Landlords left with little recourse
The attractions for rental suite landlords to switch to Airbnbs are quite clear.
Profit is only one. Perhaps even stronger for the landlord is to escape the Landlord and Tenants Act.
The province is clearly at fault for letting this molehill grow into a mountain.
For the landlord with a noisy, confrontational and non-paying tenant, the government offers only the most glacial response.
The landlord/owner can be stuck for many months with no income, and often with damage to the property, waiting months for a telephone “hearing.”
Small wonder many landlords have switched to short-term rentals.
Both the tenant and the landlord require protection. At present the irresponsible tenant has the upper hand.
If B.C. seriously means to encourage a return to more conventional tenancy rentals, the Act must be rewritten — and ample enforcement staffing must be provided, to ensure that complaints by both parties can be heard in days, not months.
Without these two obvious steps, the seriousness of government’s commitment will be proven false.
Garry Gaudet
Lantzville
We don’t need 10 separate kingdoms
Re: “The health-care system needs a full reboot,” column, Oct. 1.
Who are our leaders afraid of that they lose the ability to talk with one another across provinces, and recognize that shared practices would go a long way to helping the public they serve?
Why does each province have to be a separate kingdom?
Canada is one country and a wonderful one at that, but our politicians cause a lot of embarrassment by contributing to the bureaucracy that has got us into the terrible health-care mess we are now experiencing.
Ann Maffey
Saanich
Political will, courage needed to fix health care
Re: “The health-care system needs a full reboot,” column, Oct. 1.
Lawrie McFarlane has clarified the high-level interventions required by the two levels of government to contemporize our ailing health-care system.
Dialogue from any number of individuals, both inside and outside the health-care system, over the past several years have not succinctly identified these higher-level structural elements that must be overhauled and changed as McFarlane has done.
It is timely and informative for all the key players to take note of them!
Governments, provincial and federal, have been historically averse to taking on the changes identified as necessary by McFarlane.
It will take political will, courage and some old-fashioned arm-twisting to undertake these necessary and long overdue revisions to the existing system if we are to emerge successfully from this quagmire of health-care dysfunctionality.
John Stevenson
Victoria
More effective, less cost if provinces work together
Re: “The health-care system needs a full reboot,” column, Oct. 1.
If I were to suggest that every province and territory should have its own army, 10 in total, people would think I was nuts. How can 10 armies defend the nation? Not effective and way too costly.
But people seem to think it is OK to have 10 health systems to serve the national health needs.
Vince Devries
Ladysmith
Don’t ask me to pay for the park’s new sign
So now Pioneer Park has its name changed with no consultation with the public in Central Saanich! I hope the people responsible for this will be paying for the new signage, not us taxpayers!
What an insult to the families of the pioneers who worked tirelessly to bring a much-needed school here in Brentwood Bay.
Heather Keel
Brentwood Bay
Let’s look out for our neighbourhoods
Should not the duties of urban planners to be to maintain and improve their communities?
When we first arrived in Victoria in 1970, we were amazed at the number of parks, green spaces and recreational facilities available.
Since then the population has tripled, but not the former mentioned facilities. We now have urban sprawl, ghastly traffic congestion from the Colwood Crawl, not only massive development downtown but people calling for building in green areas everywhere.
What is wrong with Nimbyism, and saying we don’t want our neighbourhoods destroyed?
Many towns, cities and neighbourhoods have demanded to maintain their status by saying no to development, and have succeeded.
It is not unreasonable.
G.R. Greig
Victoria
We need compassion for other sentient beings
After reading about all the bear sightings in B.C. and how many are being killed year after year by conservation officers it reaffirms how much we need to become better and more responsible “stewards” of Earth.
Many wildlife species are being displaced because of the forest fires, lack of food and of course the usual garbage issues that careless humans unfortunately still refuse to address.
We can’t just go around killing them all.
As for the grizzly attack in Banff National Park, why was the grizzly that Parks officials came across and killed not trapped first, and forensic tests done to determine if it was the bear in question?
Also, there are still countless wildlife species being trophy hunted, trapped, and also shot from helicopters as in the case of wolves and also the up-coming “cull” of fallow deer on Sidney Island.
What is happening to humanity? Where is our compassion and respect for other sentient beings?
We are in desperate need of a more peaceful and humane world. Otherwise we risk wiping ourselves out as well.
Anne Forbes
Victoria
When dogs run loose, problems for others
I love dogs. Anyone who knows me would not doubt that — but I have a problem with unleashed dogs in spaces where it is not allowed.
I have been a dog walker in Langford for more than 10 years. Years ago when I walked five to six dogs at a time, I avoided walking them on the trails near or at Langford Lake.
Why? Because the great majority of people walking their dogs there would have them running loose. Then the owners of these dogs would yell “My dog is friendly!”
That does no good at all when you have five or six dogs under your control. They get excited and want to engage (sometimes friendly/sometimes aggressively) with their new arrival, and it is hard to retain control.
I laugh when dog owners say that their dogs are obedient when called by them. Most dogs, in my opinion, are not that obedient.
I accept that if I go into an area where loose dogs are permitted, I do so at my own risk and so is the dog(s) that I am with.
But I do not accept that the owners of dogs have the “right” to let their dogs run loose in areas where it is not permitted.
You can fight for areas where their dogs can run loose, but respect the law and respect those owners or walkers who leash their dogs where required.
One last point: Some people are scared of dogs and yes, there are people who just don’t like dogs.
People should not have to be subjected to aggressive dogs or even friendly ones, in areas where they should be leashed or under owner control.
Ken Broadhead
Langford
A solution for Victoria will not work elsewhere
Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto is asking the province to create regulations for short-term rentals that are consistent across B.C. and enforced by the province.
Alto’s one-size-fits-all solution does not take into account the hundreds of rural vacation homes and B&B accommodation providers that are legally operating under regional and municipal official community plans and home occupation zoning regulations.
Vacation rentals provide employment and revenue to rural homeowners and necessary accommodation infrastructure to support the tourism industry.
Communities such as Sooke have only one major hotel and are supplemented with vacation rentals throughout the Sooke region. They are built by local contractors, inspected and approved by the local government and are essential to developing and maintaining the tourism industry.
Although rural communities share Victoria’s housing problems, the answer will not be delivered by sharing their solutions nor being painted with the same brush by the provincial government.
Mike Hicks
Sooke
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