Victoria’s twin crises and smashed windows
We now have chronic issues of violence and vandalism in downtown Victoria.
In order to permanently address the issue, I suggest that the city pay for businesses with glass windows to install metal retractable doors that are commonly used in places like Mexico and Argentina. These pull down at night when the business is closed.
I’m sorry to see my city go to hell in a handbasket. I see few other options given our current homeless and mental-illness crises.
Lindsay Lewis
Victoria
Victoria is getting the city that it deserves
Faced with crime, a downtown Victoria business asks: “Is it worth it?”
One year ago, my wife and I decided to move our young family to Victoria from overseas where we had been for the past decade. What we see in our parks and on our streets today is a travesty and a testament to the failed policy on all levels of government.
Elections matter, your vote counts, but the reality is that most locals do not have to watch their toddlers navigate homeless encampments, needles and trash in the park, or commute to their small business down Pandora, arriving at the office just in time to witness someone relieving themselves in their doorway at 8 a.m.
No, most people I’ve encountered since moving here are content to close their eyes and let toxic compassion take the wheel.
They say you get the government you deserve. I imagine the same holds true for the city you live in.
Alexander von Kaldenberg
Victoria
Many other factors at play in housing market
Re: “Housing supply in Victoria has exceeded demand,” letter, Feb. 15.
The letter sarcastically agrees with an earlier commentary about the need to check the math before proposing housing solutions.
The commentary had simply referenced the old saw that in a free market, when supply exceeds demand, prices drop.
The letter in rebuttal presents figures for population growth and dwelling count growth over the past few years (more than enough for the corresponding population growth) even while dwelling price has risen substantially.
The claim was that the math refuted the earlier supply/demand argument.
But while it is true that in an increasingly socialist environment free-market relations start to break down, the simplistic claim that population/dwellings data show actual demand and supply ignores parameters such as commuters wishing to move in closer, homeless wishing to move in, tourists testing the market, increasingly repressive strictures on (would be) rental facilities, etc., etc.
Eugene Neufeld
Saanich
In Nova Scotia, police were also victims
Members of the RCMP recently have been victims of ongoing condemnation as a result of the mass killings in Nova Scotia, carried out by a single deranged individual.
The barrage has been incessant, emanating from surviving family members, politicians and the media. Yet not a single gesture has been forthcoming offering any kind of compassion for the RCMP members “on the ground” who tried to comprehend the incomprehensible, the telecom operators who received and relayed the initial information, the spouses of front-line workers who no doubt tried to share the angst after the fact.
PTSD will plague many, marriages will be in danger of breaking down. Yet the onslaught continues.
Were there mistakes made? Very possibly.
Were they understandable? God forbid some monster emerges somewhere in small-town Canada, equips a vehicle similar to the fake patrol car used and, in the early dawning hours, proceeds on a deadly mission to kill as many as possible.
The prediction? Even now that we know such a travesty is possible and could occur in a similar setting, the horror could be replicated.
Was the murder rampage preventable? Not likely.
Can contingencies be built in to anticipate or cope more effectively? Doubtful. Many aspects of this tragedy can be studied and analyzed. But to heap onus on a rural police contingent for not rising to the occasion seems to compound the tragedy.
The grief is unspeakable. The horror almost too much to envision.
The police personnel involved are also victims. This should be acknowledged somewhere along this terrible road.
Ian Parson
Courtenay
Overlooked minority lives without cellphones
Increasingly those of us — I suspect a significant minority — are being penalized for choosing not to own, or being able/wanting to afford, a cellphone.
“Secondary authentication” is becoming the order of the day for access to many services, most recently the Canada Revenue Agency, which now wants to either phone or text me to confirm my identity.
To add to the difficulties, since along with many other seniors and other snowbirds I’m thousands of miles away in Mexico, thus of course beyond access to my landline at home, this is becoming a serious impediment to accessing bank accounts, CRA, etc., etc.
I’m now unable to file my income tax return as I’ve regularly done in past years online from Mexico.
To avoid this hassle, I’d suggest expanding the now apparently old-fashioned authentication by asking for a personal detail that only the “real” user could know: Grandmother’s maiden name, number of first house, name of first school etc.
There’s a gazillion ideas there, all of which can be established online.
Living on a pension, travelling overland as cheaply as possible, enjoying the declining years in sunshine as much as possible, practising the now-dying art of being “present” instead of being glued to a pocket screen, however wonderful and convenient they clearly are, are my goals.
Clearly I’m more and more hampered by the yin and yang of “progress.”
Roger Berrett
Shawnigan Lake (usually)
Save the rail corridor for future generations
The value of having an existing rail corridor to support rapid transit cannot be overstated.
Light rail in Calgary benefited from a wide primary road system that had some room to build on. But there was expropriation and soaring costs nonetheless.
91原创 did not have that advantage. The billions spent tunnelling and elevating the lines was not the only cost. The work shut down business in core areas for years, and those costs also measured in the billions.
The Island Rail Corridor is our prepaid ticket toward rapid transit. We are not big enough yet, but growth is everywhere. I don’t know what shape the transit that uses the corridor will take.
I do know that we will achieve a start on our rapid transit many years earlier if we have the corridor. If we have to bulldoze through developed neighbourhoods decades from now, we will be wondering why people were so foolish that they failed to save the corridor.
There are several petitions online. Change.org or Restore 91原创 Island Rail Services are good bets for finding the petitions.
Make sure to write to both federal and provincial politicians. Include your MP, your MLA, our premier and the federal and provincial transportation ministers.
Doug Wilson
Victoria
War is a form of negotiation
Re: “If not negotiation, what is the solution?” letter, Feb. 15.
They are negotiating …
My first reaction to this letter was to be offended on behalf of all Ukrainians, that their life-and-death struggle with a war criminal, and his confused and deluded armies, should be reduced to a “conversation.”
When I try to imagine myself in the same position, as the victim of an illegal invasion of my sovereign country, my only response is to shoot until I die, or they leave.
But I’ll play along…
Question 1: “Won’t the war have to end by negotiation at some point? If so, why not focus on that now?”
War is a form of negotiation and, yes, many wars end as a result. I hope and expect we’ll support Ukraine if their wish is to continue negotiating this way until the war criminal and his armies have left Ukraine, been destroyed, or offer terms acceptable to Ukraine.
Question 2: “If there is to be no negotiated end, what are the other possibilities? What is your position on the probability and consequences of each?”
See answer one, above.
Also, speculation on outcomes has been unhelpful up to now, but it is a fact that Vladimir Putin and his armies have illegally invaded a sovereign country just because he says it belongs to him.
I think we already know how appeasement goes with this criminal. (See Crimea, the Donbas, too many horrifying acts in his own territories to mention.)
Stephen Ison
Victoria
If there’s a surplus, put half of it to the debt
I would like to see our provincial government commit to use half of any year’s surplus to reduce our massive debt.
I doubt it will happen. No doubt there will be “more urgent priorities.”
There always are, and our debt never goes down.
John Miller
James Bay
Family passes needed at provincial museum
Regardless of how the Royal B.C. Museum is redesigned, I think that making it easier for all families to access the exhibits is crucial.
It seems pointless to go to all the trouble and expense of presenting a more accurate historical record if the admission fee puts limits on who gets to see it.
On the other hand, making family passes available for checkout in all public school libraries would help to demonstrate that the museum is for all people, not just the privileged few.
It would be great to see a program like this start when family passes go on sale again in April.
Elizabeth Causton
Victoria
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