Letters

The uproar on coffee row over a proposed municipal reconciliation tax – the latest brainchild of city council in the last months of its mandate – is understandable.

Lately, I have noted a growing effort to destroy those labelled as “anti-vaxxers,” an example being a reader’s letter published in your Jan. 13 issue. I have a theory as to why this is happening.

Saanich’s six-week workshop on climate change should make council pause to take a look in the mirror and reflect on their own actions, instead of blaming the residents for climate impact, when the district’s own actions and/or lack thereof, are major contributors.

Approximately three weeks ago I sent an email to Saanich mayor and council expressing my concern for the lack of transparency related to the dismissal of the CAO and the $580,000 severance package.

The writer of the letter “Time to heal wounds caused by COVID” (Jan. 6) makes some valid points about how we should treat our fellow citizens. However, he also argues that public health policy that uses persuasion rather than penalty works better and as an example cites Florida as having lower case counts than New Mexico, thereby implying that mandates/penalties don’t work. He goes on to say that British Columbia should follow suit.

Kudos for identifying a new 30-year lease for the publicly owned Oak Bay marina buildings and lands and the adjacent Spewhung (Turkey Head) lands and waters as an “issue worth keeping an eye on in 2022.”

Mayor and council have raised my blood pressure yet again. Coun. Sharmarke Dubow should have been humiliated enough when he was not forthcoming about his trip abroad yet he feels the need to further humiliate himself by suggesting the taxpayers of Victoria cough up $50,000 to send off to Quebec to fight Bill 21 to fulfil his own personal agenda.

When I first moved to Saanich, I was walking my dog on the beach in the summer and was approached by two bylaw officers who proceeded to give me a large fine because walking one’s dog on a beach, which has federal jurisdiction, is somehow punishable and governed by the local municipality. Lesson learned.

I read with rising apprehension, concern, and a certain amount of anger, a letter writer’s view of our handling of COVID-19, which they accompanied by misleading numbers and rhetoric. The rhetoric I’m referring to promotes the idea that Florida and Sweden got it right. Nonsense!

Once again, we see Victoria city council stepping out of their elected mandate to run the city by offering $9,500 of taxpayers’ money to help fight an appeal of Quebec’s Bill 21.