A new category this year is laneway housing. Eighty have been issued permits, 17 in the last month alone.  Total value of that construction is $7.7 million.

To put that in perspective, a small latte at the Georgia and Granville Starbucks was priced today at $3.05. Anyone here tried to get by recently on $6 a day? 

That’s the lot of millions of Chinese workers. Increasingly, however, they are winning raises, very large raises.

That’s good news. Their lives will improve. China’s economy will become more consumer, rather than export-oriented. Downward pressure on wages globally will ease. But how many consumers can one planet support?

Really?

A concerned parent who leads off the Global report still seems to have a little cash in his jeans.

Worried by the “issue of erosion of quality education,” he is considering moving his children to private school. After all, he says, “it’s always going to be a case of haves versus have-nots,” implying that the “haves”  take care of themselves, one way or the other.

In fact, there is some evidence that empty classrooms in east Vancouver are the result of better-off parents migrating west to better-off schools, where even wealthier parents have shifted their children to private schools, which also receive a significant chunk of public funding.

As Vision Vancouver school board chair Patti Bacchus makes clear, the problem facing VSB is Victoria’s determination to pile on more costs — all-day kindergarten, pre-school programs and rising labour costs — without providing sufficient resources. The new programs are positive, but they can’t be funded for free.

Bacchus is so angry at Education Minister Margaret McDiarmid’s refusal to acknowledge this reality that she’s suggested McDiarmid should resign.

It is McDiarmid’s government, after all, that has created two new taxes in the last two years — the carbon tax and the Harmonized Sales Tax — both of which are revenue neutral or worse, while adding new and costly burdens to school boards.

Nor is the Canadian Taxpayers Federation reflecting reality with its claims that taxes in this province are onerous or akin to theft.

As this recent KPMG report has demonstrated, Canada is one of the cheapest places in the world to invest and Vancouver one of the cheapest places in Canada. Among the strong points in Canada’s performance: “Canada ranks first in education attainment and high school science scores.” But for how long?

A Vancouver Sun editorial on the report hailed the news that Canada’s corporate tax rates were the lowest in the developed world, but sneered at Liberal Party economic policy makers who propose to end the Conservatives’ endless round of corporate tax cuts, comparing the Liberals to members of the NDP’s long-dead left nationalist Waffle faction.

But this Waffle contagion has spread to unexpected places. Another report last week found 60 percent of Canada’s CEOs favour tax increases to balance the books in the wake of the recession. Would they object if some of the cash found its way to public education, a pillar of our economic competitiveness?

BC’s “haves” have won the race to create the best investment climate in the world by a large margin. Will there be any share of the winnings for the “have nots?”

In late January, the BC Federation of Labour issued a bulletin to its affiliates that symbolized one of the great missed legacies of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Far from a political broadside, it set out the procedures agreed with VANOC to ensure union representatives had access to members working in Olympic venues during the Games.
But in the eyes of BC Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair, the bulletin was an absolutely minimal achievement compared to the potential the Games had offered to change the bad dynamic of BC labour relations.
“A great opportunity was lost,” he said on the eve of the Games, “not only to form a partnership, which was unfortunate, but to engage BC workers more in building venues, staffing them and providing a huge amount of added value.”
Although some unions were critical of the Games, the federation passed a motion in support of the bid in late 2002 after a heated convention debate.
“Our position was not to oppose the Games,” Sinclair says, “but to make sure workers did not pay twice, once with taxes and a second time with job loss.”
At the same time, the federation began quiet discussions with VANOC about formal co-operation on a wide range of issues important to both sides.
Labour was building on efforts begun by the BC and Yukon Building Trades Council that were inspired by a formal partnership between Sydney’s regional government, the local organizing committee and Australia’s very militant unions during the 2002 Summer Olympic Games.
Wayne Peppard, the council’s executive director, had a vision for a “collaborative Games” that would produce legacies of excellence in workplace safety, jobs training, and minimum standards for contract workers, while mobilizing the workforce to deliver on time, on budget and at the best possible quality.
The philosophy was completely consistent with VANOC’s commitments to establish new standards of environmental and social sustainability.
It was a tough sell to other union leaders at a time when the BC Liberals were rolling back labour standards and even contracts.
But the fatal opposition came from Victoria.
Labour cynics were vindicated when a draft memorandum of understanding between VANOC and the federation was quietly deep-sixed by VANOC, on Victoria’s orders, in the months leading up to the 2005 election.
Nor did the Building Trades secure a single positive response to their overtures, despite their close ties to VANOC chair Jack Poole, who had long headed Concert Properties, itself controlled by union pension funds.
To VANOC’s credit, senior staff picked up the file after the election to maintain informal connections with the federation and key affiliates.
There was much to discuss. Unionized workers are in every workplace vital to Games success: the airport, hospitality, civic and private venues, media, communications, transportation, health care and much more.
Tens of thousands of other unionized workers stood to be impacted, including film industry workers who jobs may go on pause and workers in facilities like Hastings Park Race Track, closed to create a security perimeter.
Ultimately, Sinclair says, almost all the issues were resolved on the ground, noting initiatives like VANOC efforts to ensure displaced track workers found alternate work. The federation’s Occupational Health and Safety Centre even delivered some training programs under contract to VANOC.
But the big prize was thrown away.
When labour offered to help ensure the success of our province’s time in the global spotlight – perhaps opening the door to a new and enduring relationship — Victoria simply turned its back.

