My main memory of Expo was the nightmarish traffic jam southbound on Highway 99 as I drove to work just before the tunnel one morning. Because traffic was backed up so badly, people who wanted to exit the freeway and turn right onto Steveston had to either sit in traffic for half an hour or duck into the bus lane in order to turn right. Many people chose the bus lane approach instead of sitting idling in traffic and being late for work. But there were cops hidden near the turnoff handing-out massive numbers of tickets for improper use of the bus lane.

This sort of sleazy, opportunistic money-grabbing thievery brings the administration of justice into disrepute. Those who turned right onto Steveston were not holding up buses, they were just doing what they had to do to get to work on time to earn a living. In my case, when I pulled into the bus lane and noticed the cops, I kept on going to the shoulder, stopped, got out, popped the hood, fiddled around under the hood for a while, put the hood back down, then merged back into the traffic until I was able to reach the part where the bus lane became the right turn lane. I got some dirty looks from the cops, but no ticket. Hehe.

Later, I was at a stoplight at the south end of Granville Street when a young woman approached the car, yanked the passenger door open, jumped in, and offered me an "Expo Special" for $25. I politely declined her offer. I figured she was a working girl and the cops were whores that day.

Cycing Commuter
It wasn't sleazy money grubbing.
It was all about BC showing that despite losers like you, we were able to put on an event that millions of people enjoyed and advanced BC's pride.
Na na na ya good riddens you negative, self serving, liberal loser.

Great Story but just another reason for the big smoketo become its own province as it gives us the worst premiers and pollution. Vancouver is so self centered that the rest of the province is a place it can pull billions from and give nothing back. 8 million for roads on Vancouver Island. Just about enough to fix the potholes all over the oplace. Time for the Island to secede.

So let's see, you don't like our stadium (which I agree is now outdated, but as soon as those Carnegie Community idiots shut up and let us have our WhiteCaps Stadium we will sell it for a tonne of money), the Plaza of Nations (where we have a downtown casino), Canada place, PARKS for all you greenies, Science World, the Molson Indy (until it left), the China gate for our Chinatown, the huge Canada flag in Surrey, along wth future development? Instead, you'd rather have had false creek with industrial waste?

And may I remind you that the performers at Expo included Bill Cosby, Howie Mandel, Bob Hope, Johnny Cash, The Eurythmics, Depeche Mode and Barishnakov?

Expo helped convert this little socialist hick enclave into a modern city where people can live downtown and conduct business.

By the way, skytrain was only screwed up by Glen Clark using union bodies to expand it to NDP ridings.

The nostalgia can be attributed to the fact that government, business, and people came together to give our city a world-class event.

Socreds: Expo, Skytrain, development of False Creek and the downtown

NDP: Skytrain expansion, Fast ferries (awarded to Shipbuilders union 507), We hosted two grey cups... (Apec and the Vancouver Summit were Feds)

BC Liberals: The 2010 Winter Olympic Games were awarded Plus all the venues, as was the 2006 World Junior Hockey Championship, the 2005 Grey Cup, the 2006 World Men's Curling Championships, the 2007 FIFA Under 17 Soccer World Tournament, Sea to sky expansion and Whistler upgrades, accomplished what the NDP could not do and got the Trade and Convention Centre expansion started to attract big conventions and trade shows, including some key technology events, boosting tourism dollars nicely.

And if you think Vancouver needs to change its liquor laws to be a world class city, just look at New York.

And as for supporting artistic talent, in a market economy, if you're a good artist you sell. If you suck, you'll starve. So tell your art friends to make something people want to buy and maybe they can actually earn a living. As Gene Simmons says, if you're gonna be a fashion designer, make blue jeans. And if you're gonna be a chef make burgers...'cuz that's what makes billions.

Geex you'd think that USSR Pavilion would have impressed you guys enough...

The Terry Fox Statue should be collateral damage?

Sir, I wish I had a prosthetic leg so I could remove it and beat you with it.

Kootzak, we all loved Terry Fox. But have you actually seen the statue?

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Charles. I thought I was the only one who felt this way.

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games were awarded Plus all the venues

Since your keeping score, this one should be filed under Glen Clark, not your precious Liberals.

Thanks for this Charles. I too have been wondering what the....? Over all the Expo nostalgia. I wonder if it has to do with a nice blue blooded conservative government in power now - so all blue blooded conservatives are now remembered fondly-the stuff on Bill Bennett yesterday in the Globe was terrifying. Speaking of nice blue blooded conservatives I wonder when Duger Coupland's book on Expo will be out..."and the sun tan on the top of Expo Ernie's head was just that much deeper because he was an alien from outer space and it was burnt from orbiting to earth..."

Expo 86 - been there, done that. It was a giant fun fair and truely showcased how boring Vancouver was! Most Vancouverites went night after night because there was nothing better to do.

