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Letters April 7: Cruise-ship costs; making trails safer; barriers to new doctors

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Smoke rises from a cruise ship’s exhaust at Ogden Point. A letter-writer suggests the costs of the cruise-ship industry to Victoria include environmental concerns and increased traffic. TIMES COLONIST

Analyze the costs of the cruise-ship industry

The drawbridge that the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority installed along Dallas Road between Montreal and St. Lawrence streets is an excellent metaphor for its relationship to Victoria.

The drawbridge has been “drawn up” for the past two years, long enough for the shrub in the “moat” to be turning into a tree.

The drawbridge only exists for the benefit of paying customers, and the harbour authority sees no need to have any connection with the residents of James Bay or the rest of Victoria. Victoria only exists as bait to lure in cruise ships to prove the profitability of its business plan.

We recently banned the horrendous activities of pickleballers because of their unacceptable levels of noise. But there have been no meaningful actions taken to reduce the noise generated by cruise ships and the vehicles servicing them.

The harbour authority ignored the community’s pleas to reduce the number of ship arrivals and, instead, substantially increased them.

They trot out the financial benefits of the cruise-ship industry, but I would like to see an independent analysis that includes the costs.

The costs would include: the impact of carcinogenic emissions, mental-health costs related to traffic and noise; and the general impact on the environment, including our role as a garbage dump, and at times as a net importer of sewage.

Jaroslaw Gwiazda
Victoria

Cruise ships are bringing COVID

Allowing cruise ships to come here when almost all of them have reported COVID on board is reckless.

Protect our city by denying them to come, or allow them to our city so they can shop and spread COVID.

I realize the dollar is mightier than a human life and much more valuable than a human life. Our world is in dire straits, and it’s time to shift our view of what’s important.

Carol Dunsmuir
Victoria

Walking on the left would make trails safer

Re: “Time to show cyclists more respect,” letter, April 5.

I agree that ICBC’s practice of billing cyclists for damage to a vehicle that has run into them is ludicrous. However, I disagree strongly with the assertion that more respect for cyclists using rural trails will solve any difficulties they might have with pedestrians.

The real solution is to require all pedestrians to walk on the left, facing the oncoming cyclists — just as pedestrians do on rural and urban roads with no sidewalks.

Effectively, over the past few years, with their increased use by cyclists, these trails have become highways. If pedestrians were required to walk on the left, they could step aside if there was room to do so and, if not, cyclists could slow down or stop (horrors!) until it was safe to pass.

In the past, I’ve been clipped by cyclists passing me on the rural trails and I no longer feel safe on them. On the odd occasion I’ve had to use one of the rural trails, I’ve been subjected to rude comments from cyclists when I’ve stepped to the left to let them pass.

So, let’s insist on pedestrians keeping to the left on regional trails and rural roads. But, that would require the Capital Regional District to spend money on educating users about the new rules and to change all of the signs on the trails to reflect the new rules.

Sadly, for both cyclists and pedestrians alike, that is not likely to happen.

Adrian Kershaw
Sidney

Enforce traffic laws for drivers and cyclists

Re: “Time to show cyclists more respect,” letter, April 7.

The letter brings up a few very good points. Cyclists are most definitely uninsured vehicles, and this could be cleared up simply by requiring cyclists to take out insurance.

If anyone thinks that all accidents involving a cyclist are caused by cars, perhaps the rose-coloured glasses should be removed. And as more and more of the bicycles on the road become EVs, then they are by definition motor vehicles and should be registered and insured as such.

Want the police to aggressively protect cyclists’ rights? Then they should also aggressively enforce the traffic laws as well, for both motor vehicles and cyclists.

The letter refers to rural roads with bike lanes, but as I understand it, the lines indicate a shoulder, not a bike lane. And as such they should be used as such, more often than not as walkways where there are no sidewalks.

Ron Sleen
Victoria

Barriers to doctors who are from elsewhere

Here is the proper context about why there are so few foreign-trained physicians working in B.C.

Yes, provincial licensing bodies can and do give some foreign-trained physicians licences, but these are always only limited or temporary licences because the stipulations and requirements are:

1. The foreign-trained physician must, within one, two or three years pass all examinations of the Medical Council of Canada (MCCQE) and this is very difficult if you’ve been practising a specialty for years, while the MCCQE is an all-encompassing exam of all specialties.

2. The physician must get into a residency specialty training program to do their training all over again in the “Canadian way.”

This second requisite is exceedingly difficult to enter into because there are only the same number of residency training positions open as they expect Canadians or Canadian medical schools to graduate.

There might be a very few open positions after all Canadians graduates have been placed, or if some drop out.

Therefore, if a foreign-trained physician has passed all the MCCQE exams and has the MCC licence and has entered into and completed residency training, there are so few that it makes very little difference.

And I know of patients who have psychiatric problems and who are expressing suicidal ideation, and without a GP’s referral to a psychiatrist, they cannot be seen.

Some will commit suicide, and this kind of a situation in our health care I find deplorable, contemptible and unacceptable.

Paul Fenje Jr., MD
Saanich

Double university spaces for doctors

B.C. is doubling the number of subsidized spaces at a veterinary college. How about doubling spaces at B.C. universities for doctors?

As well as fast-tracking credentials for educated doctors from out of country, we need to increase spots at universities across Canada. Perhaps B.C. could be a leader in this regard.

I.M. McLaws
Saanich

Don’t cut mental health, music programs

I was dismayed to read that, once again, music programs might be on the Greater Victoria School District’s budget chopping block.

I have experienced, and seen, how being part of such programs offers multiple benefits, including potentially offering a lifeline and direction for those students who struggle to connect with other aspects of the school curriculum.

I was equally dismayed at news of a possible cut to school-based counselling services. Particularly in the midst of ongoing substantial stressors (COVID, climate impacts, poisoned drug supply, etc.), why is youth mental health not a clear priority?

The province has talked at length about the need for more youth mental-health supports, and has only scratched the surface in anteing up some resources.

Early identification and intervention of youth mental-health issues is one of the most effective and strategic uses of mental-health dollars, and school-based mental-health services are one of the best-placed, already-established ways of making that happen.

Maureen Foxgord
Victoria

Langford approves another development

Monday’s council meeting in Langford was a perfect example of how the development approval process functions here.

On Feb. 28, a presentation was made to the planning committee about two highrise towers (no indication of the height) with about 352 units in a residential neighbourhood right next to single-family homes. This was the very first notification residents received about what was being proposed.

A mere five weeks later, the public hearing was held that provided no further details to residents about the height of these buildings, nor with any substantive changes to the proposal to address any of the myriad concerns raised.

Not one single word was uttered by the mayor or council to discuss any of the issues identified by residents who wrote letters and called in at the public hearing.

Instead, in a matter of seconds, they voted 6-to-1 to approve this for second and third reading. Anyone who thinks that the public-hearing process in the City of Langford is anything more than mere lip service to the concept of public consultation just isn’t paying attention.

Laurie Plomp
Langford

How we respond to atrocities in Ukraine

Oh great, more sanctions. That will certainly do the trick. That should bring comfort to the family members of those savagely slaughtered in the streets of Bucha. Good on us.

Ted Daly
Saanichton

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