Action is needed for the environment
The new NDP government needs to do three things regarding the environment:
1. Change the definition of environment to include our relationship to it.
“Environment means Nature and the Natural World: air, land, water, flora, fauna in which humans should endeavour to co-equally exist, thrive and evolve.”
2. Pass the Environmental Bill of Rights Act M236 with legal teeth to enforce it.
We shouldn’t have to keep begging our government to protect the orcas, salmon, old growth, lakes,
Rivers, watersheds, atmosphere, soil, agricultural lands; basically our corner of the the planet. We cannot survive or thrive without
a healthy environment, we are inextricably linked with it, we are of nature.
3. Appoint a chief climate change officer and create a Department of Climate as Jeremy Carradona wrote about in the Times Colonist.
We deserve the government to provide us with ONE VOICE from a climate background to lead us into the future of climate change.
Leslie Miller-Brooks
Saanich
Elevator cabs need ventilation
An exhaust fan should ventilate every elevator cab during a respiratory-illness pandemic, so why doesn’t Island Health or Dr. Bonnie Henry recommend them, or simply order that they be installed?
Elevator fans are not required by building codes or Technical Safety B.C. While newer buildings usually have elevator fans, older buildings with as many as 211 suites here in Victoria do not, although the ceiling vent hole and electrical outlet are available in each cab.
Service people tell me it’s a simple and inexpensive job to place and plug in a fan atop an elevator cab. But I’ve been told by the office of Vancouver Island’s chief medical health officer that other than a call of suggestion to my landlord no recommendation or order is being made.
I’m weary of this nice-guy approach. We require people to obey the rules of the road. We require people to pick up their dog’s waste. Why can’t we require people to wear a mask in indoor public places?
And why can’t we require landlords to install a fan above every elevator cab?
Am I supposed to hold my breath as I and a neighbour stand in a little cube rising — and stopping — as we rise 20 or more levels? Must I tell half a dozen people in the lobby to wait their turn because the elevator cab is “full” with only two people on board?
I’m tired of hearing that we’re all doing what we can; some of us and some landlords are not. And health authorities should be loudly recommending if not requiring simple steps like elevator cab power ventilation.
Gerald Rotering
Victoria
Please, fix our voting system
Over the past 40 years I have scrutineered and helped run many federal and provincial voting processes. At every election I am always dismayed to witness election officials hiring so many people to do such simple tasks and the silly hoops they usually force voters to go through to exercise their democratic right.
The public has shown overwhelmingly they want significant changes in voting processes to make it simpler and more convenient – clearly evidenced by the huge mail in vote in B.C. this time and the very low in-person voting.
Sure, part of the reason for this is the COVID-19 pandemic but it’s also mostly about convenience. It’s time Elections B.C. smartened up and gave us an online and much simpler voting system so more than 60 per cent of electors will actually vote in our elections. It’s also time we had one system covering federal, provincial, regional and local elections.
Smartening up would also include getting rid of the ridiculous 13-day delay to count our mail in votes; this seems designed for horse-and-buggy delivery of ballots. Even the post office moves much quicker than that! Most of those mail-in votes Elections B.C. claims they need two weeks to count have been in their possession for more than a month.
Why can’t these votes be checked and tabulated on secure computers as they arrive at Elections B.C. with the results announced on Election Day or the day after? Too much nonsense and bureaucracy going on here. It’s no wonder that it costs taxpayers as much as $15 per person to vote in B.C. elections!
The biggest ignored elephant in our elections is online voting. We have had the internet for more than three decades.
Our medical records are online, our legislatures vote online, we can buy a house online, arrange a mortgage through the internet, pay our bills, borrow money, and do our banking there. And yes we already vote extensively online in many organizations and it’s all legal with few complications.
Now is the time for our bureaucrats and politicians to get moving on this. Surely B.C.’s world-class high-tech and academic sector can develop a virtually hack proof online voting system as we move through the 21st century. Let’s get on with it.
W.E. (Bill) Dumont
Cobble Hill
Victoria’s streets are in terrible shape
Victoria is looking for feedback on the addition of more bike lanes. I don’t own a bike but support most of the efforts by our council to provide safe passage for our cyclists.
