Slow down and respect those working to keep us safe
As a retired peace officer I have become disgusted by the number of drivers who choose to ignore the laws of our province.
Specifically, when you are passing a police vehicle, an ambulance, or fire vehicle and tow vehicles: SLOW DOWN, MOVE OVER, IT IS THE LAW, when they are stopped at the road side and are displaying their flashing red and blues, red and/or amber lights.
These people are out working on our roadways and highways to keep us safe. SLOW DOWN, MOVE OVER and keep them safe! For those of us who may have forgotten, you need to slow to 70 km/h if the speed zone is posted greater than 80 km/h and slow to 40 km/h in all other speed zones.
None of us want to hear that one of our first responders have been killed or injured because they are out trying to keep us safe from the rest of the irresponsible driving public.
John Shirley,
Castlegar, B.C.
Stop disrupting RDCK Climate meetings
A gaggle of disruptive people are attending the RDCK’s Climate Actions Plan information sessions. Like barnyard geese, they rudely interrupt others, arguing for higher taxes and inflation caused by ballooning fossil fuel prices! The RDCK’s Climate Actions Plan recommends how we can save money by reducing our fossil fuel dependence. It contains nothing binding: no new taxes, no new bylaws, no changes to the building code, yet the geese honk mindlessly against what’s not in the plan.
Does anybody honestly think fossil fuel prices will drop? Fossil fuels are a finite resource. We’ve used the easy-to-recover, low-cost reserves. Why else is Canada spending on offshore drilling and bitumen mining? Bitumen is tar re-branded as oil sands, the impurity that separates high-value light crude oil from low-value heavy crude oil. Beyond costly extraction, bitumen refining involves separating tar from soil (far from 100 per cent efficient at any price so there are huge tailings ponds (lakes) endangering our environment that our taxes will pay to remediate). Why spend crazily on cracking bitumen into commercial products when there are less expensive options? Like Europe and China, we could generate electricity reliably from the wind and sun, at far lower cost, and without the mess.
Canada’s fossil fuel industry is heavily subsidized. Ottawa and Edmonton are spending big on carbon capture, an expensive technology with a lousy track record. We wouldn’t need carbon capture if Canada was energized renewably. Reason doesn’t stop the geese from honking. They love Justin Trudeau’s carbon capture schemes and his Transmountain Pipeline. The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently concluded TMX would not be profitable at a cost above $21.4 billion. It’s projected to cost over thirty billion. Taxpayers beware.
Say no to the geese and their barnyard antics. Say no to higher taxes, inflation, and ballooning energy costs. Say yes to the RDCK’s Climate Action Plans.
Robert M. Macrae
Castlegar, B.C.
Bring dialysis to Nelson hospital
The majority of the hemodialysis patients I see in the renal dialysis area of the Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital (KBRH) are, like me, seniors who are suffering from kidney failure. Also, we have serious mobility issues that require the use of walkers or wheel chairs to get to the dialysis units on the fourth floor of the Trail hospital.
Nine of us from the Nelson-Creston riding (six from Nelson and three from outlying areas) are forced to travel and pay the transportation costs to and from KBRH over dangerous mountain roads in bad weather. As well as the financial burden, we must depend on friends, shuttle operators, or family members, who wait at the minimum four hours while we undergo hemodialysis three times a week. None of these drivers that I know are trained in dealing with medical emergencies.
This is not the way Interior Health Authority should treat chronically ill seniors with serious mobility issues at the end of our lives. Not only are these trips exhausting and financially draining, they are demeaning to the spirit.
In Nelson, there’s a hospital located less than five minutes from my home that could be equipped with dialysis units, nurses, a technician, and a nephrologist (there are four in Trail) to service our needs if IHA had the will to do the humane and environmentally sensible thing. There are charitable organizations that could be tapped by the Hospital Foundation to assist in underwriting these expenses.
Why doesn’t Diane Shendruk, VP of Clinical Operations (North) at IHA respond compassionately to our requests for hemodialysis units at KLH rather than forcing the elderly to suffer the indignities of relocating to Trail, undertaking less effective treatments at home, or sacrificing our economic security by forcing us to pay for transportation to Trail when we have contributed our time, effort, and significant tax dollars to the welfare of this province?
Millie Harper
Nelson resident
Do the math
In the 07-Sep-23 edition of the West Kootenay Advertiser, journalist Trevor Crawley quotes Conservative MP John Brassard, “banks are going to have a role, potentially with increased amortization periods as homeowners needing to renew their mortgage look to reign in costly payments.”
Do the math: increasing amortization payments is very costly for homeowners. The median Castlegar house price is $482,000, a buyer makes a 20 per cent down payment and mortgages the balance ($385,600) at 5.25 per cent. If the amortization period is 25 years, monthly payments are $2,297.86. Total interest paid after 300 months is $303,757.96. If the amortization period is 30 years, monthly payments drop modestly to $2.115.82, but total interest paid after 360 months skyrockets to $376,094.96 (a $72,336.99 or 24-per-cent hike). Those are after-tax dollars the homeowner could have saved for retirement: a steep price for a $182.04 or 8 per cent cut in monthly mortgage payments.
Increased amortization periods are a gift to financial institutions paid for by homeowners, the people the Conservatives claim they want to help. Who needs that kind of help?
A better solution to lower high housing prices is to increase the supply of affordable (cost recovery) housing. The private sector won’t undertake affordable housing projects because their goal is to maximize profits for their investors: no profit potential, no private sector investment. To increase the supply of affordable housing (for seniors, the marginalized, low income working families, etc.) a government would build and manage enough publicly-owned affordable housing to reduce the demand for private housing. When private housing demand falls, its cost will fall: simple supply and demand economics. Tax dollars invested in affordable housing are recovered in rent.
Increased amortization periods are a cash transfer from homeowners to financial institutions. Publicly-owned affordable housing recovers tax dollars invested and lowers private housing costs.
Robert Macrae
Castlegar, BC
The cost of doing nothing
Well, school is now back in session with parents looking at the rising cost for all that entails. If you are renting, or desperately hoping to find a place to rent, you already know what cost to expect and what you will get. If you were very unfortunate like those whose homes were lost to wildfire, you will be getting an idea of the costs to start again.
We might call these up-front costs, where you kind of know at the start before committing to that expense. We don’t like to commit to spending if we don’t know the final cost.
The RDCK Climate Action Plan is currently an example of that for some people. How can you commit to a program dealing with the electrification of public transit infrastructure, encouraging the building of more energy-efficient homes or promoting wildfire mitigation all for the sake of community resilience and reducing carbon emissions when you don’t know what it will cost?
This presents a bit of a paradox. By reducing carbon emissions, using a variety of means, we collectively help to reduce the effect of the climate disruption being experienced around the planet and improve community services at the same time. By backing out of the RDCK Climate Action Plan, you are essentially saying you are willing to accept the unknown and ongoing cost of doing nothing.
Ron Robinson
Nelson, B.C.
READ MORE: Castlegar council to debate future of dog park
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