Opinion

As B.C.’s minister of tourism, arts and culture, I’d like to respond to a recent column about the provincial government’s approach to supporting the tourism sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We just won’t go away, damn it. One of our family or friends died and we keep making a noise about it. There’s groups of us banging pots and chanting outside the Blanshard Street Ministry of Health offices. We keep organizing information events at Centennial Square and holding symposia at church halls and writing endless letters-to-editors. And why? Because a friend or child or parent died from fentanyl poisoning and we don’t want that to happen to you.

We are 40-year permanent residents of the Esquimalt Lagoon area of Colwood. We wish to express our complete satisfaction with Colwood council’s decision to keep Lagoon Road closed to through traffic.

Thanks for your article on the ALR exclusion application on the Panorama Recreation lot and the amendment to the language in the OCP to accommodate this by the District of North Saanich.

Re: Mayor not in favour of low barrier housing at Oak Bay Lodge.

One reader wants the province to create a more inclusive name for B.C.

I was reading the Facebook comments on your July 8 online article “Singh calls on Trudeau to address systemic racism in police forces.”

The current health pandemic has shone a light on the cracks in many of our public systems, and BC Parks is no exception. B.C.’s provincial parks have been chronically underfunded since the early 2000s, with minimal resources to manage nearly 15 per cent of the land in our province.

Jeff Bray

I wanted to express my thoughts and concerns with Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps’ hastily made comments on housing homeless at the Oak Bay Lodge.