A letter to the editor

I wrote the following letter to the editor of our local news paper today. Because I don't know if he will deem it worthy of publication, I've decided to post the contents as a blog to insure that my rant is not at risk of disappearing into the round file. (P.S. Not only was this letter actually published, but it was highlighted and recognized as The News' "Feature letter" of the day) As an additional precaution, I'll hand deliver the actual letter this pm, as we have no snail mail service on Sundays, and I don't have any idea how frequently the News staff checks their e-mail. My letter follows from their lead article in "The News" of June 11, which described a definitely raucous and rowdy public meeting of Nanaimo's Regional District Board and officials, who were attempting to explain the necessity for building permits and building inspections to a few obstreperous rural, electoral area residents who had somehow managed to evade this rather basic form of municipal oversight and virtually universal system of health and safety regulation:

To the Editor, The News.

No permits or inspections, the picket signs read... You've got to be kidding.

Nobody wants new taxes imposed upon them, just witness what is happening with BC's provincial HST fiasco. Likewise, nobody wants to have new laws imposed on them, particularly if there is even a whiff of an odour of a perceived infringement of their personal rights.

No permits, No Inspections. No No No!

Indeed, I spent the latter third of my professional career speaking out against what I and the building and development industries saw as bureaucratic stupidity, completely unnecessary red tape, and money grabbing policies, while advocating for a modicum of common sense in the implementation of both new and old municipal and provincial policies.

But never in a million years would I have objected to the basic concept of building permits and inspections, because I recognize that they are absolutely essential to assuring the safety and health of the public at large. In BC it is still legal for an individual to build his own home, but do you believe that the average Joe has sufficient knowledge to do this safely, and in compliance with the building, plumbing, electrical and fire codes. I've personally witnessed too many serious infractions which belie that thought. The real problem is that some poor unsuspecting soul will inevitably purchase or inherit the problems that result from this lack of oversight, and have to pay through the nose to have them corrected at some future date.

Now don't get me wrong. I despise over-regulation of any industry at any time, or I would not have spent so many years actively fighting against it.

But having no building codes, building permits, building inspections?... Give me a break. Suck it up. Move on. Find something else to resist or complain about that makes at least a more sense. This not the time or place to draw your personal line in the sand.

Nimby Paradise

Vancouver Island and Taiwan are similar in size. The population of Vancouver Island is only 700,000 on its 31,000 sq km, while Taiwan's is 27 million on its 36,000 sq km. Guess which of the two is the one I am referring to in today's headline?

I guess we do have room for one or two more folks... despite the views of one of our local nimby councils which believes it must permanently cap its population at a specific number... and won't even be allowing its voters to consider any other option in the upcoming public review of their official community plan. That might be seen as censorship, or perhaps even an infringement of civil rights, in an other jurisdiction. Obviously they don't even trust their own electors to make such an important decision for themselves.

All ashore... its time to "GO".

Anyone sufficiently foolhardy to suggest constructing a bridge from the mainland to our island, is likely to receive an immediate invitation to take a long walk off a short plank over that little strip of intervening ocean, rather than waiting for a bridge.

The Federal Government did, however, manage to build one gigantic bridge at the opposite side of the country, despite the substantial local, vociferous public resistance to that one. That's the now quite famous, 12.9 km long, and very expensive, Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island, population only 141,000 and area only 5,600 sq km. When last I checked, this particular bridge had resulted in almost as as small a population increase as the infamous Alaskan bridge to nowhere.

But why, with all this emphasis on controlling population growth, is it that we can't figure out how to stop the population explosion of these flying poop machines, Canada geese, that are polluting our parks, lakes, golf courses and beaches... Whatever happened to shot guns?

I had a dream. Or was it a nightmare?

I was driving over to Nimby City one day in my gas guzzling Hummer (No I have never owned a Hummer - I told you this was a dream.) when I noticed something very strange hovering up in the sky above the open space where the City Hall should have been... Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Was it superman? Alas, it turned out to be none of the above. It was instead a gigantic super store dangling from an even more gigantic parachute, with banners draped all over it announcing the grand opening sale of a new Mall Wart emporium, and declaring that all Nimbys were particularly welcome, no matter what their sex, colour or creed!

Big Box - Oh no! Not in Nimby City!

Now everybody knows that big box stores are not at all welcome in Nimby City (the understatement of the year). Actually, I'm struggling to imagine any type of development that might be welcome here. Certainly fast food restaurants are big no nos, and the same goes for affordable housing, auto dealerships, and many other services that you might expect to find in a more normal town or city.

So what on earth could be the meaning of this particular dream, because, as you must be aware, all dreams do indeed have hidden meanings. Could it be that the time has come to rid the city of all nimbys, starting with those who populate the City Hall?

Or could it possibly all have been a figment of my over-active imagination, as most UFO sightings turn out to be. Which is my seguey into one of the best UFO jokes I ever heard. It was, of course, told by everyone's buddy, good old Johnny Carson, who was sharing with the world the story of where the term UFO had originated. According to Johnny: A jet pilot saw this strange saucer shaped object zipping about in front of his plane, and not knowing what else to do, he hollered from the cockpit.
"You... F. O.!!!"

