Many problems started under Campbell government
It is laughable former premier Gordon Campbell making all the criticisms he has made of our progressive B.C. government.
Under his leadership most of the problems we face here in B.C. started. His government turned a blind eye to them, then crowed about budget surpluses!
Ignored what the casino money laundering was doing, ignored the sick and homeless.
Sure, we have taxation. Without taxation … it’s a race to the bottom.
David Vernon
Oak Bay
Gordon Campbell for premier?
Former premier Gordon Campbell seems to have read my mind and hopefully those of a majority of British Columbians.
We are overtaxed and underserved, even with 29 per cent more bureaucrats hired since the NDP took over. I agree with all he wrote, especially the four steps to make more housing more affordable.
I hope this strikes a responsive chord with all his readers. Perhaps he should be premier again.
N.G. Giuliany
Colwood
Island’s transit service is inadequate
I continue to be stunned that Vancouver Island residents — and our various levels of government — appear to believe there is adequate public transportation service on the Island. There is not.
Here is my best (worst) example: I have a very good friend who lives in low-income housing in Comox. He uses a power wheelchair to get around outside his apartment, where he lives independently with support from home care aides and a couple of friends.
He has a large circle of friends in the Greater Victoria area who would love to see him, but he is unable to leave Comox unless he has a medical appointment; visits to friends are excluded despite clear evidence that connecting with friends and maintaining relationships strengthens mental health.
It is shocking that we effectively hold people hostage in their own communities if they are unable to drive or cycle. There is no way for my friend to leave Comox.
The B.C. Transit service from Comox to Victoria would require multiple bus transfers and walks between bus stops — and it would take more than 10 hours. Impossible!
I am ashamed of our lack of compassion and respect for those who are not able-bodied. B.C. Transit must provide service to all residents of Vancouver Island who depend on public transit.
Wendy McLellan
Saanich
Budget crunch hurting our schools
I am a teacher in Victoria, and I want to draw attention to the budget crisis facing our education system.
In rapidly growing urban areas like Surrey, we are struggling with a shortage of classrooms to accommodate students. We need more schools, not larger class sizes, to address this.
We also lack the necessary number of counsellors, educational assistants, custodians and teachers to properly support the diverse needs of our students.
It is critical that our government steps up to address these challenges by increasing the percentage of the provincial budget allocated to education, ensuring our students receive the quality education they deserve.
C.M. McQuaid
Victoria
Downtown Victoria is not healthy
Conservative Leader John Rustad has claimed foot traffic is down 60 per cent in downtown Victoria.
Not sure how he came up with that number, but when you look at traffic charts what I notice is how little Lower Johnson foot traffic numbers are compared to Government, as in 50 per cent less.
Living downtown we see how tourists sit on Government and a few blocks north it’s crickets by comparison in Lower Johnson or on side streets off Government. Ironically the success of closing Government to motor-vehicle traffic has caused areas around it, with cooler shops really, to suffer.
The city needs to do a better job of directing tourists to adjacent shopping areas. But also, the downtown shops and businesses cannot survive on a few months of tourist dollars. They need locals to spend their dollars.
Many tourists just buy a few trinkets at the tourist shops on Government and apparently love the ice cream.
The downtown as a whole, all shops and businesses, need locals who still believe downtown is worth a visit. We have seen what happens to downtowns in Europe that rely on tourists.
The shopping gets dumbed down to just trinkets you can get in your suitcase, not what people need who live here. The restaurants get dumbed down and over-priced.
I have never considered voting Conservative, but I need change. I am tired of seeing the horrible sadness of the unhoused and addicted and deranged and desperate every day and from my window.
Lisa Tindall
Victoria
John Rustad’s flawed housing policy
John Rustad and the B.C. Conservatives propose a policy of giving tax deductions for mortgage and rental payments. The cost will amount to $3.5 billion per year.
Where will this money come from? It will have to come from people that don’t have a mortgage and don’t rent.
