This week I’ve literally got two bits for you on our BC housing situation. Here’s the first bit: There’s been lots in the news lately about making housing more affordable but, I’m sad to say, very little about this news is of substance. At the end of the day, the crisis of homelessness will be…
Category: British Columbia
Vancouver-Mount Pleasant voters are a bellwether
Byelections are never easy for whatever party holds power at the time, and Feb. 2 was no exception. The incumbent BC Liberals lost both byelections — Vancouver-Mount Pleasant and Coquitlam-Burke Mountain. The interesting takeaway for me was not the fact that the Liberals lost. I say this in spite of the fact that one of…
The hidden cost of Uber
Uber is in the news again. B.C.’s transportation minister says it’s a matter of when, not if, Uber’s ridesharing business will land in our province. No doubt Uber’s introduction will improve customer service, especially in Metro Vancouver. We’ve all experienced far too many occasions where we’ve had to wait for sometimes up to an hour…
Time to “tap out” TransLink’s senior managers
Most folks are surprised when I tell them that TransLink spends 10 cents of every farebox dollar on the process of actually collecting that dollar. Economists refer to this as the “friction cost.” By comparison, the collection of income tax is incredibly efficient, with a friction cost so small that it amounts to a rounding…
Liberal premiers of two different stripes
Christy Clark and Kathleen Wynne. Two Liberal premiers. Two very different approaches to global warming. In British Columbia, forest fire season is upon us a month ahead of schedule and worse than ever recorded. Thirty new wildfires are expected every day for the foreseeable future. Air quality in greater Vancouver has been the worst it’s…
Crimes in the Making – Vancouver’s Affordable Housing Crisis
In a world drowning in wealth; in the richest era ever in the history of humankind; in one of the richest nations on the face of the planet and one of the richest cities in that nation, it’s a crime we have people living on the streets of Vancouver. It’s even more of a crime…
Support Transit — But the Dice are Loaded
Metro Vancouver Mayor’s Council has determined the referendum question for raising funds for improved transit. The vote will come this spring, and basically it goes like this: Do you support a 0.5 per cent increase in the provincial sales tax in Metro Vancouver to raise about $250 million a year to fund a $7.5-billion, 10-year…