Name new bridge after the Queen
This old, then blue and now new bridge is the fourth crossing and built for 100 years.
Capt. Charles Johnson of HMS Driver and his passenger, Gov. Richard Blanshard, would be proud. Both these men have streets named in their honour.
A new mayor must humbly remedy the insult to our Queen from the current mayor’s lack of faith in the monarch. The new bridge should be called Queen Elizabeth. A statue of the Queen, by a competent artist, could be constructed to much the same dimensions, pedestal and such as Victoria’s statue at the legislature.
I think Her Majesty’s statue might work by the Delta Ocean Pointe.
Victorians, time is of the essence and the need is for speed. Thank you for any assistance you can give.
Stephen Browning
Victoria
Michigan has a lesson on spills of dilbit
The present and future Trans Mountain pipelines will transport dilbit — bitumen diluted with natural-gas condensate, or something similar, to improve the flow. On July 26, 2010, Enbridge’s pipeline (6B) ruptured, and dilbit poured into the Kalamazoo River at Marshall, Michigan.
The Michigan News, on July 24, 2011, quoted Ralph Dollhopf, Environmental Protection Agency incident commander for the spill: “The lighter part of the oil evaporated, making the heavy mixture even more heavy as it moved down the creek and down the river. Sixty to 70 per cent of the cleanup time concerned the submerged oil that sank to the bottom of the river and mixed with six inches of sediment.”
The current spill-response plan is based on the assumption that dilbit floats, which is debatable at best. We have to be assured that there is a system in place that will effectively clean up a spill of diluted bitumen.
David Lowe
Victoria
Enforce bylaw on vacation rentals
Our current Victoria city councillors say they want more affordable rental units. This is hard for me to believe when their vacation-rental bylaw has yet to be enforced in residential neighbourhoods.
Enforcing it effectively would bring hundreds of long-term rental units onto the market. Rents would become more affordable by increasing supply. This has already happened to a small extent just by the announcement of the bylaw passing. Imagine what real enforcement could do.
Judy Lightwater
Victoria
Bone drug is expensive for seniors
Re: “Study: More older women might benefit from bone drugs,” Oct. 9.
There is an important detail missing from this interesting article — the cost of the drug. As a senior with osteoporosis, I have been on Aclasta for three years. It is given annually by IV and costs $800 a pop. My extended health will pay only $200, so the annual cost to me is $600 and is considered with my other challenging annual charges: ICBC, home insurance, etc.
It’s too high a cost for an elderly woman, and I hope Health Minister Adrian Dix or the federal government will look into it.
The article mentions Aclasta only. There is a generic coming along that costs less ($280 or so) but it’s administered differently and has not been tested long enough, so is not preferred by my doctor.
Dianne Grimmer
Nanaimo
Compare number of councillors with other cities’
I found statistics detailing the size of our 13 municipalities and the number of council members, including the mayor, for these municipalities and compared them with the cities of Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton.
This leads one to wonder how Greater Victoria can afford to pay 91 councillors and mayors each to look after a mere 4,031 members of the population. Is this by paying higher taxes than is necessary?
Maybe our provincial government should take the lead and force amalgamation of our municipalities, as was done in Greater Toronto. After all, how can the size of our various councils in Greater Victoria be justified?
Many more conclusions could be reached when studying the figures. I’ll leave that with the taxpayer.
Jack W. Schenk
Victoria
