CHILLIWACK TIMES TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 2013
A9
Letters
Tax dollars should benefit all who pay their taxes Editor: I keep hearing how successful Party in the Park is. If that’s the case then why does the cost go up every year and why is it necessary for the taxpayer to fund it? Any business or company can look successful if it’s subsidized. Start charging vendors, visitors and patrons an entry fee and see how many people show up. I’m sure there isn’t a business in Chilliwack that couldn’t use some funding from the City of Chilliwack to attract business. And, if these businesses or companies offered free anything, then 75 per cent of the population would likely attend and these businesses or companies would appear successful. When was the last time that the Vedder/Yale Road corridor was completely repaved? I’m sure that its been nearly 20 years, and maybe my eyes need to be checked but almost every street in Chilliwack needs to be re-lined. How about putting some of the Party in the Park money towards this stuff which would benefit all of the Chilliwack residents. C. Kozlik Chilliwack
Time to change the system Editor: I read the story, in horror, about the toddler subjected to months of sexual abuse by a criminal, yet the mother was not aware of this? I believe the mother is just as responsible for this tragedy. This poor little girl has lost so much and hasn’t even started living yet. She will need countless hours of counselling, and will find it difficult to trust again. The worst tragedy though, is that this awful man will only get 10 to 12 years in prison. He should never get out—ever. I hope someone visits him in prison and takes their best clippers ever and does everyone a favour by ensuring he can never do this again to anyone. Our incompetent and useless justice system in Canada fails again. This man should never see the light of day, ever, and I think there are a lot of people out there that think the same. I simply don’t care if he is mentally ill. I don’t care what he went through in his early years. I don’t care if someone offered him drugs and he took them and got hooked on them, his life means nothing. But, the little girl’s, the victim’s rights, should be the only one considered. Why do lawyers, like Evans for instance, even
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lower themselves to defend such scum? Money? Our legal system has still not figured out that we are not in the 1800s any longer. Guess what, it is 2013 now, time for a big, big change. Jeanne Fairweather Chilliwack
More useful than you think Editor: In response to Mr. Colin Gender’s letter regarding early French immersion: Dear Mr. Gender: As a proud bilingual Canadian I’d like to tell you what all the kerfuffle is about. If your presumption that the parents seeking early immersion programs for their children for the sole purpose of finding employment with the federal government is correct, I’d say that’s a smart plan since the federal government is the
largest employer in Canada with nearly 180,000 jobs, and 72,000 of those jobs being designated bilingual positions. Did you not realize that the employment opportunities extend way beyond government? Employers in all sectors are looking for bilingual employees, from customer service to accounting, to communications, marketing and medicine. I guess you didn’t realize that with the increasing globalized world, where more than 30 countries have French as an official language and more than 220 million French speakers worldwide, bilingual employees can work with multinational corporations working in or with other French speaking parts of the world such as France, Switzerland, Belgium, North and sub-Saharan Africa. French is both a working language and an official language of the UN, the EU,
UNESCO, NATO, the IOC, the Red Cross and the international courts. After English and German, French is the third most used language on the Internet, ahead of Spanish. French is also a good base language for learning other languages, especially Spanish and even English since 50 per cent of current English vocabulary is derived from French. Being fluent in French offers access to great works of literature, film and songs in their original form. French is the language of Victor Hugo, Moliere, Leopold Sendar Senghor, Edith Piaf, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alain Delon and Zinedine Zidane. And why French as a second language? Because we are Canadian and French is an official language here in this amazing country. Being able to communicate in both our official languages builds a bridge not only to our people, but to our heritage and our history as a bilingual country. Still think it’s not very useful? Franceska Fuller Chilliwack
Buy local, but don’t gouge Editor: I have to agree with Lou Raboin in the letters column (Chilliwack Times, June 20). We stopped at the bottom
of Promontory to pick up some cherries. When my wife came back to the car I just laughed—$3.50 a pound for cherries when they’re not paying union wages, no permit, no business licence, no taxes, no overhead. How much are the growers getting? I totally agree let’s buy local, but let’s not gouge local. Norm Paisley Chilliwack
Unborn victims deserve rights Editor: An open letter to Mark Strahl, MP regarding “Putting victims’ rights first” column in the June 18 Chilliwack Times. Mr. Strahl, there is no doubt that the intention of this bill is honourable and that your support of it is commendable. This private member’s bill was sponsored by one of your colleagues. Are you open for a suggestion? A private member’s bill sponsored by you to protect another group of people who are presently being brutalized in our society would be very fitting. There are hundreds of unborn Canadian children that are physically and fatally being brutalized every day. Yes they are being brutalized; being callously dismembered has
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to be described as brutal. You must be aware of the evidence that has come out about the practices of a certain Mr. Gosnell in his abortuaries in the U.S. There is no difference in this practice between a U.S. facility or a Canadian facility. No amount of masking, clean or dirty facilities, can change the fact of the brutality of killing children, whether they are born or unborn. Every individual, innocent, helpless baby in the womb is silently screaming at us for the full protection of Canadian law. Muliplying this individual scream by about 275 of them per day, or if you like, about 100,000 per year in our (great?) nation, the urgency of protective action should be heard very clearly by you. The suggestion? It is your turn to do something about this situation, and quickly at that. Every five minutes another scream is silenced. Martin Maljaars Chilliwack
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