And a Happy New Year! May 2018 bring you happiness and health!
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Monday, May 08, 2017
Green Party Votes Could Elect Christy Clark – You Only Get One Shot – Do Not Blow This Opportunity!
Don't vote for this guy .....and get Christy Clark instead!
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| BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver |
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| BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark |
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime"
- Eminem - Lose Yourself
By Bill Tieleman
Let’s cut to the chase – Christy Clark and the BC Liberals could be narrowly re-elected on May 9 – if enough people who desperately want to get rid of her vote for the Green Party instead of their local BC New Democrat Party candidate.
Let’s cut to the chase – Christy Clark and the BC Liberals could be narrowly re-elected on May 9 – if enough people who desperately want to get rid of her vote for the Green Party instead of their local BC New Democrat Party candidate.
And then the BC Liberal machine fueled by corporate cash will roll on for another 4 years of abuse – of the environment, people with disabilities, those on social assistance, workers at minimum wage, Metro Vancouver and Victoria renters who will never be able to buy a home or even rent one for long – you name it, people will suffer big time.
And Christy Clark will Cheshire Cat smile at you all the way.
That’s what’s at stake – and there is little time left to avoid a potential political disaster.
Fact: the Green Party has one seat and could possibly win a couple more – if it can win more than 35% of the vote in some ridings.
Fact: the Green Party is polling at somewhere between 14% and 19% province-wide.
Fact: the BC NDP have 35 seats and are polling at about 40%.
Fact: the BC Liberals have 47 seats and are also polling at about 40%. But the advantage goes to the BC Liberals -- they have more seats, more money to spend and the benefit of incumbency.
To defeat Christy Clark it will take the BC NDP to win 10 more seats – and that’s net seats – any seat they lose takes away from those net 10.
I’m not going to question Andrew Weaver and Green candidates any more than I already have – there are serious concerns about whether they care if Christy Clark is re-elected or not – see my The Tyee column to read about their many serious contradictions.
But I will say Weaver has run a good campaign – good enough that it might unfortunately just let Christy Clark sneak back into power by encouraging enough voters to case a Green ballot in ridings that the BC NDP simply must win or hold to have a chance to defeat the BC Liberals.
In those ridings a Green vote will not elect a Green MLA – it will ensure the elections of a BC Liberal MLA who will be led by Christy Clark.
If you are concerned about the environment, if you are upset with the Christy Clark government’s cheerleading support for hunting grizzly bears, for oil tankers, the Kinder Morgan pipeline, LNG, Site C – it’s a long list – then you owe it to yourself to think carefully about your vote on May 9.
If you also care about Christy Clark’s pay for play politics, about the unlimited corporate and foreign donations to the BC Liberal Party that have given it a huge advantage – think carefully.
If you are concerned about the lack of integrity in the BC Liberals – a party led by a campaign manager who is facing criminal breach of trust charges in Ontario for her alleged role in deleting government records while serving as deputy chief of staff to a former Liberal premier – watch this hard hitting independent video – the toughest look at BC Liberal charges and convictions – from the Better Government BC Society – and think carefully about your vote.
You may not like our electoral system but it’s the candidate with the most votes who wins – and with three parties it’s a zero-sum game. If you take away your vote from the NDP candidate and give it to the Green candidate, unless that Green can take 38% or more of the vote – you are helping a BC Liberal win. It’s that simple.
It's also important for potential Green Party voters to check out the BC NDP platform - because there are a lot of similarities - including a commitment to end corporate and union donations in politics - a change that simply has to happen to end the ability of any party to unfairly influence both elections and government policies.
It's also important for potential Green Party voters to check out the BC NDP platform - because there are a lot of similarities - including a commitment to end corporate and union donations in politics - a change that simply has to happen to end the ability of any party to unfairly influence both elections and government policies.
And if you don't believe me, check out the same math from Martyn Brown, the former chief of staff to Premier Gordon Campbell - who now wants Christy Clark defeated. As Brown rightly says:
Friends: don't do the crime if you can't bear the time."
