What’s that smell in B. C.?
Brian Hutchinson has an opinion piece in the National Post (another of the Asper’s properties) which ties up the recent Auditor General’s report to the growing list of unresolved scandals dogging the BC Liberals. The release of land from a tree farm licence agreement follows pretty much standard operating procedure these days. It ignored due process, obvious conflicts of interest and the need to consult local government and the public. In other words, everything that has also occurred in this region lately over the power lines or the port expansion or the SFPR.
What surprises me is the source of this – up until now the media conglomerate has given the BC Liberal Party a much easier ride than they ever afforded the NDP. Which is as one might expect. But the current crop of scandals make the Nanaimo Bingo affair, or Glen Clark’s deck, look trivial.
A thorough analysis of what is happening now can be found on David Shrek’s blog – the two most recent articles really helped me to put this into perspective
UPDATE Saturday July 19
There is more on this story this morning from Vaughan Palmer “Forest firm takes issue with extraneous issues in land-use report”
“The auditor-general does not have the authority to reverse the decision” wrote Hert, “nor does he recommend that the decision be reversed.”
Case closed, as far as the company is concerned. But far from the end of the story in the political realm.
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The auditor-general’s full report on this running land-use controversy is posted on his website, at www.bcauditor.com.
Is the free ride for the Liberals over? Not unless Carrol James makes a fuss. She should be screaming from the roof tops, but nary a peep. and here lies the problem in BC; the leader of the official opposition is mostly silent on these events and when the opposition is quiet, the media is quiet too.
Sadly, Ms. James has neutered the role of the official opposition and she (and us) will pay the price.
Malcolm J.
July 18, 2008 at 8:14 am
The landscapes in the WFP area are stunning. Some of the best views and most unique landscape character in Canada. The WFP cutblocks you could see from the West Coast Road were fairly well managed as far as such industrial logging operations go. Riparian + marine buffers were left, and the largest cutblocks received fairly dense replanting, but only with a couple or three valuable plantation tree species.
One relatively small cutblock right above French Beach Park and Point No Point seemed designated for housing right from the start. I walked it just after the logging ended (about 8 years ago) and was really taken by the views of the Juan de Fuca strait and Olympic mountains from the top, about 100 metres above French Beach. It backed into a fairly mature beautiful second growth cedar and sitka spruce forest.
Unfortunately, the lots are now being developed with plastic houses adorned with 10-foot satellite dishes and honking big RVs in triple-wide asphalted driveways. Nothing like white vinyl against a cedar forest to assualt one’s sensibilities.
In the NP article Ender Ilkay claims to want to develop a “sustainable community” at Jordan River. But what he is selling there does not live up to this claim: http://www.totangi.ca/wildwood/
It is no more than a residential large lot subdivision, albeit with a few design guidelines. But this is the Wild Coast, not Langford. Given the sheer size of the WFP land holdings, the traditional subdivision planning that have popped up, and the lack of consultation, there is every justification to worry not just about the politics this has arisen from, but community form.
In another sense, though, the WFP lands could be seen as a clean slate. This could be an opportunity to promote true sustainability from scratch. Greater Victoria is ripe for light rail, and if if carefully designed and tied very solidly to appropriate land use changes, it could stimulate significant examples of deeply sustainable development, whether in reforming parts of Langford and Colwood to establishing new communities west of Sooke based on a new commuter rail service.
Villages instead of subdivisions. Rail instead of cars. Energy self-sufficent instead of grid-based. Mixed use instead of single use.
Meredith
July 18, 2008 at 12:37 pm
More flowery speeches from planners(gimmee a break) this was a back room deal ripe with corruption,the land was not purchased by WFP,the land is for forestry and jobs,you liberal theives and planners don`t give a shit about sustainability,get your head out of the clouds,its about money,ya got it money!
This clean slate crap,make me gag,hundreds of miles of roads,transmission lines,septic you name it and the planners want to F—- it up again.there is plenty of areas to develop without messing with the west coast. Why can`t you admit your liberal party are a bunch of crooks but no,you kumbia flowery speech writers are pathetic, oh well the liberals ripped off the people again,oh well let me plan a beautiful community garden.
Your flowery speeches and we are the world crap needs to be composted along with the Campbell group of theives!!!!!
Lots of people look the other way when the gas chambers were running,darfur,china,tibet,kenya and now BRITISH COLUMBIA and you planners want to develop it for the enviroment and humanity theif liberals,YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.
Grant g
July 18, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Grant, or whoever the ^^ you are, I was about to suggest you fall into a big vat of Preparation H. Judging from the above invective and shrunken outlook, it appears you already have.
