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Following are a collection of reader responses to stories or letters to the editor for the second week of February 2024. They have been edited slightly for readability. 

Got something you want to add? Send an email to editor Marshall Jones at mjones@infonews.ca.

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iN RESPONSE to Feb. 14 newsletter editorial regarding booing the American national anthem

You're wrong. The majority of Americans are well aware that our jeers are not aimed at them, but rather what their nation currently represents - a threat to our sovereignty. The ones that don't understand that or hold any animosity towards us for our reaction are neither our friends or allies. — Gregory A. Livingstone, via email

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You are so right, now is the time for Canadians to use their common sense instead of lowering our standards. — Marti Giroux, via email

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I agree we should not be booing at hockey games. I like what the Premiere said at the Invictus Games. — Linda Huntington, via email

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Marshall, I totally agree with you. Booing at the American national anthem was so juvenile and disgusting. What happened to respect? — Tamara Clarke, via email

New $9,000 city hall office for Kamloops mayor to remain vacant

More than $9,000 for what, a space that wasn’t needed? The mayor had an office that he was denied all because of lies and bullying. — Tammy Baker, via iNFOnews.ca

Kamloops council concerned about lost tax revenue on BC Housing projects

The city should quit building gardens and planting grass everywhere. That would be a good place to recoup some tax dollars. — Macy Jane, via iNFOnews.ca

iN RESPONSE to the Wednesday, Feb. 12 newsletter editorial regarding bus transportation between Interior cities

They should have kept the rails and made fast trains between Kelowna, Salmon Arm, Armstrong, Vernon, Lake Country, the airport, Kelowna and Penticton. Although I love the Okanagan Rail Trail, they missed a fantastic opportunity. I think it would have been a better way of getting people out of their cars and a faster route. I believe people still have the concept that busses are slow and make too many stops. — Marti Giroux, via email 

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I experienced living on Burnaby Mountain when I was raising my son there, both before and after the sky train came. Fast transit brings crime and there's lots of research on that. It is inevitable that rapid transit will come as we grow. Let’s be smart and make it safe. Crime and gangs came to my quiet community. The sky train can make for easy getaways and expansion of the criminals' territory. I frankly don’t like the vibe of Kelowna coming here. I don’t want that stuff here. Better up the police watch first. — Sherri Lahn, via email

Kamloops council concerned about lost tax revenue on BC Housing projects

It's hard to give an opinion based on this one article. I would need to know the cost per unit to determine if a portion of the taxes could be charged as part of the rent without undue hardship to the tenants.

Perhaps some of the operators of shelters and supportive housing could maybe do some fundraising to offset cost of taxes. Unaffordable housing issues and homelessness are not going away anytime soon and I don't think it's fair that commercial properties or individual home owners should have to make up the loss in revenue from these properties. Although having a private companies like Airbnb and property investors or foreign investors could help make up the difference since they are partially responsible for causing the problems.

I'm very curious as to what the total amount of lost revenue from properties exempted from paying property tax is. Surely there must be other non-profits that don't pay any property tax. Why is the focus just on supportive and subsidized housing, which is an absolute necessity? If we didn't have supportive housing, the costs of hospitalizations, crime and homelessness would be a lot higher than $6,400. — Karan Louise Fox, via email 

Scammers steal $20,000 from grandparents in Central Okanagan

Hi Marshall,

I left Facebook seven years ago so cannot comment through that platform. A week ago I got a midday call from a 'private number'. I answered it as I have a relative whose calls come in like that. "Hello, Joan speaking". There was a pause, and it might be a telemarketer. Then came a man's voice saying, "Hi grandma, how are you?" I started to laugh. I have no grandchildren and fur babies can't use phones. The caller hung up.

Sorry to hear that old folks have had their money stolen by strangers with no questions asked. This scam has gone around many times over the last 10 years. Castanet, Daily Courier and Capital News have articles about this. I imagine local TV stations cover this as well. I nixed TV 17 years ago. It is beyond me that people have not filed that in their data base (their brain) for future reference. There are many predators out there looking for easy prey. This isn't the Canada of the 50s and 60s anymore, I'm sad to say.

