If you can’t eat them, carry the roaches out
Re: “Dog had to be carried off Sugarloaf Mountain after it ate a cannabis butt,” Sept. 3.
I am a very sorry that happened to the pooch, and really glad his people were so prepared. It’s so terribly selfish that people litter in our beautiful parks.
Metchosin has just spent so much money on making parking and bathrooms for this epic hike. My only other concern is that there was no mention of the fire risk when they chuck their roaches.
This would be devastation with the lack of access for water, and also the lives of other people who are enjoying the hike.
Come on, you stoners, eat the roaches or put them in your pocket. Obviously there’s still some fun left in the butt.
Anne Marie Wade
Victoria
A way to lock in higher-cost housing
Retired from 40 years’ work as a Victoria real-estate agent, I usually supported more development, so it is ironic I find the missing middle housing initiative so deplorable.
It is understandable that young people mistakenly believe that more housing will be affordable and good for them.
Not! There are tracts of single family zoning that could be set aside for affordable housing options, but this initiative would enshrine the entire city land base to very expensive strata suites for the wealthy.
The entire proposal reeks solely of the profit motive. It was developed of, by and for developers. Good governance is of, by and for the people.
Time for a competent, experienced and honest new mayor and council.
Patrick Skillings
Victoria
Three major issues with the missing middle idea
In Saturday’s Times Colonist, former Victoria mayor Alan Lowe is quoted as saying: “If this initiative is approved, most residents will be shocked at what this initiative will allow next door to them without having the right for any input at that time.”
This is one of three very negative hallmarks of this poorly designed initiative. Removing any notice or ability to comment on what is built next door is the worst.
Second is the delegation to city staff, many of whom will move on, later in their careers, to work for developers/designers/builders (or in City of Victoria parlance, Our Partners), of the decision-making on lots that “meet the guidelines.”
Having city staff move from consultative to executive roles further removes citizens from any control of their neighbourhood environment.
Third is this lame duck council, saying to people who have lived in their homes for 30, 40 or more years, that “We Know Best. You may live there, but We Know Best.”
I urge council to, on Thursday, put this matter over to the new council. There are candidates for mayor and council who support this initiative. Let the citizens of Victoria have their say on Oct. 15.
Fin MacDonald
James Bay
Try a regional approach to provide housing
What I fail to understand in the “missing middle” debate is why Victoria, which is already by far the most densely populated municipality in the Capital Regional District (in fact it has one of the highest densities in the entire province), feels it must solve a regional housing crisis by increasing its own density even more.
Surely many of the middle-income families, for whom this proposed initiative is apparently designed, would be more than happy to access affordable housing in the less dense suburbs of Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, View Royal etc. rather than in the urban core.
Is this yet another example of Victoria council acting unilaterally with possible detrimental consequences for the city, when a regional or provincial approach is needed?
John Weaver
Victoria
Woke social engineers take on pilot call signs
Re: “Police probe puts fighter-pilot call sign meetings under scrutiny,” Sept. 4.
I suppose it was inevitable that the forces of unchecked political correctness would, like vultures, alight upon the once-proud carcass of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Call signs, once the proud mark of skilled professional fighter pilots, are no doubt about to become the playthings of committees full of woke social engineers.
I can just see future Canadian fighter pilots, call signs Baby Beluga, Sunshine Earth Harvest and Non-Binary Warrior, facing off against Russian or Chinese aggression.
I am so sad and embarrassed for our soldiers, pilots and sailors if this is the sort of nonsense our government is focused on in an increasingly threat-filled world.
Len Dafoe
Nanoose Bay
Air force nicknames go with the dangers
Re: “Police probe puts fighter-pilot call sign meetings under scrutiny,” Sept. 4.
There is a senseless uproar about air force pilots having an informal get-together to select nicknames they use in carrying out their missions.
Pilot nicknames are fundamental to military aviation. They bring respect and esprit de corps to those who risk their lives daily to safeguard and to bring peace to our world. Nicknames are essential attributes of what makes an aviator.
There is the nickname “Hell’s handmaiden,” which was attributed to Billy Bishop. He was the top Canadian and British Empire ace of the First World War.
Bishop would go deep into enemy territory and racked up victories to become an ace aviator. He was awarded the Military Cross, the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Victoria Cross.
There is also the nickname “Sexy Rexy,” which belonged to Ola Mildred Rexroat, a native American with the Women Airforce Service Pilots. In 1942, she was assigned the dangerous job of towing air targets for aerial gunnery students.
This is what nicknames are all about with air force pilots; it is emblematic of a dangerous and vital job. A job that deserves respect and honour.
Roger Cyr
Victoria
Don’t blame wages for rising inflation
Re: “Cost of living raises only fuel inflation,” letter, Sept. 2.
If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation and productivity growth, it would be more than $20 right now.
If the minimum wage has failed to keep up with inflation, I fail to see how increased wages would fuel inflation.
According to economic studies, wage-push inflation has largely been debunked, but higher prices have led to higher wages. That is the opposite effect of what the letter is claiming. The unions are doing exactly what they should be doing and advocating for their workers.
Justin Treitl
Victoria
Monetary policy is driving inflation
Re: “Cost of living raises only fuel inflation,” letter, Sept. 2.
In a distinctly anti-union piece of rhetoric, the letter writer lays the blame of inflation squarely on rising workers’ wages. He rebukes unions for the seemingly outrageous folly of bargaining for wage increases to keep pace with rising costs.
