Questions about the Mill Bay highway closure
Maybe it’s just me. But am I the only one questioning if it was absolutely necessary to close the highway during the Mill Bay mall fire on Friday?
After departing the Mill Bay ferry at about 1:40 p.m., an extended solid line of stopped vehicles greeted us after we linked onto the highway.
I could see some smoke in the distance, the potential culprit behind the major traffic curtailment. It took about an hour of bumper-to-bumper starts and stops to reach Frayne Road where we were told the highway was closed — in both directions.
The only way to get to our destination, Parksville, was to reverse onto the southbound lanes, go past the Malahat summit to join the Shawnigan Lake-Cobble Hill route —which by now was an endless line of bumper-to-bumper traffic (often both ways) to reconnect with the highway and bypass the fire.
Normal Mill Bay-Parksville travel time is less than 90 minutes. This detoured route took almost five hours.
After reading the sa国际传媒 report on the fire, I was left with some, uh, burning questions, such as:
Yes, it was a serious fire with significant smoke (for a limited time) but did fire vehicles absolutely need to be positioned on the highway blocking four lanes of highway traffic for hours?
Of course smoke would decrease vision, but was the smoke that thick for hours on end?
We want firefighters to be able to do their jobs safely, without having to worry about traffic, but was the closure of our main highway absolutely necessary to douse this blaze?
Gordon Zawaski
Parksville
Reduce the use, don’t ban the blower
The primary reason for Oak Bay deciding to place a ban on all gas-powered lawn and garden equipment is because of the overall amount of noise that this equipment makes.
Lawns don’t always need to be cut every week, and there shouldn’t be a need to blow leaves every week, either. Rather than banning gas-powered lawn and garden equipment, Oak Bay could have placed restrictions on the use of this equipment.
If manufacturers are able to produce a battery-powered lawn mower and blower by 2026 that is equivalent in cost and power to the gas-powered machines, then most landscapers will be able to continue to work in Oak Bay.
Mike McQuay
Lawn and Garden
Victoria
Let’s not forget: They were Canadians
It’s commendable that Premier John Horgan and his party has addressed the racially motivated removal from the coast and the incarceration of Japanese Canadians to Interior ghost towns in 1942.
It’s a shame that the people who suffered most are not here today.
Having lost everything and not even being allowed to withdraw funds from their bank accounts to purchase winter clothing for the children must have been a devastating, traumatic experience.
The front page headline on the May 22 edition shows “Japanese internment.”
I believe it should have been “Japanese Canadian internment.”
Roy Katsuyama
Saanich
Quick profits made with expropriated goods
The reparations given to Japanese Canadians for their internment during the Second World War amount to a lot of money, but there was a whole lot of insult to the Japanese Canadians back then, so I suppose it does balance out.
From research on the topic of Second World War internment, it seems that most people of sa国际传媒 (and the U.S.) were deathly afraid of Japanese military prowess after their Dec. 7, 1941, raid on Pearl Harbor. There was dread of Japanese agents slipping into sa国际传媒 and the U.S. and, if they did, the logical place for them to hide would be among the Japanese-based population. For example, there were lots of Japanese fishers in Chemainus and Steveston, Japanese coal miners in Cumberland and in the large “Japantown” in old Vancouver.
The decision was then to take away that potential hiding place by interning all of the Japanese Canadians well away from the Pacific Coast. Off they went to internment camps. It was an effective, yet over-the-top response.
The internment solution would be similar to dealing with potential squirrel infestation by burning your house to the ground and hauling away all the pieces that remain. Yes, it eliminates the squirrel infestation potential, but it also leaves you with no more house. It really does deserve reparations.
There is, however, a big part of the internment that had very little to do with the government, and very much to do with private citizens seeing a chance to grab ex-Japanese property at pennies on the dollar. When the Japanese were moved away, their homes, fishing boats, stores and other items were auctioned off, and private citizens snatched up these items for a quick profit. So along with the government policy of internment, there was also a very large private policy of making a quick buck on it.
A lot of those Japanese Canadians ended up in Alberta, where I grew up. In Turin, Alta., when I was going to elementary school from 1959 to 1964, one of my best friends was Randall Takahashi, Japanese Canadian. Nice guy, he was. The general store near the school was Nakagama’s — again, a Japanese surname. Many more Japanese Canadians became prosperous potato and vegetable farmers, and they really are quite good at it, to this day.
In almost all cases, nobody gave too much thought to why these Japanese were there, they just assumed it was another batch of immigrants in an area full of immigrants from everywhere. Life continues on.
Richard Kubik
Victoria
Don’t be fooled, free bus rides aren’t free
A recent letter expressed support for the idea that we should make bus rides free and that they would “hopefully pay for themselves.”
They would not be free, they would be paid for by taxpayers. And the suggestion that this would be done in the name of affordability, particularly with rising gas prices?
The lack of logic is astounding, and “hopefully” is not a reasonable rationale.
Anna Cordon
Victoria
Thanks for changes on Richardson Street
I also would like to thank the planners at City Hall for making the changes on Richardson Street. The slower traffic has made it my go-to route for getting downtown or across town to Vic West by bike. I use the route at least a few times per week.
The bike lane infrastructure will attract more cyclists out of their cars and has made the city more pleasant for everyone.
Peter Brotherton
Victoria
How about a new hospital instead?
After a many-hour wait in a crowded waiting room at the emergency department of the Royal Jubilee Hospital, I started to think of how much worse it will get with all the thousands of homes being built, especially on the West Shore, catering to possible patients. The infrastructure is already broken, the roads are jammed and our health-care system will certainly pay the price.
