Connect the Dots

The line from General Motors to the Cambie Bridge is direct, unavoidable and frightening.

General Motors is a breath away from Don't Bother to Resuscitate.

They have suffered from insufferable mis-management.

The story about two keys - one for the door and one for the trunk - says it all. They couldn't find a CEO who would holler down the line, "One effing key, you eejits!"

And putting all your yeggs in the SUV basket made real sense. As much sense as Lehman Brothers putting all their yeggs in sub-prime mortgages.

Now if GM goes - and we can feel the vacuum rush already - what fun effect will that have on economies round the world?

Iceland is broke? Good grief. There are no safe havens. Unless you're one of the the regular Davos lunchers and you're privy to the Harbours of the Night, wherever they may be.

You think the Olympic Village project is going to be just fine? What's your name, Pete McMartin? What are you injecting these days? No wonder so many educated people support Insite - they know they may need it soon for themselves.

VillageGate has just begun. The mud will thicken considerably. The more you hear a Larry Campbell burp from the Red Chamber "Everything is fine," the more you should worry.

Now, the Vision team is re-writing history.

In George Orwell's "Animal Farm," the pigs, who rule, begin each day by re-writing yesterday on the side of the barn walls.

Gregor Robertson, Raymond Louie et al are calling for a re-vote on the Millennium Loan Caper. They have the bald-faced audacity to claim, on behalf of Louie and other Vision incumbents who were there at the in-camera Give-Away Barbecue and who voted Ay, in favor, that "there were facts we didn't have."

Hahahahahahaha...

Presumably, Ladner and Sullivan and the NPA folks didn't have these mind-altering facts either.
What were they all injecting?

This is poli-spin of the most transparent kind.

Get real.

To save his bid for the Mayor's chair, Peter Ladner must give the voters something, some small tidbit of real information, some assurance - if any is possible - that there is a clean upside to this story somewhere in the future.

Until that happens...

The deal stinks, everyone was part of it, shut up and vote already.

New Kid of the Block

Please note that I have added a new blog link...to your right...The Gazetteer.

Try him, you'll like him...

Cynics, Beware

Some of you may have been unhappy that I haven't published your comments on Barack Obama's election.

Some of you are cynical and superior about everything.

Loosen up. Try to be gracious and hopeful for a moment. You might even smile, who knows?

Obama has enormous challenges ahead, and no doubt he will stumble, even stumble badly.

But try to keep the blades sheathed until they're really needed.

Until then, allow yourself to consider that a decent and intelligent man - not a god, and certainly a wily politician - is now in the place where a fool has reigned for eight years. That alone should be cause enough for celebration. If you can allow yourself that.

In the meantime, read Maureen Dowd's reflection on matters presidential in the NY Times of the other night, thanks to my good buddy, Bill.

My Mother's Favorite Song - from Willie Nelson's Great "Stardust" album

Villagegate will not go away

Yesterday, the Globe's Gary Mason, followed up his Villagegate story with this:

Vancouver council owes misled taxpayers answers

The piece is well worth your reading.

As is this letter to the editor in today's Sun:

The alleged approval of a $100-million loan to Millennium Development Corp. by Vancouver city council at an in camera meeting, if true, requires an immediate inquiry by the province. It has the effect of transforming the city into a commercial bank, and this lies outside the limits of council's powers over the disbursement of public funds. Vancouver taxpayers should be outraged by this cavalier use of property endowment funds to finance what is effectively a two-week event.

John Robertson, North Vancouver

Both Mason's column and the letter are in sharp contract to the sunny, rose-colored glasses adorable little modest take by the perennially jolly Pete McMartin.

Pete is a good fellow and a helluva good writer, but some day he have to take the propeller cap off his head, get out of short pants and notice that not all stories end happily ever after.

This Olympic Village bit of poison is one such story.

As I said yesterday, Gregor Robertson and the Vision strategists will keep this issue front and centre for the next week, and that's politics.

But the story deserves long legs.

One regular contributor to this site threw in this yesterday:

Millennium--- Left West Vancouver in the lurch on the development at Evelyn Drive - after three or four hearings and hundreds of expensive staff hours to prepare... Left Nanaimo in the lurch on a multi-complex downtown development after hearings and hundreds of expensive staff.....

and this:

And, David... Suzanne Anton said this about why Vancouver Council not giving taxpayers any details, "It is not in taxpayers' best interests to know all the details."