However, I have a very important question for our mayor. Does she actually own and drive a car? If she did, she would know that the state of our streets is deplorable with many potholes, uneven surfaces and so on.
Why are we spending money to expand bike routes and thoroughly neglecting the disgraceful condition of most of our streets?
Bob LeBlanc
Victoria
Time to get tough to fight COVID
Having just listened to several medical experts addressing the rapidly increasing numbers of new COVID-19 cases I wonder what has gone so wrong. I know we are coming into winter and more activities are moving inside but this alone can’t explain the surge in new cases.
I believe messages being delivered by our medical health experts to be correct but what I don’t see is any real attempt being made to enforce our health directives.
With the rapid increase in COVID-19 numbers in the Fraser Valley why isn’t law enforcement being stepped up?
Health experts report that private parties are a major cause of these outbreaks so put some teeth in the law and fine those who choose to break it. For example, a fine of $10,000 for hosting an illegal party and a $1,000 fine for each person attending would go a long way towards eliminating this kind of unwanted behaviour.
A man in Oak Bay was fined $1,150 for failing to self-quarantine after traveling outside of Canada. If we truly want to put a stop to this kind of behaviour, why not increase the fine and take away the man’s passport for the next year?
Asking people politely to stop undesirable behaviour is working well for the majority of Canadians, however, this is not stopping the spread of COVID-19.
Perhaps the classic line said it best: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Bruce Cline
Victoria
Name the ‘cavalier’ COVID offender
An Oak Bay man described as having a “cavalier attitude” towards COVID-19 quarantine regulations is fined $1,150 for not quarantining.
At a time when the mere accusation of touching someone can end an accused person’s career, why is this individual not identified? Especially as he is endangering the public.
Jon Blair
Sidney
Suck it up and stay at home
Where is our efficient and trusted Dr. Bonnie Henry as we are being overtaken by snowbirds fleeing COVID-19 and the cold?
While the tourism industry is extolling the virtues of Vancouver Island and enticing people from every cold and snowy corner of Canada to come to our safe and beautiful island, there are no rules in place to protect us from the COVID-19 that is raging in those provinces from whence they are escaping.
We have done everything Henry has so politely asked us to do all these months: shutting our businesses, depriving ourselves of travelling, not visiting our families or socializing with too many friends.
We Islanders like to go where it is warm, too, yet we are sucking it up and staying home and thus have kept our island one of the safest places in Canada.
Hordes of people without any restrictions or rules whatsoever crossing on the ferries with their RVs and flying in and renting every available house and apartment on the islands is undoubtedly going to cause COVID numbers to spike in the Island Health region, forcing us all back into lockdown again.
Henry should enforce some form of quarantine or self-isolation to visitors until a test is administered and comes back COVID negative before allowing them to roam the islands.
And she should create mandatory mask and social distancing rules to keep us all safe and functioning as normally as possible. I really don’t want to be restricted to my apartment again.
Joyce Hubert Hodd
Victoria
Mandatory masks indoors, please
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry continues to perform an exceptional service for the people of B.C.
So far, she has strongly urged mask wearing indoors but left it up to individuals to decide if they choose to do so. Because Henry is kind, caring and considerate, she has not chosen to deal with those who may be less so.
Many years ago, I spoke with a person who studied seatbelt compliance for a government agency. She found that about half the people would comply just because they were asked to do so.
Most of the rest would comply if they were given sound reasons why it made sense. Finally, there was a hard core of people who would never comply unless there were significant penalties for non-compliance.
It is time Henry made mask wearing indoors mandatory, except for those with medical reasons for non-compliance. It would keep us all safer.
Joel Newman
Victoria
SEND US YOUR LETTERS
• Email letters to: [email protected]
• Mail: Letters to the editor, Times Colonist, 201-655 Tyee Rd., Victoria, B.C. V9A 6X5
• Submissions should be no more than 250 words; subject to editing for length and clarity. Provide your contact information; it will not be published. Avoid sending your letter as an email attachment.