— Joan Johnston, via email

RCMP mistake sees Vernon man with $200,000 of meth, cocaine walk free

And this is how we get drugs and drug dealers off the streets? By the way, I'm presuming that the drugs were confiscated. How much would it cost to have a couple of expert constitutional lawyers on staff to advise police on matters like this? — Geoffrey King, via iNFOnews.ca 

BC gym teacher who inappropriately touched students allowed to teach again

Yikes. This sounds very sexual, and suggestive of a risky person. This kind of behaviour suggests to me a court order to review his hard drives and internet history would be in order. The repeated behaviour should be a huge warning bell. — Noah Liguori, via iNFOnews.ca

iN PHOTOS: Shuswap photographer gets bucket list encounter with bobcat

Wow, beautiful pictures. — Bonnie Derry, via iNFOnews.ca

iN PHOTOS: Entertaining wildlife captures in Kamloops, Okanagan

Awesome photos. — Dorothy Taylor, via iNFOnews.ca

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Love these photos. They left me smiling! — Deborah Podurgiel, via iNFOnews.ca

Singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie stripped of Order of Canada

She has been a great voice and is a source of pride and inspiration for First Nations people on both sides of the border. This was not necessary. — Robert Bishop, via iNFOnews.ca 

Kamloops mayor files RCMP complaint against another councillor, this time for 'hacking'

I am not sure why he is still the mayor and we haven’t had another election. It seems like all that is happening with the mayor and council are lawsuits and bickering. — Derrick LeBlanc, via iNFOnews.ca 

'It's hurtful': Okanagan vet frustrated by pet owners' misconceptions about rising costs

This is an issue because people in Canada think all healthcare is "free" and therefore everyone is entitled to it, as it's written in the healthcare act. This applies to human medicine but extrapolates to a cultural norm where people just expect healthcare to happen to them (or their pets) and when faced with the cost they lose their marbles. The reality is that healthcare is far from free as this article illustrates. Workers are often underpaid and the sheer cost of diagnosis and treatment is astronomical. As a society we need to stop acting in such an entitled manner and accept the fact that healthcare costs money. Regardless of if it is for pets or people. — Jaeger Odyegov, via iNFOnews.ca

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There is a corporate greed factor involved. Mars Inc. owns VCA Canada. Mars is one of the top 10 richest companies in the world, they also own pet food maker Royal Canin. This is why I will only ever use a private clinic. I steer clear of any VCA clinic. Mars can afford to charge less, but they choose not to. — Dj Meliquoi, via iNFOnews.ca

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We have an astronomical bill looming for our dog. What's really sad is if you can't afford the cost, your dog suffers and is put to sleep. — Phil Costabile, via iNFOnews.ca 

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A doctor for humans makes $30 a patient. Veterinarians charge what ever they want. The cost of medications has no cap. There is no regulations regarding cost. People are pissed, and I don't blame them. — Marilyn Leszczynski, via iNFOnews.ca

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Thank you for writing this story. I'm a veterinarian myself and the recent CBC story was hurtful and one sided. I also work at a corporate clinic and have no control over costs. I do, however, care very much about my patients. As stated, this job is hard enough as it is, even without the media thrashing we seem to get so often. One of the things nobody talked about in the CBC article is that while working for a corporation, I actually get benefits such as extended health benefits and RRSP matching. I don't feel like benefits like this are too much to ask for as an employee. This isn't a part time job, it is my career. Many pet owners likely receive benefits at their own jobs, but this money also has to come from somewhere, including costs we charge the client. — Uschi Craigdallie, via email 

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Communicating the rising costs would help, but in this day and age when a corporation, especially one publicly traded on the markets are involved, all the general public see is the rich getting richer and sadly that is usually the case. We keep hearing it is the cost of doing business in the post pandemic world yet profits are up up up. The public knows it and have had enough. — Dick Dawson, via iNFOnews.ca 

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This is very sad to hear and this kind of behaviour should not and cannot be tolerated. With the shortage of vets in the region it is not helpful at all. Perhaps such abusive customers should be put on a watch list with all the vets so that getting future service will be more challenging for them. — Leo Steen, via iNFOnews.ca 

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I’m not sure why people don’t buy pet insurance. There are numerous companies that have reasonable rates. You can’t blame the vets for price increases. Staff wages have gone up, the cost of supplies have gone up. We can’t expect 2010 prices in 2025. Nothing stays the same price. — Patricia Evans, via iNFOnews.ca 

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This is not a new phenomenon. Vets have always been very expensive. — Mark Raabe, cia iNFOnews.ca 

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I really appreciate this article. I have worked at both private and corporate veterinary hospitals, and while the services are different, the costs are different, the pay is different, the level of care stayed the same. That being said, I appreciate being able to be paid a better fraction of what I am worth as a veterinary technician, doing everything a nurse does and more, as it makes it affordable for me to actually stay in the field. One of the reasons technicians leave is because they can’t afford to work anymore for low pay, and end up taking on a different job that they don’t feel as called to do but at least they can afford to save for retirement and not worry about getting bit or ruining their back from the constant physical aspect of the job. — Heather Fledderus, via iNFOnews.ca

THOMPSON: Is AI good or evil, or somewhere in between?