It's all down to the wire now -- and as Eminem said:
This is your one shot - your opportunity to defeat the Christy Clark BC Liberals and it takes a vote for the BC NDP to do it – don’t let this chance slip.
"Four more years wasted:
that will be our sentence, if we split the vote for change, instead of standing
together for new NDP government that might liberate the change we all want,
green and orange alike.
Friends: don't do the crime if you can't bear the time."
It's all down to the wire now -- and as Eminem said:
"Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment
Would you capture it, or just let it slip?"
To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment
Would you capture it, or just let it slip?"
Bill Tieleman is a former NDP strategist whose West
Star Communications firm has clients in labour, business, not-for-profits and
First Nations.
.
Saturday, May 06, 2017
Warren Kinsella's despicable and defamatory attack on BC NDP unbelievable but aimed to help Christy Clark BC Liberals
Warren Kinsella makes defamatory, despicable and untrue attack on BC NDP in desperate effort to support Christy Clark BC Liberals
By Bill Tieleman
UPDATE OCTOBER 2019
I was blocked on Twitter by Warren Kinsella - who I know and have met a few times in the past - after I wrote this column in 2017 taking him rightly to task for an outrageously incorrect attack in a column prior to the May 2017 BC election.
I frankly didn't notice that I was #BlockedbyWarrenKinsella for quite awhile, then somewhat mystified when I found out. He has never contacted me to complain or ask for anything below to be corrected.
But since the revelation this week that he was hired by the federal Conservative Party to attempt to trash their right-wing opponents, the People's Party of Canada and leader Maxime Bernier, it appears clear that the mercenary and politically unprincipled approach he takes includes attempting to silence criticism.
That the Green Party and Elizabeth May hired Kinsella prior to the 2019 election to set up their war room speaks volumes about them as well.
Here's the original article I wrote in 2017:
Warren Kinsella has launched a defamatory, despicable and unbelievable attack on the BC NDP as the provincial election draws to a close - a desperate effort to support Christy Clark and the BC Liberals.
I have often agreed with Kinsella views but his Huffington Post column "10 Reasons I Want The B.C. NDP To Lose" is a scurrilous, unsubstantiated and unfair attack that needs a factual rebuttal.
Kinsella - a lifelong federal Liberal who worked for the BC Liberals in the 1996 losing provincial election - where I was communications director to BC NDP Premier Glen Clark - is welcome to his opinion, but his over the top, mostly fact-free column is outrageous. Start with:
Reason 3 - "Election '96". Kinsella makes this totally unsubstantiated claim about the 1996 election: "The NDP won because they had gerrymandered the province while in power. Period." and to "prove" it links to a BC Hansard page that actually dates to 2007 and features BC NDP MLAs complaining about BC Liberal changes to the independent Boundaries Commission report - changes that the BC NDP said were wrong.
As current BC NDP leader John Horgan put it then, the BC Liberal legislation amounted to: "Blatant interference by the Premier in the work of an independent commission." That would be former BC Premier Gordon Campbell - who Kinsella greatly admires and who he claims offered him the job of his chief of staff, which Kinsella declined.
In fact, the BC Liberals lost the election because they ran a poor campaign despite coming in with a huge lead in the polls. And because Campbell's campaign manager was caught out discussing a backroom deal with the Social Credit party in the final days of the campaign that would have seen most Socred candidates drop out except for their leader to help elect BC Liberals, who would withdraw from the Socred leader's constituency to let him win.
The BC Liberals also lost because they were going to slash health care and education funding, privatize BC Rail and reduce the number of seats in Northern and rural BC. That was a rallying cry for the new right-wing Reform Party of BC, who won 2 seats and 9% of the vote.
Kinsella's whining about winning more of the popular vote echoes Campbell's at the time - but our electoral system is based on the number of seats won, not across the province vote totals, as both know well.
