Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Anatomy of a SCAM - Canada Line Bamboozle


FIRST: The media notice:


Lunch on the Line week from Sept 24 - 28


Media are invited to join Jane Bird, CEO, Canada Line Rapid Transit, Henry Lee, Chairman, The Vancouver Board of Trade and Co-Chair, Spirit of Vancouver and Darcy Rezac, Managing Director, The Vancouver Board of Trade as they announce “Lunch on the Line” week, 11:00 am, Wednesday, September 19 at Tokyo John Sushi in the Cambie Village.


From September 24 – 28, business people are being encouraged to take a client to lunch or treat their staff at a restaurant in the Cambie Village that has been affected by the Canada Line construction.


SECOND: The reply from a Cambie businesswoman:


Attn: Greg Johnson - The Pace Group

I have just been forwarded this press release by several members of our media, looking for comment on this proposal from CLCo and the Board of Trade. As usual, none of the businesses knew anything about it, and have not been consulted about the details.

We, the struggling businesses in the Cambie Village are delighted with this latest initiative from Canada Line.....simply if it finally brings to the neighbourhood the very people that have strongly supported this project, and to see for themselves the level of devastation it has caused in the Cambie Village. The conclusion they will come to is that all the project-promoting attempts at mitigation have obviously failed.

They will see that compensation should have been factored in, and was not, and is most certainly the right thing to immediately implement now.

They will see all the empty shops that were once the sole source of income for the families that operated them, who have now been forced out by this project. This token gesture, so late in the game, is irrelevant as a way to save us from bankruptcy, but may demonstrate to those who take the time to come here, a needed awareness of the level of harm this government driven project has caused. And by the way - I don't think that executives at the TD bank or Best Buy have had to re-mortgage their homes to keep their "small businesses" alive as have many merchants in the village. Our losses are life changing, and businesses unsustainable without financial compensation.

This is a Provincial project. The government's precedent being set here is that small businesses are expendable. Look out, businesses on Broadway. You could be next. We were promised a bored tunnel, too.

The right thing to do is compensate this community for the unjust financial burden we have been forced to bear.

It's much more than "lunch" that we all have on the line.

Susan Heyes
Hazel&Co


THIRD: My email to Susan Heyes:


Susan,

I will gladly publish this on my blog...but certainly you must realize that anything that comes from The Pace Group is an utterly insincere, snow job. The Pace Group is the very worst kind of Public Relations firm, famous for creating exactly these kinds of meaningless public demonstrations that are transparent in their cynicism.

I wish it were otherwise.

David

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I sometimes read things too fast.

I could have sworn that you had written "Canada Line Rabid Transit".

Hmm.