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Are women of Victoria truly liberated?

Re: “Victoria ranked the best city to be a woman in Canada,” Oct. 13. A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives ranks Victoria the “best city to be a woman in Canada.” The city has won the gold star for two years running.

Re: “Victoria ranked the best city to be a woman in Canada,” Oct. 13.

A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives ranks Victoria the “best city to be a woman in Canada.” The city has won the gold star for two years running. Why? We have a female mayor. And ours is the only city in the study to have more women than men on its council.

Let’s pause to reflect.

Next time you gasp at your soaring property tax bill to cover expensive infrastructure projects — the Johnson Street Bridge, the state-of-the-art secondary sewage-treatment plant, the $40-million David Foster Harbour Pathway and the new cruise-ship terminal at Ogden Point — you can thank women and men on council for their public-purse management skills. Taxpayers picking up the tab means good business. Isn’t it great that Victoria has more female taxpayers to bear the burden?

Thousands of Victoria rental households face being displaced by renovictions and demolitions. Ask yourself why women politicians and their male colleagues have no problem approving multimillion-dollar condo towers sprouting up all over the city. Is building a gated city just “good business”?

Fig leaf aside, let’s ask whether we women of Victoria have been truly liberated. If so, then why is it we face the same economic insecurity, ill health and unstable life as the remaining inhabitants of Canada’s 25 largest metropolitan areas?

Victoria Adams

Victoria