Reason 4 - "Creeps" - the most outrageous thing Kinsella writes: "The B.C. NDP were the sleaziest, dirtiest, scummiest opponents I'd ever encountered in a campaign. While we had a few Young Liberals to help set up events, for example, Glen Clark's B.C. NDP could rely on the assistance of big union guys to help them -- and, occasionally, interfere with our events."
No facts, no details, not a shred of evidence - just an ad hominem and defamatory smear job by Kinsella.
In fact, the BC Liberals in 1996 - as in the 2017 campaign - sent around a truck to follow the BC NDP campaign bus to try to disrupt media events constantly. It was a desperate move that backfired but it there was only one party doing it - the BC Liberals.
I disagreed then and now with much of the BC Liberal campaign tactics but I've never described them in the offensive, derogatory and untrue way Kinsella does. He owes the BC NDP an apology for this part alone.
Reason 7 - "Scandal" - clear defamatory, without any evidence and offensive. I will risk repeating a libel only to dispel each factually inaccurate claim.
Kinsella wrote: "As we B.C. Libs had predicted, the Glen Clark NDP turned out to be the most corrupt provincial government in modern Canadian history. They stole from charities (Google "Bingogate"). They were linked to bribes (Google "Hydro-gate"). And, of course, there was the deck that killed off an NDP Premier (Google "Glen Clark," "deck" and "act of folly"). The B.C. NDP treated the provincial treasury like it was their personal piggybank. Their name was synonymous with scandal."
First - the NDP governments of Mike Harcourt from 1991 to 1996 and Glen Clark from 1996 to 1999 were elected long after the "Bingogate" scandal had occurred and had nothing to do with Mike or Glen. Former NDP MLA Dave Stupich, now deceased, pled guilty to fraud charges in 1999.
Second - it was NDP Premier Glen Clark who in 1996 appointed former Supreme Court of BC Chief Justice Nathan Nemetz to investigate the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society scandal - far from covering anything up, Justice Nemetz launched a comprehensive review.
Third - it was BC Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell who shut down the Nemetz commission! Was the commission getting too close to other parties' past dubious fundraising activities? We will never know.
Fourth - allegations of being "linked to bribes" are highly defamatory - and untrue! The "Hydro-gate" case Kinsella mentions did not involve bribes but did involve undisclosed BC Hydro investment in a Pakistan power project. Glen Clark swiftly fired both the chair and CEO of BC Hydro just weeks before the election - and won that vote despite "Hydro-gate".
Fifth - Glen Clark was acquitted of a breach of trust charge in the so-called "Casinogate" affair after a neighbour who had made a casino license application allegedly did renovations for the premier without charging fully for them. Clark had been forced to resign after it was revealed he was under police investigation.
Clark - to his great credit - worked his way up from a manager position in the Jim Pattison sign division to become President and Chief Operating Officer of the entire organization - with revenue of $9.6 billion it is Canada's second largest private company.
The only criminal activity by a BC Premier in history was when Gordon Campbell was caught in Maui drunk driving, spent the night in jail - the first premier ever to put Canada in such an embarrassing situation - and was fined $1,350 for the offence. "Mr. Campbell is sufficiently embarrassed and ashamed for what he did, as well he should be," said Maui District Judge Reinette Cooper.
And if Kinsella wants to talk about scandals - how about the fact that Christy Clark's BC Liberal Campaign Director Laura Miller was hired despite facing criminal breach of trust charges in Ontario this fall, where police allege she was involved in deleting government records relating to the $1.1 billion gas plant cancellation when she was deputy chief of staff to then-Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty.
And Brian Bonney - a BC Liberal operative and ex-communications director in the BC Liberal government's multicultural ministry - also faces a criminal breach of trust charge later this year for alleged activities while in government.
And the list goes on much longer - so much so that a new group called the Better Government BC Society launched a very tough 1 minute online video that's received over 33,000 views and thousands of Facebook shares.
Reason 10 - "John Horgan" - Kinsella makes far too much of an offhand comment made by the BC NDP leader in a radio debate and then launches into this smear: "He has been incoherent, policy-wise. He has no self-control, and he has no understanding of even basic economics -- and how to keep the strongest economy in Canada strong. He would be an unmitigated disaster for British Columbia."
