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The death of Robert Dziekansi, and more recently Robert Knipstrom, possibly due to the use of Tasers, would obviously make any sane person question the use of the stunning weapon. And considering the following numbers, it seems like the public is being reasonable:

• 52% say Tasers are a good alternative to guns; police should keep using them while a safety study is done
• 46% say they want Tasers banned until a provincial public inquiry issues it’s report
• Confidence in the upper management of the RCMP remains steady at 59%
• Credibility of the RCMP’s regular forces has dropped 22 points from 83% in April to 61%

If I were the RCMP, an organization with quite a bumpy history and diminishing support from the public, the answer is quite simple: Put a simple temporary moratorium on Taser usage until the inquiries are completed. And yet, they continue to support it’s usage - apparently oblivious to what such a decision is doing to the RCMP’s reputation. I do not see why they can’t suspend the tool’s usage for a while… After all, it’s just one piece of the arsenal, and they’ll still have batons or pepper spray - tried, tested, and true police instruments.

That’s without even mentioning the UN’s recent announcement that Tasers are a form of torture and are against Universal Conventions.

Why are public official so stubborn? Why can’t they fess up to their mistakes and do the right thing for once? Heck, they might seem more human and actually have a better connection with the public in the long term.

Check out this deleted scene from Michael Moore’s Sicko.   In the mid to late 90’s, Canada was #1 on the Human Development Index - aka. we were the best country in the world. Yes, we’re still doing pretty good, with a rating of 0.950 at #6. It’s only 0.025 points difference to Norway. In comparison:

• 3. Australia: 0.957
• 8. U.S.: 0.948
• 18. U.K.: 0.940
• 21. Germany: 0.932

As you can see just from the clip, Norway is obviously doing a number of things right. Heck, as most would agree, almost all of Western Europe as some of the best countries around. So, why don’t we learn from them and adopt some of their policies. As the country sways more conservative, isn’t it intriguing we continue to drop on the HDI? We seem to be going backwards. Doesn’t anyone else have a problem with this?

Yes, bask in the hyperbole. But really, how is it any different than naming the new emergency services at Surrey Memorial Hospital after Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism?

That’s great that the South Asian community of Surrey is raising money for this much needed expansion. So are many other people, inside and out of the city. Why should the South Asians be singled out, first off, and if they are going to be, why was a religious name chosen? Whatever happened to freedom of religion? Why is the government naming a hospital unit after a religious leader?

I’m not against it because it’s the Sikhism founder. I’m against it because it’s religion in, and on, a public facility. Not in my day and age, no sir. Canada is a secular country, and such a stupid act in naming this facility completely overrides that ethic.

I know it’s just a name. But it represents so much more.

Your thoughts?

First it was good ol’ Larry Campbell, former Mayor of Vancouver, and now a federal Senator:

“It’s all about money and it’s all about power and it’s all about territory,” Campbell, a former drug squad cop, told 24 hours in an interview. “So until we do something about the issue of drugs and drug addiction, we can expect to see this happen with certainty.”

“You could certainly cut the profit motive out of it by simply legalizing marijuana,” Campbell said. “But let’s be blunt. We’re not going to police our way out of this problem.” [24 Hours]

“The time is here that we should simply take this out of the criminal element and regulate it. The idea that marijuana is virtually any of the things that the drug warriors in the United States say is ludicrous.

“They’re much like the Conservative government — they don’t believe in scientific fact.

“The fact of the matter is that if we regulated it, we would probably find ourselves in much the same way as we are with tobacco right now.”

“Just take a look at Prohibition in the United States with alcohol. It’s as simple as that.

“It’s all ideology — if they’re wrong on this, then what else are they wrong on? They won’t even allow hemp. That’s how stupid these people are — and they are stupid. I describe [White House drug czar John] Walters as a moron, and he is truly a moron.

“I like to base things that I do on scientific fact. If a scientific fact said marijuana is a gateway, addictive drug that causes great harm to society, I’d be [in favour of] life sentences.