Hahaha, you are so correct on this one! — Bonnie Derry, via iNFOnews.ca 

Here's the latest as Canada faces steel and aluminum tariffs from the United States

I wonder how Trump's going to retrofit his refineries so they can process U.S. oil, or build his cars, or mine for his precious metals if he has no steel to work with? U.S. timber must be amazing. — Dianne Jackson, via iNFOnews.ca 

Letter to the editor re: Leger poll: Carney as leader would have Liberals tied with Conservatives

On Feb. 12, over 300 people gathered at the Ramada Hotel in Kelowna to meet Mark Carney, the leading Liberal Party candidate in the race to become Canada’s next Prime Minister.

Methinks folks on the right and the far right are starting to panic at the prospect of the Liberals 'rising like a phoenix from the ashes' to win the next federal election, even though most surveys continue to suggest the Conservative Party leads by a wide margin. But as the saying goes: "A week is a long time in politics."

The election is at least several months away. Under the fixed-date provisions of the Canada Elections Act, the federal election must be held no later than Oct. 20, 2025.

Renee Merrifield represented the electoral district of Kelowna-Mission as a member of BC United for one term, from 2020 to 2024. In a Kelowna interview on Feb. 6, Merrifield describes Mark Carney as "a climate change activist and is gonna do so using the economy, and that's a very scary, scary place." Wow!

Stoking fear is right out of the Poilievre playbook. Watch out for letters penned by Poilievre supporters, Conservative pundits in the right-wing blogosphere and Conservative Members of Parliament that mention Carney's several nicknames, including "Circus Carney," "Carnival Carney," "Mark Carnage" and "the unreliable boyfriend".

But most of the nicknames are from - wait for it - Carney's childhood! In Sept. 2016 he told a group of schoolchildren: “I was given nicknames that were variants of my last name which is Carney, so I was called Carnival, or Carnage, or things like that. I like Carnage a little better than Carnival. It seemed a little more manly I guess.” 

The nickname "the unreliable boyfriend" originated with Labour MP Pat McFadden in 2014, when he compared the Bank of England to an unreliable boyfriend due to its mixed signals over the timing of future interest rate rises. McFadden: "We've had a lot of different signals. I mean it strikes me that the Bank's behaving a bit like a sort of unreliable boyfriend. One day hot, one day cold, and the people on the other side of the message are left not really knowing where they stand."

Simon English, The London Standard's financial editor wrote of Carney in his Jan. 30. 2020 article. (Maybe Mark Carney wasn't such an unreliable boyfriend: "His biggest critics seemed to (wilfully?) misunderstand forward guidance. It was never supposed to be a guarantee, it was a steer. The clue is in the name. Mostly that guidance proved solid. The unreliable boyfriend line was a good gag, but unfair. 

Lucy Meakin is a reporter at Bloomberg News in London, who covered the Bank of England for six years, the majority of Carney's tenure. On the CBC radio podcast "Front Burner with Jayme Poisson" (Who is Mark Carney? Jan. 23 of 2025) a producer says that on balance, Meakin thinks Carney's "economic record is now generally viewed in a pretty positive light."

On Feb. 11, 2025 Carney wrote on X.com: "President Trump seems to think he can suspend the laws of the United States, of international trade, and of economics. The American Congress and US courts will decide for themselves how they will address these violations of Presidential powers. President Trump’s actions will hurt millions of Americans workers and all American consumers. And after promising to reduce inflation, his actions will send it and interest rates up. In Canada, we understand the laws of economics. That’s why we will be masters of our own house in building the strongest economy in the G7."

Watch: Mark Carney's Jan. 13, 2025 chat with Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, and Canada MP destroys Trump as boycott grows, Feb. 11, 2025.

— David Buckna, via email

To contact a reporter for this story, email Marshall Jones or call 250-718-2724 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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