And they have told every ministry in the government to cut 15% from their spending.
"They" are the minions of Gordon Campbell.
And now we learn the full force of (Or do we? Perhaps much more is to come.) their cuts to health care and medical services.
"The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is planning to shut down nearly one-quarter of its operating rooms and cancel thousands of elective surgeries between Sept. 1 and March 31 in a bid to bridge a $90-million budget gap, NDP health critic Adrian Dix charged yesterday.?
Among the targeted procedures...wait for it...coronary bypasses.
That's right, heart bypasses.
This is "elective" surgery?
Open heart surgery is the same as putting collagen in your lips?
But, wait. This gets better.
Let's make a connection that at first blush seems unlikely, nay, impossible.
"Last month, health authority officials announced plans to save about $600,000 by postponing one-third of scheduled surgeries during the 2010 Olympics and this year's extended two-week spring break.
Likewise, the Fraser Health Authority, facing a $130-million deficit, announced it will “postpone” 2,000 elective surgeries over a four-week period during the Olympics."
Am I understanding this correctly?
We are making medical decisions based on somethingorother about the OlympicGames???
I emphasize the word Games.
A show of some kind is going on downtown so you stop providing health care? Huh?
In the old tradition that "all things are political," we learn as well that "the government ordered health authorities to withhold their 2009-10 service plans until May 13, the day after the provincial election."
Nice.
And yet...and yet...this administration, with its clear and present priorities - Games over Care - this gang was re-elected to office.
Please try to stay awake and pay attention, folks.
It may be you or your mom who needs that coronary bypass during the luge run-offs.
Maybe one of the OR nurses could hold the Flame aloft to shine some light on the matter.
The Excited States of America is in full Gong Show mode.
Night and day people are attending "town hall" meetings and behaving very badly.
The subject appears simple enough.
Close to 50 million U.S. citizens have NO health care coverage. They hover one sneeze away from financial calamity. They lose their homes paying for their child's operation. This is not a fantasy or a fable. It is the ugly reality of Life min the Greatest Snow on Earth.
President Barack Obama is trying, like many presidents before him, to right this ship, to end this inequity. He is trying to get passed into legislation some form of health care reform.
What could possibly be wrong with that?
Apparently almost everything.
Sarah Palin has talked about Obama's "death squads." She is both completely nuts and downright destructive, not to mention being a bald-faced liar.
But Palin has nothing on America's most Evil Bastard, the radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh.
"Shock jock Rush Limbaugh compares the White House's health office logo to a swastika and President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler."
"In what may mark a new low in political discourse, conservatives leaders, including some Republicans, are urging voters to pack town halls to show their displeasure with the Democrats' plan to reform America's broken health care-system. Others are spamming the Internet with distortions and outright lies.
In the process, they may have successfully wrested control of the debate over health care away from the Democrats, turning a narrative about expanding coverage while controlling costs into one about a socialistic undermining of core American values."
You don't have to actually read anything to get the full aroma of this heap.
Turn on CNN right now.
You'll be treated to live coverage of alleged citizens completely out of control, yelling and screaming at public meetings that are supposed to be venues for reasonable discussions about an important matter of public policy. You can follow the frazzled eyes of the constabulary trying to decide whom to shove first.
Let's help our fellow Americans have health care coverage.
Sounds simple enough.
But no.
Let's call anyone who supports this outrageous notion a Hitler.
And the Republican view of Canadian health care is truly hysterical. We are, of course, communists, socialists and murderers.
Did I leave out fornicators?
Obama believes that, in the fall, tempers, along with temperatures, will cool and he will pass his legislation.
When the government holds a small public meeting in the tiny Kootenay village of Kaslo and 1200 very vocal people show up, you know something is afoot.
The something is Campbell's determination to sell off B.C. rivers to private power and buy back those unneeded kilowatt hours.
This 3P fiasco is known as the "run-of-river" issue.
It is but a tiny sliver in the over-all Campbell agenda of turning government resources repeatedly into private free enterprise profit centres.
It is of a piece with BC Rail and toll roads and toll bridges and twinned highways and who knows how many other initiatives and deals are being dreamed and made while we slumber.
Mark Hume has written an excellent column in today's Globe, in which he says, among many other things, "A lot of IPPs are running into opposition in the province. People don't seem to much like the idea of a lot of small rivers being dammed by private developers, who will then sell the power to BC Hydro."
For his efforts, Hume has been called by one commentator that horror of horrors "a disingenuous romantic."
