The windstorms in BC, and the clean-up controversy
This might be a bit of a late reaction, but I still want to say this, because this is still a hot issue of debate as far as I’m concerned.
Couple of weeks ago, BC was hit by a series of major windstorms that caused plenty of damage. At one point, as many as 50,000 were living in the 17th century with no electricity. I am fortunate enough to live in a high-rise condo in the middle of downtown Vancouver, where the power lines are all underground, so I never suffer from it! But just to imagine being out of electricity for a few days is just devastating for me! I would go nuts.
Other damage suffered were trees that fell in Stanley Park. Thousands of trees were ripped down by the harsh wind storms and they now lay scattered across forrest in Stanley Park. And many citizens are donating money to the city’s funds to clean that up to restore the beauty of the park, and I disagree.
The only parts of the park that should be restored are the parts that people actually use. The trees that disturb normal access of people to the park should be, of course, cleaned out. But there are dense areas of forests that nobody can access anyhow, that has trees littered all over (and thus much harder/costly to clean up) don’t need to be cleaned up! It’s only costmetic, not practical!
This is one thing I feel that is odd about North America - I’m not natively North American by the way, although I speak more or less perfectly and what not. But still, I find that people here are so spoiled, and they put too much value and money into matters that are not as critical but more of a luxury. When 50,000 people go out of electricty, and traffic lights fail (thus causing higher accidents), and business operations are disturbed by storms, the cosmetics of a park should come second.
Instead of putting all that money into beautifying Stanley Park, why don’t we invest in underground power lines for Richmond (traffic lights were out in many parts of Richmond. I go there a lot with contracts. Traffic was hell), and perhaps invest also in infrastructure to prevent mudslides in the North Shore??? I just don’t see the justification of millions of dollars being put into restoring the cosmetics of a park when there are people who actually suffer damages and lose time/money in other places due to the storm.
You are right Jeff but without a nice park and the restoration of park benches, where will anyone be able to sit and ponder how to improve the cities decaying infrastructers?
You know what else happens at Stanley Park? You get to chillax, sip on some suds, and escape all of lifes problems all under the warm vancouver sun.
Yes it is true, the park has a lot of value.
I should have specified more. I’m in support of recovering the areas that do affect the usage of the park - for example, all the benches/driveways/walkpaths/parking lots should be clear of debree. But Stanley Park also has a VERY dense forrest area, which nobody can go into anyways because it’s too wild - and it’s the cleanup of those trees that bother me! Those trees do not alter the effective use of the park in any way - it is PURELY cosmetic..
The difference in cost to clean up JUST the trees that affect the usage of the park vs. cleaning up all the fallen trees is MILLIONS. Stanley Park is huge, and the dense forest area is very wide as well!
My opinion is that fallen trees are just part of nature, and if it doesn’t need to be removed for practical reasons it should stay that way. Just like we would any other natural forest that suffers destroyed trees due to storms etc.
You are 100% right! I agree with you. Function before beauty! Get it working , and then worry about the cosmetics. Even though politicians try to create an image of green, they should not try to balance function and beauty 50/50. Function is worth more to everyone. After let the people complain about beauty, then worry about where to allocate tax payer money.
Yes, think about how much money is lost by ICBC(car insurance company) on these days when there are more accidents? Think about the excess fuel consumed by thousands of vehicles over 2 days of no power/no signals. Think about the amount of money businesses lose when they cannot have power in their offices.
Yes Jeff, the ripple effect that the consumer ultimately pays. But, where one person pays, another collects! Are you not happy for the business owners who reap the benefit of disasters like this? Don’t you have investments in oil somewhere?
And feeling sorry for the car insurance company, you have to remember you are feeling sorry about a corporation, not people. The people are all on salary, they dont’ miss a dime. No corporation opperates with such little reserves that they cant take a small blow like this, besides they can just make it up somewhere else with an increase.
And when a company goes bankrupt, how many at the top leave with millions of dollars? Let the big boys do as they please so the little guy can keep their jobs.
Don’t you like talking politics and stuff?
The greatest problem of ICBC (insurance corporation of british columbia) is that they are publicly owned and inefficient…
Basically, the more insurance fraud/theft/drinking and driving/dumb accidents we have, everybody pays the price. my insurance premiums for my car only go up. Any losses that ICBC sustains will ultimately be taken out of the pockets of the people, like myself.
ICBC is notorious, as it is, for their inefficiency in operations and overstaffing/overpaying due to unions etc. The purpose of being public is to keep things clean and clear for the people but instead we are rewarded with very high insurance prices. Our insurance rates are significantly higher than that in Ontario for one, and I’m sure the similar figures come up with other cross-continental comparisons.
The only people that will leave with the big millions after a bankruptcy, if ever in ICBC (considering they are public, and they will simply jack up the prices at the face of a deficit, like they always have), nobody walks away with the millions because no individual owns it or has shares in it. The government loses money and the taxes will come out of everybody’s pockets!
Oh and yes, I love political debates!!!