Posts from — November 2010

Metro Vancouver municipalities have undertaken a comprehensive review of how they bargain with their unions, a move that could trigger a complete overhaul of a system most large municipalities have rejected.

Veteran arbitrator and mediator Jim Dorsey has been tasked with the review by the Greater Vancouver Labour Relations Bureau. I explored the issue in this column for the Nov. 16 – 22 issue of Business in Vancouver: [Read more →]

Here, for those interested in the difficult road the Vision council has been forced to travel to unravel the Olympic Village problems left by Sam Sullivan’s NPA, is the petition filed in court yesterday by the City of Vancouver.

It includes a useful and detailed summary of the events that brought us here.

With its last five-year, $1.4 billion capital plan completed in time for the Olympics, YVR is at work planning another round of capital spending, airport CEO Larry Berg told council yesterday, to include upgrades to runways, sewers and dykes.

Despite these plans, the $15 airport improvement fee imbedded in the price of each ticket is not scheduled to rise, he said.

Instead YVR is striving to maximize the benefit of “approved destination status” from China, which opens the door at last to large-scale tourism from that country. Also in the works: pleas to Ottawa to allow direct flights to Taiwan and more connections to Chinese cargo airlines.

The main visual change will undoubtedly be planned commercial development on Russ Baker Way, south of the airport, around the lonely Seas Island and Templeton Canada Line stations to the east of YVR, and even on the lands along the north arm of the Fraser north of the main runways.

Will these plans be aligned with Metro Vancouver’s Regional Growth Strategy? “Metro would be aware of them,” Berg said, choosing his words carefully.

(Vancouver has a seat on the YVR board which is currently held by former mayor Phillip Owen.)

The proclamation Mayor Gregor Robertson has scheduled to declare tomorrow, Nov. 12, as “Will to Intervene Day” in Vancouver is a modest but important contribution to Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire’s continuing quest to create a more peaceful world.

Dallaire, in Vancouver to promote his latest book on child soldiers, is asking Canadians to begin a debate on when and how Canada should intervene to prevent genocide, something we failed to do in Rwanda or the Balkans.

Still haunted by his inability to halt the death of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, Dallaire has embarked on a lengthy study, in partnership with Dr. Frank Chalk of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, to determine when and how countries like Canada can prepare to prevent another such episode. (The study is directed by a blue ribbon team, with an advisory group that includes Ed Broadbent, Michael Ignatieff and Hugh Segal.)

The conclusion, not surprisingly, is that intervention requires political will, supported by an informed electorate, and delivered by appropriately trained and equipped armed forces . While force is always a last resort, Dallaire refuses to preclude its use.

Dallaire hopes to build that “will to intervene” by provoking a grassroots debate.

How should Canada prepare itself for future challenges focused on “peacemaking,” as opposed to “peacekeeping,” as in places like Cyprus, or straightforward warmaking, as in Afghanistan?

[Read more →]