In fact, Horgan released a fully-costed BC NDP platform last month that uses the BC LIberal budget financial data for all its calculations. Horgan has been a strong opposition MLA since 2005 and worked in the BC NDP governments before that in several senior positions - including as chief of staff to interim BC NDP Premier Dan Miller.
Kinsella is free to criticize Horgan or the BC NDP platform - but try doing it on the facts and with counter arguments, not simply ridiculous rhetoric.
All in all, the veteran political operative Warren Kinsella does neither his reputation nor his chosen Christy Clark BC Liberals any favours with a defamatory, wildly inaccurate and very unfair column of insults to his opponents. You would think by now he'd know better.
 |
| Warren Kinsella - Christy Clark - BC Liberal backer |
UPDATE OCTOBER 2019
I was blocked on Twitter by Warren Kinsella - who I know and have met a few times in the past - after I wrote this column in 2017 taking him rightly to task for an outrageously incorrect attack in a column prior to the May 2017 BC election.
I frankly didn't notice that I was #BlockedbyWarrenKinsella for quite awhile, then somewhat mystified when I found out. He has never contacted me to complain or ask for anything below to be corrected.
But since the revelation this week that he was hired by the federal Conservative Party to attempt to trash their right-wing opponents, the People's Party of Canada and leader Maxime Bernier, it appears clear that the mercenary and politically unprincipled approach he takes includes attempting to silence criticism.
That the Green Party and Elizabeth May hired Kinsella prior to the 2019 election to set up their war room speaks volumes about them as well.
Here's the original article I wrote in 2017:
Warren Kinsella has launched a defamatory, despicable and unbelievable attack on the BC NDP as the provincial election draws to a close - a desperate effort to support Christy Clark and the BC Liberals.
I have often agreed with Kinsella views but his Huffington Post column "10 Reasons I Want The B.C. NDP To Lose" is a scurrilous, unsubstantiated and unfair attack that needs a factual rebuttal.
Kinsella - a lifelong federal Liberal who worked for the BC Liberals in the 1996 losing provincial election - where I was communications director to BC NDP Premier Glen Clark - is welcome to his opinion, but his over the top, mostly fact-free column is outrageous. Start with:
Reason 3 - "Election '96". Kinsella makes this totally unsubstantiated claim about the 1996 election: "The NDP won because they had gerrymandered the province while in power. Period." and to "prove" it links to a BC Hansard page that actually dates to 2007 and features BC NDP MLAs complaining about BC Liberal changes to the independent Boundaries Commission report - changes that the BC NDP said were wrong.
As current BC NDP leader John Horgan put it then, the BC Liberal legislation amounted to: "Blatant interference by the Premier in the work of an independent commission." That would be former BC Premier Gordon Campbell - who Kinsella greatly admires and who he claims offered him the job of his chief of staff, which Kinsella declined.
In fact, the BC Liberals lost the election because they ran a poor campaign despite coming in with a huge lead in the polls. And because Campbell's campaign manager was caught out discussing a backroom deal with the Social Credit party in the final days of the campaign that would have seen most Socred candidates drop out except for their leader to help elect BC Liberals, who would withdraw from the Socred leader's constituency to let him win.
The BC Liberals also lost because they were going to slash health care and education funding, privatize BC Rail and reduce the number of seats in Northern and rural BC. That was a rallying cry for the new right-wing Reform Party of BC, who won 2 seats and 9% of the vote.
Kinsella's whining about winning more of the popular vote echoes Campbell's at the time - but our electoral system is based on the number of seats won, not across the province vote totals, as both know well.
Reason 4 - "Creeps" - the most outrageous thing Kinsella writes: "The B.C. NDP were the sleaziest, dirtiest, scummiest opponents I'd ever encountered in a campaign. While we had a few Young Liberals to help set up events, for example, Glen Clark's B.C. NDP could rely on the assistance of big union guys to help them -- and, occasionally, interfere with our events."
