Try real measures to improve quality of life
Re: “Difficult measures needed as our region densifies,” editorial, Sept. 1.
Uncontrolled growth, like cancer, is a deadly disease. It threatens our health and well-being as it does our planet.
Why isn’t government protecting its citizens from excesses of the much-touted wealth-making machine, said to be the foundation of a democratic society?
In the face of an unprecedented global climate, economic, health and housing crisis, those in power have demonstrated their inability to assist even the most vulnerable members of society.
Government at all levels acts as chief enabler and life preserver of privileged entities including institutions, corporations, and plutocrats who benefit the most from gated and guarded paradises.
Has financial industry and housing market deregulation curbed real estate speculation, ended the shelter crisis, or prevented large scale displacement of impoverished people?
Where has hiring more police and a handful of mental health workers successfully repaired our frayed social fabric?
Why not consider real measures to improve our quality of life.
1. Provide livable incomes and decent working conditions; access to reliable health care; decent, safe, secure housing – for all citizens.
2. Remove all subsidies for large corporations; increase the corporate tax rate; introduce a wealth tax for individuals.
3. Ensure all rental housing rates are geared to income; remove the capital gains tax exemption on principal residence sales; end all short-term vacation rentals for tourists and visitors during a housing crisis.
Those who make false promises and those who profit from the crisis do not serve the public interest or the common good.
Isn’t it time for real change?
Victoria Adams
Victoria
Use cruise ships for public housing
Re: “Difficult measures needed as our region densifies,” editorial, Sept. 1.
Politicians and other policy-makers are attempting to build, largely unsuccessfully, significantly more housing as quickly as possible. Indeed, it will be crucial to provide housing for the many migrants who will be settling here to supply us with the goods and services we will all need.
New and innovative ways are needed to resolve the housing shortage that will otherwise plague us for a considerable time. This is particularly true at a time when constructing housing is stymied due to a shortage of skilled workers, the unprecedented high cost of labour and materials, and high interest rates for debt.
A recent article in this newspaper mentioned a company using a repurposed ship for employee housing in a remote coastal area of B.C., which triggered an idea in my mind.
Coincidently, the cruise ship industry is building new ships and phasing out older ones (as is B.C. Ferries).
Cruise ships are already designed with somewhat self-contained living units, along with all the required services such as recreational and medical facilities, so would require minimal conversion. Thus, the time, materials and resources used and the environmental impact of repurposing ships would be considerably less than building new housing.
The use of these repurposed ships as housing along the coast wouldn’t further destroy our diminishing supply of highly prized and valuable rural land and would maintain its use for agriculture, recreation and other beneficial purposes.
They could supply a considerable number of people with desirable living accommodation in a socially interactive, supportive and secure environment.
Additionally, being largely a self-contained community, they would require much less transportation and other infrastructure than is needed to develop new housing on land, and not lead to increased density and the related impacts that often concern neighbours.
They certainly represent responsible and sustainable development in various ways.
Using repurposed cruise ships as housing also aligns with the walkable “15-Minute Community” that is a major theme these days in local urban planning.
Danny Foster
Saanich
Our genocidal past is not in question
Re: “We need the truth as we seek reconciliation,” commentary, Sept. 2.
Canadians have ample evidence of atrocities committed against Indigenous people and so residential school denialism is not simply a form of “dissent,” as Paul Walton suggests, but promotes hatred and racism against them.
Bringing in a law to criminalize denialism was mooted after a shovel-wielding group attempted to dig up possible unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in June.
In 2015 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Canada has committed cultural genocide against Indigenous people through the residential school system; in 2019 the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls found Canada had committed genocide.
The evidence contained in these exacting, multi-volume reports did indeed “dramatically transform Canada and Canadian history” for many of us non-Natives, but Walton is clamouring for more “truth” — in the form of bodies of stolen children to be produced from the grounds of former residential schools.
Walton’s insidious arguments risk fueling the denialists’ case.
He says he did not hear evidence of “multiple deaths and secret burials” during a trial concerning the Alberni Indian Residential School he attended 25 years ago, and that he had a chat with an RCMP officer. But Canadian courts only establish whether a specific crime was committed based on admissible evidence, and the RCMP itself is responsible for some of the most grievous acts committed against Indigenous peoples, including system-wide failures to adequately investigate crimes against them.
The search for remains of missing children on former residential school sites is about providing answers — and perhaps closure and healing — to the families and communities affected by Canada’s genocidal policies.
The clear responsibility of the rest of us is to denounce residential school denialism.
Ann Rogers
Ladysmith
Reconciliation comes without labelling
To bandy about labels such as “colonial,” “settler,” or “colonial settler” is to show that we are reckless or ignoring, ignorant of, or diminishing the significance of section 27 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.”
Note the reference to “multicultural heritage” and to preserving and enhancing it. The interpretation is mandatory.
It does not require an apology or explanation to have a heritage that is not Indigenous. Specifically, to have European heritage (as I do) does not mean that my ancestors engaged in physical or cultural displacement of Indigenous peoples or harmed them in any other manner or that I or my family are doing so today.
My grandparents on both sides emigrated to Canada as Russian Jews circa 1904-7. They did so to save their lives and to live in peace with their new neighbours regardless of heritage.
Long before the Charter came into effect in 1982, my grandparents embraced the fundamental freedoms that would later become section 2 of the Charter. My ancestry and the way we live today in no way makes my grandparents, myself, my children or grandchildren “colonial settlers.”
Instead of the divisive use of labels and stereotypes, why not embrace and respect multiculturalism (a Constitutional right), and work instead toward preserving and enhancing our constitutional protections? Labelling does not advance reconciliation.
Brian Bruser
Oak Bay
Electrophysiology is more than ‘woo woo’
Re: “Who decides if smartphones support learning?” column, Sept. 3.
Geoff Johnson’s column cites a research article that discusses cellphones and mentions the “electrophysiological perspective” on their use in schools.
Electrophysiology refers to techniques where electrical devices are used to stimulate responses or record physiological data. The technique referred to in the study is is called EEG (electroencephalography) and is widely used in research and clinical practice.
This technique, and the term “electrophysiological” has nothing to do with “woo woo” as the author implies, nor is it in any way related to the argument made in the UNESCO report that when cellphones are near children in classrooms they may be distracting even when not in use.
Also, despite alluding to research showing that cellphones are useful classroom tools, the article cites no evidence to back up this claim.
Zach Stansfield
Victoria
Thanks for the surplus, please don’t squander it
Congratulations to the government of British Columbia on having found a $704 million dollar surplus.
The next thing they need to do is not spend it the way it was done with last year’s surplus. A law should be passed that any surpluses be used to pay down the debt.
Once the debt is gone the surplus should be put into a “Rainy Day” account.
Wouldn’t that be great?
Ron Sleen
Victoria
Aim for public housing rather than density
Density on its own isn’t the answer to the rising cost of housing. What we need is public housing for low and middle-income earners.
Government-subsidized housing developments provide an essential service: lower rents tied to income, in competition with the private market.
Dramatically increasing public housing and opening it up to individuals and families in middle-income brackets would make housing more affordable for many while aiding in social integration.
With enough public housing stock, the prices of market-rate housing would stabilize or even come down to compete.
This strategy has already proven successful in Vienna, which hasn’t experienced the same surge in property values and rents as other areas of Europe.
It’s time to start building and buying homes for people, instead of letting the market dictate the future of our cities.
Danielle McQueen
Saanich
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