“But it’s not and we know that. There simply is no evidence to it.

“In the United States, they have more people in jail per capita than anywhere in the world, and the majority of them are in there on drug-related charges.

“Legalizing [marijuana] means you don’t have to come down hard on anyone, plus you get at the $8 billion that we’re losing [in taxes] in the economy of British Columbia.

“If you want to reduce the use of marijuana, you reduce it exactly the same way as we do with cigarettes — you raise the taxes and educate the people on any harms that there may be, and there are harms.

“In Europe, it’s not a crime, it’s a nuisance . . . why don’t we look at it like that? [The Vancouver Sun]

Surprisingly enough, the Sun articles even includes a little stub at the end listing the health benefits of pot!

But it’s not just Campbell, stating it like it is. SFU economist Stephen Easton is making the case for legalization, and has certainly convinved Ian Mulgrew, another writer at the Sun.

The rise of gangs in this province is due primarily to the immense profits to be had from B.C. bud. It is another reason the war on drugs should be abandoned as a failure.

Today, with a little knowledge, a small investment and a bit of nerve, anyone can get into the marijuana game. The more money we have poured into criminal law-enforcement, the more the pot business has flourished, and the more the violence that accompanies its black market has proliferated.

The profitability of pot ensures that even if we catch more and more people, there’s always a lineup of eager new recruits.

If the numbers Easton has generated in his research into the subterranean market are correct, pot rivals forestry as our most valuable agricultural product.

After more than a quarter century of the U.S.-led jihad against dope, it’s easier for our children to score a dime bag than a pack of smokes. That’s wrong. Pot is a multi-billion-dollar industry and organized crime is its biggest beneficiary.

Cannabis in my view is a primary reason we are plagued by gangs. Cocaine and other illegal drugs play a role, but pot generates much, much more money. It is indeed the low-hanging fruit plucked by everyone regardless of ethnic heritage. And there are many, many, many more marijuana consumers compared with users of other illicit substances, which tend to be niche markets.

The cash flow from pot pays for flashy cars, nightclub romps, retina-slamming wardrobes, guns, attitude… The number of people involved in the cannabis industry is regularly pegged at upwards of 150,000, making marijuana one of the province’s biggest employers.

Let’s stop giving the money to thugs. Legalization will not eliminate criminal gangs. They have their fingers in many pies — extortion, kidnapping, fraud, armed robbery… But legalization will staunch the most lucrative income stream fuelling organized crime and the gangsta lifestyle.

The end of the alcohol Prohibition sapped the strength of North American organized crime until after the Second World War. Legalizing marijuana would have a similar effect — and go a long way toward eliminating our present problems. [The Vancouver Sun]

Of course, with the Conservatives in government, we’re never going to get legalization, let alone de-criminalization. Heck, they are dragging their feet on the supervized injection site, despite all the support from health professionals, several local politicians, and even a good percentage of the public.

This message needs to keep being pushed out there: legalization will eliminate the profitable sale of marijuana from gangs. And with the kneejerking public we have, I suspect they’d do anything right now to stop the so-called “gang war”.

As I said, there’s no way legalization would ever occur right now. But, once the “gang war” is over, the information and publicity of the pros of legalization will remain in the public’s mind, and may perhaps sway the overall national opinion over time.

Rebecca recently wrote a short post about Surrey and it’s old moniker as the City of Parks. I’m quite supportive of the move to update Surrey’s motto (and logo), in particular because I do not believe the city is worth of labeling itself a “City of Parks”. Not only does it imply the city has many parks, which is up for debate, but it also suggests that the city is green, and trust me, Surrey is anything but green.

When I first heard that the whole point of the LRSP was for the region to be a series of town centres in a “sea of green”, I couldn’t help but laugh. Sure, there may be good number of stand alone trees, a few urban parks, and a few untouched nature reserves, but overall, I would not classify this area as a “sea of green”. It’s more like a few patchy parks in a sea of grey buildings.

