Letters to the Vancouver Sun: Preserving monuments in honour of those who served is our duty

Re: Monuments to sacrifice deserve proper upkeep

What a great commentary Charlie Grahn wrote about the condition of some of the monuments to the sacrifices made by those who served Canada in military conflicts. It seems to me that he is right on the mark and that governments at all levels need to make the upkeep of these monuments a priority of their budgeting process.

I am aware that there are many economic demands placed on politicians in this day of scarce resources. However, without the sacrifices made by those who went before us, we would not have the benefit of the freedom we enjoy every day.

Governments do not have to do this required upkeep all at once, but they do need to develop a plan, available to all of us, to carry out the necessary maintenance of these monuments in honour of those who served and lost their lives, or whose lives were changed significantly by their service.

This needs to start now.

Dan Peebles, Langley 

Re: Natural resource industries have sustained generations

A letter writer made an impassioned appeal for our government and business leaders to do more to support rural communities. He pointed out that “farming, fishing and forestry built and sustained generations of (rural) B.C. residents.”

It is important to note that these economic activities are founded on renewable natural resources. The soil and water, fish stock, and forest ecosystems can regenerate indefinitely if harvesting is done in a sustainable way.

On the other hand, the fossil oil and gas, and mineral-extraction industries are based on non-renewable resources.  While they may provide a brief economic bonanza to some rural communities, in the long run the finite resource is mined out. Our objective should be to replace these non-renewable inputs with renewable alternatives.

Derek Wilson, Port Moody

All of this current angst seems misplaced.  We’ve always dealt with time zones flying east or west and now we have the same challenges flying south. Yes, it may be darker for kids going to school in the morning, but they’ll get much more use and ability to play outside with an extra hour of light after school. Our circadian rhythms adapt fine to a four-hour variation in sunrise times through the year, so this simple shift shouldn’t cause any more issues than the four-hour shift.

R.W. (Bob) Garnett, Richmond

It would appear the outgoing NDP government arbitrarily decided on permanent daylight time without much input from health and sleep experts who are now offering their take on why this is not suitable for us in B.C. Personally, I prefer permanent standard time as it syncs with the natural order of things. Was there ever a public consultation at least before the NDP decided on dropping permanent daylight time on us?