In this era of governments saying “do as I say and not as I do” and having different law enforcements for different classes of people, we must all hold our breath on what comes out of municipal, provincial and federal governments.
Our beloved Prime Minister is globetrotting attempting to enhance his image by giving away hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s dollars he does not have indebting our country into the next millennia.
This has blinded him from doing his job of looking after Canada. His endeavours have caused inflation and raised the cost of living in Canada to the point of thousands of homeless people on the street and fewer jobs.
The hundreds of thousands of immigrants the federal government brought in are being looked after prior to Canadians. All governments are screaming for housing.
Let’s look at housing at current costs, no homeless nor average working person could afford a home. There is no control over material costs from corporate companies. Our prime minister has sold out all Canadian natural resources to foreign entities. This killed all Canadian industry related to the lumber industry and the related jobs.
Now we buy back most lumber from wherever the feds sold our logs.
The most important issue is going to bite us all, especially here in the Cowichan Valley. Our infrastructure!
Will our government keep building housing while we are on water rations? In North Cowichan, our municipal government dug up and connected into a pipe stamped 1908 on Beverly Street to supply water to the end of York Road to a seniors residence. Now we have multiple apartments being rushed to be built to fill the much lauded ‘housing shortage.’
Is our sewer and sewage treatment plant suited for this increase and the proposed housing project by the new hospital? Do we have enough water supply to meet the increase in housing proposed? Where is municipal government going to get more water?
Do we have enough employment to meet the need of renters and have jobs paying enough to afford $2,000 per month rentals?
Do we have the schools, teachers, hospital capacity, fire departments and equipment and trained personnel, ambulances and trained people, police and their equipment, doctors and nurses to meet this increased population?
What kind of solution will municipal government find to fix this when this ignored situation hits?
Will it be the old standby like North Cowichan council just did? Raise fees for sewer and water.
Most homes have taxes and fees higher than second mortgages now. What then? Do nothing? Wine to province who will wine to feds who will say it’s provincial responsibility so up go taxes again.
Why is it these things get ignored when planning expansion of housing and our population? We pay North Cowichan politicians and staff well over the public sector rates for their jobs, yet none of them thinks of these things or they are deliberately ignored.
Oh well, maybe Mr. Trudeau will do what he did with groceries for low-income families and give a one-time stipend for taxes. Yes, and council and staff can vote themselves another raise to keep up their lifestyle in these tough times.
We need to look at who we have voted into control of our lives and maybe think more before we vote next election if we are all not out on the street.
Larry Woodruff,
North Cowichan