No facts, no details, not a shred of evidence - just an ad hominem and defamatory smear job by Kinsella.
In fact, the BC Liberals in 1996 - as in the 2017 campaign - sent around a truck to follow the BC NDP campaign bus to try to disrupt media events constantly. It was a desperate move that backfired but it there was only one party doing it - the BC Liberals.
I disagreed then and now with much of the BC Liberal campaign tactics but I've never described them in the offensive, derogatory and untrue way Kinsella does. He owes the BC NDP an apology for this part alone.
Reason 7 - "Scandal" - clear defamatory, without any evidence and offensive. I will risk repeating a libel only to dispel each factually inaccurate claim.
Kinsella wrote: "As we B.C. Libs had predicted, the Glen Clark NDP turned out to be the most corrupt provincial government in modern Canadian history. They stole from charities (Google "Bingogate"). They were linked to bribes (Google "Hydro-gate"). And, of course, there was the deck that killed off an NDP Premier (Google "Glen Clark," "deck" and "act of folly"). The B.C. NDP treated the provincial treasury like it was their personal piggybank. Their name was synonymous with scandal."
First - the NDP governments of Mike Harcourt from 1991 to 1996 and Glen Clark from 1996 to 1999 were elected long after the "Bingogate" scandal had occurred and had nothing to do with Mike or Glen. Former NDP MLA Dave Stupich, now deceased, pled guilty to fraud charges in 1999.
Second - it was NDP Premier Glen Clark who in 1996 appointed former Supreme Court of BC Chief Justice Nathan Nemetz to investigate the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society scandal - far from covering anything up, Justice Nemetz launched a comprehensive review.
Third - it was BC Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell who shut down the Nemetz commission! Was the commission getting too close to other parties' past dubious fundraising activities? We will never know.
Fourth - allegations of being "linked to bribes" are highly defamatory - and untrue! The "Hydro-gate" case Kinsella mentions did not involve bribes but did involve undisclosed BC Hydro investment in a Pakistan power project. Glen Clark swiftly fired both the chair and CEO of BC Hydro just weeks before the election - and won that vote despite "Hydro-gate".
Fifth - Glen Clark was acquitted of a breach of trust charge in the so-called "Casinogate" affair after a neighbour who had made a casino license application allegedly did renovations for the premier without charging fully for them. Clark had been forced to resign after it was revealed he was under police investigation.
Clark - to his great credit - worked his way up from a manager position in the Jim Pattison sign division to become President and Chief Operating Officer of the entire organization - with revenue of $9.6 billion it is Canada's second largest private company.
The only criminal activity by a BC Premier in history was when Gordon Campbell was caught in Maui drunk driving, spent the night in jail - the first premier ever to put Canada in such an embarrassing situation - and was fined $1,350 for the offence. "Mr. Campbell is sufficiently embarrassed and ashamed for what he did, as well he should be," said Maui District Judge Reinette Cooper.
And if Kinsella wants to talk about scandals - how about the fact that Christy Clark's BC Liberal Campaign Director Laura Miller was hired despite facing criminal breach of trust charges in Ontario this fall, where police allege she was involved in deleting government records relating to the $1.1 billion gas plant cancellation when she was deputy chief of staff to then-Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty.
And Brian Bonney - a BC Liberal operative and ex-communications director in the BC Liberal government's multicultural ministry - also faces a criminal breach of trust charge later this year for alleged activities while in government.
 |
| BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark |
And the list goes on much longer - so much so that a new group called the Better Government BC Society launched a very tough 1 minute online video that's received over 33,000 views and thousands of Facebook shares.
Reason 10 - "John Horgan" - Kinsella makes far too much of an offhand comment made by the BC NDP leader in a radio debate and then launches into this smear: "He has been incoherent, policy-wise. He has no self-control, and he has no understanding of even basic economics -- and how to keep the strongest economy in Canada strong. He would be an unmitigated disaster for British Columbia."
