Official Bilingualism Charade Travels to Vancouver

Good Grief! MPs worry Olympics will be lost in translation

Gauthier acknowledged things got off to a shaky start following a ceremony marking the one-year countdown to the Games that was criticized because of a lack of French.

"There were some francophone activities that evening but not enough and effectively it has allowed us to increase our monitoring to ensure that it doesn't happen again," Gauthier said after his appearance at the official languages committee of the House of Commons.

MPs from the Liberals, the Bloc Québécois and the New Democrats expressed concerns about whether tourism information, signs and billboards in the city and broadcasting would be offered to francophones in town for the events.

Vancouver is an English city. These directives are from Quebec, which is an officially unilingual French province 3500 km away.

Hat tip: Strack Attack, who adds: Open the wallet and spend a few million to fix this emergency!

Shell Casings and Corpses

The title of a new horror movie? Nope. What British newspaper The Independent describes is littering the streets of Vancouver. From heaven to hell: 18 die as drugs war rages on streets of Vancouver

Once upon a very recent time, Vancouver had a clean, safe image. Nestled between a spectacular bay and snow-capped mountains, this Canadian city, which is twice the size of Birmingham, was described by The Economist as the most liveable in the world. Not any more. As it prepares to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, what it's got now is not cuddly, eco-friendly publicity, but blood-spattered streets littered with shell casings and corpses.

Vancouver is the battlefield in a war between myriad drug gangs, which include Hell's Angels, Big Circle Boys, United Nations, Red Scorpions, Independent Soldiers and the 14K Triad. Guns – often machineguns – are fired almost daily. "We've always been told by media experts to never admit that there is a gang war," the chief of police, Jim Chu, said last month. "Let's get serious. There is a gang war and it's brutal." Vancouver's Mayor, Gregor Robertson, confessed that the police are fighting a losing battle. Since mid-January, the city has recorded 50 gang-related shootings, 18 of them fatal. And the violence is not confined to seedy neighbourhoods. The cross-fire is happening in quiet, residential cul-de-sacs and the car parks of up-scale shopping centres. It's a suburban civil war.

(...)

In the long run, many British Columbians, on both left and right, accept that legalisation and regulation are the answer. Just the sales tax on C$7bn of drugs would pay for several hospitals and schools, policing costs could be reduced, property crime by addicts to pay for their drug habits would be slashed, and the gang wars could be quickly reined in. "But the international politics are unbelievable," said Dr Rob Gordon, director of Simon Fraser's school of criminology. "The DEA [US Drug Enforcement Administration] starts to foam at the mouth at the idea of there being a huge, legal marijuana farm just north of the border. Under George Bush, the concensus was that if Canada ever moved to exercise its economic sovereignty, they would shut the border down by searching every vehicle."

It's definitely getting that Chicago in the 1920's feel to it these days.

BC Premier Gordon Campbell is upset at the criticism.

"It's a shame that you have got some people that are going to try and take some cheap shots," Mr. Campbell told reporters following a speech.

"[People] will come here. They will discover not just Vancouver, but all of British Columbia. They will discover Canada, and the Asia Pacific, and I think they will be excited. It will be a great Olympics and I am sure The Independent will write the great stories when the time comes."

Wealthy House Flippers

From the Globe and Mail: Vancouver remains Canada's wealthiest city

Vancouver is still Canada's wealthiest city despite a huge drop in real estate values, according to a new study by Pitney Bowes.

Although house prices in Vancouver fell an average of 11 per cent in 2008, or nearly $57,000, the city's average household net worth was $592,851, still $30,000 greater than in its nearest rival, Toronto. Cities with high real estate values were ranked highest in the study, despite also having the most debt.

Without a huge corporate sector like Toronto, Vancouver's wealth is still built on real estate. I was hoping that bubble would deflate a little more.

Utopian Project Doomed from the Beginning

Call me negative, call me a cynic but this new development on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is going to fail. The Globe and Mail interviews the architect and it doesn't take long to see the failings.

There is a gargantuan new residential and commercial development on the site of the old Woodward's building in Canada's most troubled postal code, Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The project is an exciting attempt to, in a single stroke, remake a depressed community. As it happens, for the past three years, the project has been going up just down the street from my office, and as it's climbed above the Gastown skyline, its ambitions have intrigued and inspired me.

Of the development's 536 suites, about 40 per cent are going to non-market housing, which means the place will be an admixture of the advantaged, less advantaged, students (the property will house Simon Fraser University's new Centre for the Contemporary Arts), shoppers and workers (at the drug and grocery stores, non-profits and other retail units).

