Careful with numbers about housing strategies
Re: “Saanich decades away from digging out of housing hole,” March 26.
The Saanich planning department has produced an excellent summary of the progress achieved in the Housing Strategy Report. However, there needs to be clarification on some of the statistics.
Principally, the report numbers only look backward. They make no reference to the many applications working their way through active planning, yet to come before council.
The Housing Needs Report recommends Saanich complete 610 new units a year, specifically to meet demand, based on the 2021 census. From 2017 to 2022, it is reported there were a total of 4,357 new units as per development permits issued — more than 700 units per year.
Confusing the issue, when assessing attainment of Saanich housing targets, it is the low volume of building permit approvals that are referenced, appearing that Saanich is not meeting its goals.
However, it is the granting of development permits that should count, and the onus is on the developer with their development permit to hold back or proceed to the building permit stage in a timely fashion. They hold the key.
Why apply for a development permit if you are not intending to build? Unfortunately, Saanich has no time limit for development permit implementation.
Developers and urban planners would have us believe that we are still in need of so much housing, but where are the statistics to justify this?
It is the type of housing that should now be the focus, as in affordable, courtesy of government intervention, and ground-oriented for families with green space to foster community.
Fiona Millard
Saanich
Listen to the people who have been hurt
Armed with the relevant research, the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association has requested ending the school police liaison officer program.
In short, students and teachers from minority communities are telling us they don’t feel safe with police in their schools.
And as often happens when a person or group from a minority population say they don’t feel safe or they’re experiencing discrimination, we’ve had a sea of people, from police chiefs to former superintendents, tell them they’re wrong and everything is fine.
Rather than dismiss them, perhaps we could listen to those who have insights and experiences related to their relationship with police that we could never begin to understand looking from the outside in.
Barely mentioned in any coverage is a list of alternative suggestions the association provided, including new programs, social supports and anti-racism initiatives.
All worth considering and funding instead of uniformed police officers in schools.
I’m dismayed at how eager many are to seemingly give police everything they want and never question anything they do.
I believe much of this is the result of an “us vs. them” political climate we often now find in this city, where policing has become one of those dividing-line issues … either entirely for or entirely against.
We have thrown policing and little else at our societal problems for how many decades now, and yet our problems remain.
And those who have been disproportionately negatively affected by this approach are asking us to try something different. I believe we should listen.
Kyle Wells
Victoria
Little confusion with dual citizenship
Re: “For many, Canadian citizenship is fake,” letter, March 24.
Regarding the claim that dual citizens are lying in their oath, I can only conclude that the letter-writer has at most one child.
Those of us with two (or more) know that it is possible to hold total allegiance to more than one cause at a time without the slightest moral confusion.
Peter Scott
Victoria
Citizenship is not like being in two clubs
How can a letter-writer claim swearing loyalty to two countries at the same time isn’t lying? If there is a disagreement between Canada and the U.S., which there has been in the past, who are you going to fight for?
It is impossible to truthfully claim you will fight for two or more countries at the same time.
Citizenship is a very serious matter, but too many people treat it the same way they treat being a member of two golf clubs at the same time.
S.I. Petersen
Nanaimo
School liaison officers are a good investment
As a taxpayer I am acutely aware of the need to “rein in” budgets at all levels, especially in times of high inflation. That said, I found Geoff Johnson’s recent column about the value of school liaison officers hit the nail on the head.
I come from the era where “Officer Friendly” was a regular presence in my K-7 school life.
In Saanich, my classmates looked forward to visits by constables Chisholm, MaGregor and Lee.
They helped to foster respect for “grown-ups” in general, and police in particular. The lessons they taught (“Walk on the left,” “Watch for cars both ways before crossing the street”) in their friendly manner stayed with most of us for life.
It’s a shame this simple, early interaction with the police became something feared, and even where it isn’t feared, became an easy target for those looking to cut budgets to the bone.
We learned a lot from those visits, and the police also benefitted as young people (now older folks) remembered to “look both ways,” “don’t be a bully,” “actions have consequences,” and many other life lessons that seem to have been forgotten.
School liaison officers are an excellent way of communicating to young people that an officer is a friendly face. Bringing them back would have an immediate positive effect on our youth.
It needs to be done.
K.M. Frye
Saanich
Del Manak should stay; councillors should go
A recent letter rightly commented as to the integrity of the wonderful Victoria Police chief, and lack of support he (and our police force) receive from council.
The letter writer suggests Chief Del Manak moves to a place where he will be respected and supported in the work he does.
Personally, I feel that would be a tragic loss for Victoria. The council should go, and Manak should stay.
Joanne Wiggins
Victoria
Better bus service needed for the airport
Re: “WestJet CEO optimistic about growth in Victoria,” March 25.
Huh? B.C. Transit thinks more frequent feeder buses from McTavish Exchange is the solution to the embarrassing gap in public transportation to the airport (that even the WestJet CEO noted)?
So, an airport patron heading north from the city will have to remove their luggage from the Downtown-Swartz Bay bus, walk up to and traverse an uncovered highway pedestrian crossing and then lug their baggage onto another bus they may have to wait for.
And an exhausted traveller coming home or visiting Victoria will have to lug their bags off the feeder bus, wait for the city bus, then lug their bags onto that bus at the McTavish Exchange.
Vancouver airport has direct, fast, easy and frequent train service while we in the provincial capital, with a growing population of 400,000 and a vibrant and vital tourism industry, gets shameful half-assed service.
Dave Nonen
Victoria
Special delivery of cremated remains
My aunt passed away in Florida, and with no family down there, the executor was to send me her ashes.
The other day I had a knock on our door and there was our postie, Lucy, cradling a box marked “Cremated Remains.”
I said “Oh, Aunt Heather” and Lucy told me that she had presumed it was a loved one so she had kept the box on the front seat beside her while doing her rounds.
That was so wonderful of her to have treated this precious parcel the way she did. Shows how many kind people there still are out there.
Pat Rose
Esquimalt
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