Mourning the loss of the old Fort Street
Congratulations, Victoria! You have ruined Fort Street. It is now an unmitigated driving disaster.
What used to be a reasonable thoroughfare for crossing from Oak Bay to downtown has become a painful crawl. Maybe Victoria was jealous of the Colwood Crawl and wanted their own.
With the addition of the “no right turn” light at Fort and Pandora, the afternoon westbound traffic is backed up well beyond Foul Bay Road – nearly 1.5 kilometres of single-lane blockage.
With the bike lanes, the bus-only lane at Richmond, and the barely three-car-deep right-turn lane (but not on green, only after!), there is nowhere to go.
Talk about unintended consequences. I am all in favour of bike safety, but the economic costs here are not to be overlooked. And what if an ambulance needs to get through from/to the Royal Jubilee Hospital? Good luck, there is nowhere to go. Cars are stuck in a giant single-file barely moving trap.
Statistically, less than 10 per cent of commuters ride a bike. Much fewer in the dark and wet winter months.
Victoria is known to have lots of elderly and parents with young children, for whom biking is simply not an option. The benefit of the bike lane efforts on Fort will be minimal at best.
It is almost as if our politicians want to spend millions of dollars to pander to a small minority of voters who think this kind of disruption is good for the city.
Mike Dolphin
Victoria
Many questions remain with these housing ideas
I hate to pull out the NIMBY card… but.
I spent over 25 years saving for a modest house on a quiet street in Saanich.
Now if the province is to have its wishes granted, all future homes or rebuilds will be multi-family housing up to six units where applicable. And I think what the decision makers may be missing — or having failed to ask themselves is: Where is the electricity going to come from? A single family dwelling typically has 100 to 200 amp service.
Future “projects” will need upwards of 800 amp service per “project” and instead of one sewer and one gray water connection, will need six. And where will all the cars park?
In one projection for the West Shore, it was estimated that over the next 10 years, the community would get 7,500 new homes … and zero doctors or medical clinics.
Thankfully, my street is populated by practical and reasonable people with few exceptions.
My neighbours appreciate their peace and quiet as much as the next person and would likely resist building out their single-family homes into “mini apartments.”
Endless growth is not sustainable. Southern 91原创 Island does not have a lot of free space to develop.
At around five per cent food sustainability, we are in no position to carve out more arable land (desperately needed for food production) to moonscape for an endlessly growing population.
Enough is enough on poorly thought-out solutions to what seems like a national crisis.
R. Colin Newell
Victoria
View Royal mayor sets example for others
Kudos to View Royal Mayor Sid Tobias for requesting an audit of the NDP government’s new housing legislation. Unlike his counterparts in Victoria and Saanich, he’s legitimately concerned with legislation that specifically bans public input and consultation on housing projects that will affect neighbourhoods permanently.
The NDP, or should I say NAP (New Autocratic Party), is taking us down a slippery anti-democratic slope with their sweeping legislation, one with consequences I don’t think they’re even willing or able to comprehend.
All I can hope for is for more B.C. municipalities like View Royal to stand up and ask hard questions, to represent the people who voted them in, to give us a voice when that voice is being threatened.
Jamie Masters
Saanich
The normalization of open-air drug use
The severity of drug laws varies across the world. At the extreme are most eastern Asian countries.
Singapore recently executed a man for trafficking 3 pounds of cannabis in May of this year. Meanwhile in Japan, possession of cannabis can lead to a five-year prison sentence.
In British Columbia, one can possess and openly consume hard drugs ranging from methamphetamine to fentanyl.
We face a unique and troubling situation in B.C., living in place where public consumption of hard drugs has become an accepted part of urban life.
Replicating the strict drug laws of Asia isn’t the solution, but we must re-examine our current approach. Drug decriminalization seems to have paved the way to widespread open-air drug use.
Can we genuinely consider this approach effective when faced with the sight of mass drug use on our streets?
Witnessing individuals who may not even be out of their teens overdosing in public is deeply distressing. In most other First World nations, a public drug overdose would reflect as a failure of government at all levels.
In Victoria and 91原创, this has become an accepted reality of city life. If youth overdosing on our streets isn’t motivation enough to address the issue, what will be?
While the rationale of decriminalization is understandable, its consequences demand our attention. We must seek alternative approaches that prioritize public safety, health, and overall community well-being.
Michael Zadravec
Victoria
Immigrants should leave grievances behind
Canada is largely a country of immigrants, all seeking a better life for themselves and their children. What they each brought has contributed to the country.
But things are going off the rails more recently, and we need to ask ourselves some serious questions. Immigrants of the past knew they had a new loyalty to their adopted country. They sent their sons and daughters to war to fight for it, regardless of their country of origin.
They understood one important fact that some more some more recent immigrants seem to have missed … that your loyalty must be to Canada, and Canada alone.
The battle over a separate Sikh state is not Canada’s battle. The fight between Israelis and Palestinians is not one that should be fought on our streets or university campuses, and result in violence against fellow 91原创s.
Canada has historically been a peacemaker and a peace keeper. We cannot fulfil this role in the world when immigrants bring their grievances to our streets and our institutions of learning, and incite violence in others.
It is time for a serious look at our immigration policies and practices to ensure that those who wish to become 91原创 citizens, or to study in this country understand that they must leave the grievances of their homeland behind and commit to living in peace with all other 91原创s.
We can disagree with civility. We can work to promote understanding. But we cannot help make peace when our own citizens do not behave peacefully.