Well, add to the list of disingenuous romantics me and about 100,000 other local citizens who see clearly through the transparency of this agenda and do not like it and will continue to oppose it.
It has always been astonishing to me that a single creature posing as a human being could find the slightest shard of interest in Sarah Palin.
Of course, I always felt that way about George W. Bush and Richard Nixon.
Recently I managed to sit through a few minutes of the real Frost-Nixon interviews. The President simply sat there and lied and lied and lied and it was self-evident that he has a lying crook and a measly s.o.b. and yet millions still revered him.
For me the sight of American citizens waving placards emblazoned "NIXON!" and cheering this creep's name at the Republican convention lay somewhere between a Saturday Night Live sketch and science fiction.
I mention all of this by way of encouraging you to read Timothy Egan's short blog piece in yesterday's NY Times. It's called "Palin's Poison," and its a goodie.
I just learned that England has spent $150 Billion - yes, BILLION - on a "New Deal" for disengaged, disenchanted, disconnected youth over the past 12 years.
Further, that the entire cornucopia of programs has been a complete and utter failure, producing no more employment or education or even clean shirts.
But why should that make me feel so good?
Because it makes our own miserly local failure seem like a benign gift in comparison.
I speak of the Downtown East Side, the infamous smelly DTES, which absorbs $1 Million of your tax dollars every day.
Over 100 social service agencies and $1 Million a day.
Things have improved?
No.
"Things" are self-evidently, noticeably worse.
Oh, yes, there are regular spewings of reports from the various social agencies that thrive down there, claiming successes. And the ever-compliant media, desperate and lazy, publish these fables unquestioned.
But any fool who dares risk life and limb by venturing into "da dark side" sees at a glance the degradation and misery flourishing unabated.
I resent the waste of governments spending my tax money on things that don't work and, worse, things that re-enforce the problem.
Here is some radical surgery.
Just a question now, but consider it.
What if all the grant money for all of the programs in that 4 square block of madness simply stopped?
What if, on the morning of Tuesday, August 11th, the gravy train ground to a halt?
Would anything really change? Would disaster unfold before our eyes?
Probably not.
Life, as it is played out out so dreadfully amongst the drunk and the drug-addicted, would most likely carry on much the same as yesterday.
Oh, yes, the social workers and activists would have to load up their wagons with their magic elixirs and move on to the next unsuspecting territories.
At present I see no real movement on this "file."
Neither his Goodness, the Happy Mayor, nor his Flameness, the Omniscient Premier, have made a single move to improve this disgrace.
Nor will they.
The solutions needed are too bold, too rife with political noise.
Olympics or not, the DTES will continue as is.
The Vampires of Misery will sleep well in their beds. The rest of us will avoid the place like the plague that it is.
Just a reminder that, while the Basi-Virk trial is on a summer break, this critical case has hardly left the public conscience.
Two of our regular links, The Legislature Raids and Bill Tieleman, both of which can be found in the column to the right of this posting, are keeping the flames fanned.
And the Basi-Virk defense commissioned a poll the other day that reported an overwhelming majority of voters want answers from Campbell and Company on the missing e-mails.
Why men in ads are dumb, goofy or completely inept
For years, I have watched these assaults on men, women, families and humankind and squirmed.
In TV ad after TV ad, men, especially fathers, are just straight ahead idiots and losers.
That is a) supposed to be amusing, and b) supposed to appeal to women who as we know control household buying and who apparently are desperate to feel superior - NOT!
The simple fact is this.
If you portrayed women on TV as this stupid this often, there would be riots in the streets.
Fortunately there are many women who are as insulted by these ads as I am. They appreciate that an ad that says that they married a fool is not very salutary to them. Diss my hubby, you're dissing me, Bunky.
On Tuesday morning, shortly after nine, I was driving north on the causeway through Stanley Park.
An ambulance suddenly appeared travelling from the North Shore into town, sirens going, lights flashing.
What did I do?
I did what is required by law, what is common sense and common courtesy. What is the only reasonable thing. What you would do.
I pulled over onto the shoulder, putting on my right turn signal, and I stopped.
In under two seconds, the car behind me began furiously to honk its little horn.
Why do I say "furiously?"
Because I looked in my rear view mirror and saw three people in the car behind me, one of whom was a young woman of about 28 or 30 wildly, madly gesticulating at me with rage.
Her gesticulations translated as something like,
YOU STUPID BASTARD, WHAT ARE YOU PULLING OVER AND STOPPING FOR, THE AMBULANCE IS GOING PAST YOU. THIS IS A FREEWAY.
