the first subject for today’s post is the newly opened ‘canada line’, yes the massive over priced, poorly managed 2 billion costing sky train line that links richmond to vancouver…and let’s not forget…the first rapid transit from a canadian international airport to the respective downtown core. so if by now you didn’t pick up on it…i’m not very happy about the project. don’t get me wrong, i think a rapid transit line should been build 10 years ago. it’s not the idea i have a problem with…is how they went about doing it. translink has not only over-spent, but managed to ensure their salaries got bigger and bigger. and what did the public get? well…they got a campaign with the motto ‘be part of the plan’. the only options one has when offering their useless opinion (useless since translink won’t take it into account) is whether to increase one form of tax over the other. there are essentially five options…either increase transit far (why not), increase taxation either on gasoline, car insurance, land taxation…or other forms of taxation. they offer no insight on how their decisions are made, no insight on how they chose who to contract for work being done…but once every year they essentially ask for more money. on the day the line opened…there were shows and freebies given out at each station…our drunken leader made sure he self-promoted his white smile over the news on that day as if he managed to bring something unique to vancouver. the speach included reference to this being the only line of its type in canada (the airport to downtown part)…well that might be the case…but vancouver as we know it wants to compare itself with the major metropolitan cities of the world. and in that comparison, well they’re at the bottom of the list. all major european cities have some sort of rapid public transportation to and from their airport…which are cheaper and some of which include free wi-fi. now that being said, other news were given to the public on the same day…only this one was not so publicly stated and more or less hidden.
our premier decided to share the news that healthcare is looking at a reduced budget for next year of roughly $60 million. yes, the news was first provided to the public on the same day as the crappy line took on its first rider. this was followed yesterday by the full report…in which the most important sectors of our society are facing budgetary cuts. that implies the school system and healthcare. however, most of the throne speech yesterday was to defend the ‘hst’ tax (if you don’t know what it is…then google is your friend). i may be slow, but i missed where any of the things on the agenda from yesterday are helping the not so ‘rich’ part of society. more tax, less money to public services…and well let’s face it…the poorer will stay poorer, but with less public service.
all the promises that fooled bc-ers into voting liberal a few months back are not only not being followed, we’re getting the opposite. hold on a second…isn’t that what happened the first two times around? even the americans got it right after during their third try…how is it that bc-ers don’t. the cycle continues, the rich will stay richer…the hst will help business (which by all means has been on the agenda every single time drunken gordo got the power) and essentially squeeze even more money out of the working lower classes. so congratulations to those who voted, congratulations to the ndp leader who can’t seem to figure out she can’t win an election and congratulations for the drunken leader who managed to fool everyone yet again. at this point one does wonder on the iq level of the voting population…