With $800 million plus to build a new museum — remember the cost overruns on the new bridge — it is money that could build a new hospital.
William Jesse
Victoria
Museum plan anything but transparent
Minister Melanie Mark’s “intentions to be transparent” failed the truth test. The business plan shows $893 million, not $789 million, to replace the museum on the existing site, so within a week the cost increases by $104 million. And the final cost?
Never during my 15 years as a docent nor during my session of the 2019 workshop to “reimagine” the museum was there mention of seismic vulnerability and asbestos concerns, or replacing the building.
The da Vinci, Maya, Egypt and other past exhibits refute the position that the museum doesn’t meet “the needs of bringing in world-class exhibitions from around the world.”
The “two floors of archives [that] are underwater” will be moved to the research and collections building to be opened in Colwood in 2025, so will no longer be at risk.
Staff of the British, Smithsonian and New York Natural History museums told me that our exhibits outclass theirs, indicating that they are not “old” and “outdated.”
“We have to protect the children who go there for school trips”, which only last part of a day. The $789 million-plus would keep more children safer if added to funds spent to seismically upgrade schools, which children attend five days a week.
In 2021, CEO Dan Muzyka closed the human history galleries “to start the process of ‘decolonization’ ”; “Until it’s complete the third floor will remain closed.” So six months ago there was no hint of replacing the building.
Transparency and the truth in Truth and Reconciliation need to exist if this government wishes to be believed.
Susan M. Woods
Victoria
What did the government expect?
Melanie Mark, our minister of tourism, arts, culture and sport, said the new museum announcement did not land as she had hoped. Well, surprise, surprise!
With almost one million British Columbians without a family physician, what else could she expect?
K. Joanne Orcherton
Victoria
One bad decision follows another
Clearly our provincial government through Melanie Mark, minister of tourism, has made a very large error. Spending $1 billion on a new museum is not even close to a priority while bogusly claiming needed repairs would cost more.
The 55-year-old building is no different than dozens of other public buildings. Victoria is in the midst of the biggest building boom ever. Can’t they see the cranes everywhere and the lack of workers?
This is clearly an attempt to rationalize the decision to shut down the museum’s beloved third-floor Old Town exhibit. Really. Have the guts to stop this nonsense.
Patrick Skillings
Victoria
Can’t get a new tooth, but here comes the museum
With the new museum announcement, I just can’t shake the image of a parent finding the money for a new Cadillac while his children go hungry.
There are people in this rich province who are waiting months to get treatment for diseases that are slowly killing them. Seniors are lining up at food banks. Youth are dying in back alleys from tainted drugs. The overwhelming social malaise in this province demands priority over a glitzy tourist-magnet.
The $789 million could provide senior citizens with better health care to extend their lives. Premier John Horgan should double the sa国际传媒 Seniors’ Supplement to help us survive this inflated cutthroat economy. Raising the rates for sa国际传媒 Housing’s Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters subsidies, to reflect the true cost of rental housing, would go a long way to keeping elders in their homes.
Funding is desperately needed to ensure that seniors have proper dental care. The present provincial coverage for low-income seniors is a cruel joke.
The sa国际传媒 government has sentenced me to life with a permanent hole in my smile: They paid for a cheap extraction but, even after a denturist told them that a prosthetic would not fit in my gums, they refused to fund a bridge replacement.
There are no options for me as I struggle with multiple infected teeth requiring crowns that are never approved.
Count me out of the new museum celebrations as I watch my oral health plummet and lose the ability to chew and enjoy my food.
Doreen Marion Gee
Victoria
Museum’s seismic risk? The next election
The biggest seismic risk to the new provincial museum would be the NDP losing the next election.
Chris Foord
Oak Bay
Two wrongs do not make a right
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was wrong, but the massive amount of military equipment being sent to Ukraine by NATO countries is also wrong. NATO is a western military alliance, and its massive military support to Ukraine tells the world that military conflict is the way to solve differences, not diplomacy and compromise.
sa国际传媒 subscribes to this attitude by also providing massive military aid to Ukraine. The Ukrainian issue needs to be solved by diplomacy, compromise and realpolitik.
The war needs to stop now. Non-aligned countries need to become involved in negotiations to end the war. Ukraine and its people are not the only ones to suffer. Other nations are suffering through no fault of their own.
The war has caused food shortages and rising prices, putting the poor and less wealthy countries at risk. This has the potential to create social unrest in some countries.
Imagine if all the billions spent on military supplies sent to Ukraine were instead invested in tackling the world’s real enemy — climate change. Instead of increasing our military budget in order to purchase new equipment to send to Ukraine or replace equipment already sent there, we should be investing Canadian dollars in green technology and measures to stop or slow down climate change.
Perhaps we could even use some of those dollars to invest in the Canadian medical system so people would finally get a family doctor.
If we can’t find a diplomatic solution to end the war in Ukraine, how can we expect countries to co-operate and work together towards mitigating climate change? We need to abandon our pro-war policies and advocate for an approach of diplomacy and mediation.
Louise Manga
Victoria
SEND US YOUR LETTERS
• Email letters to: [email protected]
• Mail: Letters to the editor, sa国际传媒, 201-655 Tyee Rd., Victoria, sa国际传媒 V9A 6X5
• Submissions should be no more than 250 words; subject to editing for length and clarity. Provide your contact information; it will not be published. Avoid sending your letter as an email attachment.
