‘The Electric City’

is not a pretty picture

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City council recently got a reality check when new projections put their five-year fiscal plan in fairy tale land.

Soaring infrastructure costs make the figures in that plan unworkable throwing property tax projections out of sight. Money earmarked for infrastructure falls far short of new estimates.

From this point on city councillors will need to put on their thinking caps to determine real priorities for present and future necessary expenditures.

The city has engaged in frivolous spending in recent years – like bicycle paths to nowhere, electric vehicle charging stations, electric cycles. That’s a can or worms in itself.

An unattribued YouTube video is floating on social media and it’s not a pretty picture of what it calls “The Electric City.” By this morning it had 1,200 views. You can watch it HEREif you have the stomach for it.

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Today's biggest problem

is not enough intercourse

Go ahead, look it up in the dictionary – “communication or dealings between individuals or groups.”

As society, we don’t agree to disagree any more because of fear of offending, ending civil debate. It has become a question of your opinion against everyone else’s without room for the other side. Refusal to talk to each other has led to no talking at all with nothing but platitudes or insults.

I’ve been publishing opinions for years but I notice they have become toothless, holding back for fear of hurt feelings. More of us need to say it as it is. We need to do a lot more thinking and a lot more debating without anger. Or insults.

I’m stepping out with this little section of the universe – Opinionated and Uncensored – so we can say what we think by injecting more piss and vinegar to stir people to do some serious thinking. Agree or disagree, as long as it makes you think, as long as it gets your brain in gear.

If you disagree, don’t hesitate to respond, or ignore it. We all need a little more discourse. If that offends you, there’s a delete button on your computer.

And that's my opinion.

Pay me now or pay me later,

the fake tax cut

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Most of us remember that old Fram oil filter advertising campaign.

When is a tax cut not really a tax cut? The one Prime Minister Mark Carney promised during the election campaign. It’s time to look that gift horse in the mouth. He’s not cutting spending, in fact he’s spending more. So where does the money come from to cut taxes? It’s simple, the way government does it is just to borrow more money, adding to the debt.

Carney is just delaying paying off the tax cut, with interest added, for you to pay for years and years. That’s akin to withdrawing cash on your credit card to make the monthly credit card payments.

‘The Electric City’

is not a pretty picture

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City council recently got a reality check when new projections put their five-year fiscal plan in fairy tale land.

Soaring infrastructure costs make the figures in that plan unworkable throwing property tax projections out of sight. Money earmarked for infrastructure falls far short of new estimates.

From this point on city councillors will need to put on their thinking caps to determine real priorities for present and future necessary expenditures.

The city has engaged in frivolous spending in recent years – like bicycle paths to nowhere, electric vehicle charging stations, electric cycles. That’s a can or worms in itself.

It’s time to derail the MP gravy train

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Justin Trudeau is set to collect more than $8 million in pension and severance pay from taxpayers if he lives an average lifespan.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh will also cash in big when they leave Parliament.

We hear great indignation from the masses every time these numbers pop up, but after that jab of a sharp poker stick in the butt fades away.

If Canadians are really that upset, get after your MPs and Parliament as a whole to make changes to these allowances rather than wait another four years to regurgitate the same puke.

Just keep in mind, the same people who are collecting these great cashouts are the same ones we are asking to end that practice. Fat chance.

To fair somewhat fair, MPs actually pay into their pension funds, not as much as you and I do, but they chip in. To put it in perspective, anyone age 65 today will inch closeto half a million dollars by age 85. Not millions, but it keeps the wolf from the door.

So, who’s going to kick off a national campaign to redesign the Parliamentary benefits plan? I’m not holding my breath.

Luring American medics is smoke and mirrors

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Premier David Eby’s confidencein his scheme to lure health care works to B.C. from the U.S. is a matter of day dreaming. The province conducted a campaign to get the Americans to settle here and Eby said later there and been surprising initial interest.

That’s where it falls down, interest in the idea is not the same as signing a contact. Eby's vitriole is more about getting even with Donald Trump. Lotsa luck, Big Boy.

All those supposedly coming here from the U.S. have likely not looked at the value of the cheap Canadian dollar, under-staffed medical facilities, being overworked and insufficient funding to keep the system going. And the denial of our personal freedoms. There’s a rude awakening in store for them. The pay cheque is 30 per cent cheaper due to the exchange rate, even before taxes.

And don't forget the thousands of B.C. health care workers who were fired for refusing to be injected with what they considered a dangerous product. Put them back on the job first before pie-in-the sky immigrations schemes.

We used to be almost arrogant to American friends about our superior health care system. You could see a doctor pretty well any time you needed one, get a specialist and a hospital room.

Now we’re not much beyond Third World status when it come to looking after our sick people. That in itself is sick.