Give me a break, this Expo nostalgia only show cases how boring Vancouver is, a truely world class boring city. By continuely saying Vancouver is world class only shows it isn't

Oh yes, Expo gave us SkyTrain, a hugely expensive proprietary metro that cost three to four times more than it should (gee sounds like RAV). Instead of planned for LRT to Lougheed mall, Whalley, and Steveston, we got SkyTrain to New WEstminster! $3 billion in direct costs and $3 billion in subsidies later, we have SkyTrain to Whalley and the Millennium Line, the only metro in the world that goes nowhere to nowhere.

Building SkyTrain has directly lead into the massive Gateway highways program because SkyTrain is just too expensive to build for our given population, Hell, SkyTrain was too expensive for RAV!

Expo 86, take a pill, get over it, and please no more memories, Expo 67 was far greater, a far better production.

Sure, Expo 86 wasn't the be-all and end-all of everything great in Vancouver, but it was the impetus to improve at least some of our infrastructure (Skytrain, Coquihalla) that would have taken years and a lot more pain to achieve otherwise.

Come on - let people have their nostalgia for a week or two. You sound like someone trying to shut up their mother's memories. Perhaps sometimes flawed, yes, perhaps overblown, yes, but since even you have some good memories of the event, why not just join in the fun instead of carping?

SkyTrain a good deal? SkyTrain was showcased by Expo 86, unlike any other new public transport system, yet despite the hype and hoopla of SkyTrain, no one else bought the system - too expensive and poorly built!

The Socreds bought SkyTrain is a crass political deal to get then Premier Bill Davis of Ontario, Blue Machine, which pioneered computer tracking at elections.

Golly gee whizz you SkyTrain types, even the P3 consortium dumped SkyTrain!

I should have said - Even the P3 consortium building RAV dumped SkyTrain!

Someone pee in your cornflakes this morning ??

The entire article is a pathetic diatribe of crap.
And we all know where crap comes from.

IAMC wrote:

It wasn't sleazy money grubbing.

If the cops were handing out tickets to drivers who didn't turn right, drivers who were just using the bus lane to jump the line, I'd have no problem with that. But by ticketing people who were turning right, they were hindering traffic and increasing pollution, not helping traffic and reducing pollution. To avoid situations like this and reduce unneccesary pollution from idling cars stuck in traffic, bus lane signage in locations where a bus lane turns into a right-turn lane should read "Right turn only except buses." I usually support the police. In fact, one of our company's product lines was police communications/dispatch systems. I don't support sleazy, bogus traffic tickets that are just a money-grab.

an event that millions of people enjoyed and advanced BC's pride.

Did you enjoy the traffic jams, bogus opportunistic traffic tickets and being late for work? Or did you enjoy being repeatedly approached by the massive influx of working girls?

Na na na ya good riddens

What do you mean? I didn't exit the city permanently as a result of the experience. I did make a few trips to New York and other cities to help arrange multi-million dollar export contracts of B.C. hi-tech products to bring money into B.C. The exports had nothing to do with Expo. The contracts were in the works before Expo.

negative, self serving

The negative self-serving people were the ones who created traffic jams that interfered with productive, long-term successful companies. Negative, self-serving people put-on a silly short-term circus that created short-term, low-paying jobs selling literal and intellectual candy floss. If the circus was held on weekends out in Abbottsford, that would have been OK because it wouldn't have interfered with long-term businesses that were creating genuine, long-term wealth for B.C.

loser.

Do you think I was a loser because I declined the working girl's offer? Would a "winner" accept the offer? Or do you think I was a loser because I worked for an export-oriented hi-tech company that brought over 50 million dollars a year into the B.C. economy year after year after year?

liberal

I reluctantly voted Socred at the time. Today, I generally vote Green. I never vote NDP because I've seen up close what huge amounts of union featherbedding does to destroy productivity and prevent the creation of genuine wealth that's needed to pay for useful social programs.

Thanks for Charles and the Tyee for publishing a provocative, thoughtul, relevent piece that in the old days would have appeared in the mainstream press. Remember when newspapers would run provocative articles that caused people to think and sometime rethink their views? It was a LONG time ago. It is refreshing and stimulating to consider this viewpoint. Like "Dude's" posting above, part of me was wondering where this sudden "Expo Nostalgia" was coming from. I suspect the connection between it and 2010 is more than coincidental.

But did she offer to stamp your passport C.C.? :-)

Guess I am the lucky one.

I must have flown over Expo 86, 6 or 8 times during the event and never did get the time that busy summer to see any of it (other than from the air).

It looked like a massive snore, like an overgrown fair midway with hucksters trying to steal every cent they could.

I can only imagine the smell.

I missed the PNE that year also.

Jeff:

The connection is that it's the twentieth anniversary of the event. It does play into the 2010 marketing scheme, but people love round numbered anniversaries, so the media is taking a look back at Expo. It's also a big anniversary for Chernobyl too, but you'd be hard pressed to say the resultant news stories are a scheme to promote or denigrate nuclear energy.

Some of my favorite stories about Expo '86 had an Interior ring to them.

