Childcare benefit has tax implications
Re: Thumbs down (Opinion, July 22)
The conservative’s childcare benefit will likely help some families, but they should check the out tax implications very carefully.
From what I’ve been reading, few will be keeping all of it. Many will have to pay tax on it, and some might actually come out behind. But they won’t find that out until after the election unless they check.
Tia Leschke
Sooke
Science, religion can create a better world
Last week Transition Sooke organized an informative evening on climate change and the case for regional food security.
The undeniable fact of climate change and its dire effects on Earth is happening now and will significantly worsen in the coming years.
A hopeful adaptation to climate change for the Sooke region was presented introducing the Sooke Food Shed initiative as a solution to contribute towards regional food security.
It was interesting listening to these presentations in the St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, thinking that climate change is fundamentally a moral issue and the role religion needs to play in resolving this world crisis.
Unless we address this core issue, locally and globally, any actions to adapt to climate change will be seriously compromised and ultimately fail either due to internal or external causes.
Materialism, the insatiable desire for material goods, beyond material needs, to the extent that material acquisitions define one’s social identity and status and have become the very purpose of life, is the immoral root cause of climate change as well as most of the social and economic ills facing society. This has resulted in a self-serving capitalist system.
More than inculcating a virtuous life, which many people have developed culturally without religion, true religion reframes reality, instills a moral purpose to life, and provides the principles and essential motivation to create a society based on cooperation, reciprocity and the setting of the common good above private interest.
Obviously religious practices need to change significantly so people recognize the common spiritual foundation of religions, rise above doctrines of exclusiveness and unite together to build progressive, cooperative communities.
We have the science to both mitigate and adapt to climate change and to develop a prosperous, peaceful world. What is lacking is the will to act in unity for the benefit of all.
Religion provides the essential individual and collective motivation for the common good. Together, through science and religion we can create a better world and we can start in Sooke.
Don Brown
Sooke
Wickheim needs to be honoured
The recent naming of Sooke streets with pioneer roots is appropriate. An explanation of who they were is always needed as they died many years ago.
My thoughts today are about Maywell Wickheim. I met and spoke to him a few times in the past six years at community events.
I feel quite sad to learn of his passing even though one knows it’s inevitable.
The “no service request” in his obituary leaves those of us literal strangers to him but with no place to put our feelings.
The family name Wickheim needs to be honored in some way.
I suggest that a street or some other public Sooke site be designated to the Wickheim family before those of Maywell’s generation are deceased.
It would be wonderful for this to be done ASAP.
Carmen Neumann
Sooke
Isn’t it time there was a Wickheim Way?
On July 21, I learned of the death of local legend Maywell Wickheim, a man who contributed in countless, significant ways to the Sooke area and beyond. To describe his many achievements would require a full page. His passing is a great loss.
Maywell came from a family of high achievers, who include his sister Elida Peers.
In a touch of irony, the July 15 issue of the News Mirror featured a story by Peers explaining why Sooke will have a “Brownsey Boulevard.”
For roughly 70 years, Sooke’s Wickheim family has been quietly forging fine – and lasting – achievements for the area, be it Sooke Fine Arts, the Sooke Region Museum, the Kludahk Trail or the Sun River Community Garden.
Isn’t it time there was a Wickheim Way?
Shannon Moneo
Sooke
Fletcher chokes on water facts
Re: Latest Nestle protest doesn’t hold water? (Online, July 21)
Tom Fletcher pulls no punches, calling the SumOfUs/WaterWealth petition nonsense in the opening paragraph of his piece.
Fortunately none of Fletcher’s punches land, being aimed at places the petition never stood.
As a representative of WaterWealth I apologize to Mr. Fletcher if he took the words “suck B.C. dry” literally and mistook the opening comment for the whole conversation. We had not anticipated that, and feedback we have received indicates that the public went well beyond that opening comment to understand the broader issues that the petition was about — primary among them being to ensure that the Water Sustainability Act is sufficiently funded to be fully implemented.
The review of rental rates under the act, that the petition sought and that the province promised even before the petition was delivered, is but one more step in the on-going work to ensure that the public’s voice is heard in development of strong regulations for the Water Sustainability Act, the first major update of B.C. water law in over a century.
Perhaps Fletcher overlooked that the petition text was “Charge a fair price for Canada’s groundwater! Commit now to review the water rates!” Those rates, ranging from 2 cents to $2.25, apply to some 80 categories of water use. None of those 80 categories of use can be satisfied with either tap water or a jug from the fridge.
Ian Stephen,
Campaign director,
WaterWealth Project