Those of us who rented, saved for a down payment, and paid off a mortgage will now have to effectively take on a portion of other people’s mortgages. I won’t vote for that.
The policy is flawed and won’t give the results Rustad claims.
Housing markets are mainly controlled by supply and demand. This policy doesn’t provide any more supply, but increases the demand.
Buyers and renters will have more money to spend and will drive up the prices of the limited supply of homes. The policy will not make homes more affordable.
Randy Osterlin
Ladysmith
Let’s end this plastic litter
There is a deluge of plastics littering communities across the province.
The Green Party, B.C. NDP and the B.C. Conservatives are all guilty. These election materials made of plastic are a clear violation of the single use plastic ban.
Once again politicians can not abide by their our rules. Let’s push them to make 2024 the last election with plastic signage littering our communities.
Gideon Haywood
Koksilah
Forensic oversight of public projects
There has been a lot of reporting in the last few years about cost overruns for public projects like the North Cowichan hospital and the North Shore sewage upgrade.
As a member of the public, I haven’t got a clue as to why these overruns exist.
What caused them? Who is monitoring public expenditures? Is anyone responsible or accountable for them?
I recommend to the provincial government, especially after Oct. 19, the creation of an independent forensic service as a service of and responsible to the legislature.
It would operate much like the provincial coroner. Independent of all governments, with powers to subpoena to investigate all cost overruns of public projects above a certain percentage — 15%?.
The forensic service would be charged with making recommendations to the legislature.
Cliff Boldt
Fernwood
Allow ‘public good’ policies to bear fruit
I understand many of the concerns about B.C.’s housing strategy raised in the pages of the Times Colonist and other outlets, in discussion forums and comment sections across the web.
New buildings casting shadows, impacted property values, increased traffic, parking issues, neighbourhood character, and so on. I do understand.
At the same time, the housing crisis in this province is a matter of such breadth and depth — with half our renters and homeowners spending more than 30 per cent of their income on shelter, for instance — that another perspective may be in order.
George Herbert Mead once asserted that interest in the public good requires a certain measure of disinterest “in goods in which our personal selves are wrapped up in.” These words seem resonant in B.C. today.
For three decades, our provincial approach to housing was guided by a free market, do as you will ethos. Clearly, this “personal selves” strategy did not work. For the past seven years — a relatively short span that includes the immense disruption of a global pandemic — a more “public good” orientation has started to take shape among us.
By some accounts, this approach is seeing results. Restrictions on short-term rentals, for example, have correlated with modest rent decreases in affected areas.
These and other outcomes suggest the appropriateness of putting aside understandable concerns about shadows and parking, etc. … and allowing our nascent “public good” policies more time to bear fruit.
Neil McKinlay
Victoria
Wealthiest citizens would have higher taxes
Maybe I missed something, but I failed to find the funny, in Adrian Raeside’s recent cartoon showing the B.C. Green Party, preparing to “milk” the broadly labelled “B.C. Taxpayers” (represented by a wary looking cow).
I found the cartoon light on political reality — having just heard Green Leader Sonia Furstenau declare in Tuesday’s debate that her proposed social programs would be funded by raising taxes on B.C.’s wealthiest citizens and corporations.
Perhaps that’s why I found the political point of the cartoon to be “udder” nonsense.
Ira Shorr
Victoria
Education needs better funding
I am a parent of two children who are enrolled in public schools in Victoria. My wife is an elementary teacher at a public school. I am also a teacher in a public school.
In our family, we are all concerned about the continued underfunding of education in B.C. It has reached a point where the Board of Education for the Victoria school district is pleading with the provincial government about the need to fund students better.
I am very concerned that neither the Green Party nor the Conservative Party are providing concrete and specific ways in which they are proposing to address funding education to make schools better.
It is only the NDP that has made proposals to make school in B.C. a better place. Is it enough? Probably not, but at least with an NDP government there is a commitment to be willing to address chronic underfunding.
Byron Lienard
Victoria
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