Dear Times Colonist Editor:
Re: Oilsands goes bananas, misses real issues

Bananas might be healthier than oil sands for Albertans (although they’re high in fructose), but they’re very unethical.

Getting ripe bananas to market in North America requires burning lots of oil, which is why Chiquita cares so much about where it’s coming from. Consumers demand cheap bananas, so people working in the banana industry are paid very little and the whole industry has been shut down in higher wage countries like Jamaica. Finally, bananas have been bred into a sweeter and fleshier disease-prone monoculture.

Bananas represent everything that’s wrong with globalized, industrial agriculture – we should all consider boycotting them.

There’s a lot of talk about how much sewage treatment is going to cost, but how are we going to pay for it?

The only fair way is to charge each household based on how much wastewater they produce. Many municipalities in Ontario, from Windsor to Ottawa, have decided that water consumption is a reasonable proxy measure. They specifically use winter water consumption, so flower beds are exempt.

Charging for consumption will promote lower water use ranging from large scale on-site treatment as is found at Dockside Green to individual “if it’s yellow, let it mellow” policies. If multiple plants are built progressively, vigorous conservation could lower future costs. For example, BC Hydro is using progressive rates to reduce electricity use, not just building more dams.

The wastewater committee needs to start talking about fair payment, not just abstract costs.

I made this letter short and pithy to ensure it got published (although the most obvious hook got edited out?!). I’d like to take this opportunity to add a few things:

The role of alcohol in our society is problematic, but I’m not suggesting that council should try to overhaul culture. Following the letter of the law, my table of overdressed, relaxed yuppies should have been cut off just as much as the middle-aged mothers. That section of the Liquor Control and Licensing Act doesn’t need to be all-or-nothing enforced.

The spirit of the law is that licensed establishments have some responsibility to keep their patrons from getting overly drunk. The next section says “A licensee or the licensee’s employee must not permit…an intoxicated person to remain in that part of a licensed establishment where liquor is sold”. If people were sent home as they got cut off, downtown wouldn’t hit critical mass.

Obviously bars can’t keep everyone sober, but it should be their responsibility to selectively cull the herd. Conveniently, most bars tag patrons with stamps, so when the police detain someone they can figure out who should have cut them off. I think transit, closing times and food services should be examined, but none of them are going to have as much effect as reducing drunkenness.

The mandate of the Late Night Task Force shouldn’t be to reduce problems, it should be to maximize the fun of everyone who plays, works and lives downtown.

I am writing to commend the staff of Veneto Lounge. On Saturday night they cut off a table of middle-aged mothers whose night on the town had come to slurred speech and lewd gestures.

The women weren’t causing trouble and I can’t imagine anyone was worried that another round of cocktails would end in a brawl. Rather, the staff were merely fulfilling their obligations under the Liquor Control and Licensing Act: “A person must not sell or give liquor to an intoxicated person or a person apparently under the influence of liquor.”

This is why there’s no need for a Late Night Task Force to study hot dog stands and pedicabs. The solution for downtown rowdiness is simply to enforce the Act. Establishments that won’t do their part for public order should have their liquor licenses revoked.

Lawrie McFarlane argues that there is no reason why we should not give the death penalty, but he doesn’t give any reason why we should. Since capital punishment is not a deterrent, we are never given an option between the life of a child and the opportunity for corrective justice. Some offenders may be pure sadists (let’s leave to one side the difficulties involved in actually proving that), but why respond to sadism with execution rather than life imprisonment? If society atones for creating Tori Stafford’s killers, will her mother miss her any less?

My letter got published! This is the first time I’ve had a letter published (despite the fact that I write one every day – just kidding). As is the way with these things, I didn’t polish it as much as I’d like because I felt I had to make a deadline for this blog.

Re: The Victoria police have recently been cracking down on jaywalking.

Jaywalking is permitted on Government not because it has been deemed safe (indeed, drivers tend to drive faster on one-way streets) but to “foster a pedestrian-friendly atmosphere”. In other words, city council is willing to sacrifice a few pedestrians to try to carve a tiny area of walkability out of our car-centric city. For example, some writers have specifically mentioned the danger of jaywalking on Douglas. It is dangerous because Douglas is designed as a thoroughfare: four lanes and no left turns to move cars as fast as possible.

Every time someone jaywalks it’s a symptom of poor urban design. People are just trying to get from point A to point B: they look around and it’s harder than it should be, so they take shortcuts. As long as our city is designed for cars, you can’t blame pedestrians for trying to find their own way through. Rather than criminalizing jaywalking, we should be figuring out how to make it safer by slowing and reducing cars.