In fact, Horgan released a fully-costed BC NDP platform last month that uses the BC LIberal budget financial data for all its calculations. Horgan has been a strong opposition MLA since 2005 and worked in the BC NDP governments before that in several senior positions - including as chief of staff to interim BC NDP Premier Dan Miller.
Kinsella is free to criticize Horgan or the BC NDP platform - but try doing it on the facts and with counter arguments, not simply ridiculous rhetoric.
 |
| Bill Tieleman |
Bill Tieleman is a columnist for 24 Hours Vancouver and The Tyee online. He runs West Star Communications, a Vancouver strategy and communications consulting firm. Tieleman was Communications Director to BC NDP Premier Glen Clark in the 1996 upset election win and also Strategist for Fight HST, the grassroots organization that forced and won a binding referendum to eliminate the BC Harmonized Sales Tax. Fight HST was led by former Social Credit Premier Bill Vander Zalm.
Monday, March 27, 2017
Why I am voting to Re-Elect Lily Grewal to the VanCity Credit Union Board of Directors
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| Lily Grewal and her son |
I am pleased to again endorse Lily Grewal for re-election to the VanCity Credit Union Board of Directors!
As a former VanCity director, I am particularly keen on good people being elected to the Board of Canada's largest credit union - and the one I do business with professionally and personally - and Lily Grewal is definitely one of those people.
Voting starts Tuesday March 28 and ends and I hope you will cast a ballot for Lily Grewal - who has done a fine job in her first term as a Director the last three years, including serving as Chair of the Human Resources Committee.
It's important that the VanCity Board reflect the diversity and experiences of our entire community - and Lily has helped do that at this very important financial institution:
Lily is the first South Asian woman elected to the VanCity Board and is also representing the needed perspective of those members who live south of the Fraser River - as a Delta resident.
Lily also brings her strong background of working with immigrant communities, unions, non-profits, social justice, cooperatives and much more. She has a Masters in Social Work with 15 years experience working with communities and non-profits and have spent the last 10 years in government working to help immigrants make BC their home.
Lily has also served on the boards of several other organizations, including the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Vancity Community Foundation and the Boys and Girls Club of Delta/Richmond.
She is committed to progressive values and social justice and I urge you to re-elect Lily.
.
Monday, November 21, 2016
With So Many Tragedies - and Now Election of Donald Trump - Is This The Biblical ‘End of Days?’
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| Is Donald Trump's election another sign of the End of Days? Or a Nostradamus prediction? |
The world
seems to darken with every live-streamed horror. And then Trump won the U.S. election! But consider this small
empirical comfort.
July 19, 2016
By Bill Tieleman
“Whoa,
thought it was a nightmare/Lo, it’s all so true,
They told me, ‘Don't go walkin’
slow/Cause Devil’s on the loose.”
– “Run
Through The Jungle,” Creedence Clearwater Revival
Are we
living in the Biblical “End of Days” prophecy as terrorism, disasters and evil
abound around the world?
The
astonishing level of terrible violence and disturbing events have started to
make many wonder if we are on the verge of a dark new era – or even the
beginning of the end.
The signs are
ominous: the horrific 84 deaths caused in Nice, France by a deranged man
driving a big truck through celebrating crowds; a military coup attempt in
Turkey with hundreds killed; black men shot by police during traffic stops and
then revenge killings of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge; millions of Syrian
refugees fleeing civil war, with thousands dying in conflict; the Zika virus
spreading from Brazil and threatening the summer Olympics; and much more.
Those recent
events follow terrorist-style attacks in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida in
June; suicide bombers at Istanbul’s Airport in Turkey in June and Belgium’s
Brussels’ airport in March; two Canadians kidnapped and beheaded in the
Philippines; and many more gruesome murders.
So far in
July alone there have been over 90 reported terrorist incidents, on average
more than five a day.
And many
have been broadcast live to the world through social media – including tragic
on camera deaths and bloody carnage – magnifying the effect.
UPDATE: And as if that isn’t enough, the election of
Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump is being seen by some as part of
the fabled prophet Nostradamus’s predictions 400 years ago!
