Many drivers support leaving the park as is
Re: “$162M highway project through Goldstream riles First Nations,” March 10.
Several of us who love the Goldstream River, the trees that shade the river and the salmon who come to spawn there, stood with Carl Olsen at Goldstream Park on a recent Tuesday morning.
We witnessed the supportive honking and waving from many cars, trucks and vans as they passed through the area.
I love this majestic environment. This salmon spawning stream is sacred, so are the 700-plus trees that would be removed with the current plan.
I support much of the wonderful work being done by this current government.
Please reconsider this transportation infrastructure plan and listen carefully to the First Nations when they submit their concerns this summer about the project’s environmental and cumulative impacts.
The Douglas Treaty rights require nothing less.
Marion Pape
Victoria
Goldstream widening and a known issue
Exactly 50 years ago, three of us from UVic’s Outdoors Club met with the minister of highways. They were planning on widening the Goldstream section. We were concerned about the impact on the fish.
His answer: What fish?
Ken Milbrath
Past president UVODC 1974
No to wider highway in Goldstream Park
Please, please, let there not be a new, wider raised highway (racetrack) with wider paved shoulders, roadside barriers and “minor realignments” through Goldstream Park — as if it were not a gorgeous, magical place that can never be recaptured.
It isn’t just the road either, it’s the making of the road. Let’s listen to the First Peoples and not do such a salmon-destroying, soul-destroying, idiotic thing.
Anne Swannell
Victoria
Lower the speed limits, add traffic signals
Why would a $162-million highway through Goldstream Park be necessary, when signs for much lower speed limits, plus traffic lights at the junction to the parking lot at Goldstream Park can be installed?
These should have been done many years ago, given the dangers near and at that junction.
Highway traffic through such a sensitive area cannot take priority over preservation of the environment of the river and salmon, and respect for First Nations.
Christopher Lam
Victoria
Stop worrying, those newts are not toxic
Re: “Langford warns of toxic newts in Westhills Park,” March 9.
Northern rough-skinned newts in local lakes and ponds are not toxic.
Decades-old studies looked at the toxicity of this species in Oregon and California and found newt skin secretions to be lethally toxic to a variety of organisms, including mammals. Subsequently it was discovered that newts in southwestern B.C. were essentially non-toxic.
The older studies used invasive American bullfrogs to test the toxicity and found that newt toxin could quickly kill a mature bullfrog. I have recorded many instances from all over southwestern British Columbia where mature bullfrog stomachs are loaded with as many as six adult newts in varying stages of being digested with no ill effects to the bullfrog.
If newts were as toxic here as in Oregon and California then it would be common to find bullfrogs floating dead in local waterways; we do not. The small pond in Westhills Park in Langford is a last little refuge for a number of native amphibians such as Pacific treefrogs, long-toed salamanders, occasional red-legged frogs, and northern rough-skinned newts.
Newts have complex life cycles that involve mass migrations to and from the water by adult females and juveniles. Where roadways intersect these migration routes newts may be killed by the hundreds and the populations then commonly dwindle toward non-existence.
I encourage people to take note of the spring chorus of the few remaining treefrogs at the Westhills pond and to feel lucky if they encounter a native newt or salamander. Otherwise, please leave these fascinating and threatened organisms alone.
Stan A. Orchard
Herpetologist
BullfrogControl.com Inc.
Victoria
Purchase of transit land raises questions
The province’s purchase of a .45-acre lot in the Uptown-Douglas area, which the Ministry of Transportation has designated as a future transit exchange, the purchase price raises serious questions.
Assessed at $3.3 million (four years ago, assessed at $1.5 million) the ministry says the purchase price of $7.5 million was at “fair market value.”
Bought at “only” $4 million over assessed value! Makes one wonder what “unfair market value” would be?
John Vanden Heuvel
Victoria
Beauty and danger in many living things
Re: “Langford warns of toxic newts in Westhills Park,” March 9.
It is good to draw attention to the annual newt migration: Go look at them, we are lucky to still have them, but admire them not fear them.
We are in danger of raising our children to fear nature, whereas the opposite should be the case. Toxins are present in many organisms, it protects them from being eaten, as good as a fierce set of teeth. Learn what we have in our environment.