March 2-8, 2010

The Cape Pine, anchored in False Creek.

The venerable Cape Pine,a 60-year-old veteran of BC’s fishing industry, dropped anchor in False Creek Thursday directly across from the city’s Live City Yaletown site at David Lam Park.

The Pine, a reminder of the resource and manufacturing industry’s that used to drive BC’s economy, seems out of place in today’s condo-ringed Creek. Built in the United States during the Second World War as a submarine chaser, the vessel was part of the Canadian Fishing Co.’s salmon and herring packing fleet, back in the days when we had a fishing industry.

Today, however, the Pine packs well-heeled tourists, six at a time.

NDP MLA Adrian Dix and Jim Sinclair, BC Federation of Labour president, with locked-out members of UNITE-HERE Local 40, at YVR.

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games have driven home the importance of tourism to the local economy, and you can’t have a strong industry without a capable, motivated workforce.

But that  lesson seems to be been lost on some employers, who have told their workers they will be disposed of after the Games.

YVR food service workers employed by HMS Host — many of them with more than 10 years’ service — are threatened with job loss at the end of the Games as HMS Host tears out a Milestones outlet to make way for a White Spot.

There will be jobs at the White Spot, but HMS Host wants to go non-union. After weeks of talks, 300 workers walked out for 24 hours yesterday, shutting 16 retail outlets.

Wages, although low, are not the issue. The key union concern is employment security.

This morning, however, HMS Host appeared to turn the strike into a lockout. (I attended for the anticipated return-to-work, along with NDP MLA Adrian Dix and Jim Sinclair, president of the BC Federation of Labour.)

Where is YVR in this affair? The long-standing policy  is that no labour dispute has anything to do with the airport authority, a head-in-the-sand approach that feeds labour instability at one of the region’s most critical pieces of infrastructure.

Also picketing at YVR: striking Hertz workers who are members of COPE 378.

January 2010

Translink charging more to drive to work? How dare they?

The downtown business coalition is taking aim at a tripling of the sales tax to 21 percent for paid parking in lots like those downtown and at YVR. (In “drive out the tax” math, that makes the tax increase 200 percent.)

The business groups, including the Downtown Business Improvement Association, the Building Owners’ and Managers’ Association and the Board of Trade, claim parking costs could rise as much as $540 a year ($45 a month) because of “the highest parking taxes in North America.”

Of course, businesses won’t pay the taxes themselves, they’ll pass them on to the drivers. And year after year, Vancouver has some of the cheapest downtown parking in Canada. Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and Edmonton are all more expensive and as for New York and London . . . don’t ask.

It’s all part of the funding package approved by the Translink Council of Mayors in September, after months of debate and consultation, to avert massive cuts to transit services. The $130 million in revenue — in fare increases, property tax increases, gas tax increases and parking sales tax — is what it takes Translink to stand still in the absence of new funding sources from Victoria to pay for a much-needed $4.5 billion, 10-year program of transit investment that won unanimous support from the mayors.

Beleaguered riders are paying their own 11 percent increase April 1, when the price of single-zone fare books will rise to $21 from $19. Farecards are rising too. Property owners take a hit, as well.

But the ‘drive out the tax gang’ is okay with those hikes. Apparently they’re not worried about the people — taxpayers all — who walk, cycle or bus downtown.

Hard as it may be for the downtown businesses to understand, it takes money to pay for improvements in 2009 like these, including the Canada Line, 240 new buses, and a third Seabus, all of which support their bottom line.

So what’s the problem? According to the business coalition’s website, the number of cars in the region is rising faster than the population. We have to put them somewhere! And those Translink execs are overpaid.

Actually, the parking tax problem began in 2007, when then Transport Minister Kevin Falcon gave in to surburban mall owners and businesses to eliminate the parking stall tax, a levy on the free parking provided in the car and sprawl-loving suburbs.

Although the stall tax leveled the playing field for downtown businesses already charging for parking, they sat silent while the stall tax was eliminated. Now those chickens are coming to roost downtown.

What do downtown businesses propose? Nothing, actually. If their campaign is successful, they will force a further increase in fares, gas tax and property tax to pay for Translink to tread water.

In the wake of the Canada Line’s success, it should be obvious where the future lies for business committed to real sustainability: a major investment in public transit and even (gasp) lower transit fares.

Unfortunately, downtown businesses have turned their guns on Translink when that organization that needs courageous leadership from stakeholders to achieve the clear gains available from a major investment program.