We still need mandates, pandemic is not over
Re: “Curious virus accounting makes it meaningless,” letter, Sept. 7.
I am glad to see that I’m not the only one who believes that COVID is rampant and the numbers are much higher than reported. The majority of people I see in stores are not self-distancing, sanitizing or wearing masks. Do these folks think COVID has disappeared?
Despite being almost “paranoid careful,” which created a wedge in some friendships, we eventually picked up COVID. We have no idea how or where. Like the letter-writer, we immediately self-isolated and ordered groceries online.
Fortunately, our symptoms were fairly mild so no medical intervention was required.
The Centre for Disease Control knows nothing about us.
With the usual fall respiratory illnesses on the horizon, I can only hope Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix bring some of the mandates back.
Lorraine Mainwaring
Victoria
Wealthy should share to help the rest
Two recent stories were about living accommodations; one was about moving a 7,000-square-foot home and the other about a student challenged with finding a place to live.
I looked at the paycheque for my first real job out of high school in 1969 and wondered how I could ever make a living off it.
The 1970s brought higher pay increases and much inflation. The cost of housing was not included in the “cost of living” calculation. Through the next decades, the cost of purchasing a house increased significantly.
Today we have $10-million homes and tent cities and societal problems galore. As with so many other countries, we have the very rich and the very poor. We have despair reflected in our suicide rate and drug overdose crises.
Former U.S. president Ronald Reagan entered politics because he was offended by having to pay a lot of income tax.
Earning wealth doesn’t give a person the right to squander it. The wealthy have an obligation to use their wealth to live modestly and assist their less fortunate neighbours.
How many of us complain about climate change, yet think nothing of flying about the world for frivolous reasons?
Daniel Moreau
Sidney
From this planet, just not from Victoria
Thank you to Adrian Raeside for his wonderful cartoon pointing out the folly of the Dallas Road dog park, yet another of Victoria City Hall’s ridiculous experiments at taxpayers’ expense. I’m wondering on what planet politicians and staff live?
Oh, I forgot, half of the elected officials don’t even live in Victoria.
Natexa Verbrugge
Saanich
More on Dallas Road dog and people issues
Although I have not witnessed or experienced any serious human-dog incidents along the path beside the off-leash area along Dallas Road, I understand and respect the comments from those who have experienced such incidents.
Based upon what I’ve seen over the past few days, it seems that most humans and many (but not most) dogs have adjusted to the new fencing. I hope the new fencing provides a reasonable compromise that most people and dogs can live with.
However, what I have also observed over the past few weeks is at least three serious altercations between cyclists and pedestrians along the multi-use pathway closest to Dallas Road.
Although there are many signs along the path reminding cyclists to yield to pedestrians, all of these altercations involved cyclists travelling at high speeds having to brake or swerve to avoid hitting adults, children or leashed pets who are also on the path or attempting to cross the path to get to their vehicles.
All of these altercations involved the cyclists yelling at the pedestrians to watch where they are going, and in at least one case, with profanities added for emphasis.
And all of these cases involved the pedestrians taking exception (justifiably in my opinion) to how they and their children are being spoken to. People could have been seriously injured.
The Dallas Road waterfront is a real treasure. It looks like progress has been made on the dog issues. But there are also other issues that require serious attention.
John Blakely
Victoria
Dog park an example of municipal failure
“New fence separates off-leash dogs from Dallas Road pathway users,” Aug. 26.
For those interested in municipal governance, the dog park created not too long ago on the precious Dallas Bluffs is a good example of failure.
It has created a conflict zone and degraded, even vandalized, what used to be one of the nicest natural areas in urban Canada. It is as if Vancouver turned Stanley Park into a dog park.
It is incomprehensible and calls for reassessment.
Jacques Sirois
Victoria
No business case for LNG development
Re: “Why is Canada missing the LNG opportunity?,” letter, Sept. 1.
The answer is quite simple. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “there has never been a strong business case.”
In 1977 I worked for a company that evaluated the economics of building an LNG plant at Saint John, N.B. The project was dropped because there wasn’t a positive business case.