What would Barry say?

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“Idle thoughts of an idle fellow” was the way the late Barry Broadfoot used to float interesting topics for readers to digest.

I can imagine he would have had a few choice words about the goings on at Vancouver Island University where instruction and education are taking a back seat because of a lack of funding.

I can envision Barry's perspective to those problems in light of frivolities such as an 1,100 pound Nanaimo bar world record.

Or, "let them eat cake." I bet that’s what he would have said.

Boycott is only hurting

every-day Americans

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Donald Trump is not going to inconvenience me. And I’m not going to get even.

Toronto Blue Jays are playing in Seattle this weekend, an event that usually lures thousands south of the border for those days. Data provided by the Whatcom Council of Governments comparing the number of B.C. license plates crossing the border into Washington State found that in April 2024, 200,853 vehicles crossed, compared to 98,576 in April 2025.

As of Thursday afternoon, hundreds of tickets were still available for all three Blue Jays games this weekend. Lt.-Gov. Denny Heck said his office had received information that reservations for the weekend were down by half.

By boycotting the weekend events Canadians are not hurting Trump, they’re only punishing our friends down south, and ourselves. Don’t let Trump spoil a good weekend, jump in the car and see the Jays in action.

It’s more than just a weekend in Seattle. WestJet is suspending nine routes to the U.S due to lower demand. Many of the suspended routes are to tourist destinations such as Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla.

Getting even does not solve anything. We're not as powerful as a lot of us might imagine ourselves to be. While we're at it, let's welcome a lot of Americans to Canada.

Lots of housing but

nobody can afford it

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When the one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. We’re hearing Metro Vancouver has more than 2,000 new condos sitting unsold and empty. That is expected to rise to nearly 3,500 by the end of the year.

There are 16,000 condo listings overall in the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board. Low presales are leading some developers to rethink projects.

That raises the question about the price point of those projects. Building multi-million-dollar condos does not solve the problem of affordability for the majority of the population.

switched to Conservatives

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There are many side stories to the federal election with analyses galore. The most unthinkable is the number of New Democrats who flipped their votes to the Conservatives. After winning 25 seats in the 2021 election, The NDP plummeted to just seven seats.

Union workers appear to have played a key role. UBC political science professor Terri Givens said there is a shift of people who are union workers who typically in the past might have gone NDP or Liberal.

“They’re frustrated with the last 10 years. They’re also looking for somebody who’s going to say the things they want to hear, and that’s something that Poilievre has really tried to do is to be the person who’s out there saying what people want to hear on things like housing and immigration and affordability., Given added.”

Ipsos Public Affairs President Darrell Bricker says it’s clear what drove that shift. “If you’re a member of a working class union, particularly if you are a male member of a working-class union at least, they don’t feel that they have a place in that particular version of the New Democratic Party.

Ipsos data shows of those who voted for the NDP in 2021, 19 per cent switched their vote to the Liberals this election, but five per cent went to the Conservatives, which could amount to more than 151,800 voters.

While five per cent might not seem like a lot, it could shift the balance when progressive votes split between the NDP and Liberals, and make the Conservatives more competitive, Bricker said.

Mid-Island communities reliant on natural resources like Nanaimo-Ladysmith, North Island-Powell River and Cowichan-Malahat-Langford switched to the Conservatives.

Bricker said this is in part due to the Conservatives’ efforts to appeal to voters who were more focused on affordability.

“What we saw was working people who weren’t really motivated by the issue of what was going on with the United States, really focused more on the affordability question, which normally would be enough to keep them pinned down with the NDP,” Bricker said.

“This time around, they actually saw Poilievre and the Conservatives as being a viable option on that question.”

It's time to quit dating, get married

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Before Monday's election we had a minority Liberal government with the New Democrats holding them to ransom. Now after the election we have a minority Liberal government with the New Democrats holding them to ransom.

A source tells me a confidence agreement is going to happen with the Liberals being just short of a majority and the NDP, with seven seats, can ensure there’s not a quickie defeat of the government. So why don’t they just quit dating and just get married? They've been shacked up long enough.

The world trade war extendsfarther than U.S. President Donald Trump. China has imposed 100-per-cent tariffs on canola oil, canola meal and peas in retaliation to Canada imposing levies on Chinese-made electric vehicles, steel and aluminum. Canola farmers are getting hit hard by the tariffs while also dealing with uncertainty around U.S. tariffs. Cheapo stuff from China will not be so cheap any more.

At one time the Made-in-Canadalabel used to stand for quality, an offset to foreign imports. In recent years that standard has been watered down with faux products. Now when you check the labels of products too many say “packaged in Canada”, or “imported for,” leaving us scratching our heads. It’s time to proudly display the Made-in-Canada label again on all the products that are proudly produced in our country.