First responder are our neighbours
I’ve met many first responders over the years and some people might forget or simply are not aware that whether it’s police officers, firefighters, paramedics or front-line health-care workers, they too are members of our local community.
Firefighters and other first responders live and work in our neighbourhoods and send their kids to the same schools as everyone else and shop, play and access all the services and community amenities that are available to all of us such as community centres, libraries and public parks.
First responders are no different from the rest of us in that they want their families to be safe. They have their Charter right to be safe while in their workplaces and on the job.
They have sworn to serve and protect the rest of the community when we are in danger, and if necessary put their own lives at risk in order to save us from harm while holding lawbreakers accountable for their actions.
The one-day suspension of the Victoria firefighter for expressing his opinion to Premier David Eby was wrong and a violation of his right to speak up, especially when he and his fellow first responders felt unsafe after the attacks and violence towards them on Pandora Avenue.
I greatly appreciate Eby addressing the issue and even by holding himself and his government accountable where it might be necessary to do so.
When those who have chosen a profession that involves protecting us and our homes, businesses and our lives, and then find themselves being subject to harm and danger themselves, then they might choose to share their concerns.
Their leaders and decision makers should show first responders the courtesy of shutting up and listening without bringing down the hammer if they might disagree or feel a bit uneasy with whatever criticism and concerns that have been addressed.
Leslie Benisz
Vanccouver
Children are the most vulnerable
Josh Montgomery made a bold move to try to make people aware that the provincial government says it needs to protect the most vulnerable. The most vulnerable are children who live in this North Park neighbourhood.
They didn’t ask for a facility with mental health services for people who do drugs openly.
I was a security guard at a large big box store and I was assaulted by one of these homeless people and it’s taken over a year for it to go to trial. We deserve a safer B.C.
Brady Hanna
Victoria
Special thanks for those bike lanes
Thanks to local municipalities for the protected bike lanes that are popping up all over.
Last week, my eight-year-old son attended a summer camp at the Craigflower Schoolhouse on Admirals at Gorge Road. We could get there and back from our home in North Park using only protected bike infrastructure and low traffic roads.
It was great! Our route, about seven kilometres, took us through three core municipalities: Victoria, Esquimalt and Saanich, and not once did we feel threatened by fast traffic.
My son rode his own bike every day and enjoyed himself tremendously. I was only carrying his backpack and showing him the route.
On Thursday afternoon, on the way back home, we had to run an errand before coming home and had to take Tillicum/Lampson from Gorge to the E&N Trail.
I was a little apprehensive about Lampson, given that I had never ridden this new protected bike route, but, again, we felt very safe throughout.
There’s no way we could have ever done this even just a few months ago. A big “thank you” to all the people who have made this possible.
Thank you to all the workers in Victoria, Esquimalt and Saanich who helped create what we have today. Let’s keep the momentum going!
Alfredo Franco Cea
Victoria
With all of the deer, bees don’t have a chance
Re: “To help native bees, plant more flowers,” letter, Aug. 13.
One of the single most destructive, if not the most destructive, entities facing pollinating bees is the numerous urban deer in Greater Victoria.
Up to about 40 years ago, Victoria was advertised as “the city of flowers.” From Ogden Point to Sidney, flowers blooming in front gardens were a common summer sight.
Other than occasional lavender bushes or plants protected by wire canopies, flowers cannot now exist outside of at least seven-foot-high fencing. Many of us residents can afford to plant flowers but cannot afford the cost of a protective fence hence there is less nectar available to bees.
Unfortunately, the control of wildlife is in the hands of the provincial government so municipalities, once again, are powerless to fix the problem.
Many people believe that the deer have been forced out of their wilderness habitat and into our gardens. This may have been true many years ago but is not true now.
Each spring season, the does, which give birth in local bushy areas, arrive with their spotted fawn(s) in tow and consume every edible plant they encounter, and their appetites seem to be insatiable and tastes broad-ranging.
I have tried many repellents, both applied and airborne, to no avail. As it is now, planting flowers does little to help bees but it sure pleases the deer.
The official choice seems to be deer over bees. We cannot have both in Greater Victoria.
David Smith
Victoria
A fundamental flaw in housing thinking
Re: “B.C.’s HousingHub program at the centre of controversy over high rents,” Aug. 12.
The article gives voice to the claim that increasing the “supply” of “market rate” rental housing will somehow make rental housing more affordable.
A rental housing market is driven by the supply of renters financially able to pay the maximum rent that holders of rental housing demand.