Beam me up Scotty... Shatner for Governor General.

Are we all Nimbys?

If I ever want to wind up my coffee buddies in the Flat Earth Society... which, being of a somewhat mischievous mindset I frequently do, all that it takes is to mention "the bridge".

My wife and I have been fortunate enough to live on Vancouver Island since retiring some 15 years ago. Our little paradise just happens happens to be the largest island on the Pacific coast of North America, less than 2 hours by ferry, or 15 minutes by commuter plane from the the metropolis of Greater Vancouver, Canada's trade gateway to the Pacific.

The bridge to which I refer would be a land link between the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and Vancouver Island, and it would free our 3/4 million Island castaways from the drudgeries of long ferry terminal parking-lot wait times, dependency on the weather, obstreperous ferry worker unions, airport security and other such unconscionable inconveniences.

After all in 1997 they opened the Confederation Bridge as an extension of the Trans-Canada Highway between the Provinces of New Brunswick and the sparsely populated (150,000) Prince Edward Island, making travel throughout the Canadian Maritimes substantially more convenient. It took a decade to build that billion dollar, curved, 12.9 kilometre (8 mile) long bridge, the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water, and it endures today as one of Canada’s top engineering achievements of the 20th century. 

The Confederation Bridge

According to the 40% of the PEI population who voted against that bridge's development, the sky was going to fall and their island was going to sink under the weight of the influx of mainland invaders.

Of course that hasn't happened yet, but it surely would if they were ever to open such an engineering masterpiece between the BC mainland and our Pacific island paradise... at least according to my friends in the flat earth society.

The Pragmatic Environmentalist.

All environmentalists are nimbys to some degree, because with their heads in the clouds they are intent on preserving the status quo, or even reversing history. To greenies, progress seems to be a four letter word. Indeed the more rabid environmentalists seem to be advocating a return to a stone age life style, an ideal probably not shared by the majority of their neighbours.

I have been known to describe myself as a pragmatic environmentalist, which I have been told is an oxymoron. I know what a moron is and on occasion have been called much worse, but what in hell is an oxy? It is simply not within the realm of possibility to save all the species which still exist in our world, as many environmentalists wish. In any event we are told that more creatures have become extinct in historic and prehistoric times due to entirely natural causes, than presently exist on planet earth. Pragmatic, because I understand and concur with the necessity of protecting against uncontrolled exploitation of the world's natural resources, but also appreciate the advantages to be gained through the reasonable use of these same resources and those still to be discovered.

It is all too easy to find evidence of man's destructive tendencies in the name of progress, and it is often difficult to reconcile this with the ideal of leaving the world a better place than it was when we found it, but at least we should all consider that principle from time to time. With or without the aid of mankind, change, like death and taxes, is inevitable, but many are afraid of it.

How much of the atmospheric change currently making headlines is scientifically attributable to mankind's carbon emissions. With the notable exception of oilmen, most thinking people believe that the rapid increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that has occurred since the start of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, is to some degree caused by man. The related greenhouse effect is no longer scientifically in question. The remaining, and more important question is how to fix this problem.

I personally believe that we are in deep doodoo, but this is certainly a topic to be dealt with in blogs to come.

The Nimby Battle Cry

Go to any public hearing for the rezoning of land in anticipation of a new housing development and you'll hear the same tired old litany of complaints being regurgitated ad nauseum:

All the bad things in the neighbourhood are going to get worse. Nothing is going to get better. The traffic is going to become dangerously congested; the taxes will increase because of the additional demands for sewer, water, police and fire protection services; the sky is going to fall.

Never do you hear the nimbys ask: where their own kids are going to live after they leave the comfort of their parental homes, hopefully to earn their respective livings: or where the immigrants from across the country or around the world are going to find reasonable accommodation, i.e. those people on whom the growth of the economy and frequently our own jobs will depend.

We all know about the inevitability of death, and of the almost equal inevitability of tax increases, as the politicians succumb to the real or perceived demands of their constituents, in attempts to secure their own re-elections by bribing us with our own money spent on local improvements of one sort or another.

So let's just get over it. That's life in 21st century Canada, just as it was in the previous century and will remain in the foreseeable future... unless there really truly is an armageddon.

Nimbys vs Wandos

The red tape cutter bird

Many years ago, as the publisher of a commercial real estate magazine, I sponsored a contest to develop an acronym which would encourage an alternate, more positive attitude to that, too frequently demonstrated by the negative, selfish, I'm all right Jack, "Not In My Back Yard", NIMBYs of the world.

The winning word in that contest was "WONDO" - an abbreviation for "Work On New Development Opportunities". Undoubtedly, as you probably have never seen or heard of "Wondos" (which I rather assume to be the case) that campaign did not achieve its pretentious goals.

Now that I have more time on my hands, and access to the relatively new phenomenon of the bloggisphere to help in spreading the good word... perhaps the time has come to try again.