Readers react to ‘snow-removal’ providers in Metro Vancouver

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Not like many municipalities, right here in Port Coquitlam we obtain terrific snow-clearing. We stay on a small cul-de-sac with solely eight properties and but our road was plowed and salted by 8 p.m. on Wednesday. This simply reveals that it’s doable to produce the fundamental providers to taxpayers after they’re wanted.

J. Inglis, Port Coquitlam

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Not like a lot of Canada, 15 centimetres of snow brings issues to a screeching halt within the Decrease Mainland. I bought an hour of train this morning clearing snow from my guardian’s yard.

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My spouse mentioned, “Simply rent a service.” My thought was, “Like hiring an electrician, good luck.” Odds are the workforce lives deep within the Fraser Valley, on Vancouver Island or within the B.C. Inside.

Many important, typically poorly paid jobs can’t be performed remotely. Resulting from nosebleed housing prices, many individuals stay lengthy distance from their work. Even distant staff depend upon B.C. Hydro and telecom-line work crews to maintain utilities working.

Lots of our important staff, even fairly well-paid ones like law enforcement officials and nurses, can’t afford to stay close to the place they work.

After a snowfall, homecare aides are unavailable for days. Retirement properties and hospitals are short-staffed. The B.C. Ambulance Service have to be struggling to workers its ambulances with paramedics. Hospitals are laborious sufficient to workers even at one of the best of occasions.

What if there’s a real catastrophe, akin to a flood, earthquake or wildfire?

Emergency response personnel, starting from police to firefighters to B.C. Hydro line technicians stay dozens of kilometres from the communities the place they work.

Within the case of a catastrophe, it may be higher for an individual residing on the twenty third flooring of a downtown Vancouver rental constructing to drive if the roads are intact or stroll to security, as a substitute of ready for emergency crews to reach.

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John Shepherd, Richmond

Re: B.C. authorities ought to present some modesty

Vaughn Palmer states that B.C. Hydro, and the federal government, shouldn’t be so self-congratulatory about their success throughout the latest chilly snap. In fact, they may brag after they have the prospect. That’s politics.

However Palmer is true to say that they should do extra. Electrical energy can be wanted to switch fossil fuels for transportation and heating. Will probably be wanted to provide hydrogen to be used in cement crops, metal mills and long-haul vans. The drought situations that cut back accessible hydro energy may turn into frequent occasions as a consequence of local weather change.

Web site C is not going to be sufficient. We have to enhance set up of photo voltaic for properties, trade and neighbourhood sensible grids. And we have to cut back consumption wherever doable.

Because of Palmer for that report.

Invoice McConnell, Surrey

Entrance web page criticism of Bay out of line

Re: ‘Difficult surroundings’: Buyers decry state of disrepair at Vancouver’s flagship Bay retailer.

Maybe the Granville and Georgia Road location of the HBC retailer may use new escalators or elevators however the criticism on the entrance web page of The Vancouver Solar was out of line.

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We by no means learn concerning the elevator within the new meals chain retailer in Coquitlam, for instance, not functioning correctly at occasions however we proceed to make use of the shop with out making feedback to the media.

The downtown Vancouver HBC retailer has all the time been our household’s “go-to retailer” for no less than the previous 60-plus years and there’s no argument that issues have modified however so have occasions. It’s no longer Canadian-owned and a chat with the merchandise consumers could also be crucial to be able to once more entice the folks and their households who’ve been their long-standing clients.

It’s these those that merchandise ought to be geared to as they store within the retailer in search of the standard items that the HBC was all the time identified for.

Let’s encourage them, not belittle them.

L. Newsome, Coquitlam

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