Re: Vancouver election office says record high voter turnout reason for long lineups for byelection Read More
Motivation for recent cuts to City of Vancouver programs and operations was cost.
Motivation for recent cuts to City of Vancouver programs and operations was cost.
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Last week there were a few disappointments in Vancouver’s public realm. The first one became evident early on when advance in-person byelection voting at city hall was so overprescribed that many citizens who were on lunch breaks, or ill equipped to stand for hours, just gave up in frustration. This situation should have been a red flag immediately to city staffers tasked with running what many predicted would be a highly contested byelection. They might have then speedily added more polling stations and augmented existing ones to speed up the process. The impetus for this debacle was a report approved by council in January based on a past byelection in 2017 where voter turnout was low so council approved cutting the polling stations and staff by two-thirds. The motivation for the cuts was cost.
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Also last week, Vancouver Sun reported that the city plans to cut in half its present funding for school lunch programs, affecting lower income students. They say the provincial government plans to pick up these costs, while the school board said it is not assured. And from what I hear, the province has far more pressing budget restrictions due to tariffs. Here too the motivation was cost.
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Informed Opinion
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It poses the question: With the city’s budget having increased by about 21.2 per cent over the past three years, services that signal principles of a sound democracy and a nutritional baseline to promote learning for the next generation are being slashed. Do we care about the cost of these issues over their intrinsic value? I hope not.
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Terri Clark, Vancouver
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Whitecaps should move to Surrey
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The Whitecaps should locate their new stadium where most of their fans live: in Surrey.
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Unlike the Hastings Park site, several potential locations may be available in Surrey adjacent to existing or forthcoming rapid transit stations.
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Brownfield land is available in Surrey; or a corner of Green Timbers Park might be sacrificed for offsetting community amenities.
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Why should the city of Vancouver monopolize all the fun?
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D. B. Wilson, Port Moody
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The 2025 Trump recession
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President Donald Trump claims that the massive tariffs he has imposed on nearly all countries is medicine. If medicine kills the patient, it isn’t medicine — it is poison.
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Never before has one person been solely responsible for causing a worldwide recession. Trump inherited a vibrant economy in the U.S., as well as internationally. As a result of his incompetent, foolish action he has shocked the economy. Recessions are largely psychological and feed upon themselves. Once the economy starts to suffer, it is very hard to turn it around. The 2008 recession was caused by gross mismanagement of the U.S. home mortgage market, and the 2020 recession was caused by COVID 19. The 2025 Trump recession is the result of the ignorance and stupidity of one man.