Stories about paving sections of the Coquihalla in the snow in order to meet inflexible deadlines set by a premier and minions looking to recapture the glory days of his daddy.

Cost of the first section of the Coquihalla would eventually come in more than double the anticipated cost, but hey, we were talking inflated ego here, not just fiscal prudence.

Sad thing was that first section of Highway ended at Merritt leaving most Interior residents still hours away from the showpiece.

Oh I made it to Expo along with my then seven year old son, who managed to pick up a case of food poisoning at the first foodbooth we hit.

Just before the effects of the food hit home he discovered that cheesey Route '86 display with the non-working motorbikes and other used memorabilia accumulated and painted a dull, dirty grey.

I do remember lots of lights and glitz and far too many politicians trying to score points off the fair, but quite frankly can't think of one highlight from it other than the removal of a lot of low income residents nearby and the wealth created for a few when the entire site was essentially given away.

As usual logjam cannot offer a meaningful debate. Does this mean the the Expo nostalgists are living with a pipedream, that Expo made Vancouver?

Expo was a fun fair and during its run a lot of people had fun, just like the PNE. As I can remeber Expo was an expensive experience. Maybe Expo 86 was a nice experience for the upper classes, who would otherwise scurry off to their condos in Hawaii or Whistler.

Why the waste of time for all this nostalgia? Probably cheaper to do than real news stories for the Global/Asper media empire. Real news stories in the Sun, that's a joke, just a rehash of yesterdays news.

Expo 86!
A nightmare for my business, as the streets constantly were blocked.
Hospitality industries made some money, but any other vocation only had drawbacks to report!
What did Vancouver gain? higher house prices is what!
And now 2010 we will see even more havoc! more poor people "relocated" and more expensive condo's for the kind of people who suddenly find an old warehouse district to be desireable.
The people who used to call Vancouver their home, now live elsewhere because they can't afford rents (or taxes if they owned a house)
Great memories! for the rich!

Dead right Gloomy, I had a store in downtown Vancouver and sespite the hype and hoopla, business fell dramatically. All the tourists wanted to do is visit the fair and then get the hell out of town. Is this things to come with 2010?

Perhaps Charles Campbell would be better off living in one of BC's tiny towns where nothing ever changes.

Expo brought Vancouver and BC into the world's eyes. It was one of the main factors that brought Vancouver to the attention of the Hong Kong immigrants he speaks of.

All I see in this article is a bitter, negative whine by the editor of BC's prominent left wing rag (which has good concert listings, I'll give it that).

It's people with attitudes like Charles Campbell who hinder BC's success and hold this province back from it's full potential.

So suck it up Chucky, Expo was great for Vancouver & BC. If you don't like the direction BC has taken since, then there's the door - we don't need pessimists like you.

Expo brought Vancouver to the notice of Hong Kong? Get a life, a good atlas and the fear of a repressive regime brought the Hong Kong people to BC!

Suck it up Poindexter and get real, Expo was a fun fair, with the vast amount of attendace were Vancouverites, with their season passes, going to the fair night after night, because there was nothing else to do. Notice that the Expo types never reveal the amount of tickets sold, rather 'clicks' at the turnstiles. The truth is hard to swallow.

Great article. Too bad the likes of iamc just don't get it. Liberal losers. Another yank wannabe. The Pattison syncophant will never get the fact that the likes of Pattison never do anything for free. But dear Jimmy did all that work for a buck you say. If he wasn't able to schmooze all of those heads of state and their handlers while he was doing his "civic" duty he wouldn't have done it. And all of it underwritten by the taxpayer. What an entrepeneur. If it was such a good deal why didn't he and his buddies finance it? Because it lost money as a fair. Expo legacy? The theme was transportation. The lower mainland is doing swell as an example of how to move people and traffic efficiently. Up our way, you can pass one of those giveaway kiosks that looks like a cheap prop from a bad sci-fi movie. It's now an ice cream stand. I can hardly wait for all of the Olympic legacies.

Expo, like the Olympics, was a taxpayer-sponsored, multi-million dollar circle jerk involving government, and the tourism and construction industries.

And as for supporting artistic talent, in a market economy, if you're a good artist you sell. If you suck, you'll starve. So tell your art friends to make something people want to buy and maybe they can actually earn a living. As Gene Simmons says, if you're gonna be a fashion designer, make blue jeans. And if you're gonna be a chef make burgers...'cuz that's what makes billions.

This could be the saddest thing I've read all week.

Hunter, transportation in the lower mainland is a shambles, despite about $6 nillion (total) paid by the taxper (including you guys up North in the hurtlands)for SkyTrain. Add RAV and the amount again rises dramatically.

We spent the money on multi billion dollar transit showcases that did not impress anyone outside of BC. The SkyTrain metro system as lead directly to the Gateway 'rubber on asphalt' highways program.

As for Expo 86, Expo 67 was far better and much more fun!