Many, many proposals have been made for LNG facilities in the ensuing 45 years, but the projects have been dropped because there wasn’t a positive business case.
Less than a year ago, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis in the U.S. said that the LNG Canada plant that is under construction at Kitimat could turn into an albatross because of the capital cost, the low price of natural gas, and the competition from other facilities around the world.
Economic circumstances have changed in the past year, but an LNG plant and associated facilities take many years to construct.
Randy Osterlin
Ladysmith
Nanaimo has issues, not good governance
Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog is proud of what he calls “good governance” and wants to be re-elected. While perhaps his is better than the previous often chaotic administration, calling it “good” is a stretch in my opinion.
Criminal violence and social disorder is rampant in the city, especially downtown. Downtown public parks are surrounded by metal fences keeping the public out. And plans to upgrade our major parks have been neglected.
The promise of an expanded waterfront walkway remains but a promise. The gem of the city that is the Port Drive development remains undeveloped. There is still no fast ferry.
But there are many new bike lanes for what one city councillor has called Nanaimo’s one per cent. And traffic has never been worse.
Closed meetings continue to proliferate. High-priced consultants thrive on the contracts they have been awarded, often recommending in their final reports that more consultants be hired.
Significant cost overruns come to general council meetings as consent items that are neither discussed nor debated. And most disturbing in these times of increasingly unaffordable housing, property taxes have skyrocketed. My own have increased 39 per cent since this current council was elected.
Beware of politicians touting “good governance.”
Les Barclay
Nanaimo
Important to screen dogs from elsewhere
Re: “Dog-rescue organization laments ban on foreign imports,” Aug. 30.
The Furever Freed organization needs to give their collective head a shake in their opposition to the Canada Food Inspection Agency’s ban on the importation of dogs from 100 countries, effective Sept. 28, World Rabies Day.
It is astounding that this group would put the rescue of dogs above the health and safety of Canadians. As stated in the article, there is no test for rabies on live animals and the disease has a long incubation period.
When symptoms occur, the outcome is 99% fatal in humans and dogs. That in itself is alarming, and to learn that two rabid dogs were imported in 2021 is downright frightening.
The Furever Freed group may be well intended, but the risk of importing a deadly disease is ludicrous. COVID spread through the world from one source and was impossible to contain — and COVID isn’t nearly as lethal as rabies.
Hopefully, the CFIA will hold course on their decision in the interests of the Canadian people and their dog. I also hope they will closely screen imported dogs from all countries.
John R. Paterson
Victoria
Decentralized mental health care is a failure
Since the 1960s there has been a movement to take mentally ill patients out of institutions and place them in community care. The government’s plan was to defund the institutions and put the funding into the new model.
The funding was severely decreased over time, essentially guaranteeing the community care approach would fail. We see the results every day on the news.
People dying from overdoses, people randomly attacked on the street, massive homelessness, poverty and all of this placing a huge burden on ambulance, paramedic and emergency room services.
In February 2008 in the Times Colonist, Gordon Campbell called the current approach to mental health and addiction a failure. It is mind-blowing that subsequent governments have continued to promote a failed system.
Yes, repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the very definition of insanity. It’s time for a new approach — and soon.
Richard Smith
Central Saanich
Le Tour de Vancouver Street is a real danger
The B.C. Motor Vehicle Act states all vehicles must come to a complete stop at every stop sign (and red light), as driving columnist John Ducker has said.
This should also be for all other wheeled modes of transportation such as bicycles, scooters and skateboards, but in Victoria this is not enforced whatsoever.
The most dangerous intersection where cyclists and scooters regularly blow through the stop sign is at Southgate and Vancouver Street in Fairfield.
Starting at Fairfield Street and Vancouver Street, there are no speed bumps or other means to slow cyclists, and I have witnessed many bicyclists unable to stop in time at the bottom of the hill due to their high speeds.
If there is nothing to deter speeding bicycles from blowing through this stop sign, then this is just a fatal accident waiting to happen.
Mur Meadows
Victoria
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