Letters to The Sun, September 28, 2021: Nurses’ Union Stance on Vaccination Shameful

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As a recently retired RN and former BCNU member, I couldn’t be more embarrassed by BCNU’s stance on unvaccinated nurses. The BCNU website states that the union protects and promotes the health and safety of not only its members, but also its patients, profession, and community. They argue that we cannot afford even one less nurse on the front lines, yet an unvaccinated nurse has the potential to increase the burden of healthcare, either by becoming a COVID patient or creating more COVID patients by spreading the disease. disease. This argument does not hold up against the available science.

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Rachel French from Mejia, Victoria

Reaction to the choice

During the election campaign, Maxime Bernier assured his supporters that they can trust Canada’s federal electoral process. In fact, we can. Any Canadian can volunteer to be a scrutineer and oversee the entire process, including the count. Just look south to realize how fortunate we are to have a transparently verifiable process. The growing push for voting machines (already used in New Brunswick provincial elections) and even internet voting (used in some Canadian municipal elections) threatens to put this at risk. We must always be vigilant and never lose the hand-counted ballot.

Greg DePaco, New Westminster

Americans are right about one thing: setting election dates every four years and a maximum of two terms for the president. It’s a shame that Justin Trudeau could call an election after less than two years in office, especially during a pandemic, and at a cost of $ 600 million.

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Margaret Stuart, Vancouver

As I was recently asked at the grocery store to donate money to support school food programs for hungry children, I was angered by the more than $ 600 million wasted on this election. That money could have fed hungry children, fixed water in reservoirs, or helped the food bank feed hungry adults. What a waste.

For the answer to that question, one only has to go to “first after post”, our antiquated electoral system that was fine with only two parties, but causes a great distortion of the wishes of the voters in Canada today. When our political parties have a race for leadership, do they use first after office? So why impose it on the voters? Proportional representation is a much better system for highlighting the wishes of voters.

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Are we out of tune when Canada and the UK are the only Western democracies using this outdated system?

Daryl Sturdy, Vancouver

Re: Toilet Paper Brands Fuel Climate Calamity

Canada’s forest products industry and its workers strongly believe that we have a shared responsibility to protect our environment and fight climate change. Our industry is proud to be one of the first to support Canada’s commitment to the goals of the Paris Agreement and our progress towards a net zero carbon economy by 2050. When considering the best way forward to achieve these goals, it is important let Canadians know the facts. about their best product options for the planet.

An article by Colin McClelland (Financial Post, September 20) is based on a report by a US-based lobbying organization that misrepresents the facts about how Canada’s forests are managed and how toilet paper is made.

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In Canada, most of the fiber in toilet paper comes from wood waste – in other words, materials that would otherwise be wood waste. Trees are a renewable resource and are sustainably harvested to make low-carbon building materials such as wood. The leftover wood chips, bark and sawdust are used for other products such as toilet paper, sanitary products, biofuels and other low carbon biomaterials. This is the circular economy in action and represents our ‘Made in Canada’ commitment to reducing waste by getting value from every part of the tree. It is also preferable to the alternative, which would be to let the wood chips accumulate and risk starting a forest fire.

In Canada, sustainable forest management is the law. Forestry companies operating in Canada’s publicly owned forests harvest at sustainable rates; This means that they harvest less than 0.5 percent of the available wood per year, incorporate local values, consider biodiversity needs, and plant more than 600 million seedlings each year to keep our forests as forests forever.

Derek Nighbor, President and CEO of the Canadian Forest Products Association of Canada

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