The Rumanian Pavilion had a stunning portrait of Ceaucescu. I seem to recall it was set on its own wall with a velvet rope arranged to keep the throng back. I swear that he looked like an older Jerry Mathers (Leave it to Beaver).

yeah me too

It clearly helped my family's business. More developers come to areas of the lower mainland as a result of expo. Vancouver and Seattle both benefitted economically. Talk to any business owner about the influx of economic activity as a result.

Here are some speaking notes from Bill Bennett's anniversary speech at the Board of Trade.

First, there’s no question that Expo had its critics, particularly in the early stages.

I learned early on in my political career that it’s easy to be a critic.

Critics are always a dime a dozen.

It’s the easiest bandwagon in the world to join.

It doesn’t require much effort to be a critic.

You see, critics are never held accountable.

And a critic certainly doesn’t require any good ideas.

And just for the record: Critics aren’t even obliged to present solutions, alternatives or options.

For the critic, second-guessing someone else’s commitment and hard work seems to be the only goal.

But if you check their record, critics usually tend not to have the sort of strength of character and resolve that’s needed to take a good idea off the drawing board and turn it into reality.

Don’t get me wrong — critics certainly can’t be ignored, particularly if they have something valuable to say or share.

And a leader shouldn’t be arrogant or dismissive of the critics.

But every leader needs to keep their focus on the health of the whole forest, and not just the problems of a single tree.

Frankly, critics who simply stand on the sideline and watch others take on the challenges that always come before any success are, in my opinion, given more time and attention than they deserve.

They may be terrific at generating media attention, but at the end of the day, they’re a distraction that sucks energy and resources away from the ultimate goal and objectives that ensure success.

Many critics also have something else in common.

Once the event they opposed is successful, they have a real knack of finding their way to the front of the line to take the credit.

Which proves once again that success has many parents, while failure is always an orphan.

First, there’s no question that Expo had its critics, particularly in the early stages.

I learned early on in my political career that it’s easy to be a critic.

Critics are always a dime a dozen.

It’s the easiest bandwagon in the world to join.

It doesn’t require much effort to be a critic.

You see, critics are never held accountable.

And a critic certainly doesn’t require any good ideas.

And just for the record: Critics aren’t even obliged to present solutions, alternatives or options.

For the critic, second-guessing someone else’s commitment and hard work seems to be the only goal.

But if you check their record, critics usually tend not to have the sort of strength of character and resolve that’s needed to take a good idea off the drawing board and turn it into reality.

Don’t get me wrong — critics certainly can’t be ignored, particularly if they have something valuable to say or share.

And a leader shouldn’t be arrogant or dismissive of the critics.

But every leader needs to keep their focus on the health of the whole forest, and not just the problems of a single tree.

Frankly, critics who simply stand on the sideline and watch others take on the challenges that always come before any success are, in my opinion, given more time and attention than they deserve.

They may be terrific at generating media attention, but at the end of the day, they’re a distraction that sucks energy and resources away from the ultimate goal and objectives that ensure success.

Many critics also have something else in common.

Once the event they opposed is successful, they have a real knack of finding their way to the front of the line to take the credit.

Which proves once again that success has many parents, while failure is always an orphan.

my wife and I had season passes. went once, didn't see much of interest, had some beer and a cuban cigar, well I had the cigar, and went home never to return.

Expo and the Olympics are classic examples of public money filling private pockets. The premise is private foreign money attracted by the spectacle offsets the public costs. The more money we attract, the more "world class" we are and the better we're supposed to feel about the fact that Vancouver's natural beauty is occluded by ugly commercial developments and monster homes. It's privatization of profit with socialization of risk. It's kind of beautiful really.

Tax Cutter 99

Thanks for that. I'd forgotten what an unbelievably bad speaker and mindless idiot little bill actually was - It wasn't necessary to post it twice though.

Charles, I really like what you're saying, because I'm weary of hearing my wonderful countrymen submerging their strengths, warping their ambitions, bending their genius, giving away softwood lumber and worrying about devaluing our currency "to please the U.S.A." which is just another way of saying (think about this!) "to keep from getting hurt by the U.S.A."

Why would we want to please them? Or be more like them? And yet the brainwashing is evident, each time a commentor uses a U.S. reference to make a point.

Canadians will soon need therapy, to peel back to the core of who we are and what we can do.

And the yardstick of "If it sells, it's good" sure isn't the reliable start-point. Not even if Bill Bennett says so.

S'cuse me, did you not read the posts about business people who had nothing but hardship?
Perhaps you happened to be in a tourist influenced business, well good for you!
As usual those who make money fail to see that others suffer as a result!
And please do not quote that insider trader if you want to be taken seriously!

If they would have beeen better business people they'dve taken advantage.

Expo86 was a Billion dollar waste as for 2010 winter olympics & the sea/sky hwy & after, wanna bet that the realestate value for that area will be open 4 sale.
Harper has already reneged on paying 1/2 the $110,000,000. over run on 2010, now there is code of silence, why?
What does Bill Bennet, Gordo, etal have in common?
Alcoholics who have & are making our lives & our futchers much more difficult

Tax Cutter 99
Yep, that's what many (but, I’d hasten to add, not the good ones) business people do - TAKE ADVANTAGE. Appreciate you've admitted it!

