The article in the Vancouver Sun today will shock nobody, and most will see right past it—possibly even to the “upside” and the “positives”—maybe gleefully touting the “profits” that the state could happily reap, if only they—the state—go ahead and engage in more competition—in the free market—against its own citizens—for profits.
The “progressives” never really complete their “progress”, though, as we can see here, the latest of many examples across the country where liberals and leftists in government are increasingly engaging in nothing short of Fabian socialism. Drip by drip.
Background for non-BC’ers: “Translink” is the state-owned, state-run bus and public transportation system, and “SkyTrain” is its automated light-rail train system in metro Vancouver. My bolding in the article.
Translink’s $1.5B real estate empire
Authority to buy properties along rapid transit routes and form partnerships with developers
Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, March 19, 2008Metro Vancouver’s transportation authority is launching a real estate division that could produce up to $1.5 billion in revenue over the next 10 years, modelled on an agency that has reshaped Hong Kong.
Under the plan, enabled by 10-week-old provincial legislation, TransLink will purchase land along new rapid transit routes and around stations and ramp up the value of the land through denser zoning and partnerships with land developers to create high-density commercial and residential developments.
Early estimates of the revenue stream from real estate transactions were in the range of $30 million per year over 10 years, TransLink CEO Pat Jacobsen told The Vancouver Sun’s editorial board Tuesday.
[…]
A great deal of density is going to go in around the SkyTrain stations, Parker said. “We are going to have to benefit from that.”
“It means getting involved to a greater degree in real estate development.”
[…]
Before this year, TransLink was legally empowered only to buy the land necessary for SkyTrain operations. Under new legislation, TransLink can now buy land around stations and along the right of way.
[…]
To build three rapid transit lines in a decade, TransLink will need to secure high-density zoning from municipalities to feed ridership and create opportunities to profit from the real estate appreciation, Jacobsen explained.
To acquire the land cheaply and beat out developers and speculators, TransLink will have early discussions about alignments and station locations and then quickly and quietly buy the land where stations are to be built.
[…]
The state engaging in “partnerships” with the private sector is almost as frightening as the state outright competing against its citizens, as it also does. The federal government under the Liberal Party (and to a great extent it is continuing strongly under the Conservatives) has created myriad “partnerships” (
!), to the extent that the “private sector” is now hardly that anymore; and it is now almost totally—or to at least a great extent—reliant upon the benevolent nanny-state state with its corporate welfare and grants and loans (“partnerships”) for its own success or even its very viability.
In some circles, this is known as “fascism”. Again, that’s “fascism”.
This BC government is, by the way, the liberal-left government that the loony further left and nearly all of Canada’s media keeps insisting is just like a “right-wing government”, notwithstanding their choice of party names (Liberal). They’re “fiscally or economically conservative”, they tell us.
But in reality, this is the liberal-left government that, given a huge majority over the far-left socialist NDP, chose to maintain the state-owned, NDP-created state-run car insurance scheme which competes against citizen-owned firms. And the same liberal-left government which, given the option, chose to maintain the Soviet-style state-owned, state-run liquor distribution and sales system, which competes against its own citizens for profits. And this is the same government that maintains its obedient ties with the liberal-lefts’ sacred North Korean-style healthcare system run (horribly) by the big Canadian and provincial nanny-states. And despite assertions from the Marxist-sounding union bosses, the same government that owns and runs the huge ferry services between Victoria and Vancouver (which no politicians use, since they choose the various fixed-wing or even more expensive helicopter air services instead—the ferries are only for the “proletariat” classes!). And there are a great many more examples of “right-wing” far-left socialism at work in BC.
(And by the way, on the social side, this is the government and party that chooses to give the enthusiastic thumbs-up to both gay “marriage”, and limitless abortions, no questions asked, among other such “right-wing” far-left-wing, um, “principles”.)
SOME OPTIONS:
•
• Write the Premier of BC here.
• You can join the Canadian Communist Party (“Canada’s Party of Socialism”!) here.
• Or just do nothing, and let the “progressives” continue their “progress”.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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