DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL
Follow as closely as you can the proceedings in BC Supreme Court in the case of Susan Heyes and her civil action against the city, the province, the federal government, the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority and RAV project Management Ltd.
You should stay with this story because it is important.
A small business owner's Cambie Street livelihood was not disrupted, but destroyed, by officials who lied to local merchants. The officials said the line would be build by boring underground. Of course, that's not what they did at all. They changed to cut and cover.
Most importantly, they never once considered for a second offering some kind of compensation for the financial and psychological damages they inflicted on innocent, honest, working citizens.
This case is about the heart and soul of democracy.
Heyes, who has since relocated her shop to Main Street, is courageous and feisty and determined and she should be recognized as an exemplary citizen for this action.
Of course, she has made a basic strategic error.
If only she had presented herself as a drug addict, she would have been given compensation by the carload: needles, places to shoot, housing, social workers, doctors, nurses, psychologists and the like.
That'll teach you to get up in the morning, shower and dress and go open the front doors of your business and try to earn a living and pay taxes.
What have we all been thinking?
7 comments:
Susan Heyes has more courage than most people. It's why Kevin Falcon probably went "whew" when the judge decided he had legislative immunity from testifying.
What a ridiculous decision. It just shows that governments can do what they want and there is no recourse for the average citizen.
One error David: "they" won't give you a psychologist, you'll get a psychiatrist who will tell you you are psychotic and put you on mind bending anti-depressant drugs, at least 8 of which have suicide as a possible side effect.
Lost in Susan's court case is that RAV was built on a foundation of falsehoods, fabricated facts and gross exaggerations of the truth.
First estimated to cost a laughable$1.2 billion, Gordo & Co. (Falco and bird-brained), soon found the cost escalating faster than a Titan rocket. To reduce costs RAVCo. pretended it was P-3, so the peons (taxpayer) could not vet the project. The costs for the subway then exceeded $2 billion, grand economies had to be made:
1) The project switched to a generic metro instead of SkyTrain, which saved over $50 million.
2) Cut-and-cover subway construction was substituted instead of much more expensive bored tunnel construction. C & C is only cheaper if compensation isn't paid.
3) Single track operation in Richmond, which drastically reduced capacity and precludes any extensions.
4) Subway stations under Cambie St. were built to accommodate 3 car trains, which again dramatically reduces capacity. Capacity on the now (depending who you talk to) $2.4 to $2.8 billion subway, is much less (as much as 10,000 pphpd less) than if simple and much cheaper LRT were to have been built. Cost to increase station size, over $1 billion and then the C & C thing all over again.
Will the court hear this, no. Will the public get this from the Asper Press or Bill Boring on CORUS, no.
What is needed is a criminal fraud case and all those associated with RAV, including Gordo, Falco and all those $1,000 a day Liberal hacks who grown fat feeding off RAV!
As a leading figure in the "most open and honest government ever", Falcon should have jumped at the chance to explain to us common folk, exactly what went on with RAV. Instead he just crawled under a stone...
What a surprise.
Property rights are a fascinating and complex issue.
I'd be a lot more interested if I could afford some.
Perhaps someone who has an understanding of this can clear something up for me. I've been on Skytrain (a rare occurrence) on the Millennium line when service was disrupted because of a technical problem downtown on the Expo line.
Does that mean a problem at the airport on the canerduh line will have trains sitting in stations going nowhere far away on other lines?
Pretty crappy I thought. One of many reasons I rarely take transit. I gave it a good try but ...
An answer to David in N. Burnaby
Because the Expo Line is in fact an appendage to the Millennium Line, problems on one will affect the other.
RAV is a conventional metro (it doesn't have Linear Induction Motors like SkyTrain) and not a proprietary metro system, it is not physically connected to SkyTrain - it is impossible to have through running.
This means problems on SkyTrain will not affect RAV. Still RAV has all the expense and problems of automatic operation.
Think about this - Calgary's LRT system (90% at-grade with drivers) carries more daily passengers than SkyTrain (driverless), yet it costs half to operate ($40 million or more) on an annual basis. It also has a better operational availability than SkyTrain. RAV will be the same as SkyTrain.
Now you see why TransLink wants a $100 car levy!
Malcolm Johnston
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