Tax Cutter 99, you'll never win with these have not losers that frequent this site.

Nothing is good enough for them and they are, as you say, critics with no real solutions.

Yeh poindexter, the truth hurts. Look for validation somewhere else, you won't find it around here.

Thank you so much for the story! I remember the strange feeling of waiting in line to see "Saskatchewan" after the many hours drive from Regina. At that time - it seemed a magical place - to a 12almostateenagers eyes. A few years either direction and I am sure it would have had a completely different imapct... but either way - for good or bad - it was definitly an interesting experience.

Tax cutter, learn to cut and paste better!

Sure some businesses did well. Food & beverage industry, hotels, hookers, etc., but many smaller bussiness fares poorly, simply because the tourists did not stay and spend money.

2010 will be more of the same.

The olympics were an orchestrated excuse to turn Squamish into a yuppie pig nightmare.
Greedy developers are flocking here like flies to a lump of steaming sh!t. With an ass-kissing, joke of a mayor to grant their every wish and a taxpayer funded urban sprawlway its like the gold rush.
All we got was every good job chased out of town, thousands of overpriced, probably leaky, condo's, various carpetbaggers, speculators and other new era parasites and a big f'in walmart right on the highway!!!
Oh I'm sorry!! we also got a massively overbudget "adventure center" (whatever that is) that kind of looks like a tiny version of the calgary saddle-dome and there was one good long-term highpaying job opening to counter the hundreds and hundreds lost cuz of gordo and his greedy developer and real-estate toadies. Gordo's wife is now the principal of our high school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sometimes, as a public service, gordo appears on our local cable channel and reads books to little kids. Ironic considering how many librarians have been sh!t-canned under his watch.

jj - he can actually read? Or is one of those George Bush picture books about goats!

You Socialists never cease to amaze me. I was only about 18 years old during EXPO, but I remember it fondly.

It, along with the 1994 Cup Run are two of the most exciting memories I have of our city.

As a result, we still have wonderful facilities in Science World, Canada Place, etc.

It brought the people of Vancouver an immense amount of pride, and it was a lot of fun. It left behind a legacy, and most will never forget.

You socialists are some of the most negative, angry and bitter people I have ever heard from. You all have nothing positive to say about anything.

Go the the gym, take a deep breath, celebrate something - enjoy yourselves a little.

Leave it you you to turn on Expo.

Poindexter:

I couldn't have said it better myself. This site is full of losers - have nots - I assume that the majority are middle aged, single, miserable people.

I would frequent more right-wing sites, but there I would only be preaching to the choir. For some reason, these people fascinate me.

I hear that most right-wing sites don't allow blog comments.
I guess since they know what a bunch of corrupt, lying hypocrits they are it doesn't make any sense. Why leave yourself open to such easy criticism.
Why you'd have to be a complete moron to actually buy any of that bullsh!t.
Nonethless I'd love to find a right-wing site that did allow free speech so please pass it on if you know about one.

Sometimes I still wander around False Creek trying to find the Cambodia Pavillion......

So? I remember everything I did at 18 fondly. You must have led a sheltered existence if Expo and the 1994 run are your best memories of life in Vancouver :-)

All depends on your point of view. all I ever hear from the right-wingers on this site is is complaining about the poor, the disabled, childcare, women, mill workers, every other country in the world except the USA etc.

You righties should go outside for a change and actually meet some of the people you constantly accuse of crimes against humanity.

And yes I realize that it would be tough to do since every one of you claims to be the richest man in BC employing thousands and doing needed charity work every other hour of the day.

Its because we have personalities and education. You're probably used to people who can't locate Canada on a map, live in their parent's house, constantly complain that allowance day should be twice a week and have never had an opinion they didn't get from CKNW.

Uh, I don't think it was Bombardier when the ink was dried on the shilly-shallying. The Skytrain project was some Ontario company that had helped the Socreds in the "emergency warrants" election campaign in April, part of the Big Blue Machine. Bombardier's snapped up the outfit since. What I don't understand is why Skytrain cars are so rinky-dink toy-train sized when Bombardier's Montreal and Mexico City trains are so much roomier and, well, built for adults.

I think the reason the media-fest over Expo in these last weeks is just part of an Olympics sell-job: "look at what wonderful things Expo did for Vancouver, can you just image how much better the Olympics will make us?" Social and cultural engineering via megaprojects and hype, hype, hype.

Reality of the rebuilt False Creek claim is that it sat empty - stone empty - for ten years; there was no "plan" with what to do with the site after the Fair was over; no plan at all, other than sit on it and hope some speculator comes up with a convincing enough spiel to take it off your hands (which they did).

