Tagged: vancouver
Compare, compare & contrast: The Great Green Conspiracy Edition, Pt XII
“When I go through tax returns, I try to find evidence to disprove my theory,” Krause said, adding that after several years of research, she is left wondering “whether American foundations paved [Robertson’s] path to power, in order to control the flow of Canada’s natural resources and trade to Asia, particularly oil.”
-Vivian Krause, Blogger: Tides Canada being reviewed by feds for alleged improper links to Vancouver mayoral campaign
Although the I try to find evidence to disprove my theory strongly suggests someone is starting with their conclusion first and works backwards, there’s, you know, this:
A huge pipeline spill has released 22,000 barrels of oil and water into muskeg in the far northwest of Alberta.
The spill ranks among the largest in North America in recent years, a period that has seen a series of high-profile accidents that have undermined the energy industry’s safety record.
Why, oh why, would environmental groups be concerned about pipelines? It’s so unbelievable there must be some other rational explanation, like inserting a Manchurian Candidate for Mayor of Vancouver. A positions which holds no jurisdiction over waterways. [cough]
But, the piéce de resistance…
Do I have a conspiracy for you! Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is acting on directions from American oil companies to block natural resource development in Canada. It must be true: blogger Vivian Krause has seen the tax records!…
…This would be simply pathetic if this line of kooky thinking hadn’t been picked up by our prime minister and his top ministers.
That would be Peter Ladner. Gregor Robertson’s opponent for Mayor in 2008.
Bonus:
[Tides Canada] gets 30% of its funding from international sources. The biggest amount it ever got, $27 million from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, was mostly spent on a joint provincial-federal-First Nations-industry-NGO planning process for the central coast region, now known as the Great Bear Rainforest. Yes, a federal partnership, with the feds themselves matching with $30 million and holding hands with Tides Canada.
Compare and contrast: Right-wing urban development edition
Yesterday in the Vancouver Sun, Pete McMartin – in what I can only suppose is it’s important to give equal consideration to any crackpot idea as long as the crackpot idea originates from the right-wing - wrote an article on the urban development ideas of Wendell Cox. Mr Cox is described as a U.S. public policy consultant. This is true. What is also true is Mr. Cox is a a U.S. public policy consultant, visiting fellow of the Heritage Foundation and senior fellow of the Heartland Institute. The latter being infamously in the news lately. Anyway, Mr. Cox loves urban sprawl. To whit:
But densification, Cox maintains, rests on a mistaken assumption — that if a city is dense enough, we’ll get out of our cars in sufficient numbers to make a difference.
Instead, Cox wrote, densification does exactly the opposite. Most people continue to use their cars, but in a slower, less efficient flow of traffic.
But later that very same day, over the newswires…Gen Y doesn’t buy cars: study
For young adults coming out of school, many of who have incurred healthy debts, the idea of buying a car and adding to their debt leaves a bad taste in their mouths. Paying off student debts is seen as a priority, while owning a new car is a luxury. Add into the equation low wages and high insurance prices, and you’ve got a potent mix of reasons not to buy a new car.
But is it really that simple? For instance, a new Pew Research study finds that around 30 percent of Millennials move back in with their parents, freeing up more money for a vehicle. If kids aren’t paying rent, then why aren’t they buying cars?
Why indeed. Oops. McMartin ends…
Much of this in a city like Vancouver seems counter-intuitive, and given the ascendancy of the densification philosophy here, worthy of further discussion.
I look forward to a worthy discussion on whether the Sun revolves around the Earth.
Sorry, Pete. This was a dude.
UPDATE: See Gordon Price
Thoughtful, caring, civil clown too busy having fun to run your local PAC so quit asking, okay?
Mike Klassen would like you to know he is having too much fun doing what he’s doing now and is certainly not standing by, on the launch pad, waiting for the go order…[wink]
Having clearly ingested the autopsy report of his failed bid for City Council in last Fall’s election, Mike has cannily decided the best response is to ignore all that to have fun and go from being wingnut-curious to fully exploring/embracing the outer fringes of Canada’s right-wing. Because the hotbed of Senator Duffy mania is, as we all know, Vancouver.
