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Laurie Edberg, Vancouver

Cherry’s rant shows poppy’s meaning lost

I am only months younger than Don Cherry, have served 32 years in the RCAF/CAF, and have two peacekeeping medals earned back in 1948, while serving in El Arish, on the Gaza Strip, in Egypt. On the back of one of my medals, it reads, “IN THE SERVICE OF PEACE.”

Of course there is no poppy on either one of these two medals because it does not belong there. As most Canadians know, the poem Flanders Fields mentions, “Take up our quarrel with the foe. From failing hands we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high.” There is no mention in this poem from the First World War that the poppy was ever a symbol of peace.

Regardless of when you arrived in Canada, or when your previous generations arrived in Canada, you should not take the freedom you enjoy as Canadians for granted. It was bought at a very high price in blood, suffering and sacrifice, on the battlefields of the world, lest we forget. As Don Cherry has made it clear: Paying two bucks for a poppy is a very low price for the sacrifice made for you.

Fred Perry, Maple Ridge

No sympathy over damaged parking meters

So the city parking meters are being damaged and the article in The Province tries to make it sound like it’s a bad thing. Well, since our fair city, in its relentless greed, is striving to place a fee on every inch of available parking in town, I cannot drum up any sympathy at all for them.

Not only are they crazed by the lust for more taxpayer loot, they even came up with a new and 100 per cent unfair type of meter to gouge drivers even further. It used to be that you fed the meter enough coins to cover the time you planned to park. Then, if you finished your errands early you got in and drove away. The next car would park and if the driver was lucky there would still be 15 or 20 minutes on the meter so all that was needed was enough cash to cover the new estimated time.