Translation, almost half the building will be social housing. Do they really think this will be positive in the long term? Would you pay money to live in a building that's half social housing and knowing the crime and lower quality of life that comes with that?

The architect has lofty goals:

The future is in hybrid projects - where market, rental and affordable housing get merged into the normal fabric of our city. I think that if we embrace the philosophy, in one generation we could end the homelessness and affordability problem. We're such a wealthy country, the fact that we can't deal with this important issue just seems silly.

Again, I hate to be a cynic, but I'm willing to bet money that this will be a bust within 10 years. When people aren't paying to live in a place, they don't treat it well. Imagine if you've invested money to live in a condo and in the lobby there's surly young men, and grafitti? You would be begging to sell and nobody will be buying.

Kandahar on English Bay

I was chatting with a few people last night about all the gangland shootings in Vancouver, meanwhile outside the guns were blazing:

Vancouver — Gunfire across Metro Vancouver Tuesday night has left two dead, two injured and one home riddled with bullets following four separate incidents stretching from Vancouver to Burnaby and Surrey.

(...)

The incident comes as Greater Vancouver has recorded almost two dozen shootings in recent weeks, nine of them fatal, ...

Does anybody know where I can pick up a flack jacket on the cheap?

UPDATE: The Toronto Star reports that the violence in Vancouver is a spill over from the Mexican Drug Wars.

Almost all cocaine in Canada comes via Mexico, the hub for South American producers. Canadian-based organized crime groups buy the drug either directly from the cartels in Mexico, or from middlemen in Los Angeles and other American cities.

When the supply of cocaine is hampered by crackdowns and the price goes up, says Fogarty, competition for the remaining kilos gets tense in Canada. The bigger players with good links to the south prevail, leaving the smaller ones scrambling.

"People are running around trying to find other sources of cocaine. The price goes up and the guns come out," said Fogarty.

UPDATE II: CBC

The shooting followed the arrest of several people over the weekend with links to the Lower Mainland's notorious UN gang, which police allege is engaged in a violent tuff war with rival gangs for control of the region's illegal drug trade.

Drug War Front: Vancouver

There are plenty of jokes about hippy Vancouver pot heads, but the reality is that drugs are big business over here. BC Bud sells in large quantities down in the US. Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who has a grow op. As always, when illegal smuggling is highly profitable, people end up getting killed. It's not quite as bad as Mexico, YET.

The rash of violence in the Vancouver area, which has had 12 shootings in 16 days, is a result of "disorganized" and "reckless" gangs that have exploded in the province over the last decade, says a criminology professor.

Prof. Darryl Plecas of the University of the Fraser Valley said the number of gangs in B.C. has grown from about a dozen ten years ago to more than 100 today, a growth fuelled in part by an expanding drug trade.

This summer, I came home from work and my street was cordoned off, cops were everywhere, including in the sky in helicopters. It turns out somebody was gunned down 25 meters from where I live. A gangland "hit". Seeing the alley behind my apartment on the television news was surreal. Another time a body was found in the trunk of a car parked right outside my living room window. Cops even came to my door to ask if I had seen anything suspicious.

Once Again Throwing Money at the Problem Doesn't Help

On Saturday I posted Downtown Eastside Blues. $1.4 Billion has been spent in Vancouver's Downtwon Eastside to improve the situation but it has gotten worse. As I said:

Every city election they promise more money to curb homelessness. More shelters, affordable housing, drug treatment facilities. And it always gets worse. homelessness goes up, property crime goes up.

I should have mentioned that it gets mentioned in every provincial election too. With the election coming up in the spring, the BC Liberals announced in their throne speech today:

With less than a year before the 2010 Winter Olympics bring the international spotlight to Vancouver, the government set out a new commitment in the Speech from the Throne to combat poverty, drug addiction and mental-health issues in the country's most impoverished neighbourhood, the Downtown Eastside.

The speech, read by Lieutenant-Governor Steven Point, promised a new integrated, personalized homelessness intervention strategy and a new community safety strategy – initiatives that will be combined with expanded social housing.

Asked later for details, Mr. Campbell said the plan is not exactly new but will expand on existing programs like Victoria's Assertive Community Treatment teams that help find housing for the hardest-to-house.

They never learn. Or they do learn, and realize this plan won't work but cynically want to appear 'hopeful" and "positive" for the election.

The economy is in turmoil, let's stop wasting money. The old saying: "You can't help people who won't help themselves."