So what does fun Klassen-style entail? Why hard-hitting exposes such as, oh, this one on how The Tyee, in response to pressure from former Rothmans/Benson & Hedges cigarette lobbyist Ezra Levant, has removed…hidden…blown-up it’s Donation button in a desperate bid to escape the tightening gauntlet of the citizen-journalist posse and associated Conservative Party of Canada and corporate-created grassroots groups exposing them. Because that’s how U.S. philanthropic organizations launder their ill-gotten gains into Canada – through online webforms. Do not despair these might be rash accusations made in haste for immediate short-term political expediency for, like another pundit whose work Klassen’s very much reminds me of, this is a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.
How do we know The Tyee made changes in response to former Charles G. Koch Foundation intern Ezra Levant? Faster than you can say post hoc ergo propter hoc than short answer is because.
But the genius of this post is the multimedia part of it where, through the magic of animation, Mike clearly shows how The Tyee’s Donation button disappeared over time. Damning stuff. Unfortunately, faster than you can say citizen-journalist, this same animated image also shows the emergence of The Tyee’s donation link in a different spot. Over time. Yes multiple convicted libelist Ezra Levant made The Tyee move it’s Donation link from one part of it’s website…to another. Huah!
And Mike is proud to do his small part in exposing this nefariousness. Because it’s fun.
Tyee editor David Beers shows up in the comments and tries – with far too much patience – to explain how this isn’t true and, you know, doesn’t actually make sense.
All Oiled up
A Vancouver Courier op-ed has left me confused. No, it’s not by Mark Hasiuk. It’s by Mike Howell:
Mayor Gregor Robertson seemingly lost his political mind this week by taking a risky position on a divisive issue that could see him booted from office.
In a widely tweeted op-ed in the pages of my former employer—no, not Pravda but the Vancouver Sun—Robertson shocked Vancouverites by declaring war on the oil industry.
Now maybe I haven’t been paying attention but is there really a large popular support in Vancouver for increased oil tanker traffic in Burrard Inlet?
By what metric is Howell using to determine Vancouverites are “shocked”. Is there a public opinion poll somewhere?
@jamesgemmill Re: Vancouverites "shocked." Seriously, James, read the whole column, esp the part where I use the word "facetious."—
Mike Howell (@Howellings) April 26, 2012
UPDATE: Whoopsie. Yes, he was being facetious [wipes egg from face].
It’s a bit mysterious how he determined this, especially in light of other Of note, province-wide public opinion polls that show strong support – 46% strong in fact – for the banning of oil tanker traffic off the coast entirely.
You could certainly point out, rightly, that the City of Vancouver doesn’t have jurisdiction here and this is just posturing. And you could certainly question whether the proposed by-law would actually be enforceable. But the idea Vancouverites – after re-electing him and his green agenda in a landslide – would suddenly turnaround and boot Robertson from office all because he is, in essence, asking Kinder Morgan for a damage deposit seems…um…far-fetched.
But then I don’t know much about these things. [Editor's note: Obviously!]
On a completely different subject, here’s Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan:
“This [pipeline] doesn’t benefit B.C.,” Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan told The Province on Sunday.
“I haven’t seen any support from anyone in my community about this project . . . It’s no surprise that people in Burnaby aren’t that keen on making Albertans more money.”
…and City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto:
“It is an issue,” said City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto. “If there was an accident with the tankers in the inlet, the potential for the oil to spill on to the shores of the city is quite high.”
Mussatto said the planned expansion is much larger than he thought it would be. “It’s a significant increase,” he said…
…Mussatto said a larger concern is the continued dependence on tar-sands oil that the pipeline expansion represents.
…and District of North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton:
“My gut response is obviously if you’re increasing the amount of traffic dramatically in a contained space, the risk of an oil spill is going to go up dramatically as well,” he said.
