I think the Vancouver Canucks should trade places with the Calder Cup winners, the Abbotsford Canucks, until Vancouver learns how to run a playoff.
Congratulations, Abbotsford Canucks.
Wendy Darbey
Langford
As a longtime member of the YMCA Westhills in Langford, I am concerned and disappointed over the lack of investment in fitness equipment at what should be a flagship community facility.
Since the YMCA Westhills opened, I’ve remained committed to supporting this beautiful facility. However, one key area has consistently fallen short: the weight and fitness equipment.
Over the years, I and other members have voiced our concerns to YMCA staff about missing equipment, only to be told that there’s no money. I was told there would be meetings, and I even provided a list of essential machines along with an official quote from a local representative — but in the end, nothing ever seems to happen.
Basic machines common in nearly every gym, such as a preacher curl bench, incline press, hip abductor/ adductor, calf raise machine and hip thrust station, are not available. There is often a shortage of 45-pound plates, creating frustration when equipment like the leg press can’t be properly used. A quote suggests about $70,000 would be enough to modernize the gym’s core equipment — something that could help restore membership levels and improve satisfaction.
Why would the City of Langford purchase the YMCA facility without including a contingency plan to improve its operations and attract more members?
Especially when residents are now seeing tax increases in part due to this acquisition.
I support public investment in health and fitness, but sustainable success requires a plan — not just for maintenance, but for improvement.
Since the YMCA was purchased by the city, many members have left for other gyms, citing the same issue: a lack of proper equipment.
It’s time for leadership — whether from the YMCA or the city — to stop deflecting and start delivering.
Ryan Murphy
Langford
With all the strife going on in the world, it reminds me of a quote by the French philosopher Albert Camus, who so wisely stated: “Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics.”
I think humanity is in big trouble.
Anne Forbes
Victoria
In recent years, Vienna has become renowned among housing experts for its model of social housing, where more than half of its two million residents live in some form of subsidized housing.
Many of these housing units contain a day care, kindergarten, primary school, playground and park.
What has also helped relieve housing problems is a generous eligibility criteria. Roughly three-quarters of Austrians fall under the income threshold, and middle-class families can get geared-to-income housing.
With rents capped at a reasonable 25 per cent of income, each year the rent from those units has helped finance construction of more than 12,000 units being built or re-furbished. Not torn down — re-furbished.
Another advantage has been the creation of the opposite of gentrification. Neighbourhoods of people from different groups and different backgrounds.
Austria is not alone in using this model. Across Europe, governments manage a portion of their subsidized housing stock through privately managed non-profits. Money that would otherwise go to developers or shareholders in real estate investment trusts is put back into creating affordable homes and neighbourhoods, which has meant a price-dampening effect on the existing housing market.
Still tone deaf, in Canada our befuddled government struggles to come to grips with the housing crisis while at the same time allowing profit-oriented REIT’s and developers to dominate the housing supply.
The conclusion to draw from this is that the issue isn’t so much a lack of housing, but what government is known for. Misguided priorities and lack of imagination.
Allan Creasey
Salt Spring Island
Please, please change the decision of the NDP government to not provide the needed medication for little Charleigh Pollock.
It is beyond imagination the heartbreaking suffering of Charleigh and her family.
A million dollars is a drop in the bucket of today’s budgets of billions.
When you think of the endless money that is raised to find cures for diseases and here is a drug that has been proven to work and the NDP government says no.
There is no explanation that justifies this decision.
Margaret Dickinson
Oak Bay
Regarding the number of cars displaying U.S. licence plates driving on the Island and elsewhere in Canada.
Although it is natural to assume that the driver of such a car is an American visitor, it is not necessarily so.
Transport Canada allows Canadian snowbirds who have purchased and licensed a vehicle in the U.S. to temporarily import that vehicle into Canada for use while the owner is in Canada, provided the vehicle is then taken back to the U.S. when the owner leaves.
My wife and I, both Canadian citizens, took advantage of this, bringing our Tesla back with us when we returned to Canada this spring.
We heard that there had been some animosity displayed toward American visitors to Canada, so we placed Canadian flag stickers on our car’s bumpers, hoping that would identify us as Canadians.
Our experience driving around on the Island with our California plates and Canadian flag stickers has been for the most part positive, with generally friendly waves from other motorists, although perhaps the other bumper sticker concerning Elon Musk played a part.
The only negative reaction came from an irate woman in the parking lot of a store who aggressively declared it “unacceptable” that a car with U.S. plates should display a Canadian flag, and continued to berate us even after we told her we were Canadians.
Nick Pattenden
Mill Bay
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