Today City Council is voting on how much social housing is going to be cut from the Olympic Village when it goes on the market. The original plan was for 250 units of below market rentals. The City wants to cut that in half and offer market rates to essential service employees like police officers and firefighters. Market rate for those units runs in the $2000 range.
It never ceases to amaze me how governments—any government—is willing to break a contract with its people but not a corporation.
What really ticks me off about all this cost cutting is that we’re already running a bloody deficit, why not run deficits, take care of our people and dig ourselves out as we go along instead of digging ourselves in a hole we’ll never get out of.
The Premier is proposing a casino directly across the water from the Olympic Village. Who is that supposed to serve? People that don’t live here.
Sure, there will be some minimum wage jobs thrown in for good measure—you can sure as hell bet the place won’t be unionized—but are those the jobs we want to be bringing to our city? Shouldn’t we be nurturing and inviting a population of smart people? Let’s face it, when we run out of water, food and energy, a blackjack dealer isn’t going to cut it.
To add insult to injury, the Premier is trying to shove a casino down our throats right after he cut gaming funds that support sports and the arts.
Cuts, cuts, cuts…we always hear about cuts to people with disabilities, schools and the arts. Meanwhile we’re paying rich MLAs $300,000 a year to tell us we have to learn to do with less between political fundraisers and photo opportunities. I thought these people were civil servants.
The bottom line is the City and the Province owes us. It’s not our fault they didn’t budget accordingly. It’s our money they gambled with. If the population of Vancouver were China the Premier and the Mayor wouldn’t be over there pulling their pockets out of their pants like Charlie Chaplin saying, “Sorry, we just can’t pay.” No, they run a deficit until they can pay them back.
If Vancouverites and British Columbians at large treated the government like a cashier at Walmart, things would run much smoother around here.
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