Many seniors facing extensive dental work
Children today, like myself who was born in the late 1940s, do not have the bad habits of eating candy and soda pop as we did, resulting in many cavities and tooth loss which continued into adulthood with some of us losing teeth during childbirth due to loss of calcium.
Now that we are in our late 70s, many of us are in dire straits not having access to the thousands of dollars needed for our breaking and decaying teeth.
No, that does not include everyone, and there are many who also have insurance. Seniors are living longer and the tooth problem will not go away. Neither will the problem of financing.
Children today do not have the cavities that we had and continue to have as we age. There are far more seniors today needing dental work and not getting it from lack of funds.
The bottom line is that children do not have mouthfuls of cavities, braces are not in vogue, and the government is looking at the wrong section of the population.
It should be the elderly, suffering because they cannot afford expensive dental work, who receive help.
Valerie Bellefleur
Victoria
Population stability is the answer
Re: “Island cannot continue to keep adding people,” letter, July 12.
I agree with the writer’s conclusion that 91原创 Island can’t sustain additional people. However, this concept needs expansion to include the entire province, indeed the nation.
Our growing population is a huge strain on all of our natural and man-made resources including housing and health care. This much is obvious to almost everyone except politicians.
For some inexplicable reason they continue to promote immigration.
In fact, Canada just reached a milestone of 40 million people which was reported as a good thing. Not so. Every major problem this province faces is directly related to an unsustainable population.
If the population continues to grow there is no way that infrastructure can keep pace.
Presumably what is driving the policies of increased growth through immigration is that all of these people are required to grow the economy and increase the tax base.
This is faulty thinking. Canada should strive to reach a zero growth rate where the population remains steady so that we have less impact on the environment, reduce the consumption of resources and allow our overtaxed health-care system, electrical system and housing market to meet demands.
More people is the opposite of what we should be doing if we ever hope to live sustainably on this island or on the planet.
Richard Smith
Saanichton
The right type of housing will make a difference
I applaud Saanich council’s action to establish a plan of what and where infill of single-family zones should take place. But I worry that discussion over the intricate issue of “where” will predominate over the more important problem of “what.”
Within the next two years Saanich will have built more than a thousand new apartment units and the Capital Regional District will have added thousands more. We don’t need more apartments.
In the same period Saanich will not have added a single unit of moderately-priced family housing, in spite of the general agreement that the most pressing demographic need is for Saanich to attract more young families.
The answer to “what” infill should be allowed is clear. The infill should be housing for families. Instead of building “mini-apartment blocks” we should be restricting the infill permits to small town/row-house clusters.
Not only would this move be in the correct housing direction, it would largely moderate the distress of surrounding home-owners worried about the impact on the value of their hard-earned principal asset.
A small family-oriented development would be an acceptable fit to a single-family neighbourhood, provided that the local density was kept to a reasonable value.
“Where” is complex since our planners appear to be working to old-fashioned concepts which are not relevant to Canada in the 21st century.
The “15-minute community” is a pipedream of yesteryear which might have worked in some European countries but doesn’t fit at all with 91原创 lifestyles.
We don’t walk to the local shops because there aren’t any. We don’t walk to transit every day because we work at home, or have a truckload of work-related stuff, or because we can’t afford the long times which it takes to get us to work using the transit route complex.
We don’t have a conscience about driving because we’re using EVs. Above all, we know that one of the best things about living in our big country is that we don’t need to crush everybody into the same small space.
The overriding requirement for infill placing is that it should be relevant to its immediate surroundings. That need obviously eliminates putting the ugly cube of a mini-apartment building into the middle of a group of single-family homes, serious degrading the value of its surroundings.
A small townhouse complex, as can be seen already in single-family areas, does not have the same negative impact and brings the positive of more families.
I hope that the Saanich council’s infill enquiries will be a real consideration of these points and not just a whitewash of the developers’ roadmap.
Alec Mitchell
Saanich
Saanich is approving too many developments
Re: “Saanich council did not listen to residents,” letter, July 5.
Many residents of Saanich are disillusioned that they are not being listened to. A prime example is the application process for development permits.
Public hearings are becoming farcical; development decisions are very predictable. “Approve.”
In the past three years only one application for a major development has not been approved. Public hearings are usually lengthy. There must be good reason for this.