S.A. McBride
Cordova Bay
Help local campuses add housing stock
Are our provincial and municipal governments missing what appears to be an obvious reason for a lack of housing?
I refer to the amount of students at the University of Victoria or Camosun College that require housing out of the available rental suites in the Victoria area.
A quick search showed that UVic has more than 4,000 international students but only provides housing for 2,300 plus 181 family housing units.
Camosun has 1,100 Indigenous and 1,700 international students and provides NO housing whatsoever.
Looking at the required housing for just students that need accommodation to attend these two campuses, perhaps governments need to encourage housing starts on campuses to make student housing more convenient for students (foreign or local) but also put thousands of rental suites into the general rental market that is so in need of additional housing.
Low interest loans to the campuses could go a long way to making that happen and they have a captive market for their rental housing year after year.
Something to think about.
Ernie Kuemmel
Oak Bay
Alberta’s heritage fund is a lesson for all
Re: “Inquiry needed to examine the national pension plan,” editorial, Nov. 10.
The recent editorial on Alberta’s desire to leave the national pension plan is enlightening. As usual Alberta wants more than it deserves.
One thing all Albertans should ask is where did the heritage fund go? It was set up to last forever.
It went from multiple billions to less than a billion. A quick check on the internet gives a real eye opener.
It was not set up to protect it from the greed of incompetent governments. One thing they never seem to care about is that taxpayers’ money is not theirs.
The money came from natural resources. But it was still for the people. Not to make the government’s bottom line look better. I hope B.C. never tries to walk down that path of deceit.
Tim Young
Sooke
Government action hurting the coast’s fish
I’m a commercial salmon gillnet fisherman. There is no fish on the coast because the federal government gave up on hatcheries and slashed the egg take at all the hatcheries by at least 80 per cent.
The numbers returning are atrocious to all the creeks and rivers, fish can no longer spawn naturally on this coast because of poor logging practices, all the natural spawning beds are all silted up.
The DFO allowed invasive species, Atlantic salmon, fish farms with disease that kill the natural species on our coast and the farms are all on the outgoing frys’ path.
So the only way to have salmon on this coast is through the hatchery system. That’s why there is no fish for bears, killer whales, and other wildlife.
Bradley Goodyear
Ladysmith
How do we bring Canada together again?
Canada has gone from being a melting pot of immigrants to a bowl of alphabet soup.
Previous generations of immigrants referred to themselves as 91原创 of Irish descent or 91原创 of Italian descent or German descent. Today 91原创s refer to themselves as Indo 91原创s, Chinese 91原创s, French 91原创s.
We all sit and wonder why all the divisiveness in this country. It’s because we’re no longer a cohesive country with a common focus.
We’re a patchwork quilt of groups and their focus on us versus them politics is inflamed by social media that is driving a wedge between 91原创s of all stripes.
We no longer appreciate the diversity of our country. We seem to be embracing those things that separate us rather than focus on those that bind us.
Perhaps it’ll take a natural disaster, or some form of external threat to bring 91原创s together.
Doug Coulson
Saanich
Affordable housing in government buildings
There has been great talk lately of how our governments could help in our lack of affordable housing.
Municipal, provincial, federal/DND and Crown corporations all have public land including buildings that could be repurposed for affordable housing.
The only way to keep this affordable is to keep the properties in public hands. This won’t cost us as we already own them. (Corporations controlling house and food pricing hasn’t worked too well – has it?)
Properties would be lessee occupied and tenants subject to means testing.
Profits could be used to offset costs for on-site support for those in need.
This model could also be applied to small or community farms which should help with our spiralling grocery costs.
The first thing is for all governments to establish a moratorium on the sale or lease of our public land until we have an agreed framework in place.
We have too many people living on our streets because they don’t earn enough money for excessive rent and food costs.
If faced with this 50 years ago, maybe I would have been homeless. Let’s give people a reason for hope in the future.
Bruce Clarke
Victoria
No voting, no vetting but Eby became premier
Re: “Local opinions needed in housing matters,” letter, Nov. 7.
Former View Royal Mayor David Screech claims the “our provincial government has lost its way”, and that “we can do this a better way.”
To the contrary, the province has not lost its way. It got its way entirely.
We have a politician with a socialist agenda that was unvetted by both the public and other political groups. There was no voting, no election. David Eby was effectively crowned premier of B.C.
Not a word from anyone on the process, how very wrong and undemocratic the model, and how predictable the outcome. A sorry mess.
The public got precisely what it deserved.
Brian Nimeroski
Sooke
That is our pension, so leave it alone
I am one of the first members of Canada Pension Plan. Signed on when it was brand new in the 1960s.
We were promised that the premiums we were paying in to the plan, plus the percentage of the premium our employers had to pay in for each employee would remain ours, and would be administered by the government of Canada on our behalf.
Not one penny of this fund belongs to the government of Canada, or any province. Our contributions were kept track of, and reported to us occasionally.
I rely on the pension I am now drawing, in my 76th year, for my income.
I cannot believe any government person, neither Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, or our finance minister, would be legally able to withdraw one nickel beyond her own investment.
By the way, I was born in Alberta, as were many B.C. residents, but my wages were all earned and saved in B.C. How would the folks work this one out?
For heaven’s sakes, please leave our pension alone!
Sharon Hannan
Sidney
Maybe a border wall will keep the crazies out
Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has about as much a chance of becoming the Republican nominee for the U.S. presidential election as I do.
Oddly enough, though, his genuinely stupid idea of a northern border wall has my full support. If a wall would keep the American crazies out of Canada, then it would be worth the money.
Len Dafoe
Nanoose Bay
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