All of this happened in less than five seconds.
This passenger, this woman, this citizen, this human being is so important, so self-involved, so wound up for her day that someone impeding her progress sends her into The Red Zone in a flash.
How dare an ambulance interfere with her personal movie?
How dare I obey the law and pull over for a moment?
I was a terrible awful person who must be yelled at and called names because she had to pause for a few seconds.
Was she going to a conference on nuclear isotopes?
As George Constanza says in an early Seinfeld episode, "This is supposed to be a society here!"
I am obsessing on this incident, I know.
It speaks to me of the End of Decent Public Behaviour, which of course appears a hundred times a day in a thousand guises, each more offensive than the last.
I shared this little tale with a B.C. Ferries employing in the cafeteria of the boat about half an hour after it happened.
He said these acts of rudeness and indifference and boorishness and total self-interest occur so many times a day on his watch that he couldn't even start to list them.
“I've turned over files to the RCMP and nothing happens,” laments Al Rosen, the forensic accountant. “We just don't have people who are trained in what to look for. We have bad securities acts. We have bad sentencing guidelines. We've had some bad court decisions. We're 80 years behind the U.S. If you're a crook, this is the best place to be.” The above is taken from Margaret Wente's column in this morning's Globe & Mail.
I don't much care what happens to Garth Dabrinsky.
He's a crook and a miserable s.o.b. who made a substantial career yelling at people and trying to tell us he was God's great gift to show business.
A couple of good shows do not make you a saint, boobelah.
What I do continue to care about is the wammy-shammy we call criminal justice here in Canada.
May the appeals fall on their faces and may Garth & Myron spend some real time in jail, which is where people who steal money aught to go for a while.
These considerations arise following today's report that the federal NDP is contemplating a name change, specifically dropping the "New" from their name.
Not only are they considering this nonsense, they are devoting scads of human energy to the prospect.
This is a dreadful diversion from facing the real tasks at hand.
Carole James and Jack Layton cannot lead the Party to the Promised Land.
Good souls they may be. Winning Political Leaders they are not.
The Party has been wandering in ideology and focus for at least the last two decades, if not considerably longer.
Stay on track, People. Keep your eye on the prize. Distinguish yourselves from The Other Guys. You won't Win Votes by trying to win votes. You'll win votes by actually meaning something to Canadians.
A drunk locks his two-year old and four-month old children in a van in this heat - only worse, because this happens in Abbotsford, which is hotter than Vancouver.
He does this so he can go drinking.
What else? He's a drunk.
The children are treated for dehydration, washed and given clean diapers. They are then given to the care of "a family member."
So far, so good.
Maybe.
We don't know who the family member is. We can only hope this is the one sober unit in this fine constellation.
Now, what about The Drunk?
He has been released from custody.
We are told that "the investigation continues," and that "the incident may lead to charges."
You mean the "incident" in which a guy pretty much almost killed his own children except through some miracle someone saved his sorry ass one more time by discovering his children before they died?
I understand that police and prosecutors must have a solid case before they waste the time and money of the courts.
But do the police and the prosecutors and the courts understand the message they convey to the public when they release from custody a sick fool like this?
The message is that children are not really that important.
Locking children in a van during a heat wave is not really such a terrible thing.
The law cannot be run by public relations concerns.
But it cannot ignore what is strongly felt by the community to be its core values.
Toothpaste, automobiles, patriotism...what do they have in common?
They are all "sold" through fear.
Greed, fear and sex are the great balms/bombs that are used and have been used from the beginning of recorded time to promote an encyclopedic range of agendas.
All of your smelly, messy bodily fluids are rushing to emerge into crushing daylight at every possible bad moment! Take our product and be saved the horror of public humiliation.
You are stupid. You have not planned for your slack-jawed, debilitated future. No Matter. Buy our Retirement Plan and you'll be poolside till they cart you.
Unemployment is rising, mortgages are collapsing, money is heading south faster than you can say, "The Head Office is WHERE?" Relax. It's all the fault of the immigrants and foreigners and everybody of Them that cannot be called Us.
Which brings us again to Premier Campbell and the BC Utilities Commission.
In an excellent column this morning, Globe writer Mark Hume makes the murky waters clear.
"Premier Gordon Campbell's government argued independent power projects, or IPPs, were needed to avert an energy crisis in B.C. and fight global warming. The commission's ruling made it clear, however, that there is no energy crisis."
