Lack of Posts.

Sorry everyone for slowing the pace of posts to almost non-existent. I was hoping to be able to engage in some more debate/discussion here, but for some reason, either my posts are very boring or something, there have been very few comments. I will begin posting again soon, just having a little break.

Let's Follow the Leader

In a move that will hopefully start the breaking of the chain of destruction that our fossil fuel society has been part of for some time now, Sweden has given itself a timeline of 15 years to become completely independent from the use of oil as an energy source.

Link

London Calling

Looks like the Metropolitan Police were a little overzealous with their trigger fingers once again, as they have released without charges the two brothers whose house was raided by over 250 officers, with one of the men being shot during the arrest.

And this after shooting to death that innoncent Brazillian man to death just under a year ago.

Let's hope that the RCMP and CSIS haven't been taking any lessons from these guys and also that the barbaric law allowing terror certificates gets struck down soon.

CBC Story.

What Gives?

Any ideas on why Sam Sullivan is deciding at this point that the Falun Gong protesters on Granville must go after protesting outside the Chinese Embassy for five years? Just flexing his muscles?

User Fees

It's not news that the Campbell government is in favour of user fees as evidenced by the user fees that have either been introduced, raised or are set to be introduced since 2001. These include a sizeable increase in the MSP premium, parking fees at BC parks, huge increases in tuition costs, proposed road tolls on the Golden Ears and Port Mann bridge, and many more.

These shifts have been explained that those who do not benefit from the said services should not have to pay for them.

Well, reading about the $100 million cost overrun so far going towards the 2010 games, it seems far more appropriate that this cost, rather than being taken out of the taxpayer base, should be raised by a user-fee paid by those that think this is a worthwhile expense.

To motivate people to pay, they could take a page out of the BC Parks example that tells people that their money will go directly into maintaining the park. People could be told that their contribution will go directly to their favourite contractor or advertising firm and will not be put into general government revenue. I'm sure this would be wonderful motivation for let's say, half the population of Greater Vancouver to come up with the $100 each to cover the cost overrun for such a great cause.

More Cars = The Way of the Future for the BC Liberals

This morning on the radio, I heard a sound byte from Kevin Falcon, BC's Minister of Transportation, telling the public that those opposed to the Gateway Project are (I'm paraphrasing) an extremely small minority who have been opposing every infrastructure project for the last 20 years. This is news to me, as I don't remember being opposed to such things when I was six years old.

This dismissal by politicians of opposing views as simply ideological fever betrays the whole idea of the type of government that we have. If anything, I think it should be the mandate of those who have been elected to represent us to listen especially carefully to those who are presenting different viewpoints and maybe even change direction if it seems like that could be reasonably done.

I do not oppose the Gateway Project because of an "ideological view against anything new". I would be all for Mr. Falcon proposing to spend the same taxpayer money on some form of mass transit. Imagine a Park & Ride with free parking somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford with an extension of the Skytrain to said Park & Ride. For those commuting downtown, the choice to avoid the money spent on gas and parking, as well as the decreased commuter time, would be enough to draw sufficient numbers off the existing infrastructure to significantly reduce waits.

Building more roads & highways within cities is a thing of the past. We know how damaging this mode is to the environment, we know that increased capacity only leads to increased trips.

I recently saw a newspaper headline proclaiming that with the Gateway Project built, land values in the Fraser Valley would increase substantially. I wonder how many land developers are active in supporting the Liberal Party. I already know of some that do, and it doesn't seem like such a stretch to me that this could possibly be not much more than the standard corporate/political backscratching, of course at taxpayer expense.

Olymipic Legacy?

As if the explicit problems with the RAV/Canada Line rapid transit line weren't enough, including cost overruns, likely-inflated ridership projections, putting the taxpayers on the line for 90% of the cost if ridership revenues aren't as high as expectations, a cut/cover tunnel on Cambie Street after being promised a bored tunnel, using public pension funds to shield SNC/Lavelin from risk, etc. I now hear this morning that it has surfaced that imported labourers are being used and are being payed far less than minimum wage. From the CBC BC website:

The B.C. and Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council says more than 50 workers from Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia are working long hours with no overtime — which works out to a wage of less than $5 an hour.

This sounds like another triumph for P3's and our so-called free market. I hope this gets really big, because I imagine it's more common than we think.

What a disgrace.

I should add that the allegations have been denied so far, but I am quite interested to see how things go.