Downtown Eastside Blues

Back in the late 80's PJ O'Rourke toured some expensively built social housing complexes, in the Bronx and Newark, NJ. They were filthy and depressing. The neighbourhoods were full of gangs, criminals and drug addicts. The welfare systems, started up by Lyndon Johnson in the 60's were not alleviating poverty as designed, but making it worse. He wrote of the interesting paradox:

You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.

I had this in mind while reading this long article that tables some of the huge expenses that have been poured into Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Slum. Since 2000, the Globe tallies it at $1.4 billion. And the place is still horrible:

An open-air drug market still thrives five minutes from a police station. The bathrooms of decrepit hotels still serve as shooting galleries for addicts. Prostitutes still offer their bodies from the curbside. Drug pushers still prey on the mentally diminished, multiplying the misery.

Every city election they promise more money to curb homelessness. More shelters, affordable housing, drug treatment facilities. And it always gets worse. Homelessness goes up, property crime goes up.

Obviously, they need some new thinking. Perhaps re-opening some space in mental institutions, and starting welfare to work programs. Many people down there have long rap sheets, so perhaps longer sentences for repeat offenders. Tougher anti-panhandling and vagrancy laws. More cops.

My wife and I have visited San Francisco many times, since we've lived on the west coast. In the early 2000's Mayor Brown loosened up welfare requirements, and eliminated tough anti-panhandling laws. Within two years the place had gone to hell. The last time we were there, 2005, you couldn't walk anywhere without aggressive, rough looking people asking for money.

Being nice, and spending the big bucks worsen, rather than alleviate the problem. We need a Guiliani type to come in and do the tough but necessasary work.

Military Surge in Vancouver?

You heard that right. There's going to be a large military contingent for security during the Olympics. Having the Olympics in the post 9-11 world is a real pain. (read)

VANCOUVER — With frigates in the harbour and jets zooming overhead next month during the first active Olympic security exercise, residents here will not need a reminder that Canada's hard-pressed military will play a major role in one of the largest peacetime security operations in the country's history.

An estimated 4,000 members of the armed forces will be seconded to Olympic duties in 2010 – far more than the 2,500 to 2,800 military personnel currently deployed in Afghanistan.

(...)

Two frigates and three maritime coastal defence vessels, some aircraft and a light contingent of troops will participate from the military, sources indicated.

I'm not a defense expert by why do we need five ships, including two firepower heavy frigates? To counter German U-Boats?

Looks like a PR excercise. I hope to get some pictures of the frigates.

Vancouver 2010: Big Owe Revisited

Looks like the yet to be completed Olympic Village Complex is becoming a colossal disaster. (read)

The city is now asking the province for special permission to borrow money in order to finance the remaining $458-million needed to finish construction on the 1,100-unit village by the end of October.

Mr. Andrews dealt mainly with the project's compliance with city planning, design and environmental guidelines, as opposed to overseeing its finances.

Also Thursday, Mayor Robertson revealed in a letter that the city of Vancouver is racking up $87,000 per day in interest costs to bridge the financing for the Olympic Village project.

It took 30 years for Montreal to pay off Olympic Stadium and now it looks like Vancouver is already on the hook. At least Montreal had the more prestigious Summer Games. Did such major metropolitan areas like Lake Placid, Albertville, Lillehammer and Nagano have to pay so much for the Winter Olympics?

Cancel the Bar-B Mate!

We're not used to this kind of weather in Vancouver. My barbeque sits idle.

It's getting difficult to cope.

The arctic front that has the whole of British Columbia in its grip has caused road chaos, left thousands without power and is especially tough on the homeless.

Inflation

These four items cost me $15.16. I asked the cashier if she made a mistake. She showed me the receipt, and nothing was accidently added. Vancouver is expensive, and so is my downtown grocery store, but really. (That's No-Name flaked tuna by the way. And the small sized Parmesan.)

Countdown to the Olympics

Free heroin!

"It was quite delicious," said Greg Liang, a trial participant who was tracked down by The Globe and Mail's Jane Armstrong. Some of the addicts, he said, competed to see how much they could consume. "They were heroin pigs."

I'm sorry about the eight hour wait at the hospital while you're bleeding to death. We have important spending priorities here in BC.