“I don’t see oil coming down through the harbour and out through the Strait of Juan de Fuca benefiting anyone locally,” said Walton. “If we’re bearing the risks here and we’re not receiving any of the economic benefit, we have to say how great are these risks?”
The latter two quotes coming from a North Shore News story republished online by the Vancouver Courier.
Funny, that.
Final note: Despite the egg, the underlying point remains the same: You can be concerned about the safety of a project for it’s own sake and are not be required to propose an alternative.
Notable Linkage: Vancouver home ownership out of middle-class reach
Excerpt:
Kershaw has compared B.C. incomes and house prices now with those in the 1970s.
In the 1970s, the annual household income for couples aged 25-34 was the equivalent of $73,000 in today’s dollars.
Today, the same age group earns just $68,000 a year.
Kershaw says even with more women working, households are earning less, not more — and at the same time, the average cost of housing, adjusted for inflation, has increased by 149 per cent.
Satire opens up a new front. Satirically on satire itself.
This post and comments, in a run-on sentence summary:
A proposal by a former pop-star to make Sweden a cashless society which we know is serious because he’s a multi-millionaire is a clear indication of the burgeoning authoritarianism here in Vancouver, because they like bikes in Copenhagen, and they like bikes here and there’s a law in Chicago that says if you don’t have a dollar in your pocket you’re a vagrant and HAHA off to jail with you and if you don’t understand all this you’re a teenager because Sweden treats it’s population like teenagers.
In other words, ipso facto.
This is, I understand, all supposed to be high satire and good fun, despite the commentators taking it deadly seriously. Though I was under the impression that satire, at least good satire, doesn’t make you squint to see it being based on at least a kernel of reality. And not on, say, a logical fallacy.
Copenhagen is in Denmark, btw.
They use the Euro.
UPDATE: Greece on the breadline: cashless currency takes off
In recent weeks, Theodoros Mavridis has bought fresh eggs, tsipourou (the local brandy: beware), fruit, olives, olive oil, jam, and soap. He has also had some legal advice, and enjoyed the services of an accountant to help fill in his tax return.
None of it has cost him a euro, because he had previously done a spot of electrical work – repairing a TV, sorting out a dodgy light – for some of the 800-odd members of a fast-growing exchange network in the port town of Volos, midway between Athens and Thessaloniki.
In return for his expert labour, Mavridis received a number of Local Alternative Units (known as tems in Greek) in his online network account. In return for the eggs, olive oil, tax advice and the rest, he transferred tems into other people’s accounts.
All that huff n’puff. For nothing, apparently.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is incredibly taxing
This is a bit late in coming, but Jordan Bateman of the Canadian Taxpayers Foundation wrote a rebuttal to a post by former Vancouver City Councillor and now SFU professor Gordon Price on the role of government and the “collective good”. Bateman characterizes Price’s piece as “bizarre” and “inaccurate”. Readers are invited to read Professor Price for themselves and judge whether it’s “bizarre”. But as for inaccurate…
Price says: “The CTF position: municipal budgets should not go up beyond the rate of inflation. Which means, essentially, no increase in the provision of ‘public goods’ – those services and structures which we fund collectively – and over time, a diminishment in the role and presence of government in our lives, accompanied by the assumption that the private sector can do it better.”
The truth: I have never said that it’s inflation or bust. But I do strongly believe that any increase or project that carries the tax burden above the rate of inflation should be subject to a public referendum or significant consultation process to ensure the taxpayers are on board.
The truthier truth: “The CTF’s Taxpayer Protection Bylaw caps property tax increases at the rate of inflation, unless explicit permission is sought from the public through a referendum.”
Hmmm…what do you say? Price characterizes the CTF’s position as “should not”, not “must not”. So, sorry Jordan…
Price: 1 / Bateman: 0
The even more incredible truthier truth: Then there’s“…unless explicit permission is sought from the public through a referendum.”
