We should trace our own comings and goings
Relating to COVID-19, why can’t we all be responsible for charting our own daily comings and goings? When I’ve queried this among my neighbours, what I hear is “because people wouldn’t do that.”
Yet, two of my friends have kept track of when they left their house, where they went, and with whom they interacted. The when/where/whom each day, since mid-March, just in case it might be needed.
Why do we now need a government-subsidized program, paid through our taxes to keep track of our whereabouts? In the past, citizens have railed against the “encroachment of a nanny state.” And now this?
Margaret Spark
Victoria
Don’t obsess about car licence plates
Re: “Vandalism needs to be condemned,” letter, Aug. 14.
My husband and I recently returned from a road trip (it involved hiking) through a number of B.C.’s mountain resort towns as well as Jasper and Banff national parks.
I was a bit taken aback by the tone in the letter regarding treatment of Albertans in B.C. We didn’t see any evidence of any of that on our recent road tour. I’m quite sure Premier John Horgan’s remarks regarding travellers from outside B.C. was aimed more specifically at Americans who were flouting the Alaska loophole.
I did a quick search on incidents in B.C. and Alberta and it seems the majority of vandalism cases, of which there were actually few, occurred in April and May when COVID spread was still a big concern. I also found an article on vandalism on four Alberta cars in Kananaskis, Alta. as recently as July 26.
So, this is by no means a one-sided issue.
By all appearances reading the various articles, one could assume that some rural communities are not prepared to deal with outside visitors, regardless of their home province. Other communities are more open and perhaps better prepared to handle it.
As we drove through Kelowna in early August, easily one in every five vehicles had Alberta plates with no evidence of negative reception anywhere.
It is well known that many Albertans have holiday homes in B.C. including Vancouver Island. Perhaps we need to chill a little and deal with people directly and civilly, instead of focusing on the vehicles they drive.
Eve Millington
Victoria
Courthouse playground needs a fence
The new courthouse playground is a terrific facility, and deservedly popular with both kids and adults. However, the lack of a proper fence, especially along Quadra Street but also along Burdett Avenue is extremely dangerous.
On July 27, I was there with a six-year-old autistic boy. He loves running around in the playground. However, he is also extremely impulsive and oblivious to traffic danger. Before I realized what he was doing, he darted into Quadra Street. Only a panicked extremely loud yell from me got his attention, and he quickly turned around.
I contacted the City of Victoria’s parks department about this. They told me the playground is run by the province’s facilities department.
Play areas of parks and schools have fences for good reason. This oversight must be fixed ASAP.
Louis Guilbault
Victoria
Amid pandemic, alternatives for students
Re: “Plan for reopening schools leaving too many students behind,” comment, Aug. 18.
MLA Sonia Furstenau couldn’t have articulated any better the problem that exists with current return to school plans. Districts must look at offering online options that keep kids connected to their school community.
It is wrong to expect families to withdraw from their schools to access distance learning, leaving them with the possibility of losing their spot and separating them entirely from the school community they love.
The emphasis has been placed on return to in-class learning as being essential to students’ mental health, but what has not been taken into consideration is the mental health of students and families who are forced to withdraw because they feel it prudent to distance-learn due to individual health risks.
Those families are falling through the cracks. And let’s be realistic. Fall brings a lot of various viruses, and with the current need for students to remain home if sick, their learning will fall behind unless they can safely access learning online while riding out symptoms from home. A better solution exists, so let’s get moving on putting distance learning into place for the benefit of all students, regardless of their circumstance.
Leanne Bates
Langford
A building that’s dangerous for birds
Re: “Design for proposed Telus Ocean building in downtown Victoria unveiled,” Aug. 6
Bird watchers in Victoria may be disturbed to learn that the proposed Telus building, ”an 11-storey triangular building featuring a massive wall of glass,” according to a Times Colonist article, will be a massive murder trap for countless native birds.
Quoting from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center: “glass-covered and illuminated buildings kill anywhere from a 100 million to a billion birds a year.”
Birds see the moon or sun reflected in the glass and, feeling they have a clear flight path, crash into the wall and kill themselves.
This proposal is in front of Victoria council now; if this concerns you, let them know your feelings; dead birds, lying around the foot of a downtown building, will do nothing to attract tourists.
Val Boswell
Victoria
Stores have too many pandemic signs
Here’s another take on how we need to be kind to each other.
We all know that store clerks have been treated badly, and that we need to keep calm.
It’s not their fault. I have noticed that whenever I venture out to shop, there are a multitude of signs in every shop window, on every door, and throughout the store. Arrows pointing here, barricades there, and people more than happy to tell you that you are going the wrong way.
I am suffering from sign fatigue.
I counted no less than 16 signs at one establishment, and it’s not much different in other places. I simply cannot read all the signs instructing me as to what I can and cannot do.
At one store, there was one door that served as both entrance and exit.
There was a sign, that I missed, stating I could not enter if a patron was at the cash register, situated just inside the door. I opened the door and was immediately chastised and told to wait outside until the line had cleared.
The onus was on me to make sure no one was trying to leave the store.
Please, can we agree on the basic rules and remove the common sense signs, and just post signs requiring unique protocols?
Patricia Marsh
East Sooke
Painting all police as being racist
Re: “Police chiefs embrace health-led response to mental-health crisis,” Aug. 14.
The story includes the following quote: “Whitman said that she did not want to paint all police as racist, but she stressed that brutality and systemic racism must end.”
But since “systemic” means “spread throughout,” “systemic racism” means that all police in any given force are racist.
If they are not, then racism is not systemic in that force. And I would argue that any police force that has members of colour is, by definition, not systemically racist. Which, I suspect, includes every force of any size in Canada.
I’m sure there are individuals who are racist. But entire departments? I doubt it very much.
Ian Cameron
Brentwood Bay
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