by Harvey Oberfeld
November 19, 2020
It’s actually NOT their fault: Vancouver’s NDP Mayor and his allies, Council Members representing the Greens and COPE, are just pursuing their left-wing ideology and agendas … serving their base.
It’s YOUR fault, if your part of the 60% of eligible Vancouver voters who couldn’t be bothered to vote in the 2017 civic election.
Now you’re paying for it … figuratively and literally … with a spreading cancer of destroyed neighborhoods, where local residents/families no longer feel safe, where used needles litter city parks, where anyone who goes into the downtown core to shop, obtain services or have a meal now feels like an unwelcome invader … unless they come on foot or on a bike .
And even then, they are at greater risk than ever in that area … thanks to the downward transformation inflicted on the downtown by City Hall.
Just take a look at what’s happened to Granville Street, Vancouver’s once prime shopping and tourist street: long-established retailers have fled, as have several family style restaurants.
Now, drug-users, criminals, crazies are allowed to run amok, panhandle, harass, threaten and frighten strollers, shoppers or nearby residents. I would urge anyone NOT to walk there alone, even during the day.
And it’s City Hall’s fault.
They have over the years, slowly but steadily, turned the area around downtown Granville Street into an extension of Hastings/Main … home now to a plethora of homeless shelters, drug treatment facilities, troubled youth service centers, drop-in sites and even a permanent opioid overdose prevention facility, just approved there by City Council.
You can read about that neighborhood destroying decision here: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/yaletown-overdose-prevention-site-1101-seymour-street
No doubt these are services needed in the city … but WHY so foolishly located along the length or abutting what’s supposed to be Vancouver’s prime downtown shopping/tourist/dining street?
I believe it’s part of the radical agenda of the lefties now controlling City Hall who ENJOY pushing their socialist ideology … and thumbs into the faces of middle class and wealthy condo and homeowners.
Madame Defarge would perhaps approve, but City Hall has signed the death warrant for Yaletown, another neighborhood that was revitalizing and even starting to attract families with young children. Not any more! Who would want to buy/rent there now?
By the way, all of it , destroying the city’s downtown, has been happily supported/funded by the NDP provincial government.
And that was just the beginning!
Also this week, from those who brought you the “new” Strathcona Park, there has been a new proposal: to use the Youth Hostel at Jericho/Locarno park/beach for “temporary” homeless housing. https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/11/17/jericho-beach-shelter-flyers/
Do they really believe the new “residents” won’t be panhandling, intimidating, harassing and frightening those who now stroll there weekdays, alone or in couples, well out of sight of the road or the beach: mothers with kids, seniors who walk the paths alone or elderly couples from seniors’ homes nearby?
This is NOT just theory: ask the residents/families of Strathcona and Yaletown about the REALITY they now live!
Did Council even consider the impact on nearby Jericho homes (there go their backyard chairs, bicycles, tables and anything that can be used or sold on Hastings or Terminal Avenues!)
I believe the lefties on City Council know that … but just don’t care. Maybe even chuckle at the transformational neighborhood prospect!
Looks to me like it’s all being done on purpose: the socialists deliberately “sticking it” to the middle class and wealthy.
And, yes, there’s still more!
The hate on and the war on cars by the Greens/COPE continues, with the encouragement of the NDP Mayor: millions more dollars are to be spent studying ways to keep cars (ie people) away from Vancouver businesses, shops, dining and entertainment: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/downtown-toll-roads-possible-vancouver-council-votes-to-pursue-controversial-climate-plan-1.5194168 .
The details are frightening: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-climate-emergency-action-plan-approved.
Even asking staff to “study” such proposals and bring back recommendations will push away businesses even THINKING of establishing themselves, their corporate operations or headquarters … and jobs … in downtown Vancouver.
The REAL winners of this latest Peoples’ Republic of Vancouver decree, and the uncertainty it will bring over the next two or three years, will be Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, etc.
As if Vancouver taxpayers … residential and commercial … all of them struggling just to hang on in the midst of an escalating Covid pandemic need THAT to add to their angst!!!
Just this year … to finance their societal destruction/reconstruction/transformation of Vancouver into a revolutionary socialist mini-state, the NDP/Green/COPE dominated Council raised City Taxes 7%. That was on top of increases of 5% in 2019; 4% in 2018; and, 4% in 2017.
I don’t know how your income has been doing, but mine sure hasn’t gone up that much each year. Not to mention all the other increases in taxes, fees, rates, charges other governments/agencies have also added onto our backs in those same years.)
Vancouver Council has either lost touch with reality … or is oblivious to the hurt, stress and pain they now are inflicting so frequently on so many of the city’s population.
As CKNW’s Commentator Bruce Allen’s Reality Check pointed out Wednesday : THIS Council does not listen to those with opinions different from theirs: https://omny.fm/shows/reality-check-with-bruce-allen/reality-check-city-of-vancouver-does-not-listen?in_playlist=reality-check-with-bruce-allen!podcast .
He’s right!
And Vancouver’s Council’s arrogant, non-responsive disrespect for working, tax-paying citizens was made possible because their NDP/Green/COPE voters and their activist supporters showed up to vote in Vancouver’s last civic election. To their credit!
So the activist crowd … advocating on behalf of the homeless, drug users, cyclists, the anti-car crowd now hold sway … completely. (By the way, WHY is Beach Ave still “temporarily” closed to cars eastbound? Even in the pouring rain season? )
Because far too many of the rest of Vancouver’s voters … 60% of those eligible … did not bother to show up at the polls. To their shame!
And now they’re paying for it!