A “sea of green” doesn’t matter if it isn’t within close reach to people. Maybe that’s why Downtown is the closest model to a success - because the higher density allows more people to take up less land, which is then available for recreational use. The parks there are close and are in constant use. When everything is sprawled out, people end up farther from nature.

Surrey has never been worthy of the “City of Parks” designation. It boasts about it’s 500 parks, and expansive trail system. Psht. It’s all marketing. If you ask me, just from a quick look at Google Maps, two other cities are more deserving of the title.  Burnaby has Burnaby Lake Regional Park, Deer Lake, and Burnaby Mountain, all taking up significant area in the city, not to mention the large Central Park. Vancouver has it beat though, with it’s numerous golf courses and the protected UBC lands making up a huge biotope along the south east side of the city - plus it’s also got QE Park and the crown jewel that is Stanley Park.

What makes the situation worse in Surrey is that is continues to pave over large swaths of old age forest for townhomes. I just don’t understand why council accepts the proposals! They should be acting for the betterment of the city, not to increase the tax base (which, by the way, is only there to support city services for the residents!). I don’t have a problem with the redevelopment of large exurban properties, but there is something wrong with knocking down what amounts to be an “unprotected” Green Timbers.

I understand the whole tree by-law issue, and yes, they are replacing trees at a higher than 1:1 ratio. That’s not what gets me. It’s that, for naming itself the “City of Parks”, I have to drive to get to one. How’s that for irony? Or if I want to walk 30 minutes to one, I need to cross a highway, bordered with a large wall to reduce residential noise concerns.

Surrey has a bylaw that states there should be 10.5 acres of parkland for every 1,000 residents. That means that Surrey could grow by  180,000 residents before they would even hit the wall on that bylaw. The problem with such a bylaw is that it fails to recognize the need for all people to be within a short distance from nature. The current bylaw would basically allow for a huge park in the corner of the city, while the rest is paved over with construction.

Surrey is at a vital time in it’s young life as a city. Doug McCallum didn’t do many wonders for the city, and Dianne Watts, as balanced as she is, is something of a jack of all trades, not really able to successfully pull off any one thing with flying colours. Before all the usable land is built on, can the city at least do a few things to improve the green situation? Not only will the politicians get some street cred with the environmentalists - heck, their lives might be healthier in the long run as well. My suggestions:

1. Update the park bylaw requiring a certain amount of parkland be within a reasonable walking distance from any developed land (say, 800 m or so). This will allow for green space to be accessible to all people, no matter the density, but will also tighten up the amount of land that is developable and thus encourage higher density to shoot up.
2. Update the park bylaw requiring at least 60% of parkland be in it’s natural state, while 40% can be designed for recreational use.
3. Partner with Metro Vancouver to establish regional guidelines for the preservation of green space, while also establishing a means of cost sharing the purchase of properties to secure said green space when necessary.
4. Create a city-wide plan, with supportive laws in place, to develop a network of parks (or biotopes) - in effect, a true sea of green. This is accompanied by a greenway/trail network for public recreation.

The Vancouver Foundations’ Vital Signs report card on life in the region was released today. It includes grades on 12 categories [in graded order]:

• Arts and Culture: B
• Health and Wellness: B
• Learning: B
• Work: B
• Belonging and Leadership: B-
• Safety: B-
• Environment: C+
• Food: C+
• Getting Started: C
• Getting around: C-
• Gap Between Rich and Poor: D
• Housing: D

A few other notable facts:

• In 2005, 26% of children and youth under 18 years of age in Metro Vancouver lived in households with incomes below the poverty line, a higher percentage than the national rate of 17%.
• An increasing majority of Metro Vancouver residents live in ‘compact neighbourhoods’ of more than 12 people per acre, an increase of 11% in one decade.
• The gap between rich and poor continues to grow in Metro Vancouver; the region has among the highest poverty rates in the country.
• The cost of housing has risen significantly. This, coupled with diminishing available rental stock, makes finding affordable housing a challenge.

