Speed limits need to be enforced
Re: “Speed limit to be reduced on Prospect Lake Road after string of serious crashes,” July 16.
When are speed limit signs honoured? The signs are useless and expensive unless enforced. Speeding is a low priority for the Saanich Police Department even though more deaths, injuries and damage are inflicted on society than the combined total from disobeying provisions under the Criminal Code.
R. D. Townsend
Saanich
With defunding, who will enforce?
When I first heard, I was opposed to a reduced speed limit on Munn Road (an absolutely luscious piece of asphalt in a sports car), and thought they just need more enforcement — you know, a cop on Saturday morning with radar issuing tickets. The defunding police movement has changed my mind, however. I realized a social worker issuing lectures just wouldn’t have the same effect. Pedal to the metal boys.
Terry Sturgeon
Victoria
We have a safety problem in Victoria
I am born and raised in Victoria. We have a problem here and it isn’t housing our most vulnerable in hotels. I have three teenagers, two of them daughters. When my oldest daughter was grabbed by a man when she was 14 years old in a crowded recreation centre, where she should feel safe, and that man told the arresting officer “she deserved it” we have a problem.
When I take my kids for ice cream at DQ and I’m sitting in my car and a man approaches and wants me to open my window because he says my tire is flat (it is not), and when I refuse, he shouts profanities at me for several minutes and won’t leave and terrifies my daughters and their friends who are sitting in the car, we have a problem.
When I tell my kids it’s safe to ride transit and I encourage transit use and yet a man is arrested for masturbating on a bus during what would be the time my kids would usually be taking the bus home from school, we have a problem.
I don’t feel my kids are safe in this town and I have never felt that way before.
We have more than an addiction and homelessness problem and the city and the province need to look at making our community safe again. Dear mayor and council in the City of Victoria, where I pay taxes and vote, we have a problem and it’s not just housing.
Shannon Bell
Victoria
Tax-paying citizen feels cheated
I used to love driving to Beacon Hill Park with my friend and our dogs, and for us senior ladies it was close, safe and clean.
Families would play on the grassy areas and in the playgrounds and marvel at the turtles and ducks.
The last time we were there, I watched a man squat into a plastic bag outside his not-so-hidden tent, then walk over to a garbage container at the playground and stuff it in.
No, I don’t have an answer as to where the campers can go. But I sure am tired of not being able to enjoy the park anymore.
All I know is, I am a taxpaying citizen and I feel cheated as hell.
Petra Conn
Victoria
Sharing Beacon Hill, chop shop included
I read the letter from the 75-year-old lady about sharing Beacon Hill Park. Then I read the article about the suspected bike “chop shop” at the park, so I guess the operators of the chop shop were in full agreement with the lady’s opinion about sharing the park.
David Morton
East Sooke
What homeless people are getting for free
Here’s a partial list of what the homeless can get for free: a motel room (if they want one, otherwise a nice tent); priority camping privileges in Beacon Hill Park; groceries and prepared meals, including boxed meals, delivered twice daily to one’s motel room; clothing; smartphones; internet access; cable TV; the services of a professional mover; storage space for excess personal belongings; laundry facilities; services of a brand new, state-of-the-art food truck; social supports; counsellors, supervisors and security; health care; drugs and needles; safe injection/consumption sites; pop-up primary care clinics; sympathy, patience and understanding; transportation; garbage removal; plenty of personal attention from police, paramedics and firefighters; clean-up and restoration services.
It’s called “full wrap-around support”; migrant workers and the working poor should be so fortunate.
Expectations are modest: that the motels and surrounding neighbourhoods not be trashed beyond recognition. Of course, when this happens, the hapless taxpayer will fund the cleanup and begin the windfall of freebies all over again. One outcome of this strategy is certain: an endless supply of the “un-houseable.”
The biggest problem with community-based wrap-around support is that it does not contain the problem. It’s time to reboot the big-box institution. Only asylums can provide secure wrap-around support that protects broader society from the thoroughly dysfunctional.
Brian Mason
Victoria
Cruise ships put marine life at risk
One benefit of the pandemic is that the cruise-ship industry has been stopped.
More than 30 billion litres of polluting sewage, grey water and scrubber washwater are dumped in Canadian coastal waters every year by the cruise-ship industry alone.
These waste streams contain a variety of pollutants, including fecal coliform, ammonia, heavy metals and poly-cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
All are harmful to aquatic organisms and coastal ecosystems.
In 2019, more than one million passengers and crew — just from large cruise ships — visited the Victoria cruise-ship terminal on their way to and from Alaska.
All the waste produced by this traffic went untreated into the ocean.
At-risk are killer whales and sea otters — and the food sources and habitats on which they depend. Wild salmon also face substantial risks.
The cruise-ship industry gets a free pass on the air- and water-pollution regulations imposed on land-based industries.
When cruise ships are allowed to return to Canadian waters post-pandemic, the federal government must act immediately to update regulations to protect coastal communities and ecosystems.
Al Bruton
Victoria
Police street checks help to keep us safe
Re: “Victoria council agrees to seek ban on police “street checks,” July 16.
My congratulations to whatever criminal mastermind proposed this creative way of neutering police efforts to prevent and solve crimes in the community.
Street checks are an invaluable intelligence gathering tool that the police often utilize when seeking to identify perpetrators of crimes in our neighbourhoods.
To disallow street checks is a great idea if your sole aim in life is breaking into our cars and homes or molesting our children, but not such a good idea if you happen to be the taxpayers in Victoria who will end up paying the price for this shortsighted idea.
Len Dafoe
Nanoose Bay
Tour buses can find museum
Re: “Maritime museum belongs by the water,” letter, July 16.
The letter-writer says: “It seems they are easily seduced by a modern and spacious building.” I suggest they were not “seduced” but “Studuced.’ We all know that Langford Mayor Stu Young can move mountains, so why shouldn’t we believe that he can’t create oceans. Just as the tour bus drivers drive folks to Butchart Gardens, they will drive folks to Langford.
Sherri Robinson
Esquimalt
Hospital followed guidelines
Re: “In first visit since easing, teary daughter reconnects with 100-year-old mother,” July 12.
I was amazed by lack of understanding of the care received by the residents at Mount St. Mary Hospital.
I have volunteered at the hospital for many years and I know first-hand the care, the love and the spiritual comfort given to the residents.
Mount St. Mary Hospital followed the guidelines set out by Dr. Bonnie Henry. No visitors, no volunteers and limited staff to keep their residents safe.
They have not had one case of COVID-19 and I applaud the staff for being so diligent and doing the best they can given the circumstances.
Loretta Mason
Victoria
Closed Victoria streets are making deliveries difficult
I’m not sure Victoria city council has really thought this through. Expanding sidewalks, adding bike lanes and throwing up patios is nice for cyclists and pedestrians and even nice for some restaurants, but I wish they would consider how those bars and bistros get the supplies they need to operate.
The food, beer and dishwasher detergent is all being delivered by trucks ranging in size from tractor trailers to cube vans to little transit vans.
The few commercial spots around the downtown core have been re-regulated so that many only accept a certain tonnage of vehicle. There are no magical happy people bopping around on vintage bikes or prancing down the street in their new Fluevogs delivering anything useful to busy businesses. Trucks and vans still need places to park and streets to drive on.
C. Scott Stofer
Victoria
Send us your letters
• Email: letters@timescolonist.com
• Mail: Letters to the editor, Times Colonist,
2621 Douglas St., Victoria, B.C. V8T 4M2.
Letters should be no longer than 250 words and may be edited for length, legality or clarity. Include your full name, address and telephone number.
