich
鈥楩ree鈥� things bought with our tax dollars
Free contraception, free bus passes, free councillors鈥� lunch.
Why do I sense our tax dollars might be involved with all this freedom?
Could someone free me from this council and mayor, who freely spend and freely take away the means for businesses to make money, so we can gladly pay the taxes spent so freely?
My wife has contraception for free already. It works like this: 鈥淵ou want another baby?鈥�
It鈥檚 free and it works, 鈥檆ause some of us figured out long ago that ain鈥檛 nothin鈥� free.
Tim Murphy
Esquimalt
Send us your letters
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鈥� Mail: Letters to the editor, Times 91原创, 2621聽Douglas St., Victoria, B.C. V8T 4M2.
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