Now, I’m not going to get too deep into this. For detailed analysis, you can visit their website. But here’s some of my thoughts:

Surprisingly, Arts and Culture, one of the things it is said that both Canada and Vancouver lack, is the best rated. Apparently, more funding has been going into this realm, and perhaps it is starting to show. Also note that Health is the second-highest rated, despite our high illegal drug use, and the constant media reports on our crumbling healthcare system. Naturally, as Gordon Campbell would love to point out to you, education is going well, and employment is at an all time high. I also find it interesting that Safety gets a B-, especially considering how generally scared most people are of being outside after dark, and all the news about the latest stabbing or shooting: Vancouver is safe people - it’s all perception!

I do find it interesting, however, that transportation is no longer the largest issue in the region: that now belongs to housing. Along with housing is the expanding gap between the rich and poor. The housing issue is particularly evident when I compare the number of renters and owners in Vancouver and in Surrey:

It’s rather obvious I’m quite passionate about transportation, as it is one of the most major issues I face almost daily. Housing, I’ve yet to confront head on, as I still live at home, but I’ll be facing it soon. However, I see no reason for us to stray off the path of being a Livable Region, just cause people at The Sun or The Fraser Institute think the market will solve all.Quote from The Vancouver Sun (link above):

A similar ideological bent infuses the discussion of other categories in the report from housing, to transit, to the environment and to work.

The report calls for affordable housing, but demands protection of the Agricultural Land Reserve, which limits the supply of serviced lots and drives up housing prices. It encourages residents to grow their own food in community gardens, which may provide recreation but has no economic payback.

Quote from The Fraser Institute:

Land-use planners - or dogmatic social engineers as the Fraser Institute likes to refer to them - are to blame for a region “with the least affordable housing and some of the worst traffic congestion in Canada.”

O’Toole points out that surveys show more than 70 per cent of Canadians want to live in a single-family home. But the GVRD’s planners consider such homes undesirable because they tend to be too low in density to support high levels of walking, cycling, and transit riding.

Planners - who must all live in tiny solar-powered apartments near transit - seek to punish people for their desires, punish them with traffic congestion, punish them with unafforadable single family dwellings.

God damn, they just don’t get it, do they? First off, of course these are ramifications of pursuing a livable region, and being just over halfway through the plan. Transportation and housing prices are the two major issues that we must keep pushing for. There’s no doubt in my mind that everyone in this region would call Downtown Vancouver “livable”, and a stunning achievement in urban planning. I also believe, that if affordable for a much larger percent of the population, a majority of the region’s residents would live there.

Frankly, the people don’t understand what they want. Ask them if they want to own their own house, and they’ll say yes. Ask them what their top three priorities are in finding a place to live and they’ll say: price, travel to work, accessibility to services. As has been pointed out in many different articles throughout the years, people try to save money by living in the suburbs and making long trips to work everyday - you end up spending so much time traveling, and spending so much money doing so, the savings is almost negligible.

Transportation is easy to solve. First off, complete the fucking half assed rapid transit system. Make a multi-billion dollar investment, and don’t make the municipalities pay for all this capital investment - it should be the responsibility of the province and the federal government, both awash in yearly surpluses I might add (can somebody say fiscal imbalance?). But this is only half the battle. We need livable regional centres, just like the LRSP is set out to accomplish: places people can live, work and play in. This way, they don’t even need to drive or take transit to far off areas. They can walk to school, or bike to work. This is what we’ve accomplished with Downtown Vancouver, and it’s what we’ve so far failed to completely replicate elsewhere in the region.

Best case is Metrotown, but even that is focused primarily on the mall. Sure, a lot of people work there, and it’s got a real good mix of housing, plus a library and large park nearby, but is it as livable as Downtown? I don’t think so. There’s a huge lack of private businesses, and the area is not really pedestrian-friendly. Plus, the streets are dead at night.

