Opinion

Saanich’s People, Pets and Parks program is a full-frontal attack on pets and their owner families in Saanich parks – specifically dogs and dog families.

It was painful (but not surprising) to read all of the letters in the June 21st issue on the People, Pets and Parks project.

This letter is in opposition to the proposed draconian dog leash laws for Saanich parks. As it stands now, Saanich allows dogs to be off-leash while with owners in numerous parks and on some beaches. There is a proposal that these off-leash areas be drastically reduced and confined to a very limited space for dogs and their owners.

The June 13 Zoom meeting for public input on Saanich’s strategic OCP update showed a disturbing lack of democracy.

The news is filled with stories on rising costs, and the Bank of Canada could potentially raise interest rates in July to slow inflation. With these uncompromising rate hikes, we are still seeing high prices for food forecasted to go up again. I had hoped our local growers would offer some relief for families but their prices have risen along with the grocery chains.

Saanich issued a statement framing the feedback they received about plans to limit off-leash dog areas in parks as misinformation or myths. Taking this approach discounts the value of the public’s feedback. The myths they describe are self-serving, arbitrary and misrepresent the intentions of the public’s comments.

I agree with Mr. Trudell’s suggestion regarding adapting military helicopters to fight forest fires. Unfortunately, our armed forces are in such a sorry state of neglect that out of 25 nations participating in a two-week-long “Air Defender” exercise in Germany, the largest deployment exercise in NATO’S history, including little countries like Bulgaria, Latvia and even two non-NATO nations Japan and Sweden, Canada is embarrassingly absent.

I read Darrell Wick’s letter titled “Dogs should be excluded from PKOLS-Mount Douglas.”

As bummed as I was to receive my property tax notice demanding an additional $475 from me over last year’s amount, a 13% increase, I was consoled by the fact that council will be using some of that money to subsidize the cost of electric bikes with zero impact on the climate but positive dividends for virtue-signalling councillors and electric bike manufacturers and sellers.

Saanich says the People, Pets and Parks draft strategy is a balanced approach – it absolutely is not!