Re: “North Saanich councillor calls for pickleball courts to be ripped out,” Nov. 1.

I don’t play pickleball. It’s not my thing. But I also don’t believe public infrastructure should be weaponized against neighbours who are simply living their lives differently than you.

Living in a community requires two things: consideration and tolerance. It’s not a one-way street.

Yes, people should be mindful of how their actions impact others. But just as importantly, we all need to accept that others will live, speak, move, and exist in ways we don’t control. If you can’t tolerate that, you don’t want a community. You want a kingdom.

What’s deeply troubling is how often I see people using the systems of government — not to resolve real issues, but to punish difference. Filing noise complaints, lobbying city council, twisting bylaws into tools of social warfare — not because they’re losing sleep, but because they’re losing control.

That’s not civic engagement. That’s petty tyranny.

Governance isn’t a cudgel. It’s a framework for shared life. And shared life means difference.

If we want healthy, functioning neighbourhoods, we need to stop using bureaucracy to enforce personal preferences and start recognizing that a bit of noise, a bit of chaos, and a bit of humanity are part of the package.

If the sound of a plastic ball at 2 p.m. is what ruins your day, maybe the problem isn’t the pickleball court. Maybe it’s that you’ve forgotten how to live among people.

Jennine Gates

Victoria

The Chief of the Cowichan Tribes says that B.C. politicians’ comments on the court ruling on the Cowichan claim to land in Richmond are “at best misleading and at worst deliberately inflammatory” and “that the ruling does not erase public property.”

There is not much question that the claim had merit, and that the ruling was reasonable, given the law and the history.

But to say that there’s nothing to worry about for those who have paper (or electronic records) saying they own the land in question is to ignore history, specifically what happened in Vancouver in 1998, when the Musqueam Band convinced a federal appeal court that the 99-year leases on band land, with 67 years to run, should increase from $375 to $454 a year to $28,000 to $38,000.

That was on top of taxes that had doubled years earlier when the band took over taxing rights from Vancouver.

Subsequently the Supreme Court decided that the rent should be $10,000 per year, far above the $400 average paid........

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