Yes, it is often the majority who express their opposition to an application. ‘Neighbourhoods’ passionate about their much-cherished communities are naturally upset about decisions allowing considerable increased density in their area, particularly six storeys in their ‘backyard.’
Why are they not given more respect? They are the ones most affected.
The 2008 Official Community Plan indicates that in neighbourhoods, up to four storeys only should be supported; the recent Shelbourne Valley Action Plan echoes this. The newly drafted OCP shows a preference for three storeys.
Since July 2022, it seems all units have been at market rates, and relatively few family-oriented; so why in their decisions is council not insisting on the highest degree of affordable elements from developers?
A contribution to the affordable housing fund is not the same.
Even a recent interim policy of council only supports up to six storeys in neighborhood-designated areas if 20 per cent are below market rates.
In addition, where are the statistics supporting so much housing specifically in Saanich?
Fiona Millard
Saanich
Provinces have choices under national pharmacare
Re: “National pharmacare is not the highest priority,” editorial, July 7.
The editorial does not indicate an understanding of what a national pharmacare plan really means. Under most versions, there will be a list of essential evidence-based drugs that all provinces will need to cover and copays will either be eliminated or minimal.
Whether provinces want to cover more drugs will be up to them; if provinces want to introduce schemes such as reference-based pricing to reduce drug costs it will be up to them.
If provinces want to cover additional drugs that will be their choice and private drug plans will also be able to offer coverage for additional drugs.
British Columbia, according to a 2022 Statistics Canada study, had the highest proportion in the country of its population without prescription insurance at 26 per cent and that rose to 33 per cent for seniors.
Finally, the editorial ignores one crucial aspect that should be part of pharmacare; its ability to contribute to better prescribing and use of prescription drugs.
The more money that governments are spending on medicines, the more that they and the public want to be sure that the money is being spent wisely. This creates the incentive to fund independently run programs to achieve those objectives.
Pharmacare isn’t just about money, it’s about making sure that everyone gets the treatment that they need.
Joel Lexchin, MD
Board member, 91原创 Health Coalition and 91原创 Doctors for Medicare
Toronto
Singing and chanting in a peaceful protest
International news coverage of terrible fires and riots in Paris and many other French cities over the past days, ignited some memories of my own.
I recalled my schoolboy history lessons of the French Revolution that began in 1789 with the storming of the Bastille, and resulted in King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette both losing their heads, courtesy of Joseph-Ignace Guillotine.
The French motto of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” was adopted during the decade-long revolution, and when the current unrest exploded after a teenager’s tragic death at a police traffic check last week, I began to wonder about that national motto.
Did the teenagers who came out in huge numbers to protest how their compatriot lost his young life, really enjoy those lofty patriotic values, or were they feeling ostracized and disenfranchised as racial minorities?
Protesters as young as 12 years old, mainly of Arab and African descent, initially received sympathy from many foreign observers, until the violence took over.
Sympathy was lost when they started burning vehicles, torching police stations and town halls, looting supermarkets and tech stores, etc, etc.. Thousands of protesters were arrested, as things turned really ugly, and damage worth millions was incurred.
It bore an eerie resemblance of what happened in many American cities following the death of George Floyd in 2020, when many establishments were torched during “Black Lives Matter” riots.
A huge police presence in France, coupled with pleas from the teenaged victim’s family and members of the French football team — with its many wonderful players of African and Arab heritage — helped to quell the riots, for now.
Street protests need not turn violent to produce a definite result, having participated in a 1969 anti-Vietnam War protest. Working as chief mate on a bulk-carrier bound for Baltimore, the trainee marine pilot guiding the vessel through the Chesapeake Bay suggested I join him in the well-advertised protest the next day.
It was part of a huge movement right across America. Everything seemed well-organized, having received necessary permits from authorities.
All these years later I can remember how those in charge stressed there must be no violence, no throwing of any type of missiles, no abuse aimed at law enforcement officials.
We were told to sing and chant as loudly as possible. John Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance was only recently released, and there were many similar anti-war songs, but the chant remains in my memory until this day.
It was simple and very effective: “1, 2, 3, 4, We Don’t Want No F***in’ War!”
Bernie Smith
Parksville
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