You’ve got condos going up at Surrey Central, Gilmore, Brentwood, Edmonds, New Westminster, etc. This is a long, tedious process. You need to get the residents, then the businesses, then the community services, etc. etc. Downtown is successful because it’s based on the century-old streetcar, grid network, and has been developing modernly for almost 40+ years, since the first medium density buildings went up in the West End. Nowadays, we are just trying to plop down a bunch of walled garden condos around SkyTrain stations, and it’s not working quite as good.

The solution to the housing problem requires us to be able to emulate, improve, and adapt Downtown’s model of success to the regional and municipal town centres. Half the problem is weak politicians refusing to be bold - to turn down bad developments.

Here’s where the market enters. The reason Downtown is so expensive? Everyone wants to live there. Too much demand, not enough supply. Make all the other town centres as livable and what do you get? More supply to reduce the demand. This’ll make Downtown cheaper, while increasing livable centres in the region, and reducing urban sprawl. Housing prices will come down as more supply enters the market - it’s as simple as that. The way to do this is not to ban the single-family home; it’s to make the high density, urban town centre far more attractive than a large, expensive, empty house.

And it already is. At least the model is. It’s suitable for private business owners and corporate ladder people, singles and families, students and seniors. People want less travel, affordability, and access to services. They want business lined streets like Davie and Denman, recreational routes like the Seawall, parks and beaches like English Bay and Stanley Park, community centres and schools like the Roundhouse and King George Secondary. They want frequent transit, walkable streets, and things to do. It’s all in Downtown.

The livable centre strategy solves the problem of seniors living alone, far from aid or services. It solves the problem of families and kids not having safe places to play together. It solves the problem of workers taking 3 hours out of their days to travel back and forth from home. It solves the problem of rising greenhouse gas emissions from everyone driving everywhere. It solves the health problem as people are more inclined to walk and bike to and fro. It solves the small business problem as the ground level streets are lined with mixed uses of private and corporate business.

We just need to figure out how best to recreate the Downtown success in our other regional and municipal town centres.

I’ve always been something of a long distance commuter. Being in French Immersion, it was up to my parents to take me to the specific school, which was about 15-20 minutes away from home. This had a weird ripple effect on my early social life as well, simply because all my classmates also lived a far distance from the school. This reduced any out-of-school hang out time with my friends, at least compared to other kids who went to a school in their catchment area.

When my Dad moved out from Surrey to Burnaby, suddenly that 20 minute travel time doubled to 40+. Course, luckily, I was still being driven around everywhere. This did mean, though, that to make it in school in time for 8:40 am, I would wake up at 7. I got around a lot of the primping time in the morning by doing that the evening before, so I could sleep in longer.

Once I got a job, it created even more scheduling confusion between whether I would be at my Mom’s in Surrey, or my Dad’s in Burnaby. Thankfully, I could walk to work, and it only took about 7 minutes.

At the beginning of this year, I started regularly going to a youth group downtown. One of the issues around this was the days, and the times, it was held on… Wednesday afternoons, and Friday nights. In any case, it was connected to SkyTrain, and, by happenstance, my Dad lives by Metrotown.

As my social life developed, and I began to hang out more and more with these new friends, outside of the youth group, scheduling conflicts arose, and commute times become even more of an issue. And being somewhere who was grown up with worsening commute times you think I’d be used to it, but it’s beginning to reach a breaking point, especially as I now rely on transit to get me around, rather than my parent’s cars.

Now, I’m hopping between Cloverdale (Surrey), Burnaby, Downtown Vancouver, East Van, North Van, Richmond, and everywhere in between. I need to get around this region. I want to do it easily, and quickly. SkyTrain is great. It’s fast and convenient. Problem is, it doesn’t go everywhere I need it to.

I can’t handle 3 hours + commute times as I try to get from one end of the region to another. When you live in Cloverdale and have to get to the Horseshoe Bay ferry - you have no idea how annoying and stressful the trip is; especially if you are carrying a large backpack.