"Had the British Columbia Utilities Commission not intervened, B.C. would have been damming its wild and scenic rivers, not in a noble fight against global warming, but in order to run air conditioners in California."
It is amusing to hear residents of the west side complain about a city council being indifferent to neighbourhood concerns. It was the west side that defeated the opportunity to adopt a ward system. They fell for Sam Sullivan's idiotic contention that wards would make for more expensive government. This economic ignorance is particularly galling when manifested by the upwardly mobile.
If we had councillors elected by neighbourhoods they would be accountable to neighbourhoods. There are dingbats who say that such accountability would result in nimby-driven governments. Nimbyism is a fact of life. We make a reservation at Bishops because we don't want to sit beside a smelly homeless guy. We ask for upgrades when we fly to get away from the steerage conditions of economy. We buy in Point Grey because we wouldn't keep our dog on the east side, let alone live there..
The greatest failing of the current era is that we have allowed the nattering class (media) to convince us that preference equals prejudice. If I deny shelter, employment or due process to somebody on the basis of race, religion or orientation, that's prejudice and it's against the law. If I do that, I deserve to be punished.
If I change seats on a bus because I don't like the appearance, garb, girth or aroma of the person beside me, that's preference. If he/she suspects my action is based on preference, tough luck.
2. FROM ANOTHER HAPPY CITIZEN
In all honesty and sheer frustration (at the fact that I know so many of you good people dealing with this and I have simply been unable to find the time myself this year)...
I believe this 'shoving' a by-law, which effectively causes massive restructuring of our total City, with back door / behind the scenes changes that are not made available to the public, under conditions quite contrary to the expectations of why this council was elected:
I think we should bloody well call for an impeachment! Robertson, et al, be damned! ... Is there some way that citizens can bring into question (mid term) the dealings of a council??... This one is acting (in my pea brained mind) almost to the point of illegality!?!
Further to that, calling into question Mr. Gellar's (flagrant or near??) conflict of interest in advising council both before and now after the election, I would like to have some process taken his way.
And finally, I would like someone to suggest that Mr. Brent Toderian get the royal 'boot'... There is no question that he is driving much of this agenda with absolutely no consideration to the citizens of the City. Somebody fire him and tell him to go back to where he came from (Calgary / Ottawa?), and go ahead and ruin that City instead.
Not that I dislike Kitsilano as a community, but having the whole City look like a carbon copy (and then with even more densification potential) of that area is not what this City should look like. The citizens need to be informed on what this is all coming to. The only real 'print' on the subject that has made it to the mainstream media has been Gellar's inputs on how wonderful it would all be (total conflict of interest, and WHY the media doesn't take that into consideration is just gobsmacking???).
Again, I bring up the freeway model of yesteryear. I think a lot of citizens back then initially didn't really give much thought as to whether it was a good idea or not... For the most part, all other Cities were doing it, so why not us? It took some very visionary opposition to raise the alarm. Unfortunately, this one issue came fast and furious; but, I can't understand why this has to be a done deal and never be able to undone.
Hedges points out two juicy little tidbits in his way to larger issues:
"If they quit, they quit with a golden parachute. Even [General Motors CEO Rick] Wagoner is taking away $21-million.”
and,
"Look at Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld. Many of his investors lost everything and yet he pocketed $485-million. An economic collapse does not mean only the degradation of trade and commerce, food shortages, bankruptcies, and unemployment."
Finally this,
"The free market and globalization, promised as routes to worldwide prosperity, have been exposed as two parts of a con game. But this exposure does not mean our corporate masters will disappear. Totalitarianism, as George Orwell pointed out, is not so much an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia.
“A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial,” Orwell wrote. “That is when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.”
They have engaged in massive fraud. Force is all they have left.
There are powerful corporate entities, fearful of losing their influence and wealth, arrayed against us. They are waiting for a moment to strike, a national crisis that will allow them, in the name of national security and moral renewal, to take complete control. The tools are in place.
These antidemocratic forces, which will seek to make an alliance with the radical Christian Right and other extremists, will use fear, chaos, the hatred for the ruling elites, and the spectre of left-wing dissent and terrorism to impose draconian controls to extinguish our democracy. And while they do it, they will be waving the American flag, chanting patriotic slogans, promising law and order, and clutching the Christian cross.
By then, exhausted and broken, we may have lost the power to resist."
Laneway Housing was passed by the current Vancouver City Council on a quiet summer day when it would receive the least attention.
The process, if such it can be called, was to ignore precedent and previous form and simply follow the Ideology - process which is the hallmark of this ideology-driven gang.
Neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood interaction has been jettisoned.
Below is a quote from one private report, followed by a letter from a Dunbar resident which nicely summarizes the polite thuggery currently in vogue at 12th & Cambie. This last item is an invaluable peek behind the shaggy curtains of Oz.
“At that last meeting, the city planner took pains to tell our group that democracy had no place in our planning process and that consensus was not expected.”
Mayor Robertson and Councillors
City of Vancouver
453 West 12thAvenue
Vancouver, B.C. V5Y 1V4
July 27, 2009
Dear Mayor Robertson and Councillors:
Re:Citizens’ Summit
I would like to provide a personal note regarding my experience with city process since I became a board member of the Dunbar Residents’ Association almost five years ago.
My first appearance at a Council hearing was in response to an application from the Approving Officer Rick Scobie, who was seeking Council approval for his approach to applications for subdivision of what are known as “orphan lots,” lots which are larger than others in the same block.Residents were upset at the Approving Officer’s approach, which was to give automatic approval, and Mr. Scobie’s application was no doubt the result.In the notice of application to Council, Mr. Scobie suggested that, if Council failed to approve his “automatic” approach, it might like to consider instructing him to take into account a range of factors, including neighbourhood concerns.On behalf of the Dunbar Residents’ Association, I joined a number of residents who spoke to Mr. Scobie’s application.Taking into account neighbourhood concerns when the enabling legislation clearly gave the Approving Officer discretion seemed a reasonable position for a representative organization to take, and, in fact, after I and a number of others had spoken, two of the councillors suggested that Mr. Scobie might want to take such concerns into account.
Mr. Scobie then proceeded to tell Council that the Legal Department had advised him that Council had no authority to give him direction in this matter, which effectively ended the discussion, although those of us who had spent hours on this matter had still to sit through then Mayor Sullivan’s commendation of Mr. Scobie’s “wisdom” in dealing with such issues.I am not sure that “wisdom” is the word that I would have used.None of the residents there appreciated having had his or her time wasted:if Council had no power to direct Mr. Scobie to act other than as he chose, Council’s approval was meaningless and residents’ arguments were irrelevant.
The next major city planning initiative was EcoDensity.Neighbourhood representatives were invited to presentations and meetings; we made submissions and arranged for planning staff to speak to residents.Our Association’s concerns were with the failure to appreciate that our Vision Plan made provision for higher density, which had yet to be exploited; the lack of provision that was being made for the social and environmental impact of higher density; and the failure to value the green space captured in single family residence areas.The clear and emphatic message that the City conveyed was that single unit housing was environmentally unsustainable
In the meantime, the Dunbar Vision Implementation Committee had been resurrected, and I joined in the hope that a city-sponsored committee might be more amenable to the views of residents.The DVIC’s first presentation, on a development at 39th and Dunbar which, the Committee argued, exceeded the parameters set out in the Vision Plan, was completely ignored: the development was unanimously approved by Council.
Since then, the planning department has undertaken a review of the Vision Committees, a review that has absorbed scarce planning resources and lent poignancy to the Director of Planning’s admonition to Council at last Tuesday evening’s Council hearing that Council’s requests for monitoring could not be met due to scarce staff resources:who is setting the agenda here?
More recently, Council has held a hearing to consider the Director of Planning’s recommendation that single family residence areas be rezoned to allow laneway housing on lots 33’ and over, and I have felt as if I have wandered into an Orwellian universe.How did blanketing the city with more single-unit housing become an EcoDensity initiative?What on earth had I been doing spending my time considering seriously the arguments that had been made by the planning department in support of EcoDensity?Yet again I had been a pawn in a manipulative process intended simply to justify a predetermined result.Arguments made in good faith are rendered meaningless, the ground shifts, hearings are scheduled mid-summer, and residents are ambushed by sudden changes to what was initially proposed.
This Council was supposed to be different.Prior to the last election, the Dunbar Residents’ Association published on our Mailing List the results of a survey taken by the city-wide coalition that became Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver.The survey identified those candidates for Council who favoured neighbourhood input in planning decisions.Our response to criticism that we had abandoned an apolitical stance was that we felt that neighbourhood consultation was not a matter of ideological leaning, but fundamental to the participation of residents of all political perspectives in the development of their communities.