Every facility mentioned by Gordon Price was voted on by referendum. Vancouver voters approve the 3 year Capital Plans in every election and new facilities are part of those questions. Example from the 2005 election:
This question seeks authority to borrow funds to be used in providing the City share of funding for community legacy projects to be funded and developed jointly with senior governments prior to 2010. These legacies include the replacement of ice rinks at Killarney and Trout Lake and construction of a new Percy Norman Aquatic Centre as part of the new Hillcrest Centre. Following 2010, the new aquatic centre will form part of a complex being constructed by the Olympic Organizing Committee to include a replacement for the Riley Park community centre and ice rink, the Vancouver Curling Club and the Riley Park branch library.
ARE YOU IN FAVOUR OF COUNCIL HAVING THE AUTHORITY, WITHOUT FURTHER APPROVAL OF THE ELECTORS, TO PASS BYLAWS BETWEEN JANUARY 1, 2006 AND DECEMBER 31, 2008 TO BORROW UP TO AN AGGREGATE THIRTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS ($35,000,000) TO FUND THE CITY SHARE OF COMMUNITY LEGACY PROJECTS THAT RECEIVE FUNDING FROM AND/OR ARE DEVELOPED WITH SENIOR GOVERNMENTS AND OTHER AGENCIES.
Price: 1 / Bateman: -1
Bateman, who was a Councillor in Langley, should know this. Or perhaps he does and is hoping you don’t.
An unpleasant truth for the CTF: Government budgets aren’t just a matter of “spending”. There’s also “revenue”. When revenues go down for reasons beyond a community’s control – oh, say a natural disaster or a global recession – then a governments budget might go into the red even though it’s spending the same (and sometimes less) than it did in the previous budget. The CTF’s solution for such real-world facts is to slash the budget and dock the politicians 15% pay (that’s how you attract good people into government!)
Bonus Bateman:
The truth: And Europe is chock full of countries that have gone the other way, expecting government to provide absolutely everything for them—and there are massive debts, riots, incredible distress and quite possible complete collapse.
I could spend time going through the list of European countries, citing which ones were running deficits prior to the crisis, which ones were running surpluses, which one have strong social safety nets, and which ones didn’t and how it didn’t really seem to matter, but the illogic of his position can be summed up thusly: To avoid the riots of Europe over the slashing of social spending et al, we must slash social spending here.
Auckland observations
I’ve just spent a wonderful 3 weeks in New Zealand. It’s a great country – a little bit Britain, a little bit California and, yes, a little bit British Columbia. For the urbanists in the audience here a few brief observations:
Auckland Public Transit: Auckland’s privatized, balkanized public transit system was strange to use.
- Tickets purchased on one line often couldn’t be transferred to another connection – requiring the purchase of a second ticket. I understand the system is going to be amalgamated once again soon.
- Staffing levels was also unusual. There was the driver, who you would sometimes buy a ticket from. Sometimes you would buy your ticket from a transit official at the stop. There was another staffer at stops keeping an eye on things and taking stats. And there there was a staffer who, as far as I could see, was there to keep the ticket seller company. For a private system this seemed odd.
- Buses didn’t operate to a schedule – they left when they were full (at least on the lines I went on). It was impossible to connect with the trains, which did operate to a schedule.
- You would receive a ticket, which was punched with an old-fashioned ticket puncher. If you were transferring (from train to bus or vice versa) you’d receive a second transfer ticket. You could have a pocket full of little stubs quite quickly.
Pedestrians: Unlike in Vancouver pedestrians do not have the right of way at street corners. The only place they do have the right of way is at zebra-stripe crosswalks which are few and far between. Unless you are at these crosswalks cars will not stop for you. It’s dangerous to be a pedestrian in New Zealand.
Pedestrian-only streets: That said, both Auckland and Wellington each have very nice new pedestrian-only streets to stroll, shop and eat.
Shopping Streets: Auckland is older than Vancouver by decades and retains the local “village” shopping street of days past (in Vancouver think Kerrisdale). They’re quite charming and walkable and something which Vancouver is now trying desperately to recreate. Small towns too still have their “downtown” shopping streets – which you could not say of many small towns in B.C. Ironically I was told these streets are suffering due to new North American style autocentric malls and big-box stores.
