Letters to The Province: Consider air rights above stations to provide funds for transit services

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Re: TransLink to raise fares, expand transit across Metro Vancouver.

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To raise money, TransLink should lease out the air rights above stations, loops and bus depots. Condos and office buildings would be a continuous reliable source of funds to cover costs of transit services. I believe Toronto Transit does this and I have seen it done in cities in other countries.

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Not to mention it would conform with the provincial government’s edict to build residential units within 800 metres of transit service.

Dale Laird, Vancouver

Baiting, terrorizing fish for entertainment should be outlawed

​Re: Fish feel pain and want to live, just like any other creature.

Fish feel pain and want to live raises many interesting questions. Can we at least agree that “catch-and-release” fishing is barbaric and unnecessary?

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To capture a wild animal and inflict on it the stress of fighting for its life, not to mention the possible pain and damage from the hook, is cruel and reprehensible.

And for what? Not to feed anybody, either with the fish or its eggs. These fishermen simply want to prove they’re smarter and stronger than the fish. Baiting and terrorizing fish for entertainment should be outlawed and not something our civilized society calls “sport”.

Steen I. Petersen, Nanaimo 

Re: Frank Stronach: Soaring national debt will hold back youth for years to come.

Our federal government issues the Canadian dollar through its central bank, and has been able to sustain the economy during times of world war, financial crisis and pandemic disruption.

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The government’s fiscal firepower derives from ownership of the Bank of Canada, which “has the … operational ability to create Canadian-dollar liquidity in unlimited amounts at any time.”

For those who still agonize over “sustainable” fiscal policy because of higher interest on the debt, there is a simple solution: have the Bank of Canada purchase all new issues of government bonds. Since the federal government is the sole shareholder in the bank, interest expense will be returned to government coffers as year-end dividends.

Our children today are threatened by growing inequality, a fragile health system and climate change. Capping federal government spending for phoney reasons will only sabotage urgently required actions and dump all the real-world problems onto the next generation.

Larry Kazdan, Vancouver

Letters to the editor should be sent to provletters@theprovince.com. CLICK HERE to report a typo.

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