He wants us to believe that unionized government employees, in particular, are to blame for the increasingly dire situation now facing the world’s populace: rising inflation. Far-fetched? Quite.
Any cost-wage-inflation comparison set within the complex, unpredictable, and often-contradictory system of capitalism needs to begin with neoliberal monetary policy.
Here, I refer the writer to Jim Stanford (an actual economist) writing in his book Economics for Everyone: “Central banks have regulatory power over prices, job creation, and incomes … and they perform duties without any direct accountability to the broader population, and [ironically] to government, even though the central bank itself is a government agency!”
Stanford further says “… there’s no reliable evidence that single-digit inflation harms real economic progress.” Because it is the wealthy who prefer low inflation — their costs soar with higher inflation — they exert influence upon central banks, which accordingly increase lending rates to lower inflation. Middle-class workers continue to bear losses to their already modest purchasing power.
Rising costs are directly attributable to the Bank of Canada’s misguided monetary policy and subservience to Canada’s rich elites, investor greed and neoclassical economics. Opposing these forces are unions.
Integral to the survival of workers and their families, survival starts with fair wages. Let’s get real with where the blame should rest.
Dennis Oliphant
Victoria
Even empty, that room is an important spot
Re: “Charming Emily Carr House was birthplace of one of Canada’s most famous painters,” Sept. 3.
I was charmed to read about the house at 207 Government St. where Emily Carr was born and spent her formative years. I launched my 2019 book Woo, The Monkey Who Inspired Emily Carr: A Biography in the dining room of that house, which is a very important space indeed.
In June 2019, I had the honour to help organize the west coast debut of Pockets Warhol, a white-capped capuchin monkey who lives at Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary in Ontario. Several years ago, sanctuary staff discovered that painting (using child-safe paints) eased Pockets’s anxiety in his new home, and a show of his work in Toronto led to worldwide fame. His paintings are in the collections of Dr. Jane Goodall, Dame Joanna Lumley and Ricky Gervais.
It was all the more meaningful to display Pockets’s work in the dining room, which is where Carr is on record for having made her first sketches, as a little girl, using coal from the fireplace. It’s wonderful that the dining table has been returned, but even empty the room is important as ground zero for one of Canada’s and the world’s greatest artists.
Grant Hayter-Menzies
Sidney
Many seniors are not living the high life
Re: “BCGEU wants what pensioners have,” letter, Aug. 27.
The writer’s absurd perspectives are yet another variant on the old harmful myth of seniors living the high life, with nothing to complain about. This time, it seems that they can open Nordstrom accounts with the riches from all those cost-of-living increases on their OAS cheques, while BCGEU workers seethe with envy.
What absolute rubbish. The author conveniently leaves out the fact that the typical OAS income is below the poverty line. Any few extra cost-of-living percentage points is like adding nickels to pennies.
It is ludicrous to even suggest that “the old person in the cartoon is actually much better off” than a BCGEU worker. Her comment shows an appalling ignorance of the hardships experienced by many Canadian seniors barely surviving on rock-bottom OAS pensions.
Pigs would fly before any BCGEU member would “want” this precarious existence or think that these elders were “better off.”
Here are some reasons as to why. Seniors have no bargaining rights. The low-income cut off for an individual in Canada is $32,244 per year. The highest annual OAS (plus GIS) income is less than $20,000. Ottawa gives you less if you are younger.
OAS payments come once a month, three days before rent and bills are due. Seniors are sometimes forced to wait five weeks before being paid.
The writer’s delight with her husband’s OAS boost is tawdry in light of the fact that many seniors got nothing. The increase should have been across the board.
Seniors need change and solutions, not false narratives.
Doreen Marion Gee
Victoria
If we really care, make treatment mandatory
I read with interest the opinion piece in Friday’s edition and then the story of the drug-addicted man in the Saturday edition. How many others are perplexed and saddened by this tragic opioid health crisis? I too find it difficult to understand, let alone propose a solution.
However, it seems to me that it is heartless to leave people who struggle with their addictions to suffer in squalour and hopelessness. Compulsory treatment may not be a panacea, but at least it might help some find a better life.
At the very least it would keep some off the streets committing petty crimes and harassing the citizenry. How much of our precious health-care resources are spent treating overdoses? Those patients held in confined treatment centres would at least “enjoy” a temporary reprieve from fentanyl overdoses.
Giving people free access to pure drugs to feed their addictions will only keep them entrapped and enslaved to their chemical dependencies.
If we really want to help them, then we have to be prepared to provide them with a spectrum of solutions that includes mandatory treatment.
Don Thain
Victoria
We can empathize, but tough love is needed
Re: “Involuntary hospitalization is a ‘zombie idea’,” Sept. 3.
Marilou Gagnon and Trevor Goodyear are living in a dream world, pardon the pun. Statistics do not support their position.
I live in Nanaimo, where people are scared to walk in the streets at any time of day or night. One day recently, a pregnant mother was struck on the stomach with a brick while defending her four-year-old child from a mentally deranged stranger walking along a downtown street. Almost at the same time, while waiting for a bus in the same area, a stranger was stabbed by another deranged individual.
David Eby is right in his approach to the problem; empathize, but show “tough love” in dealing with it.
Allan Winks
Nanaimo
Let’s pour a drink to forget the rules
Re: “UVic scientist wants labels on alcohol to show health risks,” Sept. 4.
The alcohol restrictions that Dr. Tim Naimi and his group of experts would like people to adhere to are enough to drive a man to drink.
Bob Beckwith
Victoria
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