Re: “Canada rescinds digital services tax to resume negotiations with U.S.,” June 30.
Just before Canada Day, our prime minister, Mark Carney, surrendered to U.S. President Donald Trump. Carney did not recall Parliament to change the bill that taxes the super-large companies that make money from Canadians, such as Google and Amazon, but did it unilaterally.
What happened to the Carney who was going to stand up to Trump? What happened to “elbows up”?
The problem with showing weakness to a bully like Trump is that he will make more and more demands on Canada, knowing that Carney does not have the intestinal fortitude to resist, and maybe we will end up as the 51st state.
Kenneth Mintz
Victoria
Re: “Canada rescinds digital services tax to resume negotiations with U.S.,” June 30.
Prime Minister Mark Carney gave in to a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Carney and the Liberals agreed to increase funding for border security, which really was an excuse. Carney has just agreed with NATO to increase Canada’s funding for defence.
When Trump announced increasing tariffs on Canada, Carney was going to impose retaliatory tariffs, but that never happened.
Just as Doug Ford threatened to cut off electricity to some states, again an idle threat.
No matter what Canada or any other country does to appease Trump, it will never be enough. That action further cements my feelings on Trump. Yes, Canada will be annexed because nobody will stand up to the American dictator.
People who voted Liberal are like Americans who voted for Trump. Now they are wondering why.
William Jesse
Victoria
Re: “Canada rescinds digital services tax to resume negotiations with U.S.,” June 30.
The eve of Canada Day was indeed a very sad day for our country and its people. We have completely capitulated to the U.S. president in regard to the digital services tax.
Some would say it was necessary to do so because we were threatened yet again.
I believe this hasty decision has weakened our country in the eyes of the world and compromised both our sovereignty and our bargaining position.
This action will most likely fuel more rhetoric and insulting gestures, which in turn only serve to undermine confidence and pride in our population.
All the recent flag waving, staying in Canada, buying Canadian and “elbows up” seem so futile in light of this news. This is not “Canada strong.”
It is common knowledge that Canada has been significantly mismanaged and diminished over the past decade by the previous government.
After the most recent federal election, there was some glimmer of hope that we could turn the corner through strong leadership and demonstrated resolve to defend our country.
Now I say with sorrow that the words and actions of our leaders over the past few months ring hollow.
It is no wonder many young Canadians have expressed frustration and muttered comments that our country is “broken.” Indeed, some have expressed a desire to join the U.S.
The decision to cave so quickly and publicly only serves to underline that we are in a weakened situation.
I hope I am proven wrong. Time alone will tell.
G.D. Smith
Colwood
I hope all you working folks enjoyed your Canada Day. Frolicking about, enjoying your day off work, knowing you get a full day’s pay. As a senior citizen on a fixed income, what do I get? Nothing.
No extra pay. No overtime acknowledgement. I still had to get up, make my bed, make coffee, feed the cat, walk the dog, weed the garden. Then I had to visit a friend, read the paper, watch the news, go swimming, then for a bike ride. Then dinner with the kids and a movie to finish the day.
Nothing special. Just another day full of responsibilities. Blatant age discrimination.
Paul Martin
Victoria
Is it necessary for the music at Beacon Hill Park to be so loud? For the past couple of weeks, when I’m at the park, there is music at the bandshell.
I come to the park to get fresh air and clear my head, but I find the music intrusive, loud enough that I want to cry whenever I hear it, and I have always been sensitive to noisy environments. There are probably other people with sensory processing issues who feel that way, too.
Emma Dingman
Colwood
Re: “Cowichan Tribes don’t want rail or trail running through their lands,” June 29.
Is this the final nail in the rail coffin?
Maybe it’s time we actually listened to the views of First Nations who are impacted by the Island Railway Corridor.
For years, they have been saying that a railway is not economical, a waste of public money and not in their interests.
Some have asked to consider repurposing to multi-use trails, yet the Island Corridor Foundation continues to push back, while offering no viable path forward to a restoration of rail service.
So deaf was the ICF that, in 2023, five First Nations representatives quit the foundation. While the ICF continue to discuss rail options, a long section of rail on Snaw-Naw-As territory has been rightfully removed.
This is exactly what the Cowichan Tribes are asking for as well: no more railway tracks. We should support their wishes.
Desmond James
Langford
Re: “Cowichan Tribes don’t want rail or trail running through their lands,” June 29.
Unless some leadership worthy of the name soon emerges, our invaluable island corridor will die the proverbial “death by a thousand cuts.”
The news that the Cowichan Tribes want Island Corridor lands returned to them because “the train is no longer running” follows on the Snaw-Naw-As Nation reclaiming corridor lands after governments failed to commit to resuming rail service.
The corridor is a priceless legacy left to us by previous generations with the potential to link Indigenous and settler communities by zero-emission transportation with a minimal geographic footprint.
Compare the thin line of the E&N with the vast real estate required by the North Island Highway, and you understand how much more ecologically efficient a rail and trail corridor would be.
Running as it does through city centres up the Island, it is perfectly positioned to connect to public transit and cycling routes spanning all the communities along its route.