Ironically, the only example of true community consultation that I have experienced was at the insistence of an outside agency.Thanks to the support of Darrell Burnham, Executive Director of Coast Mental Health Foundation, the service provider for the facility at 16th and Dunbar, the Dunbar Residents’ Association was able to facilitate the meeting of Dunbar residents with representatives of the city, B.C. Housing and others to form a joint community advisory committee which aims to allay neighbours’ concerns about the new supportive housing and make its future residents more comfortable in their neighbourhood.
I hope that you will listen attentively to those who have had to deal with the city in the past few years.Norquay woke to find that the Neighbourhood Centre Program, which residents thought would undertake the needed revitalization of a commercial area, planned the mass rezoning of 2400 single family residences as a stated example of EcoDensity almost a year before the EcoDensity proposal came before Council. In a neighbourhood reeling from rapid change, the Riley Park South Cambie Vision Committee, which has a history of resident participation, appears to have been cut out of planning along the Cambie Corridor in favour of “advisory groups to provide advice at appropriate stages,” a phrase that suggests carefully managed rather than honestly sought, neighbourhood input. Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver has continued to make submissions that are thoughtful and balanced and deserve to be taken into account.
In fact, the only positive impression that I will carry away from my experiences will be residents’ deep commitment to and profound understanding of their neighbourhoods.Their goodwill and willingness to give of their time and energy are impressive.When allowed, they have made valuable contributions.My experience at the city level, however, is that residents are, at best, given information by pleasantly helpful planning staff and the opportunity to vent, while, at worst, made the subject of dishonest manipulation. Top-down planning prevails.
I appreciate that you have provided residents with an opportunity to make submissions.My experience with this and previous councils is that they will not be heard.The process lacks integrity, being a matter of form without substance, squandering the community’s resources in an unsustainable drive for further development.
Here, in full, is the Globe piece of the latest triumph of Susan Heyes.
"Transit authorities have been ordered to cough up $600,000 now to merchant Susan Heyes, who was awarded that amount in damages for business losses caused by construction of the Canada Line outside her store on Cambie Street. The authorities had asked the B.C. Court of Appeal to stay payment of the award, pending their appeal of the B.C. Supreme Court judgment in Ms. Heyes's favour.
But Mr. Justice Edward Chiasson ruled yesterday that it would be unjust to deprive Ms. Heyes of the money while the appeal winds on. After the decision, the small-business owner, who has waged a tireless campaign for compensation, broke down in tears. "Tears of relief," she explained afterward."
How many other ways and times will this corrupt gang try to steal from this courageous woman?
The Vision-less Council is approving "laneway housing" across the board for all of Vancouver, a clear violation of the process of neighbourhood involvements that have been in place for decades.
This is typical of a naive, agenda-driven council with answers to complex problems drawn from the nearest Simpleton Box.
Following is a little taste of the issue to be added to in more detail in the coming days.
Then, a comment from local lawyer and former council member, Jonathan Baker:
"Laneway Housing is a bad idea whose time has come.
This scheme is driven by and for developers under the false pretense that it is green, inconspicuous and cheap. The phrase "laneway housing" is 'developer speak' redolent of hobbits and country shires. Hobbitville is not what it will be produced. Every new house will have a second house in the backyard. Off street parking will be at the expense of landscaping and trees. Streets will be jammed with parked cars. They will not be able to restrict occupancy to families, students or rental. Developers will whine to the next council that their profits are insufficient to meet their goals. This will inevitably give rise to subdivided lots. This idea was concocted by NPA politicians who, thanks to the voters are no longer among the politically living. It is after all the least green form of development because it uses the most land as opposed to apartment buildings. At least that is what the eco-density policy proclaimed.
By this mass rezoning, Council has repudiated the policy of neighborhood planning put in place in the late sixties."
But in the horrible case of a young girl being forced off a bus and then sexually assaulted by some Pig Person, a reasonable question can be and should be asked.
What is a 13-year old of any gender doing on a number 20 bus at 2:30 in the morning?
Maybe there is a reasonable answer.
Maybe this child had a job of some kind to help pay the family bills. Maybe the job ended at 2 a.m.
Maybe the family, if there is one, needs some serious self-examination about rules and regs and family dynamics.
Maybe I'm full of self-righteous hot air.
Maybe you had exactly the same very natural reaction to this nightmare.
The Coast Mountainn bus people have said that their drivers would normally question a young person or toddler getting on the bus very late at night.
Look.
If Evil Bastards want to do something terrible, they will no matter the good intentions of Real Citizens.
However...this might be a wake-up call for the bus drivers to be required, at the very least, to keep youngsters who board alone late at night, clearly nearby and in sight, to the degree that they can.
