COLUMN BANG ON

Editor:

I am writing regarding Tom Fletcher's Sept. 8 B.C. Views column,
headlined Bums prefer ocean views.

I have just returned from a two-week holiday visiting my family, most
of whom emigrated to B.C. around 50 years ago.

I now have two aunts, three cousins and their extended families
living in Maple Ridge and I always receive a warm welcome.

I congratulate you on your article, which I read on the Internet.

Here, in Scotland, we have the same problems with the so-called
"homeless drug addicts."

We also have the same bleeding-heart politicians and social workers
with their schemes, projects and solutions to the problems of crime,
illegal squatting on private property and vandalism caused by these people.

Throwing public money at them, giving them sympathy, free needles and
places to inject, etc., is futile.

I know - I'm a civil servant in the Department of Work and Pensions,
and the word "work" is simply not in their vocabulary.

We have them here too: people who would rather commit suicide than do
one day's honest hard work in their natural lives.

And why should they?

When our government and its agencies give them welfare, so-called
community care grants and everything they need to lead a comfortable
life and all at the taxpayers' expense?

We live in crazy times, and with increasingly crazy liberal
governments not only tolerating these parasites in our midst but
encouraging them, things will never change.

Your article was accurate, not only describing the junkie issue in
Canada, but throughout the Western world.

Thomas Toye

Paisley, Scotland