Letters, Sept. 24: Don't despair for Canada, we will survive and thrive
Credit to Author: Stephen Snelgrove| Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2019 01:00:16 +0000
I read with intense interests the article written by MLA Ravi Kahlon on Sept. 13.
Half a century ago, I made a conscientious decision in becoming a Canadian citizen, and I have never looked back.
Good on you, Mr. Kahlon, you did your homework about our Canadian history. The forefathers of Canada had indeed inflicted all those injustices to some of our early immigrants, and then some.
I’d like to relate my first encounter with institutional prejudice many moons ago with your readers. Being a newcomer to the city I wanted to enrol in a self-paid training course at the Vancouver Vocational Institute in Downtown Vancouver. By mistake I walked into a welfare office next door.
The receptionist lady was deep into her paperback novel. Seeing my black hair and features, instinctively she asked, “meal ticket or room ticket?” I felt neither insulted nor angry then nor now. I knew education is the only tool to lift people out of desperate or dire situations.
Canada — our country — has been good to me. She saw me going far and wide to Africa and China, representing her as a technical adviser with the Canadian Executive Service Organization. I finished all my training with VVI and BCIT, and became gainfully employed.
Surely there would always be a few citizens feeling threatened by the “the others” because of the colour of our skin, our perceived differences, our religions or just plain “me being me.”
But don’t despair, I’m convinced that as a nation we will survive, come out ahead as one of the best places on earth to live, to raise a family and to promote good will toward each other.
God bless Canada!
Sidney C. Ng, Vancouver
California passed landmark legislation last week that requires gig-economy companies such as Lyft, Uber and DoorDash to treat their drivers as employees.
Currently in B.C., such workers aren’t considered employees and aren’t entitled to the basic protections of the Employment Standards Act, which sets out minimum wages, hours of work, overtime, vacation pay and more.
Further, app-based companies in B.C. don’t contribute to WorkSafeBC, Employment Insurance or the Canada Pension Plan, and those who work for them have no access to these protections or benefits.
B.C. should immediately introduce legislation with an eye to closing the loopholes that allow gig-economy companies to duck their responsibilities as employers and to deny their workers basic rights and benefits.
Richard Hoover, Delta
I sympathize with patients and their family members finding high parking rates at hospitals — or trips to extend parking — a burden at the time of medical treatment. For the city hospitals I’m familiar with in Vancouver there is no way they could offer free or even cheap parking, located as they are in zones under severe parking pressure from non-hospital traffic.
High-priced as it is, hospital parking isn’t likely to be taken up by non-hospital motorists and that at least ensures more space for those who do need to park at hospital facilities.
The only way around the problem I can picture is a hypothetical method of granting a parking privilege to patients or their chaperon. It’s hard to picture how that would be administered, for example, in advance of a planned and, especially, an unplanned hospital visit.
Elaine Gilligan, Vancouver
I can’t believe that the Vancouver airport wants to increase the airport improvement fee. You get the impression that management and board spend most of their time trying to figure out ways to spend the money they already get from this tax.
Obviously they like being rated as an attractive airport, but as a traveller I just want to get through the airport as quickly and efficiently as possible. If I have time to shop it’s because there is a problem. If I have time to rest in an indoor park, it’s because there is a problem.
Spend the money you’ve already got finding ways to get me through the airport without any extra time spent there. Don’t spend money on art that can only be seen by five gates in the U.S. wing.
R.W. (Bob) Garnett, Steveston
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