Nostradamus
wrote: “The great
shameless, audacious bawler. He will be elected governor of the army: The boldness
of his contention….The bridge broken, the city faint from fear.” Yikes!
It truly
seems that the “devil’s on the loose” – but is it the “End of Days?”
What the
writings say
The term and
similar ones such as “End Time” or “Final Days” or “Eschaton” are used not only
in Christian writings but also most other religions, including Hinduism,
Buddhism, Islam, Rastafarianism and Norse mythology.
In the
Bible, Jesus is quoted as saying
to his disciples in Matthew chapter 24 that:
“You will hear
of wars and rumours of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for this is
something that must happen, but the end
will not be yet.
“For
nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All this is
only the beginning...”
Sounds grim.
And some
fundamentalist Christians claim
that: “We in 2016, are living in the end of time for this world as we know it.
The Biblical signs are clear for all to see...”
But the Ragnarok – the Norse
religion’s “doom of the gods” – is also pretty darn nasty.
Ragnarok is
when the sun and moon disappear into cold and darkness, the Earth sinks into
the sea, and both humans and gods perish in violent conflict.
And yet, in
both these and other religions, the end of days are followed by rebirth – like
Christ’s promised second coming – with a new, better world eventually emerging.
Some
empirical comfort
For those of
us not inclined to follow any religion, a more empirical, scientific analysis
also brings some comfort.
The world
has been beset by terrorism, war, plagues, earthquakes, floods and other
catastrophes since its inception.
And while
the current string of horrific incidents both human and natural is deeply
disturbing, consider 20th century history
for comparison.
The First
World War began with an act of terrorism and ended with over 16 million dead,
but it was merely a precursor to the Second World War, with between 50 and 85
million killed.
That century
also saw the Chinese civil war – 8 million killed; the Russian revolution and
war – 5-9 million killed; the Korean War – 1.2 million dead; the Vietnam War –
1.3 million killed; and dozens of other bloody conflicts that killed many millions
more.
The 20th
century also marked the introduction of the atomic bomb, chemical and germ
warfare.
And in 1918,
the influenza pandemic killed between 50 and 100 million people – three to five
per cent of the entire world’s population – one of deadliest natural disasters
in human history.
The 20th
century also saw the rise of other deadly illnesses: HIV/AIDS, Ebola, avian flu
and SARS to name a few.
So are we
really at the “End of Days” when one applies some rational perspective to these
apocalyptic events that humanity has survived? No, certainly not.
No matter how
horrible the loss of life, how cruel the terrorist attacks, how scary the
illnesses or how stunning the catastrophes – it’s worth remembering that the
world has both seen and survived far worse.
.
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Discussing Vancouver Housing Data Isn’t "Racist" - And It shows How Chinese Foreign Buyers Are Driving Up Home Prices
 |
| UBS Global Real Estate Index released in September 2016 shows Vancouver with highest "bubble risk" in the world for housing prices. |
Government
stats show foreign purchasers buying up real estate equal in value to all new
home construction.
Bill Tieleman’s 24
Hours Vancouver / The
Tyee column
July 12, 2016
By Bill Tieleman
"Buy
land; they're not making it any more."
Chinese and
other foreign investors buying up homes are spending an amount almost equal to
the value of all new housing being built in Metro Vancouver, creating
skyrocketing prices that are driving local people out of the market.
That
conclusion is easily drawn from last week's B.C. government release of new statistics
on foreign housing purchases.
While
woefully inadequate, they still show that the new supply of housing built each
month effectively disappears from the market as foreign buyers -- mostly
Chinese -- scoop up real estate of equivalent value.
And, as
Twain says, they aren't making land anymore. It's like exporting a
non-renewable resource.
UPDATE: BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark did a complete
reversal in late July on her previous strong position that no action was
needed to deal with skyrocketing Metro Vancouver housing prices caused by
foreign buyer speculation. The BC
Liberal imposition of a foreign buyer property tax of 15% in Metro Vancouver
has significantly reduced
non-Canadian home purchases to about 1.3% of sales from 13.2% earlier this
summer.
