Return of cruise ships? Never bring them back
We, the people, particularly those of us who live in James Bay, do not want these obscenely huge, polluting behemoths docking overnight, spewing bunker fuel exhaust throughout our neighbourhoods and then pulling out early in the morning to empty more dirty fuel and oil plus flushing their toilet waste into the open ocean!
Besides, with the thousands of people on board these floating petri-dish incubators of pandemic viruses, how many of them actually leave the ships and spend money in Victoria?
Most of them get on big buses up to Butchart Gardens, from what I can see.
Let鈥檚 keep Government Street in its current locals (and other visitor) friendly boulevard-dining, coffee-drinking state and make the shops ones that can thrive without catering exclusively to tourists wanting cheap souvenirs to take home to wherever they came from.
Venice is really upset that, despite promises to the contrary, these floating monstrosities are back in the canals and lagoon, destroying their gorgeous old city.
How many people work at the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, and how many of the rest of us disagree with their demands?
Susan Quipp
Victoria
About that drought? Blame climate change
Re: 鈥淪pring drought has farmers irrigating,鈥� June 10.
It is disturbing that 鈥渢he spring rain hasn鈥檛 materialized鈥� and that 鈥渢here has been a fraction of the usual rainfall for this time of year.鈥� It is undoubtedly bad news for farmers and alarming news for all of us concerned about wildfires.
What surprises me is that this article could have done such a good job of stating the risks, and never mentioned the connection between drought and climate crisis.
Even if you soften it to climate change, there is no doubt that this worrisome weather is part of the global unpredictability of weather driven by increasing carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. We need to pay attention to the symptoms so we can act to counter the problem.
There are actions we can take, simple things like driving less, eating less beef (raising beef is a heavy methane producer), buying products that are made or grown in B.C. (transportation is another big carbon producer) and letting our governments know that we want our taxes to support a green economy, not a fossil-fuel one.
There is still time to act.
Judith Rees-Thomas
Saturna Island
Indigenous people can work things out
It is disconcerting to note how activists, industry or governments seem to pick and choose whether to side with elected or hereditary Indigenous leaders depending on whether their position suits their purposes.
Where there are tensions or differences between elected and hereditary governance processes in Indigenous communities, outsiders would be much better to back off and allow those communities to work out these differences among themselves without butting in.
Anything else smacks of a continuation of colonialism and imposing their will on Indigenous Peoples.
Jamie Alley
Victoria
Reopen the border, let those tourists in
Regarding the opening of our border with the U.S., I think opening up to those persons who have been fully vaccinated for the COVID virus should happen around Canada Day.
We here in Victoria have to rely on the ferry systems to leave Canada. Continuing to extend the closure month by month is unfair to all tourists arriving in Canada from the U.S. and we 91原创s who want to go south of the border to see loved ones.
Reservations have to made a long time ahead of arriving, and with this monthly idea going on, how can anyone set a date for arrival at a hotel, RV park and so on?
Finally, I wonder how much longer the Coho ferry company will wait before they say we can鈥檛 afford to keep the ferry out of service any longer and we will use it elsewhere in Washington state.
Then the tourism gets hit again by not getting U.S. tourists coming on that route. I use the Coho ferry a lot and it鈥檚 always full to capacity, and if you don鈥檛 reserve to ride on it you usually can鈥檛 get on.
Alex Badiuk
Saanich
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