No, I'm not shifting to public relations, although I'm quite sure that would probably have been a more fruitful decision for my bank account. I'm moving to Cambodia. Well, I should say I have moved to Cambodia - true to form, I'm writing this note several weeks late.

In any case, I've enjoyed my time covering the goings-on in Vancouver. Thanks to everyone for reading my occasional posts. And thanks to my now former editor, Dean Broughton, seen here indulging in a well deserved beverage, for allowing me a lengthy leash and, perhaps more crucially, giving me a job.

I haven't a clue what direction this blog is going to take in the coming months. But at the very least, I've paid my web fees up until next year, so I might as well keep scribbling. Stay tuned?

Attractive photo of mail delivery trucks courtesy of the kind folks at Canada Post.

But the mailman could play a role delivering a battery-powered, zero emission future on the roads.

Canada Post represents one of the largest transportation fleets in the country.

Its armada of 7,000 mostly gas guzzlers lurched its way down more than 76 million kilometers of roadway last year, burning up 24 million litres of fuel and pumping out 59,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the process.

As part of the flagship fleet of a federal government that’s looking to encourage fuel-efficient vehicles in the consumer market, the typical Canada Post delivery truck isn’t exactly a beacon of progress in the public sector.

With clearly defined, relatively short delivery routes in urban centres, today’s already available electric engine technology could be well suited to Canada Post’s needs.

But despite a long interest in going electric, Canada Post has taken only a few cautious steps to transform its fleet towards alternative fuel technology.

Here in my car: Lowell Leifso stands beside his factory made plug-in electric Toyota RAV4.

Leifso's commuter vehicle would look like any of the other popular Toyota crossover SUV models on the road today, if it weren't for the bright "electric vehicle" decals he has stuck to the car.

"It's quite an attention grabber," Leifso admits, as a few onlookers sneak a peak at his ride. "People ask questions like, 'Did you build it? Where can I get one?' Most people are just really interested to know a little bit more about it."

Leifso's 2003 model was among the last of the plug-in electric vehicles Toyota retailed in California before shutting down its line.

It's proven its worth to Leifso already. While acceleration on the vehicle is noticeably sluggish, the car can zip down the highway at a 130 kilometres an hour max. And with a range of about 160 km, it costs about $2 to "fill up" when he charges up the RAV4 at home through a paddle that slips in under the front grill.

That's about one-fifth of the cost of filling up a regular gas-powered RAV4, Leifso says.

And as gas prices head north of $1 per litre and car companies continue their very public struggle to survive, the interest in alternative fuel technologies is only spiking.

Today, most major manufacturers have rushed to promise electric vehicles for the market within years. GM, Dodge, Ford, Nissan, Renault, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Toyota all have models in the works, to varying degrees. Canadian auto-parts magnate Frank Stronach wants to mass-produce electric cars within three years.

But what are the chances of the technology succeeding? Is the idea that electric vehicles will be widespread in just a few years merely a pipe dream?

From Facebook.com

Ben West failed to file his campaign financing disclosure statement for the 2008 municipal elections, in which he came within 10 votes from becoming director of the anomalous Electoral Area A.

After years in student politics, West has run in virtually every federal, provincial or municipal election in the region since 2005.

He ran for the mayor's seat in Vancouver that year, finishing well back, but in front of anyone not named Sullivan or Green.

STATEMENT FROM CONSTANCE BARNES

(VANCOUVER) - I have made a serious mistake. On May 23, 2009 I was charged with
driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol.

I was returning home from an afternoon at Iona Beach in Richmond and was
arrested and charged by the Vancouver Police Department around 11pm. I do not
intend to challenge this charge. The police arrested me outside of a home in
South Vancouver where I had fallen asleep at the wheel and hit a residential
home. No-one was injured in this incident, however there was damage to the
property.

I take full responsibility for my actions and acknowledge my lack of judgment.
This incident follows a time of deep personal struggle, for which I am now
receiving support. I have enrolled in Alcoholics Anonymous and I am seeking
out other professional support to assist me through this time.

I would like to apologize to my family, friends, colleagues and to the citizens
of Vancouver for this serious mistake. I am ashamed by my actions and the
embarrassment it has caused my family and friends.

I will be taking time over the coming months to tackle my personal challenges.
In order to learn from my mistakes and to restore public confidence, I will be
taking a leave from my job and a medical leave from my position as a Vancouver
Park Board Commissioner.

I will make myself available to the media on June 10th at 1:15 PM at the SFU
Harbour Centre in Room 1520, Barrick Gold Lecture Room.

Constance Barnes
Park Board Commissioner

-30-

Drug gangs in Canada British Columbia or Colombia?

