sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½

In this special year, support the Royals

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Victoria winning a Stanley Cup.

Victoria does not have a Stanley Cup contender in 2025, but in this anniversary year there is a good Western Hockey League team, the Victoria Royals.

The Royals have become even better with the addition of Brandon Lisowsky, Kenta Isogai and Johnny Hicks. They are working hard to win and provide great entertainment for their fans.

I would encourage everyone to get down to the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre to see the Royals and have a great evening out.

Harold Atkinson

Victoria

Effective safety plan needed in our schools

The public debate over the issue of reimplementing the police liaison officer program in Greater Victoria’s public schools will be resolved once Education Minister Lisa Beare completes her study of the three optional safety reports submitted by school trustees.

The trustees have been spurred on by sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ human rights commissioner Kasari Govender, who argued at a district meeting that the program should not be implemented without evidence that it will achieve its goal of protecting children and youth without intimidating students of colour.

I attended this meeting but was given no time to ask her: Without the program in place, how can it be evaluated — and then adapted in response to on-going evaluations?

In the meantime, the need for adequate supervision of students is sorely lacking. This includes the lack of teachers’ aides and counsellors who would offer guidance to vulnerable students and help prevent them from making bad decisions about their activities and those they associate with.

I know about these shortcomings from talking with teachers and parents, and from public appeals from teachers’ associations.

I also know this from visits with the daughter of a friend, who told me last year that at her middle school, the “cool” kids were smoking and vaping in the woods near her school.

Lately, she told me that at lunchtime, a friend was showing her pornography on her cell phone. Luckily, my friend is a mother who listens to her children and contacted the friend’s mother, as well as the school. But where was the lunchtime supervision?

The minister is right to be insistent that the district have an effective safety plan in place. From my decades of experience as a teacher in a district with police liaison officers, this program is effective with helping youth learn how to interact with and call upon community police officers in times of need.

At the same time, the minister needs to evaluate overall shortcomings of supervision, including the need to have more teaching assistants in schools, and more counselors.

Dr. Starla Anderson, Ed.D.

Victoria

Stop that cowering, start educating

sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ needs to stop appeasing Donald Trump in an attempt to avoid tariff threats, because whatever we do it will never be enough.

Trump has made it clear he wants to impose tariffs on everybody and giving in to his demands will not change that. Bullies don’t stop bullying when they get their way, they always want more.

After the border demands there will be defence spending demands followed by trade concession demands followed by subservience demands. It will never end.

With all the rebuilding that will be required after the wildfires in Los Angeles, Californians will need Canadian lumber, and with Trump’s tariffs it will cost more.

With all the oil America imports from sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½, U.S. gas prices will jump due to Trump’s tariffs.

What the Canadian government needs to do is grow a spine and take out full-page ads in American papers informing American voters about these realities.

Americans should also be reminded sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ controls the St. Lawrence Seaway and stringent boarder controls could cause lengthy delays for American goods passing through it.

sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ needs to stop cowering before Trump and start educating Americans on the harm Trump’s tariffs will do to them.

S.I. Petersen

Nanaimo

If you don’t like it, just head for the door

I agree that we should trade people who do not appreciate being Canadian (and are actively starting a movement to make us the 51st state) for all the American people who would love to move up here.

They would be grateful for our health-care even though it’s not perfect. We could really use many of the doctors who are being forced to leave women to die because of the Republican states that have taken away abortion health care from women.

Trump should never be allowed to come into sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ as a convicted felon.

And finally, I am sick of hearing people badmouth Justin Trudeau. He has done a pretty good job as far as I am concerned.

His government got us through a pandemic in better shape than most other countries. And if Pierre Poilievre gets in, he will just sell us off to the U.S.

Stephen Harper was horrible! Conservatives only help the wealthy. And our provincial “Cons” are now trying the same bogus court filings that Trumpers use at a ridiculous cost to taxpayers.

If you don’t like living here, feel free to pack up and go.

Barbara MacDonald

Langford

Canadians, stand up for sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½

The offer to take over another country was made to a different country years many years ago, when the Second World War had finally come to an end.

By that time Britain was pretty well physically and financially exhausted, the perfect moment for the then president of the United States to suggest the U.S. take it over.

Would a country like Britain would take this offer seriously? Of course not, it was firmly turned down.

Now Donald Trump has come forward with the same offer for sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ to become the 51st State.

Do the Americans think that countries can be bought and sold just like that? It seems so, from what one reads in the newspapers. Such arrogance!

Canadians, be sure to stand on guard for sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½. Otherwise this country could be drained of all resources, especially water, which Trump has already hinted at.

Americans would come swarming up here to buy what properties and businesses they could, and they would certainly bring their guns with them.

Elizabeth Chanter

Duncan

More revenue for sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ and a drop in emissions

Re: “Oil and gas revenue is needed to save sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½,” letter, Jan. 18.

The letter astutely stated what should be done to help sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ receive financial benefits from exporting oil and gas. This will both help sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ financially and significantly help China to lower carbon emissions from burning coal.

The next step British Columbia should take would be to shut down the export of U.S. coal from Roberts Bank.

China is using that coal to fuel its many needs. By stopping the U.S. coal and shipping more Canadian oil and gas to China, there will be significant reductions to China’s carbon emissions, which are the highest in the world.