Reality is the happy, friendly buzz of the Expo Summer was completely gone the next year, and didn't come back (ever); that takes people having a good time, and unless you're entirely happy with cappucinos and roller blades and cruising chain stores on Robson, "having a good time" is not synonymous with "living in Vancouver". "Who could ever want a better place to live?", former Premier Bennett exuded gushily on the news the other night, speaking of Yaletown/False Creek/Expolands - gee, if you only need a view, an RRSP and a Starbucks I suppose Yaletown is fine; but give me the Upper East Side of NYC any day. Urbanization without culture is what we've got; where is the vitality of the street life in Yaletown, even compared to the street life in the West End twenty years ago? And I'd take living in the West End c.1983 over living in Yaletown now any day....

The urbanization that everyone seems to think was such a good thing (sigh; for me it represents a lost way of life) was due to the Hong Kong influx, which would have happened with or without Expo and also with or without Li Ka-Shing and his son Victor.

And the cousins you'd better send back to Dubuque; I don't think you'll find Dubuke on the map.

I was a pedicab driver during Expo, by the way; one of the top tour hosts and worked with thousands of people per day; only went in the grounds a few times because work kept me outside; wound up wrenching my back from the work and getting screwed by compo to boot; great job, tragic result. Not that I'm griping; just fielding my own personal Expo story.....

Which brings me to my parting comment for now: if Vancouver had stayed as much fun and as vibrant as it was in the summer of '86 over the years since, it'd be a lot more tolerable of a place to be, instead of the uptight, time-pressed, money-obsessed, overdressed and utterly pretentious village-on-the-water that thinks it's a "world-class city". As anyone knows, any really world-class city doesn't have to make that brag.....

Really?
Do you suppose that funeral directors made a mint?
Or furniture manufacturers?
That response is so typical coming from those who happened to be in one of those businesses that our belowed chamber of commerce forever promote.
Are you perhaps suggesting that I should have left my customers stranded and "go for the gold"?
The idea of providing service and loyalty is a concept that you should investigate.
We have all seen what happens when every "entrepenour" gets the notion of starting a Starbuck-look-alike! Even the lending institutions got wise to that.

HA ha, I love how you lefties think anyone who isn't slobbering all over Jim Sinclair and the NDP is automatically a Yank. What a bunch of crap.

We righties went to the same schools as you, and did the same activities. The difference is as we grew up we were taught and realized we, not the gov't, are responsible for ourselves. Oh and we learned that whining is for unionists... Capitalists do. Socialists bitch.

So get ready for 2010 comrades, it will be the next step towards a province of people with a can-do attitude instead of the can-you-do-it-for-me-while-I-whine attitude the labour movement is pushing now!

Stop it poindexter, you're bitching.

More like learned never spend your own money when you can use taxpayer money instead.

Same with the Olympics and Expo, why don't you do it with your money instead of using taxpayer money?

Workers do, capitalists avoid

Apologies to the citizens of Dubuque. It was late. I do have a couple of reiterations and one question. There is nothing wrong with using a big event to focus the mind on creating legacies. I just wish we had better legacies. Anyone care to argue that we actually got a beautiful building out of the deal? The sign of a mature city is one that can actually achieve these things without a lame $1.5 billion pretext.

Let's take the Downtown Eastside as an example. Expo was supposed to revitalize Chinatown. How well did that work? In 20 years, someone will say the Olympics helped us fix the DTES. No, we're doing it now, as a semi-mature city that is learning to plan well.

Also, seeing as socialists are taking such a hit (and I'll argue W.A.C. Bennett is this province's pioneering socialist, who essentially nationalized the ferries and BC Hydro), can anyone explain to me what exactly was capitalist about the government-funded bun-toss we are recollecting?

workers do, once capitalists create something for them to do

Skookum1, the reason the SkyTrain cars seam like sardine cans on wheels is that SkyTrain was never designed for the job it is doing in Vancouver.

First developed by the Urban Developement Transportation Corportation or UTDC, an Ontario Crown Corportation, the Intermediate Capacity Transportation System or ICTS cobbled together out of discarded technology. Supposed to carry more than streetcar and cost less than a subway, ICTS was promiced a bright future. It was not to be, modern LRT was proven to carry as many people as ICTS at a fraction the cost and the TTC found that ICTS was more costly than a subway to build.

There was no market for the mode.

The name was changed to Advanced Light Rail Transit to piggyback on LRT's success. The only rubes to buy it were the BC Socreds! No one else has bought ALRT.

The UTDC was sold to Lavalin (golly gee whizz the same outfit building RAV) who changed the name to Automated Light Metro or ALM and went bankrupt trying to build ii in Bangkok (Siemens elevated metro is also called SkyTrain and causes a lot of confussion). Bombardier bought the remains, designed a proper metro car and now markets the brand as Automated Rapid TRansit or ART.

Score:

ICTS sold - 2
ALRT sold - 1
ALM sold - 0
ART sold - 2

LRT sold in the same period - 100

So let's see the so called superior right wingnuts complain about this. Oh yes, they don't believe in history.

So you taxcutter nuts, your favourite Socred, forced a metro system on the GVRD which now costs the taxpayer over $200 annually to subsidse it. Or put another way, a FastFerry fiasco every two years!