I hope that isn't true. I hope Anton did not say that. She is also someone who got my early vote.

Think about this:

Men and women, many of whom have never run a company or earned very much money and now earn $50,000 a year are making momentous decisions about the expenditure of hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars.

I am to believe that Sam Sullivan, Raymond Louie, Kim Capri et al can safely swim in the shark-infested waters of Big Deal Real Estate?

And I am to swallow whole this fantasy on faith because I am too sensitive or stupid or unschooled to share in all the secrets?

I don't think so, kids.

Today, Robert Matas, writing in the Globe, quotes my blog posting of yesterday, under this headline:

Loan for athletes village set to alter mayoral race

Speculation builds about how voters will react to controversy

His quote is accurate:

"Peter Ladner's bid for the Mayor's chair is finished," commentator David Berner said yesterday in an online posting on his website. "It is Over. Buried irrevocably by the Olympic Village story," added Mr. Berner, who identified himself as a disillusioned supporter of Mr. Ladner.

But, in speaking with Robert on the phone last night, I did not and do not characterize myself as a disillusioned supporter of Ladner.

No.

I still hope he wins.

There are 15 people running for the Mayor's chair. Thirteen will get a few votes each. That leaves Peter and Gregor. They may not either be the best possible person on earth to be the Mayor of Vancouver in a perfect world. But they are the only two serious contenders.

And, of the two, in my opinion, Peter Ladner will make a better mayor.

If he can get past this infuriating dirty piece of business.

From David Beers, Editor, The Tyee.ca

Hi David

Great post, with the usual take no prisoners Berner thrust.

But it's not true no other media have been on this. At The Tyee, for example, I believe I got the ball rolling on this scoop by reporting Ladner's admission that city hall was underwriting a 'struggling' Olympic village:

http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Housing/2008/10/23/VanHomelessnessDebateReport/

and then our reporter Geoff Demibicki followed up with this:

http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Labour-Industry/2008/10/27/endowment-fund-athletes-village/

The Globe's Gary Mason got the (as yet unidentified) source that allowed his editor to go with his piece without a single named source. But city hall has stonewalled all other attempts, I can assure you.

Great Moments in World Leadership

How many times has Silvio Berlusconi been arrested or charged with crimes?

Ten? A dozen?

And like all good comic book characters, he can proudly claim, "Thirty-two arrests, no convictions!"

The fact that he is the richest man in Italy and owns all the newspapers and TV stations, among other things, and that the Italian people keep re-electing him Prime Minister does not speak well for a country many of us love.

Now, he has shown his true "colours."

In Moscow on Thursday, Berlusconi referred to President-Elect Barack Omaba as “young, handsome and suntanned.”

Lovely.

Of course, the man is an idiot, Of course, he is tasteless and crude and inferior.

But why do they keep electing him?

Roy Orbinson

Ladner is Finished

Peter Ladner's bid for the Mayor's chair is finished.

It is over.

Buried irrevocably by the Olympic Village story.

Gregor Robertson and the Vision team will hanmer this story until it loooks like ground round.

Gregor Robertson will win and we will have a new City Council that will rival the outgoing council for "Worst in Living Memory."

I voted for Peter, and his friends and family and NPA die-hards will vote for him and that's it.

Sayonara, auf veiderzein, ciao, baby, ciao.

Ladner will shoulder all the blame for this very, very bad act by a sitting government, but he shouldn't.

Sam Sullivan and Gordon Campbell and the federal government and all the councillors who were there at the scene of the crime should take the blame as well.

If there were any justice in the world, Raymond Louie and Tim Stevenson and Elizabeth Ball and all other Council participants in the October 14th in-camera session that gave away the store to American hedge fund crooks would be gone too.

But they won't be.

Raymond will be re-elected and so will a few other incumbents.

Given what has come to light in the last 48 hours - thanks to Gary Mason, a Globe & Mail national reporter, and not one local scribe - the current Council ought to resign en masse.

A few weeks ago, in a closed meeting, city councillors unanimously agreed to "help" Millennium Development Corp., which is building the Olympic village. The city will lend up to $100 million to Fortress Investment Group, a Wall Street hedge fund manager, which in turn will be lending about $700 million to build the athletes' village on the south shore of False Creek.