Note that the purpose of a rental housing market is not to house the maximum number of parties at the lowest possible cost (that is, efficiently) but to maximize the rents that holders of rental housing are able to extract from the productive economy.
Neoliberal housing economics, taught at the UBC Sauder School of Business, rests on the principle that holders of housing demand the maximum price a party seeking housing will pay (can pay, actually).
Increasing “supply,” according to this economic theory, is supposed to limit the maximum that rental housing holders are able to demand. How this “supply”-limit pricing relationship is supposed to function seems never to have been precisely quantified.
Social housing pricing, on the other hand, is precise. However much constructing and maintaining a particular unit of social housing costs when everyone who performs useful work to produce and provide that unit has been paid fair wages, plus the monthly share of the no- or low-interest government loan that financed its construction, is how much that unit rents for.
No handwaving, no holder, no demanding the maximum rent the holder can extract.
The neoliberal solution includes “boosting rental subsidies and other supports for low and middle-income residents.”
Translated into actual economics, this means pass-through subsidies to the holders of ruthlessly overpriced rental housing. “Rental subsidies” subsidize rental property holders. Renters merely touch those dollars as they flow from the public purse to those holders. What “other supports” the neoliberal has in mind are not clear.
There is no way that a market driven by holders demanding maximum profit can supply affordable rental housing.
Bill Appledorf
Victoria
B.C. is not alone in needing doctors
Is there some sort of block for a fairly wide swath of the B.C. population who seem to truly believe that B.C. is the only place on the planet having ER closures and a lack of doctors and specialist care?
How is that possible?
Every province has the same problem.
B.C. has done a tremendous job getting our number of doctors above 2019 numbers, along with the construction of new clinics, hospitals and other services.
However, our population has grown from 4.8 million in 2017 to 5.52 million today, with a yearly increase of around 180,000 people.
To get every person in B.C. a doctor, we either need to close our borders, while increasing the number of doctors, or figure out where to find 10,000 new doctors every year.
And that won’t be easy for any government because this isn’t just a problem for Canada, it’s a worldwide problem with more than 20 other countries far more desperate for doctors than Canada is, including the United States and Britain. Do voters think that by changing government, the new one will just snap their fingers and make doctors magically appear. From where?
Privatization? Guess where that leads? To a private, pay-out-of-your-pocket system.
Reducing administrative costs? How does that create doctors?
Eliminating inefficiencies? How does that create doctors?
The problem is a lack of doctors and no fiddling around the edges regardless as to who does it, is going to change that equation!
ER closures are caused by a lack of doctors!
Alexis Thuillier
Sidney
Address the problem, stop relying on hope
Re: “Redirect funding so it does some good,” letter, July 30.
The logic in the letter ignores what is already being done and is the epitome of putting lipstick on a pig or a Band-Aid on lost limb.
Not only is wildfire management and public awareness ever evolving and expanding, heating and air conditioning solutions are present and available.
While the solutions to their elevation in the Netherlands have evolved over centuries, these “Band-Aids” are facing much larger injuries to come and they are very much aware.
Hoping we can build some kind of super structures or protections against climate change instead of aggressively addressing the problem is short-sighted indeed.
Marcia Foote
Victoria
Fires of many kinds are burning in B.C.
There were 350 active wildfires in B.C., threatening communities, air quality, quality of life, threatening homes and contributing hugely to carbon emissions.
The B.C. government has invested in 1,600 full-time firefighters. God bless them.
They are also investing in free drugs for 250,000 addicts in B.C., a problem growing like wildfires.
Surely, this government has unusual, unsettling priorities.
Phil Harrison
Comox
Reach every child around the globe
When we have so many problems in our own backyard, it is sometimes hard to look beyond to the world at large.
There are so many children in conflict zones who need our help, and a little can go a long way. World Humanitarian Day on August 19 might be the excuse one needs to focus on faraway lands and ask oneself, “Have I done enough for my brothers and sisters and especially for the children of my brothers and sisters around the globe.”
The word “polio” might not mean anything to our own children, indeed it sounds old-fashioned even to my ears, as we are blessedly protected from it, but it still strikes fear in the heart of parents who do not have the resources that we do.
Two organizations that help to #ReachEveryChild are Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
An estimated two out of five children live in fragile, conflict-ridden areas. Why not take some time today to research these two organizations and ask yourself how you might become a part of the team to #ReachEveryChild!
Connie Lebeau
Victoria
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