"Expo gave Vancouver the attention of the world in ways that we didn't have before...In a sense it was a preliminary to the downtown Vancouver, which we now celebrate and enjoy."

-Bob Williams, the former [B]NDP cabinet minister[/B] (Who initially opposed Expo)

Charles, that's the beauty of Expo. It wasn't capitalist, communist, in fact it had no ideological doctrine behind it. It was a world's fair with transportation as a theme.

It was government funded (and this relates to my answer to some of those people who can't understand how it benefitted business) not because it was good just for those six months, but because it promoted the city to international investors and tourists and the lands provided the economic atmosphere for growth, prosperous development and investment.

You talk about the Hong Kong immigrants helping? Kris Olds, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin, has written about how Expo was the "perfect resolution to the desire of B.C.'s political and business leaders to forge links with successful Asian economies and become a centre for Pacific Rim commerce." He also says "Among the more than 22 million visits to the fair were many Asian investors looking for places to park their money."

My idol, Jimmy Pattison (who grew up working as a bell-hop and cutting vegetables in windowless passenger CP Rail cars) did a magnificent job managing the fair. He atually fired the first President of Expo for abusing public funds...and he did it all for a dollar.

Are you telling me you didn't enjoy "The Rainbow Wars?"

Grumpy, we should sell Skytrain to a private company and let them run it eficiently.

Nice try Ron but it still doesn't hold up. Even the initial creation requires workers and at last one guy with an idea, usually an entrepreneur who actually works. Capitalists do nothing that a bank can't do, ie provide capital.

Money makes the world go around, it's pretty hard to get people to just give you things.

The amount of money that capitalists invest in actually starting a company is minimal. I want to say 3% of "investment" but I can't recall for sure. Most capital is invested in existing companies when the entrepreneur that mortgaged his house, borrowed from 10 different family members and worked 7 days a week retires leaving his old workers to deal with the MBA grad the new shareholders have put in charge.

We have banks, very very wealthy banks. Simply put, capitalists aren't necessary to the free enterprise system, in fact I think they're useless parasites.

Gloomy wrote:

The ultimate final point regarding Expo86, if it really did 'put Vancouver on the world map'; then that 'world' realized that some fairly reasonable real estate was up for grabs -> so they grabbed it, and grabbed it, and grabbed it until the demand drove the locals out.

Taxcutter, no sane comapny would would buy SkyTrain, the proof in the pudding is the RAV P3 consortium, they went for a comventional metro big time. Out of the 5 SkyTrain type sales for SkyTrain, 2 systems (Vancouver & Toronto) were forced upon the operating authority and 2 (JFK & Kuala Lumpur)had some interesting funding from the Canadian Federasl Liberals in forgivable loans etc. Only 1 system (the Detroit ICTS) was sold by a proper tendering process and it is a 4 1/2 single track oval.

As for turnstiles at stations, I'm in complete agreement, Translink doesn't want them because turnstiles count ridership very well!

Right now there is no private finacing of RAV as the so-called private money invested is really BC public pension plan money that the Liberals are forcing to fund RAV!

From the InTransitBC corporate partners list from Schedule 10 of the Concession Agreement. The shareholder percentages have been severed. bcIMC (pension funds)is listed twice, and may have doubled its investment. What is surprising is that the Final Project Report still lists Caisse de depot. However, I am sure RAVCo did not want to tell Strelioff about its departure, so they just did not update him.

No private money for Campbell's pet RAV project, that's real capitalism for you!

Actually if you look at the stats, the city's population has grown exponentially. In fact, over the last 35 years or so, the only time when we experienced negative population growth was when the first socialist government took over, Dave Barrett's NDP in 1972.

Year Population
1961 384,522 18,678 5.1%
1966 410,375 25,853 6.7%
1971 426,260 15,885 3.9%
1976 409,734 -16,526 -3.9%
1981 414,280 4,546 1.1%
1986 432,385 18,105 4.4%
1991 471,844 39,459 9.1%

Grumpy you complain about RAV, which is a line to our airport, but you don't seem to mind Glen Clark's spending of our money on the Millennium line, which goes from nowhere to nowhere (ie: NDP riding to NDP riding)

Grumpy wrote:

now costs the taxpayer over $200 annually to subsidse it.

Is this because not enough paying passengers are using SkyTrain? When the GVRD and TransLink asked ICBC to offer a pay-as-your-drive auto insurance option, that could have been a great opportunity to reduce the need for SkyTrain subsidies by increasing passenger numbers. But Solicitor General John Les said no. What a moron! I hope Campbell eventually dumps Les and replaces him with someone who's a bit brighter.

So far, only the Green Party has endorsed a pay-as-you-drive insurance option as far as I know. The NDP created ICBC and gave it a monopoly. They should join the Greens in pushing for a pay-as-you-drive insurance option.

