I owe my life to health-care workers
Remember the early days of the pandemic? Like many of you, I stood on my deck and banged on pots in support of health-care workers. Little did I know how much I’d need them.
Fast forward a year, and I’m riding my bicycle up the Saanich Peninsula, beside the airport. It’s a beautiful day and a much-needed break from my desk.
The speeding car had a different opinion and made its point emphatically.
From the firefighters who attended the scene, to the ER staff who took charge of me, the ICU staff, surgeons, nurses, doctors, speech and language pathologists, and countless others I was unable to recognize or acknowledge, health-care workers gave me back a future.
In fact, since I wasn’t supposed to live, let alone have any brain function, the fact I’m writing this is a testament to the importance and impact human beings in care roles have.
And my loved ones also received attention, care, and support from hospital staff that makes me doubly grateful. They have my thanks forever.
So we may not be banging on pots for health-care workers any more, but I stand in awe and appreciation of every one of them.
It’s an often thankless role with little opportunity for lasting connection or expectation of success, but our community is so much richer because they show up.
Matt Politano
Brentwood Bay
Gaps remain in Langford recreation
Last week, Langford announced plans to spend $8.5 million to expand seating at Starlight Stadium. At last, no more ponds or power transmission poles standing in our way!
This decision follows a long trend of Langford prioritizing its recreation budget for elite sports rather than the broader community.
Most recently, the pandemic has reminded us all of the important role that our local neighbourhood spaces play in our lives, by providing — or preventing — opportunities for recreational, social and physical activities.
While the stadium has undoubtedly become a regional sports destination and local economic driver, Rugby Canada’s description of Langford as “isolated and expensive” arguably points to an underlying public sentiment that many gaps remain in providing recreation for all.
In other words, more public investment in community infrastructure is desperately needed to support the fastest growing population in B.C.
People need places to go between work, school and home — and as the cost of living increases, more than ever, recreational opportunities need to stay within financial reach for people of all ages, abilities, and incomes.
If Langford supports “recreation for all,” the city must pivot and prioritize funding for more “pick up and play” recreation in neighbourhoods. This could be seen by taking action in preserving natural greenspaces, building safe trails to walk and bike on, and through funding and replacing amenities such as local food gardens, dog parks, sport courts, and the Westshore Skatepark.
Here’s hoping $8.5 million gets us a proper sidewalk beside the stadium.
Colby Harder
Langford
If transit is free, someone has to pay
Victoria Coun. Ben Isitt wants to make public transit in Victoria free. I am certain that Isitt has researched his project, and found bus manufacturers lining up to donate buses to the cause.
As well, the transit administrators, mechanics and drivers will all donate their time, working for nothing. Diesel fuel for the buses will, of course, also be free.
What hogwash!
What Isitt, and others everywhere of similar outlooks, really means is that they want someone else to pay for their rides to work, school, city hall, and so on.
Just like health care, a comparator for him, it is not free! Someone else pays for it, and if it is the government, well, that really means you the taxpayer, now doesn’t it?
When someone brings up these free ideas, people always think it will be someone else, richer than they, who will foot the bill. That never happens. It is always you. Always.
David Hansen
Victoria
Don’t trust the mayors on housing issues
Local politicians said in the Times Colonist on April 16 that the province should provide the additional authority, resources and tools required and then “leave it to us as to how to get there.”
We have so many councils around here that they will never get their act together to find my children — with good incomes — an affordable way to buy a house in their own city.
I have more confidence in the provincial and federal governments than I do in the multitude of local councils.
If the province moves towards amalgamation then maybe the letter from local authorities could work.
Eric J. Jones
Victoria
COVID pandemic still needs our attention
COVID fatigue is not a valid excuse for letting down our guard as we start working our way through the sixth wave.
All the measures we have had to put into our daily routines are still necessary: masks, distancing and vaccines.
And isn’t it time to say it like it is? The third vaccine should no longer be referred to as a “booster.” That term implies that it’s perhaps you have a choice. But it is a vital part of being fully vaccinated.
As will the fourth jab when it becomes available.
COVID is a novel virus about which we’re still learning.
Jo Ross
Nanaimo
The cruise ships are back, and it is bad news
I am a resident of James Bay. The past two years without cruise ships, during the COVID shutdowns, were wonderful for me.
I live in the path of the worst fumes, which blow down on our neighbourhood from the smokestacks of the cruise ships when the winds are gusty and blowing.
The freedom from cruise ships meant freedom from these foul, polluting fumes. But now the ships are back.
I came in from my yard on April 16 after only five minutes outside, and my eyes were stinging and my lungs congested from breathing in fumes. There was a “pig” in port — a large cruise ship burning dirty fuel at the docks of the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority.
Earlier in the day, I had noticed, for the first time, the sound of a young crow cawing in the nest. It made me joyful. But smelling the fumes, and knowing that the little bird was stuck in them, made me feel ill.
The birds cannot escape the fumes by going inside like I can.
What these ships do to the birds and the wildlife in our little community is disgraceful, not to mention the citizens also. And the City of Victoria turns a blind eye to it.
There is never a whisper of protest, and certainly nothing ever done to enforce the bylaws that prohibit noxious emissions. The big business of cruise gets its way: Dirty fuel, dumping grey water, and all their harmful pollution.
Studies have shown that there is little economic benefit to the community from the cruise ships, despite all the hype — just a few small industries that service the ships and the few tourists that disembark. However, the harm is significant.
Ruth Magnusson
Victoria
Governments must act on climate change
Trevor Hancock’s latest column sums up the climate problem in Canada exactly. Our governments keep greenlighting projects that increase our emissions instead of reducing them.
Although I’m glad Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to make it easier for us to buy electric cars, his government just approved the Bay du Nord project. How is that helpful?
B.C. is building the Coastal Gaslink project, and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion continues. And what about the tar sands? I haven’t heard that they’re winding down their operations.
Our governments and the fossil fuel industry (along with big banks and insurance companies) are simply digging us in deeper and deeper.
My husband and I have an electric car. We recently switched out our gas stove for an electric one, and we try to limit our travel emissions, which is difficult given that most forms of mass transportation aren’t “green.”
For years we’ve been signing petitions, writing letters, attending protests, etc. in an effort to pressure our governments to confront global warming and divorce the fossil fuel industry.
These efforts by us and millions of others have fallen on deaf ears.
Climate scientists around the world are staging protests in desperation, begging governments to take the drastic action needed immediately to prevent global chaos.
We are suffering an avoidable crisis due to decades of all-out denial, delay and obstruction by industry and politicians. If only scientists called the shots!
Despite the multiplying climate disasters impacting Canadians, our governments still refuse to take the necessary action required to avert even worse catastrophe. Our provincial and federal governments are apparently incapable of such action.
Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry continues to pollute and rake in the big bucks, while planning future growth.
Yes, we now have the technological means to “green” our systems, which is fantastic, but the corporate and political forces still actively preventing the change we so desperately need are formidable.
That’s what really frightens me.
Hannah Mitchell
Victoria
A simple solution to pickleball noise
I’ve read with interest all the controversy surrounding pickleball and the noise this popular sport generates. I suggest pickleballers stop using that hard plastic ball, and instead bat an actual pickle back and forth, thereby reducing noise levels and rendering their sport true to its name. I think this will get them out of their current pickle, and is a dilly of a solution that all will relish.
Mike Erwin
Victoria
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