Diana FRENCH
Special to the Tribune
Three good news stories last week. The Canucks hockey team provided some exciting playoff games, the northern lights were spectacular, and ICBC made rate cuts, a rate freeze, and will pay rebates. The news in general is so gloomy lately we really needed something to cheer us up. The signs of spring helped, blue skies, green grass, green leaves, flowers and birds are all adding to the happy news.
ICBC is doing what it was designed to do - provide universal, affordable, and compulsory auto insurance to British Columbian vehicle owners at the lowest possible rates. The non-profit Crown corporation was created in 1973 by the NDP government of Premier Dave Barrett. It survived later governments who wanted to get rid of it, but in 2010, the BC Liberals under Christie Clark decided the corporation should pay dividends to the province. It amounted to billions of dollars over the years. The NDP government ended that in 2020 and now it’s back to the original non-profit plan.
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Freedom of expression, speech and assembly are fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and in international law. They represent what democracy is all about in Canada.
The recent pro-Palestinian protests at universities across the country have raised questions as to where our freedoms end. Canadians have protested, and fought for, many social justice issues that keep our democracy strong. We’ve protested for worker’s rights, women’s rights, voting rights, and even for rights in other countries, for example apartheid in South Africa.
Students now are protesting the Hamas/Israeli conflict, where thousands of innocent people, many of them children, are being killed, survivors are being starved. The students want the UN, or someone, to find a way to stop the carnage. Surely they have the right to protest for that.
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