May 28th 2009 | VANCOUVER
From The Economist print edition
Organised crime brings fear to Vancouver’s streets

WHILE campaigning for an election on May 12th in which he was easily re-elected, Gordon Campbell, the premier of British Columbia (BC) province, had a personal brush with violent crime. As he was being interviewed by a reporter at a Vancouver hotel, a woman with a gun ran by, having robbed a jeweller. The premier’s bodyguard hustled him to safety; the robber was later arrested. But the incident should have reminded Mr Campbell that crime worries voters almost as much as the recession.

The rest of the story in The Economist.

Yan finds the idea of a plethora of foreign-owned vacant investor suites downtown is largely a myth. I suppose the investors' tax on empty condos won't be reappearing as a local policy proposal anytime soon.

What is a concern, he theorizes, is a lack of family housing in these new developments.

Here's the full study from the BTAworks website.

Downtown ‘Empty Condo’ phenomenon largely a myth, study finds
Majority of condos, non-owner occupied, but rented.

Vancouver, British Columbia - The popular belief that there are large numbers of empty downtown condos with offshore owners is largely disproved by a new study released by BTAworks. The study, undertaken to examine condo ownership in Downtown Vancouver also confirmed that the majority of the area’s condos are not-owner occupied.

BTAworks, a new research and development consulting division of Bing Thom Architects, examined data from the City of Vancouver, BC Assessment, BC Hydro, and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation for 2,400 condos in Downtown Vancouver – almost 10 percent of all the condos in the area.

“Working with BC Hydro data, we were able to determine that only 5.5 to 8 percent of study condos were unoccupied.” states Andrew Yan, a BTAworks researcher and Urban Planner who led the study. “While the number of empty condos in Downtown Vancouver is low, condos in our study were typically non-owner occupied, but rented out by their owners”.

In addition to an estimate on empty condos, the study found that:

• Condo ownership is a relatively new form of housing for Vancouver. Over 88 percent of condo units in Downtown Vancouver have been built since 1990.
• Less than 40 percent of downtown condos have more than one bedroom.
• The majority of condos are not occupied by the property owner.
• The majority of non-owner occupied condos are owned by BC residents, with a scattering of foreign owners, predominately from the western US states such as California, Washington, and Arizona.
• Owner-occupied units are typically worth $30,000 to $40,000 more than non-owner occupied units, and the more bedrooms the unit has, the more likely it is to be owner occupied.
• A family with one child in the City of Vancouver earning the median income of $75,000 a year would have great difficulty in finding and paying for a condo bigger than one bedroom, even if condo prices were to fall 25 percent below 2008 assessment levels.

The study findings outline some of the elements behind Downtown Vancouver’s remarkable housing boom and suggests that the majority of growth in Downtown condos has been dominated by investors and those looking for a second home, rather than homeowners. These trends signal emerging housing and planning challenges in providing suitable and affordable housing for working and middle-income households, especially those with children.

“If Vancouverism 1.0 is embodied by tall skinny towers and one bedroom, investor-driven condominium projects for Downtown Vancouver, then Vancouverism 2.0 needs to redress this imbalance by providing more affordable family-oriented housing units with great supporting amenities,” concludes Yan. “Without this, the sustainable communities with opportunities to live, work and prosper that the City aspires to are likely unachievable.”

“We’re proud to fund this study and inform the ongoing and important housing and planning dialogues occurring in the City” said Bing Thom, principal of Bing Thom Architects. “Vancouver is often viewed as a global example of downtown residential development and we must work to ensure that what we are modeling for the world has substance with a commitment to affordable and suitable urban housing for families with children to stay and grow with our city.”

- 30 -

The morning featured an odd exchange between NHL hall-of-famer Frank Mahovlich and former mayor Larry Campbell, who are of course, both now Liberal senators. See the bottom of this story for the scintillating exchange:

The federal government will never be able to shut down Vancouver’s supervised injection site, a prominent Liberal senator and former mayor pledged Friday.

“Insite will never shut down,” Senator Larry Campbell told a gathering of his federal party’s senators in Vancouver Friday.

“They’ll have to arrest me before they shut it down.”

Campbell, Vancouver’s mayor from 2002 to 2005, was hosting an information session for his Liberal senate colleagues in the city’s troubled Downtown Eastside. But the senators’ visit coincided with a round of arguments this week in B.C.’s top court that has the future of Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site, hanging in the balance.

“This is a medical issue,” Campbell told his colleagues, who are in town for this weekend’s Liberal Party convention. “The federal government has no jurisdiction – none – in this issue.”

