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Virtually every day one can find in the Victoria Times Colonist one or more articles or editorials on the topic of homelessness within the greater Victoria area. The problem isn’t unique to Victoria, but on a per capita basis I suspect the ‘problem’ here is larger than in most Canadian cities - simply due to our great climate.

Most Victorians see the problem, and want to resolve it. What right thinking person could not! Social justice demands we deal effectively with it, to reduce unnecessary misery, suffering, and sad, lonely, premature deaths. And there are other practical issues that demand the same. One is the financial burden - I read not too long ago that the annual cost to taxpayers for each homeless person is about fifty some thousand dollars. Another is its effects on an industry very important to Victoria, tourism. Or its effects on its own citizens, some of whom find going downtown, especially at night, less and less appealing.

Some progress is being made to find housing for the homeless, but it moves at a snail’s pace, seems to be largely ad hoc, and seems not to reflect a focused political will to make things right.

Unlike the political will that has been brought to bear on sewage treatment in Victoria.

British Columbia exercised its political will in 2006, directing the Capital Regional District (CRD) to begin work on plans for a secondary sewage treatment to serve Victoria and some nearby communities, citing two engineering reports as the basis for its decision.

Then the feds followed suit. The Minster of the Environment, Mr. Baird, exercised his political will in 2007, along with his indignation to discover communities in Canada ‘dumping raw sewage’ into oceans, rivers and streams. He avowed to outlaw it, but at the same time he promised a multi billion dollar grant to help municipalities do what is needed.

Debate rages on as to whether a sewage problem even exists, and it seems much of the scientific community lines up on the ‘no’ side. At another level, there is debate as to whether land based treatment will be an improvement over the status quo, or otherwise. If you are interested in the debate, check out these two websites, which offer both sides:

• Responsible Sewage Treatment Victoria
• Poop Victoria

But the CRD is moving on its marching orders, having only to the end of June, 2008, to come up with a business plan, and to the end of the same year to come up with final plans for design, placement, etc of the needed facilities. It all seems to be moving at unseemly haste, probably out of fear that the promised financial contributions from senior governments may somehow dissipater. As things stand now, the ‘feds’ and the province will each kick in one-third of the cost to build sewage treatment facilities. One third will be borne by taxpayers.

The type of system most widely envisaged is one calling for four large treatment facilities. The latest estimates put the cost of that sort of system at about 1.2 billion. That translates to a bump to property taxes of about $500 on average. That’s per year!

But a new spanner hit the works when the provincial government finally agreed, just a few days ago, to release a study it had commissioned to examine treatment facility options. That report was full of innovative ideas and recommendations which, if implemented, would radically change the entire approach. Instead of four large plants, it recommended 32 small facilities scattered throughout the community, and designed to be capable of producing heat, clean water and electricity which could be sold to help defray the costs of creating the system.

Access to the report by the CRD didn’t come easily. The Minister responsible, Ida Chong, planned to release it sometime in late summer or fall, following internal staff review and peer review. Essentially it took a work stoppage by the CRD committee to bring enough heat to bear to get the report. Go figure!

Speaking about ‘peer review’. There is no indication of any peer review of the two reports on which the government relied to order the move to secondary sewage treatment. Yet it’s a well known fact, at least well known to anyone who is paying attention, that considerable scientific and medical opinion exists which seriously questions the existence of any science based need for a secondary sewage treatment system, given the unique marine geographical circumstances of Victoria.

Could those two reports have withstood the scrutiny of a peer review? We simply don’t know. That is unfortunate. Local property owners are going to be tagged with a huge increase in taxes for a new service which may legitimately be argued to be unnecessary. While not so immediately felt, provincial and federal taxpayers could make the same argument - that there are better ways to spend their tax dollars.

Such as on homes for the homeless.

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