Fortress, its stock price now trading at under $4 from its 52-week high of $19.50 -- it dropped 12 per cent Thursday -- has also been given $190 million in loan guarantees from Vancouver taxpayers. Two taxpayer-funded entities -- which like to see themselves as corporations, but are in essence supposed to represent the public interest -- refuse to say how high the financial risk is for taxpayers.

The nearly $300 million in loan guarantees, if fully drawn down and reneged upon, would represent about 30 per cent of the city's annual budget.

The above in italics are taken from Miro Cernetig's column in this morning's Sun.

Nobody at City Hall is willing to utter Word One on this story. Not Ladner, not Louie, not the City Manager, Judy Rogers.

Louie, by the way, is vice-chairman of the city's finance committee.

So let me by absolutely clear about this...and I am confident that I speak for taxpayers and home owners all across the City of Vancouver:

I DO NOT WANT ONE PENNY OF MY MONEY BEING LOANED OR GIVEN TO A WALL STREET HEDGE FUND CRIMINAL!!!

For any spurious purpose, including the Olympics or the Special Olympics or the Western Surrey Regional Fly Fishing Tourney.

To Make matters worse, everyone concerned is dummying up. Won't say a word. Covering the poo in secrecy, claiming the privilege of "being in negotiations."

Yes, but in negotiations with my money and yours.

These fools have hit the absolute Zero Sum base of Irresponsibility.

This morning, as I write this, I am in a hotel room in Whistler.

God willing, I'll get back safely to town this afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon, as I steered through the dodge-em, hodge-podge of the relentless construction on the Sea-to-Sky Boondoggle Highway, I found myself despising Gordon Campbell even more than ever.

Half of Vancouver's roads and city streets are an unholy mess. The transit system is easily the worst in the known world. We have the unremitting, growing problems of addictions, homelessness, wait-times for medical attention and so on into the dark Liberal night.

But millions have been found and allocated for this stupid road - on which there were about 12 people travelling mid-day yesterday - to aid and abet the glory of a two-week event so that Wee Gordie can have his emotional wet dream in public. I can't wait for his teary moments. And when they come, I will count each tear drop at a Million or So Dollars per.

Thus, follows the South East False Olympic Village site.

Thus follows VillageGate.

Thus follows the end of Peter Ladner, the anointing of Gregor Robertson, the beginning of a dreadful new City Council and the indebtedness of Vancouver taxpayers to some creep in New York who's laughing all the way to his several banks.

This the Sucker Play for The Ages.

How I Voted

I voted yesterday.

I will be out of town on November 15th, so I voted at a surprisingly busy Dunbar Community Centre polling station.

Following is the list of people for whom I voted.

In each case, I voted for these people because I know them or know something or two about them that I like.

I did not vote for the terminally cute.

MAYOR

Peter Ladner, NPA

COUNCILLOR

Suzanne Anton, NPA

David Cadman, COPE

Heather Deal, Vision

Michael Geller, NPA

Lea Johnson

Raymond Louie, Vision

Tim Stephenson, Vision

PARK COMMISSIONER

Constance Barnes, Vision

Sarah Blyth, Vision

Richard Mayencourt

Ian Robertson, NPA

Marty Zlotnik, NPA

SCHOOL TRUSTEE

Patti Baccus, Vision

Heather Holden, NPA

Eileen Le Gallais, NPA

Tactic - Nothing More

Robertson drops fare fight, pays up

Gregor Robertson and his team have acknowledged that continuing the story of Gregor Skips His Fare and Kvetches in Court is a real lose-lose proposition.

Will people notice that this was bad decision making and bad karma from start to finish?

Probably not.

The team have correctly understood that they have nine days to go and they do not want FAREGATE staring at them on November 15th.

They are right, for all that they have been wrong.

I May Have to Get My News from Somewher Else

I'm a newspaper guy.

I like to read the local daily in the morning.

It's a habit I developed as kid growing up in Winnipeg reading the Free Press.

As I approach 66, I may soon have to abandon and adjust.

The new look of the Vancouver Sun offends me.

On Tuesday night, Barack Obama was declared President Elect of the Unites States of America.

On Wednesday morning, the lower half of the Sun's front page was unreadable irrelevant opinionation by Barbara Daffy about how Obama's presidency will effect Canada. I guess this is some editorial committee's notion of "news you can use," a phrase I detest.

I don't read the news to "use it."

I read the news to be informed.

This morning, the bottom half of the Sun's front page is an unreadable irrelevant opinionation by religion writer Douglas Todd about how Obama's presidency will effect assisted suicide issues in Canada.

