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eaders’ views Super Intent City An excellent article by Leslie Campbell on the homeless camp. Perhaps we should all be grateful to the Intent residents for forcing this issue onto the front page instead of languishing among everyone’s “to do” lists. Six weeks of mud and cold are more than most advocates could—or would—endure for a cause. Maybe we should give them a medal! Instead of spreading fear, Central Middle School and its parent advisory council should be seizing this opportunity for education. Almost every camper, from military veteran to outdoor enthusiast, has a story to tell if teachers have enough courage to cross the street and take their classes to meet them. What could be more important to our children than learning that we are all citizens, we all have rights and we all have something to share. It is up to us to make this issue our issue, not just “their” issue. Alison Acker As a partial solution to the homelessness problem has anyone considered housing the homeless on large sea going barges like the ones used by Seaspan? It could be docked in the industrial section of Victoria Harbour thus eliminating residential concerns. The barge could be fitted with multi levels of suite sized sea containers for shelter. The sea containers/suites would be butted up to one another around the periphery of the barge allowing the back portion to act as a safety barrier. Entrance to each suite/room would face inward to an inner courtyard with ground/central floor area serving Editor: Leslie Campbell Publisher: David Broadland Sales: Mollie Kaye, Bonnie Light, Rosalinde Compton ADVERTISING & SUBSCRIPTIONS 250-388-7231 Email focuspublish@shaw.ca EDITORIAL INQUIRIES and letters to the editor focusedit@shaw.ca WEBSITE www.focusonline.ca MAIL Box 5310, Victoria, V8R 6S4 SUBSCRIPTIONS (Tax included): $21/year (6 editions) $42.00/2 years (12 editions) Copyright © 2016. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publisher of Focus Magazine. Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40051145 as central washroom facility. Access to and from the barge could be a tastefully gated and fenced walkway from the street eliminating access to adjacent properties. Just a thought. R. W. McKay Scientists to CRD: petition the feds The current sewage treatment schedule seems too short to allow proper planning, or to take advantage of broad changes expected to come with decarbonization. I suspect there are a number of people in positions of responsibility who would love to see the whole issue punted down the road for a few decades. Maybe it makes sense to set a completion date of 2030, with a phased plan and funding for the first stages. It could go something like this: 1. New federal funding for green infrastructure is announced, and the lower island has just the opportunity. Our local MPs carry the banner in Ottawa, and lobby for assurances in place of the promised existing grants. 2. BC adopts the advisory panel recommendation to ramp the carbon tax up to $150 per tonne by 2030 (adding to the business case for heat recovery). 3. BC Hydro Power Smart and similar new resources provide financial and technical support to the project. 4. We slowly start again. Studies of innovative and successful projects in other jurisdictions are done. Emerging technologies for treatment of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, heat recovery and power generation are evaluated objectively. Locations (existing pump stations, sea platforms, and other) are evaluated. Deeper public consultation is conducted; not just town halls, but all kinds, for example, asking windsurfers, kiteboarders and sailors what potential outfalls have the best wind for turbines to power plant(s); asking sailors where the strongest and steadiest currents might provide the best ocean power; involving the arts community in planning an innovation-themed site art process. 5. Governments and large private building owners participate in the planning, with the hope of new heating and power generating systems for their facilities. Groups of buildings are identified where district energy would be a good fit. Dreaming in technocolor? Maybe, but I think all options should stay on the table until something that makes sense emerges; something with a net contribution to the region, and to the next generation of Victorians. Bob Landell Amalgamation: the plumber’s dilemma Thank you to Mr Miller for bringing the amalgamation issue back to the forefront early in the new year. A couple of comments he may wish to ponder: During the 2014 municipal election 75 percent of those who voted in Greater Victoria municipalities (representing 90 percent of the CRD population) voted “Yes” to questions dealing with reform of local government. In addition, numerous polls consistently show a very high level (over 80 percent) in favour of some form of governance review or change. Yes, we have this sticky thing called democracy. Hard cheese, I know. Andrew Sanction, the Canadian academic who writes about amalgamation, posted a Facebook comment on July 2, 2015 that his writing “has been almost exclusively in the context of the legislated (i.e. forced) amalgamations that were so prevalent in eastern Canada a decade or two ago” and have not included voluntary amalgamations. As