sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½

HarbourCats bounced from Royal Athletic

What a sad, sad situation we find ourselves in because the sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Lions are playing a single game here. The HarbourCats are a Victoria summertime fixture … fans flock to Royal Athletic Park to see them play.

The decision to have the Canadian Football League game is, in retrospect, a poor one because it displaces the baseball team if they make the playoffs.

If I was pulling the strings, I’d make sure the baseball team was accommodated and, if required, deal with the setup for football by having more people involved to shorten that setup such that each group are able to play.

Anything short of that is just another play by our elected officials that I find unacceptable. The HarbourCats are here, year after year.

The Lions?… not so much.

Scott Adams

Victoria

Musings about population, our future

Re: “Overpopulation causing many of our problems,” letter, May 30.

Demographic data (for any country) may be conveniently searched for and displayed as a “population pyramid.” If the population is a pyramid (i.e. growing), one advantage is governments may overspend, with the certainty that the next generation’s population will make up the budgetary shortfall in taxes.

This explains (to me) why “over” population is poorly defined.

We have:

1. More people living to 100 than at any other time in history, the result of medical advances in antibiotics and other drugs. This is a wonderful problem to have!

2. We have fewer children per capita, unpopularly termed “replacement rate.” More seniors but fewer children/taxpayers results in a higher “senior dependency ratio.”

This is often cushioned by combining seniors and children dependency ratios, neutralizing the needs of each. Low birth rate is the result of another medical advance, birth control.

Like smoking tobacco and global warming, the causes and effects of these demographic phenomena are hotly debated. One advantage of a higher “senior dependency ratio” is seniors have (statistically unsurprisingly) more wealth than ever before, and so will their children.

One downside of declining rates of children is fewer workers. For example, the political demand in Cananda for more nurses/doctors will never be met, because they were never born in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½.

To maintain our GDP and our health-care system, sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ has the highest immigration rate (per capita) in the world. sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ has scoured health-care providers from around the world.

In summary, too few immigrants, and we have declining taxes/services. Too many and we have cultural and political issues.

I offer no solutions. Population in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ and sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ is quantitatively monitored by demographic census data, and each census department makes predictions.

Such as: CPP benefits should decline. The U.S. at census.gov has similar data, but not the same. For example, many parts of sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ have more seniors than children for the first time in history.

This is projected to occur in the U.S. with interesting results. For example, I suggest the abortion debate in the U.S. is less about control over women’s bodies and more about undifferentiated concerns about population which, if spoken, would appear racist.

If I am correct, the abortion/population debate will explode in 2032.

For a more florid (and again, debated) narrative about global demographic changes, Google Peter Zeihan.

Adrian Mulholland

retired healthcare worker

Duncan

Living in an expensive, expansive place

Re: “Overpopulation causing many of our problems,” letter, May 30.

I would agree that overpopulation of the world is causing many of the world’s problems. I am not sure that I would agree that it is causing problems in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ I might suggest the opposite.

sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ has a population of 5.6 million which is about the same as Denmark, a small country in Europe.

The total area of sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ is 944,735 square kilometres. This is about the same size of France and Germany combined with a population of over 151 million.

sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ has 719,000 kilometres of highways (some of course maintained by the federal government) whereas Denmark has 16,000 kilometres of highways.

sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½, population wise, would be considered a small city in China or India. My point is that with such a small tax base, sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ has to maintain an infrastructure of a large country.

Of course taxes are going to be high. The base personal income tax rate in Denmark is 55.9 per cent while in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ it is 29 per cent. Denmark also has a much higher sales tax.

We live in a very expensive, expansive place. Many of our problems stem from a lack of people to pay the bill. Please consider this before you vote for a party that offers you lower taxes.

Remember the old adage “You get what you pay for.”

Just in case you think that we cannot afford it, consider that sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½, population 39 million, is three times wealthier than the entire continent of Africa with a combined population of 1.2 billion.

Phil Foster

Saanich

We’ve doubled the world’s population

Re: “Overpopulation causing many of our problems,” letter, May 30.

When I attended high school in the mid-1950s, the world population was about four billion, and now it is over eight billion, in less than 80 years. The numbers speak for themselves.

K.E. Howard

Saanich

A great way to use part of  the police budget

Re: “Better funding for schools, not more police,” letter, May 30.

The information about what counsellors earn in schools is wrong.

Also, despite what is implied, police liaison officers are not funded via money set aside for education.

Using police liaison officers in the schools does not affect school budgets. That’s funded and administered by police departments.

The letter asks, “Do sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ editors really know what’s right for our kids, even better than teachers do?”

Editors most often base their opinions on research that they have done. Through my experience, most teachers do support police liaison officers in the schools and that’s most likely what the editors surmised from their research.

Where does the writer get the data that gang activity around our schools is “not on the increase.” Is he suggesting that Police Chief Del Manak is making this up?

He says “a precise measure of youth gang involvement and occurrence of youth gang activity is not currently available” but also “gang activity in and around schools is not on the increase.”

I agree that schools need to be better funded for educational purposes. There are a limited number of police used as school liaison officers but they reach hundreds of students with their school involvement.

It has been stated many times in letters to the editor and editorial comments about the significance police liaison officers have in helping students understand how to be positive community individuals and how to know what and who to avoid.

That is good use of a small part of the overall police budget.

Dave Hockley

retired school principal

Victoria

With grocery prices, think quality vs. quantity

Yes, the cost of food has gone up. I shop primarily at the same stores and noticed the prices have risen but comparing the cost of groceries from one grocery store to the next, unless considering the quality of the food at the different stores, is meaningless.

Typically grocery stores range from high-end to budget-level. While typically the price for some goods in each store is the same, for some items the prices can vary depending on the quality or perceived quality.

A misshaped carrot for example is more often seen at the budget store than the high-end. In terms of food value, there is no difference in the carrot but people will shy away from the misshapen carrot.

The budget store is more likely to have produce that has been stored longer with a resulting degradation in quality.

The price of dairy here compared to the U.S. has a reason. The production of dairy products in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ has to conform to a more expensive farming model such as not allowing growth hormones and some antibiotics, etc.

The difference in the products can be seen in lab tests.

The bottom line when comparing food prices is remember to compare quality as well as the simple quantity-price comparison.

Norm Ryder

Victoria

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