ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½

Falcon’s walk away was an odd choice

Re: “Opposition Leader Falcon ends BC United election campaign, backs ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Conservatives,” Aug. 29.

One trusts political leaders whose campaigns are foundering to take “a walk in the snow” and consider whether their continued tenure at the top is in their parties’ best interests.

Pierre Trudeau did this decades ago and wisely decided to resign as the federal Liberal leader, and Joe Biden did it weeks ago and chose similarly by resigning as the Democratic presidential candidate. Now it’s Kevin Falcon’s turn, and he too determined that his campaign is on the rocks and in need of a similarly desperate rescue operation.

But instead of terminating his own leadership like those others before him, he decided to terminate his whole party — a weird choice, to put it kindly.

Robin Farquhar

Victoria

High praise for Falcon, hope for Conservatives

Kevin Falcon has shown true integrity and that he cares for British ­Columbians. Thank you, Kevin Falcon.

I fervently hope the Conservatives will win the next election.

Daniel Nenzi

Sidney

Consider the Greens in this election

Sometimes, it is so much fun to live in British Columbia.

Wednesday was one of those days. Kevin Falcon, leader of the BC United party, formerly the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Liberal party, announced his retirement and his party will no longer contest the election.

This seems to almost guarantee a ­Conservative victory in October. Is this what we want?

I recommend the perusal of the Conservatives’ election platform, as it lays out quite clearly what that party hopes to do to this province.

In one sentence, their message is full steam ahead with economic growth, never mind the climate, and dissidents will not be allowed to block major resource projects. Such a message may have a wide appeal to unhappy voters.

Too many people feel poor these days, even though we live far better than most people in the whole world.

If we extrapolate world figures on nutrition, it is quite likely that more people in British Columbia will die of obesity caused by overeating rather than by starvation.

Voters should take a serious look at the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Green Party. If you truly care about your children and grand­children and of the planet they will inherit, the Green Party is the only sane option.

David Pearce

Victoria

Conservatives, United add up to a choice

Finally the centre of left is United in this election.

The ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Conservatives have some “wingnut” candidates, but the NDP has demonstrated their wingnut policies, with disorder and drugged-out folks in almost every community.

No solutions, just more of the same: Promoting and supporting addiction.

So pleased that voters will have a clear choice.

Phil Harrison

Comox

Stampede to the right will hurt most of us

Here we go again. The frenzied ­desperate coalition building by conservatives and liberals in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ is a recurring political nightmare.

Whenever the NDP are in power or on the cusp of taking power, these coalitions are formed in an effort to defeat them. It happened in the 1940s with formal Liberal-Conservative coalition governments; in the 1950-60s with the populism of W.A.C. Bennett’s Social Credit; in 1975 to the 1990s with the Socreds of Bill ­Bennett and Bill Vander Zalm; and 2001‑17 with the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Liberals under Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark.

While political party name and the exact process of constructing the regressive coalitions differed in each case, including now with the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Liberals withdrawing and joining the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ ­Conservatives, the one constant that remains is the policies they pursue. Tax cuts that disproportionately favour the wealthy and service cuts that hurt ordinary working families and make most people worse off.

After 16 years of the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Liberals, the current NDP government inherited a hollowed-out state and an impoverished public realm.

The problems of housing affordability, health care, homelessness, addictions, and cost of living are affecting every democratic government across ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ and around the world.

The difficulty in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ is the mess left behind by the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Liberals was so horrendous that it will take longer than only two terms of government to effectively address these issues.

Stampeding like a herd of lemmings to a new ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Conservative party further to the right than this province has ever seen before will reverse any progress on these issues, only benefit a few at the top and leave everyone else far worse off than they are now.

Guy McDannold

Shirley

Monstrous building planned for James Bay

I support the Aug. 13 letter, “James Bay tower will destroy neighbourhood,” and disagree with the Aug. 14 letter, “James Bay tower better than a parking lot.”

The Aug. 14 letter missed the point: we oppose over-development, not development and change.

The developer proposes a commercial and residential mixed-use building and has reduced the tower from 17 to 14 storeys, but it is wider and only seven metres shorter.

Height and density go so far beyond the Official Community Plan bylaws that the city must consult on the variation to current zoning.

Neighbours have been asked to send their views to senior planner Rob Bateman by Sept. 20.

James Bay is dense and already meets provincial housing targets. The needs of the “missing middle” and affordable rentals are OCP priorities.

The proposed development does nothing for these priorities. If council approves these OCP amendments, it will be opening the door to more densification and towers, setting a precedent for future developments. Why?

James Bay is in earthquake and tsunami zones with restricted egress. We face climate change and other changes like redevelopment of the Belleville ­Terminal and Admiral Inn that affect traffic safety and transportation.

We need to know how the city plans to manage evacuations and emergencies.

Thank you to those city council members and staff who have continued to oppose this proposal. We implore all council members to stop this insidious, monstrous development!

Debbie Andersen

James Bay

Education system is failing everyone

The recent commentary raising the alarm about weak declining student achievement in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ was spot on; however, it fell a bit short.

Curriculum reform is important, but the analysis needed to go deeper. There has been a significant increase in grade inflation since provincial exams were cancelled at the high school level, coupled with increased pressure on teachers to pass their students despite many of them unable to read or write at a basic level.

I agree that rewriting the curriculum must be a priority, but more must be done. Ideological policies must end.

1. All learning resources must be vetted, and approved by the province, not the school districts. This is what has led to an unbearable work load for individual teachers, as well as unscrupulous learning resources via education consultants and nonsensical resources provided by the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Teachers’ Federation.

2. Reinstate provincial exams and letter grades, beginning in kindergarten.

3. Teacher training must change at the university level. Rigorous training must be more apparent before teacher trainee graduates are allowed to teach, including an exit exam to assess basic understanding of mathematics is apparent.

4. Failing all of these changes, the public and our politicians must lobby for more choices under the public school banner in order for it to improve.

There must be a public acknowledgment that the education system in British Columbia is failing our teachers, our parents and, most significantly, our students.

Tara Houle

North Saanich

Speed cameras would improve safety

Reducing speed limits meets resistance from law-abiding motorists because they feel they drive safely already, and nicely deflects the argument from the real problem. This is the fact that the guilty party was not taking any notice of the existing limit and is unlikely to take much notice of any new one.

The only effective response is to enforce the existing limit. When we had pop-up radar speed traps, the general speed of traffic and the accident rate did drop.

What killed the radar cameras was the long gap, up to six weeks, between offence and notification by mail. Politics also helped a little.

Since then, technology has greatly improved to the extent that cameras can not only identify the car by its number plate but can recognize the driver, too.

With warning signs at intervals on a highway, like the Malahat, the average speed can be calculated and immediately displayed to the driver, and even very expensive lawyers have a hard time winning a defence challenge.

The response, in other countries, is that traffic moves more safely at the speed limit and after a while, speed ­limits can even be raised on some roads. 

A similar approach on urban roads could see a screen set up after the ­camera displaying the car number, the speed and even an image of the driver. This system could be mobile and set up in problem areas.

John Bartlett

Saanich

Stickers themselves should be organic

I thought organic meant no chemicals used. If you place a chemical sticker on an organic product is it still “organic”?

They should use compostable labels!

Peter White

North Saanich

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