Frankly, I am thinking about buying a car. It’s sad and disappointing that I’ve had to even think about it. I never once in the last few years though I would ever possibly have one or have a need for one, but here I am.

This personal issue is really showing me a bigger picture. Imagine all the thousands of people who are students, immigrants, seniors, poor, or green: we rely on the transit system to get us places - and to get us there quickly!

As Mike Harcourt has said, let’s fix this damned half assed rapid transit system. I don’t care if you expand SkyTrain, or if it’s LRT, or if it’s even commuter rail. I don’t want some stupid bus. Get me around this region. Put the freakin’ money into it. And get it done now. Metro Vancouverites like me cannot wait another 30 years for rail to the Valley or to the North Shore. Let’s get this f**king mess fixed. I’m sick and tired of it.

I’ve been pondering the effect of parks on people for a bit. Parks are not only gathering places, but centres for recreation and a place to reconnect with nature. Perhaps, that’s why Vancouver’s initiative to have all residential areas “so-and-so” close to a park is so revolutionary. Such a policy truly understands how important parks are to people’s health and overall wellbeing.

While Danny Lyon, from the New York Times, may have mentioned it tongue in cheek, he’s got the right idea:

“#7. Ten percent of all city space shall be where you can “touch the dirt”. If there is not enough room, we can demolish the banks and turn them into fields of native grasses and flowers. One quarter of open space shall be for growing vegetables.”

We are already pioneers in saving agricultural lands, and if that policy survives, we won’t have to concern ourselves to heavily on it. However, Surrey, and other municipalities in Metro Vancouver, need to adopt Vancouver’s park policy. People need close access to parks. But let’s go beyond just patches of park surrounded by buildings. Let’s adopt a biotope policy.

Via wikipedia:

“…it is commonly emphasized that biotopes should not be isolated but be connected with each other because without connection to others, animals and plants there could not move out and biotopes would not effectively work as place for diverse organism to live. That is, one of the most effective strategies to regenerate biotope is to organize a stretch of biotope, not just a point so that animals and plants could come and go. (Such organic traffic course is called corridor.) In this method, the centre of the network would be large green tracts of land: a forest, a natural park, or a graveyard. By connecting them with smaller size those such as a green belt along the river, small parks in the town, apartment garden, or even roadside trees, the biotopes will work systematically. In other words, biotope is not closed but open system and practical strategy.”

You see why the biotope idea is so revolutionary as well? Animals, plants, people… they don’t just sit in an isolated park. They need to move around, and by providing these continuous connections to other parks, they can. That is why we need biotopes in the cities and across the region. The side effect of having biotopes is that we humans can have long, beautiful stretches of multi-use pathway through the biotopes, for recreation or transportation.

This is simply a policy of reserving lands and right-of-way. It’s a policy of working together with stakeholders to get the best situation for everyone, including nature. If Metro Vancouver is involved, perhaps municipalities can get financial aid for buying or retaining these green areas for biotope use. Germany has proven that it works - who will be the one to step up and bring it to Metro Vancouver? People need nature more than they think.

Some news in today about how investing in cycling in the UK will save that country money in the longterm by reducing healthcare costs and aid in combatting climate change.

The chairman of Cycling England, Phillip Darnton, said, “There are very few activities that tackle so many of the things that the government is concerned about, from health and obesity to government and pollution. An investment of £70m is small in terms of government spending, and this study shows that it will work.”

One intriguing way that Washington, D.C. is supporting the bicycle is by forcing developers to include bike parking in their buildings. This motion puts the “required parking spots” policy on a 360.

The proposal would require that all apartment buildings with more than eight units set aside one bicycle parking space for every four residential units. Commercial landlords would have to provide enough bicycle parking to match at least 10 percent of the number of available automobile spaces.

These are the types of policy moves that cities around the Metro Vancouver region should be pushing for. Cities have a lot of power, and politicians need to start being bold and making the proper steps, for the betterment of all citizens.

Thoughts?