You need to take your own advice and get your head out of the sand. That area is paradise and is most profoundly threatened by the development of subdivisions. No matter how blue in the face you get, no matter how much you stamp your feet, no matter how many buckets of projectile spittle you distribute all over the landscape, you (or the rest of us) will not be able to stop all development.
But we can certainly change it.
PS. To clarify to the others, I do not vote or subscribe to neocon politics.
Meredith
July 18, 2008 at 3:32 pm
The land deal was illegal,tear it up!
There is another huge land giveaway in the kooteneys almost complete with POPE N TALBOT(a bankrupt forestry giant) who owe millions to local forest contractors, apparrently the land is already been reported and posted on colliers web site as been sold from pope n talbot to third parties,yet the exminister of forests claims the deal to release a gazillion hecters of land to pope n talbot has not been finalized.
How can a deal not be finalized with secondary land sales already in the public domain?
Meredith I believe your thoughts are sincere but nothing enviromentaly sound will ever be done by GORDON CAMPBELL–The bc liberals have yet to lift a few trucks and a gas tanker off of robson bite (The excuse is,the bc liberals are looking for the best value for taxpayers) Campbell is worried about a feww hundred thousand dollars of savings–TELL THAT TO THE ORCAS THAT RUB THEIR BACKS AT THIS WORLD FAMOUS SITE.
As long as rich corporate money people (bc liberals) are running or should I say ruining this province it will never change–Rich people want waterfront,river veiw,sprawling acreage, John Les chilliwak mla cutting special deals to remove land from the ALR–Coleman brother is an executive with WFP– 2000 rivers sold to american companies for 5000 dollars apiece—Tawassewn residents getting screwed to sell power to the USA—Fish farms with lice and escapement (30.000 escaped last week in campbell river) –Foreighn owned fish farms that don`t employ F—- all in the way of people destroying our wild salmon—Coal to china–sour gas flaring—billions on highways—pipeline from alberta to prince rupert—The big push coming for drilling offshore in the Charlettes–Burns bog and along comes that phoney ASSHOLE DAVID SUZUKI who pats Campbell on the back and says great job,you have just saved the world with your phoney gas tax!!
Now the whole province is being bombarded with goverment propoganda on every radio and tv station on how the carbon tax saved the world and the ads go on to say(with blatant lies) that with the carbon tax it is the equivelant of taking 800.000 cars off the road every year (so in 5 years thats 4 million cars, the streets are now empty)
Campbell is a drunk,a liar,a theif, he will be going to hell when he dies,and all those ministers that go along with Campbell are going to hell with him.
The oceans are on the verge of species collaspe,the bees are dying,there is only a 28 day world food supply a third of what it used to be and its declining everyyear,the day will come when the world says NO MORE GROWTH and I hope when that day does come to make that decision it is not a city planner making the decision!!!!!!!!!!!
Grant g
July 19, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Getting away from the jaundiced opinionation for a moment, here’s a link to the CRD web site viewer with fairly clear orthophotos of the entire capital region all the way to Port Renfrew. Just click on “Layers”, then pick either the 2005 or 2007 colour orthophotos. Note that the 2007 orthos sometime don’t work. You can zoom in to individual sites.
http://maps.crd.bc.ca/imf/imf.jsp?site=public_crdviewer
One can clearly see the logging cutblocks west of Sooke, many (but not all) on formerly WFP land. Some of them are over a km across. If the status quo prevails, many are slated for your typical tacky subdivisions.
With a bit more intelligence and public consultation, they can be proportionately replanted, set aside as public park land, and slated for sustainable pedestrian and transit-based, mixed-use development. It may be best, though, to rehabilitate Colwood, Langford and Sooke first and tie in light and commuter rail as a consolation prize for GOOD PLANNING.
Also note the large areas set aside as regional parks (e.g. East Sooke Park — very beautiful there) and provincial parks (notably Juan de Fuca Park, including Sombrio Beach and China Beach). This resulted from GOOD PLANNING.
Those of us who know Victoria also enjoy it’s heritage core, essentially a largely intact walkable 19th Century town, which could have been obliterated with the ‘urban renewal’ of the 60s and 70s. Heritage conservation in the core informs most of the development there today. This is the result of GOOD PLANNING.
The suburbs are an exception, but again they are no different than any other suburban area. Nothing new there, except that it may be easier to redesign Victioria’s suburbs than Vancouver’s.
Meredith
July 23, 2008 at 3:36 pm