If you can’t control your speed, you should be punished
Cash grab or not, I applaud the red-light cameras to catch and fine speeders.
If you can’t control your speed and create a dangerous environment, you should be punished. Driving is a privilege and should be treated as such.
I was nearly killed by a reckless driver and for the last 17 years have been through numerous surgeries, kept from fully participating in life and become a burden on family and friends. If these cameras force one person to slow down and not ruin a life, I’ll be the happiest person alive. People, please remember, speed kills.
Svee Bains, Vancouver
Tax is just confiscation
Please stop calling the NDP’s newest tax grab a “speculation tax.” It’s not. It’s an old-fashioned, socialist, wealth tax masquerading as a useful tax tool.
“Speculation” is already taxed by the federal government with the capital gains tax and the NDP clearly wants something similar. But, after this “speculation tax” has settled in and the mechanisms are established, the rules will change.
The low, introductory taxation rate will change and every year thereafter the NDP will take away a piece of your equity in an annual wealth tax. Eventually, the government will own your property.
This confiscation by taxation should be recognized for what it is. It’s part of a longterm “soak the rich” equality campaign that will reduce us all to an equal level of poverty. John Allen, Harrison Hot Springs
Retraction should be offered
Dr. Diane MacIntosh is to be commended for her column on the use of antipsychotic medication for treating depression. In fact, these medications should be called dopamine antagonists.
Although they are primarily prescribed for psychosis, they do have a recognized role in refractory depression. Many patients have benefited from these medications for depression and it doesn’t do the public or the medical profession any good by not recognizing that these drugs can be beneficial and are approved for this use by regulating agencies in Canada and the U.S.
Using a medical student to offer psychiatric advice is exploitive of the student and a disservice to the public and the medical profession. The Therapeutics Initiative needs to offer a retraction.
Dr. Derryck Smith, clinical professor emeritus,
department of psychiatry, University of B.C.
Did they drive to protest?
I suppose none of the anti-pipeline protesters at Saturday’s event arrived by car or wear clothing made from an oil-based product.
Have these global-warming zealots ever wondered what caused the ice age to recede? It wasn’t the burning of fossil fuels, was it? I would surmise that the Earth has gone through one of its axis wobbles again.
Tom Moore, Delta
Private insurance a bad idea
Some people are promoting replacing ICBC with private motor-vehicle insurance, but most of those companies are in the U.S.
Under such a plan, the premiums would go south of the border. With ICBC, those dollars stay in B.C.
Also, when two private insurance companies fight over an accident, lawyers are involved, which pushes up the cost of insurance.
Claire Plewes, North Vancouver