There is an old Romanian saying: “satul burns și baba se piaptănă” — that is, ‘the old woman combs her hair, while the town burns’.
This is what quickly came to mind when the province announced its grand plan to spend a mere $800 million to replace the Royal BC Museum.
What makes the phrase even more ironic is that it comes at a time when much more pressing problems are looming ominously over metropolitan Victoria and Vancouver Island, and have been for several years.
Let’s start with our infrastructure.
Take the notorious Colwood Crawl, for example, the soul-sucking experience many of us don’t even wish on our worst enemies; the arduous and slow progress west of the city that has surely eliminated a few years of life expectancy in some people. Not that a full book of ideas hasn’t been submitted to the province yet: There are basic suggestions, from an LRT to a ferry, more buses, even a monorail.
Or a man named Greg who shuttles people back and forth for a pack of cigarettes on a home-built raft.
The same goes for the Malahat. How can someone in the Ministry of Transportation sleep at night knowing that, even in 2022, a major accident or calamity on that critical stretch of road can still cut off the southern and northern parts of the island? Whether it’s resurrecting the much-debated island-wide E&N rail corridor, digging tunnels, or adding bridges, it doesn’t really matter, just do something. After all, the sky is the limit when there is money, right?
Next, our health care system.
Currently, the Vancouver Island Health Authority is struggling to keep staff due to shortages and burnout, largely in the wake of the pandemic. There are also countless people right now who can’t find a doctor or specialist anywhere; adding more months, or even years, of pain and worsening health conditions while they wait for that phone call. Entire clinics are running without a single doctor present because none can be found.
Or what about mental health? Even now, BC doesn’t cover the cost of a counselor, forcing people to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket. Meanwhile, existing mental health counselors, psychologists, and therapists are struggling with large numbers of clients, and community-focused organizations like the Cool Aid Society or Our Place Society operate on budgets so meager they’re almost transparent.
A walk through downtown Victoria paints an equally bleak picture of how well our city is handling inflation and the cost of housing, which, by the way, has spiraled out of control, burst into flames, and is now a burning carcass on the side. Of the road. Average rent in Victoria is over $2,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, while a shitty house that leans more than the Tower of Pisa is over $800,000. Gentrification is slowly killing off communities in Victoria, while construction is ironically in full swing across the island.
But the new museum will be “state of the art and seismically safe”, guys!
RELATED: BC to spend $789 million to replace Royal BC Museum
IT’S OKAY. Let’s not be crude here; this is not to say that it doesn’t need an upgrade, or that we as Victorians don’t deserve a modern museum. We make; after all, we are not a town of uneducated peasants. Culture, art and history are basic elements of who we are as a city and as a community.
That said, the big question remains: why now? The money is clearly there, so in a nutshell, why not use it to solve the problems we are facing right now, not in 2030?
Let’s not become the old lady, okay?
Octavian Lacatusu is a journalist, writer, photographer and marketing specialist. He worked as a reporter and editor across Canada for more than 10 years, and his work has appeared in a variety of media outlets and magazines, including CTV News/Bell Media, the Toronto Observer and the Black Press. In his spare time (and to stay relatively sane), he builds LEGO creations that move and drive, and daydreams about cars he can’t possibly afford.
Do I have an opinion? Email it to us at [email protected]. Submissions must be less than 1,000 words.
Editorial policies Report a bug
Reference-www.cheknews.ca