The world’s longest and deepest undersea road tunnel is being built in Norway, intended to cut travel time between major cities and become part of a ferry-free highway along its western coast.

The 27-kilometre (17-mile) long tunnel is called Rogfast, the Norwegian word for “fixed link.” At its deepest, it will be 392 metres (1,286 feet) below sea level.

Some recent internet stats: Canada has a GDP of $2.24 trillion compared to $484 billion for Norway, ranking 9/197 and 32/197 by economy size, respectively.

If Norway can do it, how about our great Canadian nation? Jobs would eventually be lost from ferry closures; however, a stable crossing link would create access for other jobs.

Some positive effects include reduced logistics costs to and from the Island and significant employment during the construction phase.

I’m sure eliminating ferry traffic across our Georgia Strait would be healthier for the ocean environment and coastal whale population.

With the growth of AI and our country’s bright young minds, our provincial government could create a countrywide competition for a cost-effective crossing design, offering a $5 million endowment to the Canadian university that presents the best project.

Imagine, no more major ferry lineups, the only ferries needed will be for our smaller islands, and B.C. Ferries has that covered.

Maybe our premier can get Ottawa to kick in $5 billion for a nation-building tunnel/link, since we are being so accommodating with an additional pipeline. It’s at least a 10-year project; we can start anytime.

Steve Hertling

Qualicum Beach

Private clinics are not the answer to our system of medical care, which is broken and fragmented. A dual system of public and private care would only encourage over-use of scarce resources.

Nor is the archaic system of fee-for-service payment of physicians working equitably. Fee-for-service has encouraged over-service in some sectors and major gaps in other sectors.

Physicians should be compensated by capitation plus incentives to encourage reasonable performance standards in both quantity and quality of care provided.

In British Columbia and our other provinces, our system of publicly funded health care can no longer be subservient to medical entrepreneurs and other commercial enterprises.

Politicians need to be as brave as Tommy Douglas was in Saskatchewan in 1962 in strengthening our publicly funded system.

We need to acknowledge that the so-called........

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