Architecture: I find many buildings of recent construction in Vancouver to be extremely bland architecturally and in terms of materials and finish they often look like they were done on the cheap (which they, you know, were). Perhaps I’m just looking at someone else’s bad architecture with new eyes but I found new buildings in Auckland and Wellington to be more daring, better made, and much more varied in look and feel. It’s almost as if the Kiwi architects weren’t using a cookie-cutter!
Heritage: Auckland has done a much better job at preserving and refurbishing it’s heritage buildings than Vancouver. But then…most cities have.
Policing: There are no local police forces in New Zealand – everything is handled by the national New Zealand Police. I don’t know if this is good or bad but it comes in the shadow of recent local discussion on amalgamating the local Metro Vancouver police departments and ditching the RCMP and setting up a B.C. provincial police.
Highway Viaducts: According to the Auckland Transport Blog, Auckland like Vancouver is also considering ditching one of it’s viaducts. Neener neener.
Like this:
Childcare in Vancouver
This is about an item that appeared in the Georgia Straight last week, but I’m still a bit steamed about it. Melissa De Genova, newly elected NPA Parks Board Commissioner had this to say on childcare in Parks Board facilities:
“During the election, the whole entire election, I said, ‘I support our space, our community centres or recreation facilities—if we have the space, we would provide that for child care,’” De Genova told the Straight by phone.
Great! But the election is over. And here’s what she thinks now:
“But I do not feel that it’s appropriate that park board operates child-care facilities. And then the questions that I have are, with this joint council on childcare, how much money is this going to cost? And we’ve already had so many budget cuts, so I think that we have to work with what we have right now, instead of creating new councils.”
De Genova is righteously raked over the coals by her fellow Commissioners and in the comments of the Straight piece. In addition to points and factual corrections made there, here are a few other things:
The City of Vancouver’s Childcare Protocol of 2004 notes There are currently about 9,200 licensed child care spaces, with a capacity of about 12,000 children in Vancouver. These spaces are either full or part time group care, preschool, child minding and family child care for children ages birth to 12 years. There are, however, 28,535 children under the age of 6 and an additional 43,830 children between 6 and 14 years of age. Crude calculations, using labour force participation rates only, would suggest that conservatively, Vancouver is serving about 15% of the potential need.
I am one of those parents who use a childcare program operated out of a Parks Board facility. Here’s what I had to do to be one of lucky 15%: on the day of registration get up at 3am on two occasions (once for Kindercare and once for After School Care) to procure one of the two openings that year at this facility. On both occasions I was not the first in line. About 30 people came after me (none of whom got a spot). One woman was in tears – she was certain she would be forced to quit her job to take care of her children and this would destroy her economically.
The fees for these programs, while less than daycare, is high.
De Genova, to my knowledge, never voiced this concern during the election campaign. This is, obviously, an issue that is of paramount concern for many voters with young children in Vancouver. If De Genova’s position had been known I am certain she would not have been elected.
Congratulations Melissa.
What’s the Business Tax Shift supposed to do anyways? Pt. 2
At Price Tags, the following comment was made:
There were 46 *net* new [businesses] between 2001 & 2010, but that’s because so many businesses were lost between 2001 & 2007. In fact there were over 4000 net new business licenses issued in Vancouver between 2007 & 2010.
and
the point of the tax shift was not to address affordability, it was to address businesses & jobs leaving the city – and the numbers certainly suggest that was a problem & things may still be less than ideal.
Mark is a very trustworthy guy, but I was not able to independently confirm the stats for net new business licenses issued. This is what I did find:
Source: Metro Vancouver Key Statistics
Source: BC Stats
Source: BC Stats
The CoV’s Report on Property Taxation also notes a rise in Commercial Building Permits starting in 2005. Perhaps net new business licenses issued is the only stat that matters, but looking over this it really strikes me that shifting the tax rate from businesses to residents – which began in 2007 – has had very little effect economically.
Related: City of Vancouver Property Tax Policy Review Commission Final Report [2007] & What’s the Business Tax Shift supposed to do anyways? Pt. 1