But composite benchmark housing prices
remain extraordinarily high despite the tax:
they are up 28.9% since September 2015 and down only 0.1% since August –
meaning Metro Vancouver is still utterly unaffordable to most citizens.
The Metro Vancouver
ramifications are enormous:
• Insanely
high housing prices, up 32 per cent
this June over June 2015, for an average price of $917,800.
•
Phenomenally low rental vacancy rates that mean rents are consequently going
through the roof, with Vancity Credit Union reporting
young workers are being priced out of the Vancouver rental market.
• A
development and home construction industry that has become dependent on Chinese
foreign sales and escalating prices to prosper, meaning any ownership
restrictions could seriously hurt employment and the B.C. economy.
Government
data flawed, but revealing
First, look
at the government numbers released by Finance Minister Mike de Jong last week.
De Jong
deliberately directed media attention to the apparently low percentage of
foreign housing buyers, even though the statistics came from just three weeks
of June data that suspiciously did not include the final day of the month, when
most sales go through.
Nor was that
information definitive.
The government counts on buyers to declare their nationality voluntarily; it
doesn't consider whether the real owners are using family members or others
representatives to buy housing; nor does reveal whether a buyer with permanent
residency actually works or pays taxes in Canada.
These flawed
statistics are challenged by estimates like that of the National Bank of Canada
stating
that Chinese buyers may have spent up to $12 billion on Metro Vancouver real
estate last year -- one-third of all sales.
Regardless,
the B.C. stats show that from June 10 to 29 the value of Metro Vancouver house
sales to foreign nationals was $351 million, or 6.5 per cent of the total of $5
billion in sales.
The
overwhelming majority of sales -- 234 out of 284 -- are to Chinese nationals.
Citizens from Korea and Taiwan were second at just five purchases each.
If that $351
million over 20 days is extrapolated to an entire year, the estimated value of
foreign residential sales would be $6.4 billion, far less than the National
Bank's estimate, but still huge.
Compare that
to the value of new building permits per year in Metro Vancouver -- roughly
$6.5 billion in 2015, Statistics Canada figures
show.
That means
foreign buyers' purchases are virtually equal to the value of new building
permits in Metro Vancouver each year.
It's
about money, not race or nationality
Pointing
that out is not racist. It's a factual observation based on the B.C.
government's incomplete but still indicative data collection.
As Ian
Young, the South China Morning Post's Vancouver correspondent, noted,
the issue is money, not race. "Why would you think that someone was better
defined by the colour of their skin than the colour of their money?" asks
Young, who is of Chinese origin himself, raised in Australia and Hong Kong.
If foreign
investment is equal to all new construction, is it any wonder prices are going
through the roof?
The
important number is not the 6.5 per cent of sales to foreign buyers -- it's the
ratio of foreign investment to new construction.
To be clear,
foreign buyers are not snapping up all the new homes. But their purchases have
a value greater than all the new construction.
And if
foreign nationals don't occupy or rent their new homes, the rental market
shrinks. Even those who can't possibly afford to buy their own home in Metro
Vancouver are screwed.
The Vancity
report "Rent Race:
The Growing Unaffordability of Rent in Metro Vancouver" makes
for depressing reading.
"We
have made an assumption that the rental market is there for people who can't
afford to get into the housing market as an owner," Vancity community
investment vice-president William Azaroff says. "What we're saying is:
'Hmm. Not so fast. That's not true.'"
With average
Metro Vancouver rents of $1,144 per month and vacancies at less than one per
cent, younger and lower-income households are in deep trouble.
And
Vancouver city is even worse, with an average rent of $1,233 late last year,
and a vacancy rate of 0.6 per cent.
So forget
the nationality of homebuyers and ask why anyone would let another country's
citizens make homes unaffordable?
Ridiculous?
That's why I repeat my call for a six-month ban on the foreign purchase of B.C.
homes to find longer-term solutions and stop the insanity.
.
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