If I want to read messages from the Pope, I'll check into the Vatican News, thank you very much. For all of Todd's writing skill and attempts to be interested in all things religious, he is writing in my opinion always as a Christian. That's not a bad thing. It is simply that I am not interested. I am especially not interest on the front page where I want to learn about what is going on today somewhere in the world.

In short, I may not last much longer with this newspaper.

They want me to read all their blogs. Sorry, got a blog of my own - n0t interested. And they want me to care about their columnists on the front page. No thanks.

Susan Rocks On

Province page 7 - full page ad - November 5th/08

Who paid for this full page ad that is masquerading as a news story - tiny
print at the top of the page....."special information report". Hmmmmm.....
"Focus on the Canada Line" - featuring new businesses along the line.
Certainly not the individual small businesses.

Canada Line? The CVBIA? Real Estate developers? TransLink? City of
Vancouver?
Provincial government?

Fabulous PR. When do the rest of the Small Businesses that have endured
three years of neglect and generic project promoting spin, have our full
page info-mercials in the Province forward news?

No mention of 'Dadeo's' - the last celebrated new business to come in after
Tomato left Dadeo's has been closed for two months now. Along with scores of
others.

I guess it might be a bit awkward to spin how many families have been nearly
bankrupted, and are desperately clinging to what's left of their once
successful businesses. I guess the nice new road is irrelevant when you've
already lost everything.
But hey. Things are so-oo pretty now, what with all the new park benches and
sidewalks. People will forget, right? They will forget how this Provincial
government just wiped out our life savings, and ran us over with their
Olympic train.

Breaking news. There is nothing to celebrate on Cambie until the despicable
way the small businesses have been tricked and treated is rectified with
compensation.

Money seems to be no obstacle for this project - to continue unmitigated, to
spend millions on slick ads to promote itself, and to fight any attempt from
the community for compensation for the loss of all we once had have, both in
and out of court.

Gordon Campbell even recently tossed another $53 million of taxpayer money
to Canada Line when they gambled and lost their operating funds in the
sub-prime mortgage market.
Petty cash for this bunch. But zilch for the families who invested their
lives in this community.
SNC Lavalin has millions in profits for this year - even in this economic
downturn, yet our government props them up, and stubbornly refuses any
operating money for the businesses that they destroyed.

There is no excuse for this abuse of power.

Susan Heyes
HAZEL&CO
Cambie Street
604 687-0721

A Criminal Justice Veteran Speaks Out

Hi David

Thanks for the emails leading me to your blog. I think your position on the requirement to testify is bang on with the exception you are blaming the wrong people. The culprit in this matter is the law thanks to Pierre Trudeau and the wonderful Canadian Charter. The real issue in all of this is do we have two sets of laws one for the community of criminals and another for the police. The Charter guarantees certain rights one of which is a fair trial for all. In the case of the RCMP and the tasering issue there is only one question to be answered and that is "did the RCMP members act within the force options as set out in the RCMP procedures"? That is it. If they did go to the next step and examine the procedures and determine whether or not the use of tasers under certain circumstances is a useful tool for the police. Does it save more lives and injury for the police and suspect or doesn't it?

We have been very careful in this Country to ensure the right to a fair trial takes precedent over all other considerations. Unfortunately, we have a prosecution in this Province that has lost its way. The job of the prosecutor is to present evidence under the rules of law to the court. In the US the prosecutors are not the friend of the defendant or the police the are the enemy and should be. The RCMP should not be compelled to testify at any hearing prior to a decision being made about criminal charges the same right all citizens enjoy.

If the people of Canada are so appalled by the system which we all share why in hell are they not doing something about it. Did you see anything in the last election that placed this issue as a priority for any of the Parties? No.

Unfortunately I must declare myself to be one of the crazies like you that believe our enabling approach to the drug problem is dead wrong. By that I mean dead wrong for the addicts. We both have worked extensively with addicts and know that approaches like needle exchange and safe injections sites lead to more deaths of addicts than the average person can imagine.

I realize most people think the RCMP are trying to cover-up the incident. That is preposterous when you consider it is such a public story. They, in my opinion, are doing what they have to do to protect the rights of four citizens who happen to be members of the RCMP.

Vern Campbell

It Won't be Very Long

President Elect Barack Obama

Joyous. Moving. Transformational.