With evolving locomotion from diesel, LNG, electric or battery-electric or someday hydrogen, the corridor would be the spine of a spectacularly convenient, affordable and climate-friendly transportation network that would make Vancouver Island the envy of the world.
To see this extraordinary potential lost due to incompetence and apathy makes me heartsick and depressed. Action please.
John Thomson
Victoria
Re: “Victoria needs a plan that will truly make city safer,” comment, June 25.
In Victoria Coun. Marg Gardiner’s commentary, I saw the depths of her frustration laid bare. She correctly points to illicit drug use and addiction as a significant root cause of social disruption on our streets, but her proposed solutions lie in opposition to those supported by research.
Googling “supportive housing drug use success” results in numerous studies that compare various drug-treatment approaches and their relative success rates.
In short, providing housing to people with addictions is consistently more effective at reducing substance use and keeping individuals off the streets than “treatment first” approaches.
Let us direct more attention and resources to current supportive housing programs, so “disruptive elements” can be given the care they require. How else will they heal?
To me, any debate over the origins and drives of addiction misses a key fundamental: Addiction is a narrowing of things that bring you pleasure.
For many of us, it might be impossible to understand the circumstances that culminate in living without a home, addicted to drugs.
But surely you can imagine how, if you felt you had nothing, you might cling to the one thing that makes you feel like you’re escaping your present circumstances.
Providing housing allows individuals to be more stable and connected, to expand the range of experiences in their lives that bring them joy.
Don’t our neighbours deserve that?
Sophie Culos
Victoria
As the rector of the cathedral parish that is home to the longest-serving soup kitchen in the city, I’d like to add my voice to the chorus pleading for a new, compassionate direction to alleviate the social disintegration downtown.
Like many others, we are having to hire security, build additional fencing to prevent vandalism and theft, and increasingly take measures to protect our staff, volunteers and parishioners from physical and verbal threats, sometimes due to states of mental psychosis.
At the same time, we truly care about all: the homeless and housed, the addicted and sober, the mentally ill and those enjoying mental health.
All are part of our sense of family, and as family we cannot tolerate the drug-fuelled destruction of human lives and well-being of the downtown community.
The reversal and remedy requires a change of heart and conviction about the dignity of all.
Tolerating destructive and death-inducing behaviours must give way to genuine love.
If the homeless, addicted and mentally ill person were my family member, I would insist upon residential, voluntary and non-voluntary treatment in a facility of genuine compassionate recovery.
I would also insist that lying comatose after open drug consumption on the steps of our church is beneath human dignity.
The philosophical and spiritual foundation for change requires that the decades-long isolating “love” of the self shift toward the culturally enhancing “love” of the other.
Without this shift in emphasis, things will get worse before they get better, and God help us all.
Fr. Dean N. Henderson
Rector, St. Andrew’s Cathedral
B.C. Ferries is reportedly not allowing damaged hybrids or electric vehicles on ferries.
According to data collected by EV FireSafe, an Australian company that monitors EV fires, there were slightly more than 500 battery-related fires in light-duty EVs globally between 2010 and the end of June 2024.
With an estimated 40 million EVs operating globally as of early 2024, that’s around a one in 100,000 rate of fire.
Tesla estimated that one of its vehicles caught fire every 209 million kilometres travelled, which is about one fire every 23,400 round trips from New York to Los Angeles.
In comparison, the National Fire Protection Association estimated that a fire occurs once every 29 million kilometres for all fuel types, which is more than seven times more frequent.
In the United States, there were on average 117,370 passenger vehicle fires each year between 2013 and 2017.
That’s about one every five minutes. Although the U.S. data don’t identify which fires are in gasoline vehicles versus EVs, data in Sweden do.
Based on those data, analysts at MotorTrend estimated that gasoline and diesel vehicles were 29 times more likely to catch fire than EVs and conventional non-plug-in hybrids.
Garry Rogowski
Duncan
This past Cannabis Day, we honoured those who dedicated their lives to making medical cannabis accessible in Canada: Michelle Rainey, Corrie Yelland, Neil Magnusson. Their legacies remind us that advocacy saves lives.
Yet despite their efforts — and 15 years of petitioning — B.C. still lacks a provincial medical cannabis program. That needs to change.
Patients are tired of waiting.
They need walk-in clinics staffed by certified medical cannabis practitioners.
They need affordable access to craft-grown medicine. They need compassion — not criminalization.
Langley City has set the example. In a historic decision, their council approved a one-year pilot project: “Cannabis Substitution for Opioids.”
Based on a 1,200-patient study by Dr. Ira Price, 80 per cent of participants successfully transitioned off opioids using cannabis, which will roll out publicly at the end of July.
It’s time for Premier David Eby and Health Minister Josie Osborne to follow suit because this isn’t just compassionate care — it’s smart policy.
Cannabis patients experience 43 per cent fewer emergency-room visits, 39 per cent lower prescription drug use; less strain on our hospitals and longer, healthier lives.
B.C. has the opportunity to lead.
Let’s make it happen — not just for those we’ve lost, but for those still fighting.
Joy Davies, B.C. Chapter Government Relations Director
Canadian Medical Cannabis Partners
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