I wrote a letter published July 22, Development putting a strain on infrastructure, where I raised concerns about climate change and precious water resources. My letter was on page A6, and on page A15 there was a Notice to Electors from the CRD to borrow $46 million.
This money will start work to acquire land; plan; study; design; construct buildings; plants; mains; dams and other water work facilities/equipment within the water supply service area for Central Saanich, Colwood, Esquimalt, Highlands, Langford, Metchosin, North Saanich, Oak Bay, Saanich, Sidney, Sooke, Victoria, View Royal and the Juan de Fuca Electoral Areas.
How did climate change reach critical status to be a public health crisis? While large swaths of British Columbia are on fire costing taxpayers billions to repair damage from frequent weather events, our elected officials go about business as normal. There is no irony in what can only be interpreted as a water shortage while all the municipalities listed are pushing for more and more building. A household of four uses 12,000 gallons of water per month, this doesn’t include outdoor watering which is restricted every April.
How optimistic/ignorant can our politicians be, they see what happened in our fossil fuel industry where Canada used to extract clean crude oil, and now we extract dirty, dangerous oil. So, while coastal cities and towns have rising sea levels and declining potable water our politicians from the top to the bottom don’t collectively discuss desalination plants before putting hundreds of millions of dollars into old technologies.
The new governor-general delivered in her speech, without humanity there is no economy, yet every level of government still puts the economy before humanity. The world is facing the migration of countries of people on the move to survive, still our elected carry on with business as usual. It can overwhelm the best of us, but it requires all of us to ask the tough questions of our local government. I want to know how density creates healthy communities and whether overbuilding protects the land, water and air.
Jo-Anne Berezanski
North Saanich
