Boost voter turnout so it is not compulsory
Re: “Compulsory voting would help Victoria,” letter, Sept. 16.
Before compulsory voting is adopted in Victoria, let’s first appreciate one of the major reasons for the current 20% to 30% deficit between municipal and provincial or federal turnout.
It’s simply that deciding among political party candidates is less time consuming and easier (i.e. “I’m an X and always vote for the X party candidate”).
As for the 19 independent Victoria councillor candidates, VoteReadyVicto ria.ca makes the typical first round of vetting, that of incumbents, much less demanding.
It provides an overview of each incumbent’s voting record so that Victorians can more conveniently cast an informed vote.
Hopefully VRV will help get us to a 50% plus turnout and preclude talk of a need for compulsory voting.
John Farquharson
Victoria
We’re lucky it’s Sydney and not the president
Female athletes around the world are angry with American actress Sydney Sweeney, who appeared nude in a provocative sports gambling ad.
U.S. President Donald Trump, however, championed the ad. He called it “the HOTTEST ad out there”.
We should all be happy that we don’t have to see Trump in the nude. We hope.
Cheera Crow
Victoria
Proportional representation is needed
This summer of discontent in B.C. politics has made one thing clear to me. We the citizens of British Columbia were robbed 21 years ago when we voted overwhelmingly, 57.7%, in favour of switching to the citizen assembly-recommended BC-STV proportional representation system.
That vote came about because of an undemocratic election result a few years earlier, leaving a huge majority with no effective opposition.
It could be said that today’s situation is effectively the same with the opposition benches in complete disarray and confusion, unable to function to hold the government to account.
The government of the day refused to be bound by that referendum and instead both B.C. Liberal and B.C. NDP governments held referendums where the initial enthusiasm was diminished, ridiculed, and ultimately defeated by powerful entrenched interests more concerned about retaining their own paths to power than improving our democracy.
Then one party imploded.
It has been chaos ever since.
Proportional representation, and the B.C. STV system the citizen’s assembly recommended all those years ago, may have helped voters and politicians find their voices and avoided this.
This fall when the Legislature resumes, all members should stand to make one decision immediately, to make BC-STV and proportional representation the format of the next B.C. election.
No more referendums. We need our democracy to function.
Chris Alemany
Port Alberni
Integrity, accountability needed in AI evolution
Medicine. Law. Accounting. Civil engineering. Aviation. When certain practices aim to scale up and succeed, the risk of catastrophic failure increases.
That’s math. Society has historically dealt with the risks by professionalizing the practice in question. Involving education. Licensing. Practice standards. Codes of ethics. Accountability. Oaths.
When it comes to AI evolution, the time has come to make the transition from prioritizing market drivers to prioritizing public safety incentives.
As noted above, we have been down this road before. But there’s a twist in the case of AI: never before has a practice used autonomous tools.
So, not only then do AI engineers (or “auditors”, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom calls them) need to be professionalized. AI itself must be built into a technology directed by well-known and well-understood characteristics, values and norms of being a professional. Integrity. Expertise. Accountability. And an overriding public safety purpose.
It’s time to start heading in this direction.
Dr. Susan Turner
Victoria
Police dispatcher’s memories of 9/11
Another Sept. 11 has come and gone. Memories have again been resurrected for people around the world. No one will forget where they were when the Twin Towers were attacked.
I was working in the comm centre at the Victoria Police Department, just starting my shift at 6 a.m. My co-workers and I were settling in for a 12-hour shift of answering non-emergency and 911 calls as well as doing our dispatching stints.
My desk phone rang at about 6:45. It was my husband, and he said, “Is the TV on, are you watching what is going on in New York?”
The dispatcher turned on the TV and we all stood there transfixed by what we were seeing. We could not believe our eyes. How could this have happened?
A non-emergency phone call rang in at about 6:55. I answered and the caller wanted to report that their vehicle was broken into.
They were upset over the incident and the unmitigated invasion of their property. As I took the caller’s report, I could see the TV and all of a sudden the first tower fell.
I must have made a shocked noise, as the caller asked if I was OK.
I wanted to tell them what I was seeing on TV but their incident, at the time, was more important to them and I just wanted to get the report finished for the caller.
The phone call seemed so surreal and felt so trivial, under the circumstances, at the moment. To this day, it still hits me that way.
Even though what happened on 9/11 didn’t directly affect me or my co-workers, it will always take me back to where I was and what I was doing. Writing this letter is cathartic for me — so, thank you.
I will never forget what happened on 9/11.
Diana MacLaren
Saanichton
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