On the same page was a photograph of daffodils, curiously with no warning about how dangerous they can be if eaten. Daffodils are equally as toxic as newts. This applies to many garden plants.
So no fricassee of newt or daffodil salad but enjoy looking at them. In my eyes they are equally beautiful and enrich our lives.
Joe Harvey
Victoria
Little incentive to enter politics
The history behind the Arab-Israeli conflict is long and complex. Safe to say though that in 1948 the Jewish population in Palestine felt justified in forming the State of Israel by force.
They had a presence there going back some 3,000 years, one sadly marked by ongoing conflict with the Arab populace, in spite of there being room for both groups to co-exist.
In Nazi Germany they had just experienced the Holocaust as well as widespread racism elsewhere in Europe. After the Second World War the United Nations General Assembly encouraged their migration to Palestine and produced a plan to partition it into two independent states, one Arab and one Jewish.
That plan was understandably rejected by the Arab populace, as it was to result in a huge number of them being forcibly displaced. And so the conflict has continued ever since.
On Jan. 30 Selina Robinson took part in an online panel discussion where it seems she was referring to that sad history. She commented — correctly, I think — that many younger people here don’t have a full understanding of it, adding that Israel was “founded on a crappy piece of land with nothing on it … which didn’t produce much of an economy.”
Not particularly relevant, but I take the comment at face value and I don’t see it as racist or anti-Islamophobic. No doubt she shares the same profound sadness that we all do for the senseless bloodshed that began on Oct. 7.
Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens will not drive that country into the sea and the Israeli Defence Forces’ ongoing slaughter of Palestinian civilians will not eliminate Hamas. In any case, despite making an unreserved apology to anyone offended by her comment, Robinson was removed from her cabinet post on Feb 5.
To me that’s a poor way to treat a cabinet minister who since 2017 has served us — including those who demanded her removal — to the best of her ability.
Not much of an incentive to enter politics either.
Phil Redgrave
Cordova Bay
Listen to public on Centennial Square
As a frequent attendee to Victoria council meetings, mostly online, it was disturbing to listen to the vague untruths that were uttered during this past week’s discussions regarding a motion to listen to the public about the proposed changes to Centennial Square.
Every council member states they want to hear from the public but, at every opportunity, they find excuses not to do so. Staff are too busy; it would delay other projects. The result — rather than engaging with the public, we get a motion to provide online links to various reports about Centennial Square; reports that, it is evident, some councillors have not read.
For Coun. Matt Dell to suggest the city should engage with 10,000 school children about Centennial Square while he would not support engaging with the rest of the citizens of the city is the height of hypocrisy.
Many on this council seem to feel that, as they were elected, they no longer need to listen. They are wrong. The citizens of Victoria will soon stop listening to them.
Ken Johnson
A Friend of Centennial Square
Victoria
That $750,000 contract is a waste of money
Victoria councillors claim there was extensive public consultation regarding Centennial Square in 2018. I, and I’m sure thousands of others, were not aware and didn’t put forward their opinions.
In recent months numerous people have opined negatively about proposed changes, including Pam Madoff and Martin Segger, extremely knowledgeable about the history and art of the square.
Councillors Matt Dell’s and Dave Thompson’s logic seems to be that at this point they will leave the decision to the consulting firm hired for $750,000. This is ridiculous; after being selected by council to devise a plan to rebuild (destroy) the square and fountain, and awarded $750,000 to do so, what would anyone expect? They will give the council the plan the council wanted.
There is simply no justification whatsoever for eliminating the fountain and monoliths, which I would say are the best piece of public art in the city. What better place for them than where they are, by City Hall?
Put a small splash feature, à la Beacon Hill Park’s two, elsewhere in the square, open up the rental spaces to businesses again, bring back Folk Fest, Jazz Fest, puppet shows, fairs, markets, and people will come.
Some might even sit on quiet days and enjoy the wonderful fountain and sculptures.
Richard Volet
Victoria
Langford mayor saves by living in Saanich
It’s cold comfort to know that the mayor of Langford is faced with a 7.91 per cent property tax increase while those that actually live in Langford look at 15.6 per cent. Perhaps I should move to Saanich as well. It’s too expensive to live in Langford.
Garry Gagnon
Langford
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