But that’s not what the federal government believes.

The feds are seeking to overturn a B.C. Supreme Court Justice’s ruling last year that granted Insite a permanent exemption from federal drug possession and trafficking laws.

The ruling, which surprised even Insite supporters, effectively gave Insite the right to operate despite what Ottawa says.

A decision from the B.C. Court of Appeal isn’t expected for several weeks.

While the city, the province, the Vancouver Police Department and the local health authority all support Insite, the Conservative government has been openly critical of the facility.

“I think the site itself represents a failure of public policy, indeed of ethical judgment,” former Health Minister Tony Clement told the House of Commons committee on health last May.

It’s become clear there’s a huge divergence between how the federal government and Insite advocates believe drug addicts should be treated.

“Supervised injection is not medicine. It does not heal the person addicted to drugs,” Clement said last year.

Supporters, however, see Insite as a health measure on the continuum towards treatment.

“For some people, they may never stop using,” Liz Evans, a nurse and executive director of PHS Community Services Society, which co-manages Insite, told the Liberal senators Friday.

“But if they don’t get HIV, if they don’t die from overdose, then that’s their right.”
Many people who live in the group’s non-profit housing, Evans said, still actively use drugs. The difference is the tenants aren’t on the street.

While many senators appeared moved by Friday’s presentations, which included a senior police officer, an urban planner and frontline workers from the Downtown Eastside, at least one senator questioned what’s come to be known in Vancouver as a harm reduction approach.

“Switzerland tried something,” said Liberal Senator Frank Mahovlich, the Hall of Fame former NHL player.

“They had a park and every drug addict in Switzerland came to Europe, so they had to stop that.”

But Campbell disputed the senator’s assertion, calling his comments “a myth.”

“You cannot have access to that supervised injection site unless you’re from that canton,” Campbell said. “If you’re in Zurich, you can’t go to another place and the reason for that is, as we know, they need the support of families and their friends. So that’s another myth. They didn’t go to Switzerland.”

“It did happen,” Mahovlich responded.

“It didn’t happen,” Campbell countered.

“It did happen,” Mahovlich insisted. “I was told it happened.

“Another problem was in the States,” he continued. “In 1957, I joined professional hockey and I used to go to Chicago. We’d go down the streets and they’d take us by skid row.

“Well, we were there … they put a highway through it and it wasn’t skid row anymore.”

Mahovlich’s colleagues didn’t comment on the senator’s assertions.

It was the latest shot fired during arguments in B.C.’s top court that has the future of Vancouver's supervised injection site hanging in the balance.

The federal government is arguing that a B.C. Supreme Court judge erred in granting users and staff at Insite a constitutional exemption from elements of possession and trafficking drug laws. That decision, rendered last year, gave the government until June 30 of this year to fix the apparent contradiction.

“Sixty days from now, this province is at risk of not having a trafficking law,” lawyer Robert Frater, acting for the Attorney General of Canada, argued Monday.

Last year's decision, Frater argued, erroneously found federal drug laws had to accommodate the needs of the injection drug users who use Insite.

“The government is under no obligation to provide [drug addicts] with a safer way of breaking the law,” Frater said.

Frater suggested Insite proponents’ arguments for “reasonable accommodation” for Insite users under federal drug laws were in fact the “capitulation of criminal law.”

It would be as if, Frater suggested, the laws against theft had to be adjusted to accommodate kleptomaniacs, or if laws against arson had to accommodate pyromaniacs.

“This judgment is erroneous in every step of the way,” Frater suggested.

But lawyer Joseph Arvay, acting for Insite co-managers PHS Community Services Society and two of Insite’s clients, maintained the trial judge was correct in his decision, which in effect gave Insite the legal right to operate despite what the federal government said.

“This law stands between seriously ill people and the health care services they need,” Arvay said.

“Without Insite,” he suggested, “they’re in the alleys. There is a very, very high risk that they will inject using unclean needles and unclean water.

“… There’s a serious risk [they] will acquire HIV or [Hepatitis C] and pass it on.”

Upholding the elements of Canada’s drug laws struck down by the B.C. Supreme Court last year would prohibit addicts from using Insite and expose them to risk, Arvay said.

“It is the law that … creates the risk of death or illness,” Arvay suggested. “It’s the law that stands between the addict and health care.”

In his decision last year, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Pitfield compared the treatment of Insite injection drug users to how society treats smokers or alcoholics.

“Society neither condemns the individual who chose to drink or smoke to excess, nor deprives that individual of a range of health care services,” Pitfield wrote.

“I cannot see any rational or logical reason why the approach should be different when dealing with the addiction to narcotics.”