President Elect Barack Obama's speech last night in Grant Park in Chicago was wonderful.

Earlier, we had the privilege of watching John McCain's most gracious and personal and manly concession speech.

Obama now has an enormously high hill to climb. There is so much to be done to right a ship that is practically aground.

If he does even half of what he has pledged, it will be amazing.

We can only wish him all the good fortune and more that life can bring.

Criminal Justice 1

Refusing to testify is either a law or a new fad in Canada.

Two local and important cases illustrate the point, and the frustration of those citizens watching from the sidelines.

The B.C. Supreme Court has upheld an arbitrator's decision allowing two BC Ferries employees to be suspended without pay for not testifying before an inquiry into the sinking of the Queen of the North ferry.

Their reasons for not answering questions are spurious and self-serving. People died because of someone's negligence, most likely their own. Let us find out, please.

In the shameful case of the taser death of Robert Dziekanski at YVR last year, the judge has now been forced to threaten the RCMP with subpoenas. How ironic and disgusting is that?

The second part of Thomas Braidwood's inquiry -- into the events surrounding the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport -- has twice been delayed because RCMP officers won't testify before they know whether they face any charges in the incident.

A Crown decision on charges has not been made because the RCMP has not provided information requested by prosecutors.

Since when do people get to bargain with the judge about the "pre-conditions" of testimony?

This reads like an old vaudeville routine with Runyanesque criminals refusin' "to testify on da grounds dat it maybe could implicate me, or sumptin' like dat."

And this comes from the RCMP. How happy would they be to see some scofflaw pulling the same nonsense?

The RCMP is quickly embarrassing itself out of a legitimate role in this country.

Criminal Justice 2

The crime is the inclusion of the bogus pseudo-sciences of psychiatry and psychology in our court rooms.

In a local case, man accused of second-degree murder, admits that he stabbed his best friend many times.

In spite of clear evidence that the accused cleaned up himself and the crime scene and behaved like so many guilty people, the shrinks have been brought in by the defense.

They may have convinced the jury that the poor guy - the killer - was really "on autopilot" in a "dissociative state."

I pray that some day soon the alphabet soup people (Ph.D.'s and their brethren) will be placed in a dissociative state. Like Alaska, for example.

These alleged experts are the worst kind of whores.

They peddle their store-bought, regurgitated wisdom as the fountain of truth to the highest bidder, with utter disregard for the consequences.

I am a right wing fundamentalist Christian Suburbanite

I must be, because I do not favor Insite and Harm Section.

According to a Chad Skelton piece in today's Sun "municipal candidates in Vancouver are far more likely to support harm-reduction measures like needle exchanges and supervised injection sites than those in the suburbs, according to an exclusive survey of candidates by The Vancouver Sun.

A whopping 74 per cent of Vancouver candidates surveyed said they agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, "Harm reduction measures like needle exchanges and the supervised injection site are a good idea."

In contrast, just 37 per cent of Metro Vancouver candidates outside Vancouver agreed with the statement."

I was going to vote for Geoff Meggs for City Council, for example. But this article tells me that Meggs strongly supports these disasters. I won't vote or him or anyone else who doesn't see the ruin in these measures.

On the other hand, Jordan Bateman, an incumbent councillor in Langley Township, wrote on his survey that he strongly disagrees with harm-reduction measures.

"I just don't see how you can provide drugs to addicts and expect them to get out of addiction," said Bateman.

But, as we all know, folks like Bateman and me are Neanderthals. We just somehow can't get the prevailing wisdom brought down from the mount by those two Gods of Clear Public Thought, Larry Campbell and Philip Owen.

So what, you may ask, am I doing living in West Point Grey, disguising myself as a left-of-center, liberal-minded modern man?

Just messing with the public perception, I guess.

I can't wait to join all my new friends in Chilliwack.

Bridge Question

Have we had one incident ever in the history of Vancouver of Someone falling out of the walking and cycling sidewalk into traffic?

If we have, I missed it.

Peter Ladner wants a fence. Cost $33 Million.

Gregor Robertson wants lanes given over to bicycles and alternating traffic lanes for cars.

Cost $20 million over 6 months.

The Burrard Bridge is already a nightmare if you are driving a car.

Turning it into the Stanley Park Causeway/Lions Gate with alternating lanes will create the worst bottleneck in the city.

Leave it alone, boys.

Fight another fight.

Try something important.