John McLeod

Brentwood Bay

Tougher stand needed to fight terrorism

The agreement between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas was necessary in order to free the hostages who had been held for over a year; unfortunately it provides an example for terrorists as well as criminal gangs to achieve their aims, such as freeing their fellows from prison.

sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ faced a similar situation during our October crisis of 1970. The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) had been carrying out bombings and shootings for several years, killing several people and wounding many more, in an attempt to have Quebec secede from sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½.

Then the FLQ stepped up their actions, kidnapping a British consul, and then kidnapping and murdering the politician Pierre Laporte.

The demands of the FLQ included the release of the members of the FLQ who were serving sentences for their terrorist crimes. Five members of the cell that kidnapped the British consul were allowed to flee to Cuba in return for release of the hostage.

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau declared the War Measures Act which took away (temporarily) most of our civil liberties, but succeeding in putting down the incipient revolution in Québec.

How to prevent terrorists from seizing hostages:

1. Re-introduce capital punishment for terrorist murderers (Israel does not have capital punishment, leaving it susceptible to that type of blackmail).

2. During the three years that a permanent resident must wait before obtaining Canadian citizenship, a search must be done of social media to find any incriminating evidence that the person is unsuitable (this is where artificial intelligence will be handy).

3. Allow deportation of people with dual citizenship who commit criminal or terrorist crimes.

4. Train more army personnel as snipers in case kidnappers take or try to take hostages.

Tough actions, yes, but we live in an increasingly dangerous world.

Kenneth Mintz

Victoria

Let’s describe Elon Musk in a different way

Perhaps it is time to quit referring to Elon Musk by the superlative “The world’s richest man”. How about “The most obscenely wealthy oligarch”?

It would be easier for the average middle-class Canadian and even American to stomach!

Brenda Beckstrom

Victoria

Renewable energy could mean more jobs

Re: “sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½’s new clean-energy minister is a climate ‘wild card’,” Jan. 15.

The people of Los Angeles suffer through a firestorm apocalypse while the bully of the “free world” commits to fueling the flames with his “Drill baby, drill” rhetoric. More like “Burn baby, burn.”

Adrian Dix, sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½’s new Minister of Climate and Energy Solutions, has an opportunity to demonstrate informed, progressive, ethical leadership at a time when our world desperately needs it.

British Columbia, sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½’s most biologically diverse province, could be a leader in renewable energy job growth alongside environmental stewardship that ensures a future for the next generation.

Let’s emulate the democratic forward-thinking Nordic countries, not those stuck in a libertarian status quo which creates more billionaires while impoverishing the majority.

The NDP government’s energy/climate contradiction needs clarification; something Dix can fix.

Karyn Woodland

Colwood

Carbon footprint discussion needed

The promotion of Adrian Dix to the hardest, and arguably most important, job in government — the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions — seems quite appropriate.

However, I wonder if he has realized that British Columbians appear to care far more about health performance and outcomes than they are about reducing their individual carbon footprints?

The latest federal figures show that carbon emissions in British Columbia have increased by 13 million metric tonnes between 1990 and 2022, mostly due to increases in the transportation and gas sectors.

Granted that the population increased by around two million in the same period, so in fact our per-person emissions have been reduced, and by more than those of other western provinces, but by far less than Ontario has achieved during the same period.

Nevertheless, the recent news of the 2024 average temperature, and the terrible fires in Los Angeles, make it plain that new solutions are needed, that every part of a degree in temperature increase must be fought against.

Meanwhile, we are well short of the GHG reduction target set by the Horgan government for 2025, although there has been a marked reluctance from the government to release actual figures for recent years.

There are no politically tolerable silver bullets in this fight, but soon a discussion of our individual responsibilities to reduce our personal carbon footprint will be needed.

Robert Gunn

Port Alberni

Wildfire risk calls for preparedness

The damage from the wildfires in California recently is being discussed around the world, particularly in countries in a similarly vulnerable position such as sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½.

Some actions could include not lifting the ban on campfires for most of the province, much much higher fines for anyone contravening campfire bans and open burning regulations.

This could even include jail time as prevention is less costly than wide spread wildfire damage.

I think Canadians pussyfoot around most topics, but it is time to stop worrying about offending some minority and look at the consequences of illegal activities around use of fire.

Mike Wilkinson

Duncan

Desperate fools prefer to pay later

For all the huffing and puffing, there are some things which in the basics, governments either can or will do little about.

That includes tax levels and the burgeoning number of diverse difficulties our societies face as a result of our overpopulation and the increasingly unfriendly weathers and disease bearing biology and chemistries brought on by an erratic but warming globe and the pollutants we introduce in an oft-mistaken attempt to make life easier.

It is a classic case of pay now, or pay much more later. And we, the fools or desperate that we are, almost always have chosen to pay later.

For the elderly, with little time left on the planet, this may work out, but for the younger, not at all.

What is becoming inexorably obvious is that for the not as elderly and wider income groups amongst us, paying more later is becoming less and less a canny strategy. The harms are arriving sooner and more severely as warmth increases molecular volatility.

It is ironic that this increases the desperation to take the most care of present problems, so precluding the the clearer thinking which might prioritize a longer term but possible recovery; or at least a non-lethal outcome.

Alas, we cannot expect those who survive disasters such as the wildfires in southern California to often become willing practitioners and exponents of the simpler but more responsibly ordered lives essential to a slower and gentler reduction of our numbers and material ambitions. What about us?

Glynne Evans

Saanich

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