City council made responsible decision
Re: “Cancelling Canada Day sends the wrong message,” editorial, June 18.
Context is important in understanding the unanimous decision of Victoria city council to cancel a July 1 event and focus instead on a later event oriented toward understanding the true history of this place.
Local First Nations informed the City of Victoria that they were not going to participate in the July 1 event because they are in mourning for the 215 children whose remains were found in Kamloops.
The choice before city council was to proceed with no Indigenous participation, or to cancel the July 1 event.
City council voted unanimously in favour of the second option.
I believe that was a responsible and ethically sound decision.
Ben Isitt, city councillor
Victoria
Love, partnership vital for us all
I am celebrating Canada Day on July 1.
Yes, Canada is not perfect, but I am very happy to call Canada my home. I agree with the Times Colonist editorial (June 18) that cancelling Canada Day sends the wrong message.
We all must work hard to ensure that we make up for the past horrendous treatment of Indigenous people. Love and partnership is vital for us all — and this is vital for all of our children.
Eric Jones
Victoria
An alphabet that all can enjoy
Change place names, sure, but write them so that they can be read!
The debate over renaming some places with their Indigenous terms is ongoing. I have no problem renaming them, but please write them in an alphabet which people can read.
It is not that people are opposed to the renaming, it is that the orthography used to write them is only familiar to a very minuscule percentage of the population, namely professors of linguistics!
Take for example the library in James Bay, written as sxʷeŋ’xʷəŋ taŋ’exw in what I presume is the NAPA phonetic system, used by only a very limited number of researchers.
I showed this word to an Indigenous friend, and he certainly could not read it!
The local Indigenous populations never had a written language, so it seems absurd to write the names in script with no relevance to the Indigenous peoples, which almost no one can read.
Please present them using the common alphabet in letter combinations which as closely as possible emulate the correct pronunciation, and then we can all enjoy them.
Roel Hurkens
Victoria
Pronunciation of Indigenous languages
When our invasive species took dominance in North America, some forward-thinking linguists felt that if the Indigenous oral languages were not recorded in a written form, they would be lost or altered over time.
They developed a special alphabet that would capture the subtleties of pronunciation that the English alphabet could not. I applaud them. People who know that alphabet will always know the proper way to pronounce the words.
I do not know that alphabet as, I understand, many Indigenous people also do not. I would like to honour the First Nations by trying to use proper pronunciation, but I can’t. I don’t know how the symbols it uses are pronounced.
In the interest of harmony and understanding, could we not agree on a phonically acceptable pronunciation and move on?
The insistence on using the special alphabet is divisive. It separates us even more at a time that we are trying to find a common ground and repair damages already done.
Unfortunately, we invasive humans are here to stay.
Wouldn’t it be wiser to co-exist and offer forgiveness for the sins of fathers and embrace efforts to ensure that atrocities are compensated for and never repeated?
Wouldn’t it be wiser to embrace the clumsy but sincere efforts of the English speaker’s pronunciation instead of ensuring that they fail?
Don Boult
Saanich
The silent felling of an old-growth tree
Re: “An old-growth tree has been lost to Victoria,” letter, June 23.
Thank you to Ian Baird for bringing attention to the senseless felling of this magnificent and healthy old tree, standing there for well over a hundred years.
Yes, the tree and the destroyed house co-existed for many years, when homes were built to fit the topography.
Now thanks to the mostly computer-aided-design (CAD) new homes, the topography must be blasted, cut, and destroyed to fit what the computer dictates.
That tree was certainly older than 100 years. It may have been there in 1863 when the pharmacist Thomas Shotbolt came from England and later built his home near what is now Shotbolt Road. Indeed, he may have even planted that very tree.
Why can’t our bylaws help save our natural environment? When such regulations do exist, sadly, it is variances that permit the desecration of our disappearing natural environment. Where are the environmental sensitivities and consciences of our developers, boards of variance and politicians?
Sheila Protti
Victoria
Another way to record your shots
I have had my two shots and received my COVID-19 immunization record card. At the suggestion of the nurse who completed my card, I had it plasticized.
Perhaps this option might be taken up by a local social service agency in partnership with a business that provides this method of record preservation either at the designated COVID‑19 vaccination locations or other central sites, such as shopping malls, grocery stores etc.
Requesting a donation would seem to be appropriate.
David Glen
Victoria
Vaccine passport idea already in place
If the decision is made in Canada to have a “vaccine passport” available for those who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, why not use the existing Canadian passport as a basis for this identification?
These passports are required for anyone who travels internationally and are accepted worldwide as proof of identification, and they could be adapted to include vaccination status.
A page in the passport could be used to affix an official stamp from federal government indicating vaccination status, and could be applied at any Service Canada office or delegated to any other federal or provincial government agency deemed appropriate.
Upon renewal of a Canadian passport, the stamp could be affixed by the passport office upon issuance of the renewal passport should there be a vaccination stamp on the expiring passport.
This may be overly simplistic, but it does make sense and I urge Premier John Horgan to investigate this option with his national counterparts and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Doug Pascoe
Saanich
Maritime museum must be on the harbour
One of the most important parts of our coastal heritage, our provincial maritime museum, has sat too long sequestered in a tiny, near-makeshift space in downtown Victoria.
This museum with its extensive collection has been forced to store most of the valuable artifacts since it was ousted from its previous long-term site at the old provincial courthouse. Isn’t it time to give it a new, more expansive home?
As a career seafarer based out of Victoria, I support the endeavour to locate the maritime museum on the Inner Harbour. There, it will have the visibility it deserves, right in the midst of the maritime heart of the city.
And what better place than in the Canadian Pacific Steamship building? There, we can highlight the robust maritime heritage of our province, from the breathtaking marine history of the First Nations to modern times.
Our maritime history needs to be out front, and a location such as the waterfront CP building, itself an integral part of our maritime heritage, is the ideal location.
There, too, we could allow moorage for vessels of historic interest, both as permanent exhibits and with space for visiting historic vessels.
As Jamie Webb has pointed out, the museum’s future is in Victoria. Let’s ensure we can share our maritime heritage where it can best be seen.
Capt. David (Duke) Snider
Past president
The Nautical Institute
Victoria
Let’s stop saying that we are the best
Ahhh, here we go again, “proud to be a Canadian.” So very often I’ve read how we live in the “best country in the world.”
Are we in a competition of which country is best? Best in what? It’s all rather meaningless in the overall bigger picture. Good, better, best — please let it rest.
John Vanden Heuvel
Victoria
Climate-change action needs legislation
I’ve lived in Victoria for more than 40 years and I love this area, but daily we can see the impacts of climate change.
My grandchildren will be living in a drastically changed world unless we change our behaviour. We hear grand promises from politicians, especially federal ones, that they are going to make real changes.
But we keep missing the targets and now Canada’s Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act (Bill C-12) is running out of time.
It is crucial for our MPs and senators to focus on getting this critical piece of legislation passed to help create a process for change. They need to act now to help future generations.
Mike Wyeth
Victoria
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