recently as October 25, 2015 Sancton tweeted “Of course amalg can work if that is what citizens in each affected muni want. I have never suggested otherwise.” Obviously there is a huge research gap of the type required in Greater Victoria, where there is a massive grassroots appetite to look at reform. It is reasonable to expect a study will be useful to provide information hitherto unobtainable. Banishment of the word “amalgamation” might appeal to Mr Miller. This is a type of strategy adopted by various countries in past decades, notably Germany in the 1930s. How did this work out for them? Perhaps, instead, we can speak of “unification,” completed during Germany’s more successful latter decades. Supporters of local government reform are united in a common belief that the region must be improved. They represent the full political spectrum of voters who can’t be pigeonholed and dismissed as lefties, middle, or right wing. For the first time, thousands of people have an organization, such as Amalgamation Yes, around which to coalesce and advocate for change, and they will not be deterred from their democratic rights to determine how they are governed. Thoughtful discourse can take us a long way to improving our regional problems. An unbiased study of the current governing structure will inform and equip us to vote Yes or No for change on a future binding referendum. 6 February 2016 • <strong>FOCUS</strong>
But Mr Miller’s desperate and corrosive comments designed to insult and shut down the conversation are not helpful. Lesley Ewing, board member, Amalgamation Yes Gene Miller responds: Yes, I’m enraptured by the political management of 1930s Germany, want to reassert it locally, and won’t be happy until cyborgian storm troopers are breaking down the doors of Amalgamation Yesterday advocates and even people who simply want to preserve democratic institutions…and forcing these citizens to watch as their puppies are kicked to death. [Add Miller’s demonic laughter here.] I wonder how you could tell I was that kind of guy. Is it that hard to read history’s wind? Grand scale-bureaucracy is waning in our emergent post-centralized world that will see its political geography become more local and autonomous. I wrote: “The future is filled with the collapse of impossibly large and unmanageable structures—political, social, economic—that contribute little to citizen well-being or community pleasure. Desperately, longingly, people will look for alternatives and for models of workable, rich, sustaining community. We live in one.” We live in one. In my opinion, it would be much more useful if folks spent less time maundering about democratic rights and more time exercising them by further improving our exquisite local governments.—GM Gene Miller’s fear of amalgamation red flag is really a red herring. Sure, it is easy to cherry pick other cities’ experience with amalgamation and say, for example: “ Look at Toronto—a Harris horror show.” Steady on, Gene. Before Harris made Toronto a mega city it had two tier government—a metropolitan government that looked after the needs of the whole region and six boroughs looking after local issues—down from 13 as it happens. Metro government acted on behalf of the region without divided loyalty. Boroughs looked after problems at the local level. This system worked well. It is common. Too bad Toronto no longer has this system. Too bad this region doesn’t have it. It is not for nothing that Jack Knox calls us “dysfunction by the water.” This has not escaped the notice of voters who asked for the Province to also take notice and take a lead towards achieving better governance. The ball is in the Province’s court. John Olson Cameron Moffatt, Dr Natasha Kipot, Dr James McCowan Natural Medicine • Chiropractic • Massage Therapy Physiotherapy • Fitness Studio • Pilates, Yoga and more MID-WINTER SPECIALS 10 classes for $99 + GST (Pilates, yoga, yogilates, prenatal pilates, pelvic floor pilates, TRX, more...) Qi Beauty Facials by our acupuncturist $50 off! OUR HEALTH, MY HEALTH, iHEALTH 207-4480 West Saanich Road 250.704.1178 • iHealthGroup.ca www.focusonline.ca • February 2016 7
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Page 5: Focus presents: Kirk Béasse Psycho
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Page 11 and 12: Focus presents: Peninsula Gallery A
Page 13 and 14: WHEN SENIOR GOVERNMENTS IMPOSE unre
Page 15 and 16: WE ARE IN A CRAZY-MAKING SITUATION:
Page 17 and 18: “ IN MY OPINION it would be prude
Page 19 and 20: THE DEATH of our drug safety monito
Page 21 and 22: KINDER MORGAN’S submission that d
Page 23 and 24: Supporting arts, culture and our co
Page 25 and 26: 1040 MOSS ST | AGGV.CA “The Road
Page 27 and 28: “The Struggle,” by Cameron Kunt
Page 29 and 30: “To Begin Again” by Kimberly Ki
Page 31 and 32: eadings & presentations February 20
Page 33 and 34: February 2-28 THE VALLEY Belfry The
Page 35 and 36: music February 5-14 VICTORIA FILM F
Page 37 and 38: “ I’VE BEEN PASSIONATELY perfor
Page 39 and 40: “ I BECAME MORE AWARE of the ever
Page 41 and 42: Focus presents: Triangle Healing AD
Page 43 and 44: ANY COMMUNITY—its citizens, its e
Page 45 and 46: NIGHTINGALE, who ignores the occasi
Page 47 and 48: Kois Center Advanced Prosthetics Gr

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