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An age-friendly society is worth building

Re: “Silver tsunami continues to make waves in the region,” Aug. 23.

I commend Stan Bartlett for his insightful commentary on the significant growth of the seniors demographic and its important role in the economic, political, and social life of British Columbia and of our capital region.

As a longtime Victoria resident, former member of the City of Victoria’s Seniors’ Task Force and a former director of the James Bay New Horizons Society, I’m keenly aware of challenges facing seniors, particularly the high cost of living, precarious housing, health care, and transportation concerns exacerbated by the pandemic, adverse impacts of the climate crisis, and a sharp decline in our social infrastructure programs and support services.

Politicians do court seniors and count on their votes.

The private sector benefits by managing their retirement funds while capitalizing on this cohort that purchases the unaffordable homes being built or sold in the capital region and elsewhere.

To put it bluntly, these powerful forces see seniors and others simply as commodities, “cash cows” worth milking for all they are worth.

They also treat modest-income seniors, those with mobility challenges, as expendable entities. Vulnerable seniors can be easily displaced in a housing crisis, or disposed of using euthanasia when their burden becomes too onerous for an already failing health-care and social-support system.

A region and capital city claiming to be prosperous and respectful of human rights must not ignore the basic needs of senior citizens and others who contribute to civil society and sustain our planet.

Change isn’t a luxury, it’s necessary to move forward.

Victoria Adams

Victoria

Building ferries here? That ship has sailed

I share the letter-writer’s sentiment. We should build ferries in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½, as we did the Spirit-class vessels and every large ferry class that preceded them, save for vessels that plied the northerly routes.

Too bad we shuttered the shipyards where these vessels were constructed. I hear that sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½’s remaining large-vessel construction yard (Seaspan in Vancouver) is booked solid for the forseeable future with federal projects.

As far as building ferries in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ is concerned, that ship has sailed.

Doug Stacey

Esquimalt

Build ferries here and help everyone

I agree with the letter-writer about building ferries in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ with sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ labour and Canadian products.

The sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Liberal decision to use foreign shipyards to construct our new fleet was an insult to any sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ shipyard, business, engineer, labour and supplier related to shipbuilding. Any savings acquired by doing this were minuscule compared with the benefits of building local. Huge amounts of sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ tax revenue were lost.

Specialized skills by local trades were lost. In the past, shipyards were entry-level jobs for welders and mechanics, which allowed thousands of today’s skilled labour force to start and thrive.

It all contributed to a thriving and robust sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ economy. sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ was the envy of sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ because of high wages in good union jobs and plenty of work.

Then came the labour-crushing thinking of the previous extreme-right Liberal government and our province has been plunged into a job-bleeding economy with unaffordable housing, diminishing job opportunities and rampant drug ­addiction.

Remember that come election day.

Richard J. Bergeron

Delta

A floating bridge to Vancouver Island?

In 1980 my father, Tom Pelton, produced a pre-preliminary study for a floating bridge to cross the Strait of Georgia for Dr. Pat McGeer, who was the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications.

“In 1980 dollars, the cost of the bridge across the strait of Georgia is $1,370 million and the total cost of the link is $1,700 million.”

In 2023, that would be about $5 billion.

We should probably review this today in light of some of the sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Ferries issues and as a greener solution.

We could build fewer and lighter ferries, run with fewer staff and run continuously. We could also add electric light rail to reduce carbon emissions and connect Vancouver, Nanaimo and Victoria and beyond.

Doug Pelton

Victoria

Government lagging on the housing file

The government might be rolling up its sleeves on housing, but a lot of Canadians are already being forced to wear tank tops all year round.

Bill Carere

Victoria

Want better milk? Then buy Canadian

A recent letter-writer doesn’t agree with Parliament’s actions to better protect Canadian dairy.

Here’s a source comparing our two country’s dairy industries:

albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/difference-canadian-american-milk/

In summary, Canadian milk is cleaner, healthier and not full of synthetic growth hormones. Definitely worth protecting.