2010 Olympic Delusions

The Olympics are coming in 2010. I for one, think it’s going to be a waste of time. Right from the outset, the idea was flawed. You’re going to bring people from around the world to Vancouver for two weeks in February. Ummm…. it constantly rains in February! It’s not a Winter Wonderland. People talk about a real estate spike after the Olympics. What folly. It’s no way to advertise Vancouver to outsiders in February. The black clouds hide the view of the mountains, the sea is a baleful grey. Have fun standing in the rain for two hours waiting for your taxi. (Did I mention we have a gigantic taxi shortage?) Oh boy!

I hate to seem mean spirited about this but they haven’t thought things through.

And of course, there are Vancouver’s social problems. Vancouver’s Professional Protestors ™ never ending outrage continues (here)

"Project Civil City" criminalizes the poor and restricts free movement of citizens through red zoning and ticketing, disrupting the basic survival methods of the most vulnerable, such as street-vending, dumpster diving and pan handling. It attempts even to restrict people from building basic structures over their heads to protect themselves from the elements. For these reasons we see Project Civil City as the hate crime that it is. Project Civil City is not a program to decrease homelessness and end poverty, it is a systematic plan to socially cleanse Vancouver and remove all visibility of the homeless for the 2010 Olympic games.

They are calling it a “hate crime.” I looked into Project Civil City and it’s a “Broken Windows” type program. For example, they want constant street and alleyway cleaning in certain areas littered with needles, garbage, glass and (shudder) human waste. (As the theory goes, if you let an area go derelict, you attract derelict behavior.) One basic proposal is to lock down garbage dumpsters. The dumpster divers root through them in search of deposit cans and bottles. The result is piles garbage strewing the street in the aftermath. It’s not an insane proposal. Most private dumpsters, including the one for my building are fenced off or locked. The building manager gets tired of sweeping up and throwing stuff back in the bin. But this group, The Anti-Poverty Committee, call it a Hate Crime because dumpster-diving is considered a livelihood.

Is it such a bad thing to try to do something? I’ve been here for 12 years and every person running for office and every editorial writer proclaim the solution is more shelters, more social housing. Money is poured in. And the homeless statistics still go up. So they propose more of the same. Round and round it goes. The terrible secret, like Field of Dreams, is that you build it and they will come. Would you rather live on the street in Saskatoon during the winter, or Vancouver where it very rarely goes below freezing? Buying a bus ticket is a lot more attractive if you know you going to be welcomed and taken care of when you get there.

Once again, I probably come off as being mean spirited. It is a tragedy for people. There are addictions and mental illness. Nobody wants to grow up and be a bum on the streets. But something has to be done besides “providing more shelters and social housing.”

The situation is bad. Just a few days ago I was paying at the gas station when the cashier stopped a homeless man from shoplifting. The guy went crazy, screamed profanities, challenged him to a fight outside. Does the guy making minimum wage need that? What about him? I live downtown, I see this kind of thing in shops all the time. I see/hear crystal meth addicts screaming every day. Once I got a memo at work, that warned employees that if you’re using the back entrance to the building in the loading dock, watch out for discarded needles.

It’s not a pretty picture. It won’t be for granny Sorensen visiting from Sweden during the Olympics either. Maybe if it rains enough, she’ll stay in her hotel.

Those Wacky Inukshuks

The image on the left is one of Vancouver's more noted landmarks. It's the representation of stone monuments that the Inuits built in the arctic. It's called an inukshuk. There's a craze/fetish for these things and Vancouver used it on their official logo for the 2010 Olympics.

Not to be cynical or a snob, but Europeans were building St. Peter's 400 years ago and native cultures of North America were piling up some rocks that look like a wobbly stickman. The inukshuk is cool in a way, but why do we glorify it? Is it not a wee bit embarrassing?

In related news, International Olympic Committee Chairman Dick Pound was quoted recently:

“We must not forget that 400 years ago, Canada was a land of savages, with scarcely 10,000 inhabitants of European origin, while in China, we’re talking about a 5,000-year-old civilization.” (Story)

A poor choice of words that have people up in arms. He's been called a racist and the IOC has been petitioned to sanction him. This gave Margaret Wente an idea for a column, and now she's getting the same heat at the Globe and Mail.

North American native peoples had a neolithic culture based on subsistence living and small kinship groups. They had not developed broader laws or institutions, a written language, evidence-based science, mathematics or advanced technologies. The kinship groups in which they lived were very small, simply organized and not very productive. Other kinship groups were regarded as enemies, and the homicide rate was probably rather high. Until about 30 years ago, the anthropological term for this developmental stage was “savagery.” (see full column)

What do you think? Were native cultures of the 1600's as advanced as European or Chinese?