Thank you, Parliament, for getting this one issue right.

Patrick Ferguson

Victoria

Work together to solve the housing crisis

Re: “Langford park encampments have residents worried for their safety,” Aug. 23.

I have great sympathy for what the residents living close to Danbrook Park are experiencing — none of us would want that atmosphere around our home.

At the same time, I find the lack of compassion of many residents of Langford toward people who are desperately poor and obviously in dire straits disturbing.

Even worse, some are vilifying people in this situation for political opportunism to oppose the new council. I can confirm after 20 years living here that homelessness is not a new issue — along the E&N railway for example.

Any one of us is a head injury or job loss away from similar circumstances. The people camping out in the park because they have no appropriate place to go could be your brother, your daughter, your uncle or your friend. How have we come to a place in our society where running people out of town who are in desperate need is the response people are calling for?

The homelessness crisis, and the overlapping mental health and addictions crisis, have worsened as a symptom of our current economic conditions and policies — across the country, not just in Langford.

These dual crises are extremely complex and cannot be solved by law enforcement or pinned on one level of government.

I agree the situation at Danbrook Park cannot continue, and should not be allowed to grow. Langford urgently needs to collaborate with Island Health, sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Housing, the provincial government, RCMP, non-profit housing providers and social service providers to come up with a humane solution.

And the federal government needs to start investing in public housing again – its withdrawal from this area 30 years ago is a significant factor in the crisis.

The evidence is clear that more private, for-profit supply is not going to get us out of this mess.

Sarah Plank

Langford

Guatemala goes for an anti-corruption leader

Unnoticed in the midst of all the climate and political chaos of the past week, Guatemala chose Bernardo Arevalo as its new president.

He won a landslide victory for his left-wing anti-corruption party, which had campaigned against poverty, malnutrition, unemployment and other ills that had plagued his nation for so long.

His father was that troubled country’s first democratically elected president in 1945, and it was only nine years later that another newly elected leader issued a decree to redistribute to peasant farmers some fallow agricultural land owned by the United Fruit Company (UFC) of Boston. A recent television documentary vividly explained the outcome of that fateful decision, as not for nothing are Central American countries known as Banana Republics.

The UFC had built all kinds of infrastructure, railroads, telegraph lines, ports, etc., and didn’t take too kindly to the Guatemalan government’s decrees in 1954. They hired America’s best known influencer, public relations lawyer Edward L. Bernays, to lobby the American government, and in short order the CIA had engineered a coup to take out Guatemala’s new president.

Over the next 36 years, a civil war raged, claiming the lives of an estimated 200,000 civilians, while the impoverished country was run by a succession of brutal military regimes and puppet presidents, all with the blessing of the United States.

Of course, the small country never had a chance against the giant bully to the north, which broke every rule of moral decency with its craving for cheap bananas.

During the next few months, it will be interesting to see how far Arevalo gets with his anti-corruption reforms, and if there is outside interference from the Banana Bullies or others.

Sadly, the chances are that his best or worst efforts will be missed as newsrooms focus on the twisting and turning machinations relating to the numerous indictments of Donald Trump.

Bernie Smith

Parksville

Start undoing the generation’s mess

Re: “Student escaped N.W.T. wildfires, decries lack of effort on climate change,” Aug. 22.

The young woman in this story is absolutely correct that it is going to take fear and anger as motivation to rally people of her generation to lobby for action to combat the climate catastrophe we are in the middle of. All the perks that many of her generation are provided with by their parents need to be examined for how these perks qualify as necessary.

Things like vacations with high carbon footprints, parental taxi service instead of kids using public transit or bicycles to get to where they want to be.

The list of activities that continue to accelerate climate change is quite long.

I challenge her generation to first make the necessary changes at home and then lobby the older generation and governments to make the tough choices to reduce personal and social carbon footprints. If that doesn’t start now, with her generation, when will it start? It is a long process to undo the mess older generations like mine are leaving them.

Mike Wilkinson

Duncan

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