ICBC is only serving themselves, not the public. In jurisdictions where pay-as-you-drive insurance is offered by private insurers, auto usage has dropped by up to 30 percent. Even though this is clearly beneficial to the public, ICBC doesn't want to do it because 30 percent less traffic, 30 percent fewer auto collisions and 30 percent fewer road deaths means 30 percent less revenues flowing through ICBC. So much for the theory that crown corporations always act in the public interest.

Tax Cutter 99 says:

Ah, Mr. Tax Cutter (and aren't all such cutters men?), I worked on the bloody Rainbow Wars as an actor, which meant being soaked in dayglo-tinted McDonald's milkshake fluid for 12 hours a day and running about a soundstage in North Vancouver in a rubber suit. Of course I enjoyed it! The money I made enabled me to move to Toronto for the period 1985 - 1989, thus avoiding the whole sorry mess of Expo. Now, I'm working on getting Legacies and Arts Now money which, with any luck, will finance another ticket out of here in time for 2010.

signed,
A Publicly Funded Artist

p.s. Hi Charles!

We, here in the "heartlands", have paid for Expo 86 through the nose. I was still in business at the time and, although I didn't go anywhere near Vancouver, Expo stole $5,000. from my pocket.

Long strings of privately owned restaurants, motels, etc. have lost heavily, many going broke.

I canvassed everybody I knew at the time and they all have lost money, even the supermarkets, because it all went into Expo.

The 6 months of Expo, in the summer, brought no tourists to the Interior, the 12 days of the phony Olympics will cost us even more.

Not many people from around here will be able to afford to see it, there won't be any tourists coming and our infrastructure will go to hell with all the money going into that artificially induced hysteria.

Our roads already look like worn out patchwork quilts with thousands of holes, the maintenance is down. All services are cut to the bone to force people into cities and the hands of the multinationals, so they can build some never-never land for a few thousand visitors for a couple of weeks and then claim that the terrible waste of money and effort really made Vancouver a "world class" goddamn dump.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

"I hope Campbell dumps Les and appoints somebody brighter."

Unfortunately, I think he's stuck choosing from his caucus....

Well said, Charles Campbell.

The above quote making a most crucial observation about the influential power of marketing as well...which is what Expo was and 2010 now is all about...creating and selling the mere appearance of things.

These days mere appearance is the whole game and a very expensive one to play at that. It's all about convincing you that you've had a real experience...accompanied by a real change in things...

when you've basically just been offered up more and more artifice ..the pretense of real experience...the pretense of real life...

basically a cunning ruse...

with everyone just too afraid to admit that nothing.... absolutely nothing of any real value actually happened to them "at the fair"...or actually exists there at all...

It's when the marketing of the Spirit Bear becomes more important than the bear itself...

It's a vision of the future if the neo-cons win...where life is just a plastic bowl of plastic cherries...

Hey Chuck:

Umm...we're fixing the DTES now? I'd like to know how.

What this city ultimately needs to do is stop living off style and living off substance instead. I get very concerned when I hear people talk about how the Olympics wil make Vancouver a world class city.

Blowing our wad for two weeks isn't going to make us a world class city.

well. if this discusssion proves anything: it's that nostalgia aint what it used to be.
along those lines and continuing on the theme of conservative revisionism -Brian Mulroney our greenest Prime Minster?
And the current Liberal/Socred provincial govt. -a legacy of Eagleridge Bluffs?

Expo and Olympics = big circuses and the illusion of bread.

I agree with cycling commuter on the pay as you drive insurance proposal. In fact I would take that argument to all aspects of our lives.
What a brilliant idea. Kinda like the system I support. No income tax, but a 23% consumption tax on EVERY cent you spend. Everything.
Imagine the public servants we could toast with cycling commuters bright idea.

Pay for the road as you drive too. A toll booth every couple of miles. Pay for the bridge when you cross it. Pay for the cops and fire dept when you call them. Pay out of your nose if you damage a stream even by a little bit. Pay the environmental cost of delivering you a head of lettuce from California on top of the transportation cost. Pay for the environmental damage of blacktopping a parking lot wen you buy anything at all.

No more externalizing/ignoring any costs. It'll be the end of suburbia. Works for me.

One nazi hated Jews as the cause of all problems and idolized the Aryan race as the solution to everything, the other hates civil servants and idolizes the mafia of multinational "investors" over real private enterprise.

What's the difference?

Ed Deak.

Frank
I am glad you agree with me. Pay for yourself, pay as you go. Imagine if everyone took care of themselves. We wouldn't need a welfare state.
Try to liken it to the animal kingdom. The strong survive and the weak die.
Eventually only the strong exist. Kinda like our world in the way that instinct should help you survive.

Fiat
What a tired insult. To me the mafia is the Public Sector Unions who extort us . If you think about it, I can't be compared to Hitler, but possibly to Elliot Ness.

if i read any more drivel from the likes of tax cutter 99, i'll, i'll.

i stopped about half way down the list of comments. it's possible someone mentioned this -- Charles you didn't, perhaps it is the next article -- Expo86 followed fairly closely on the heels of Solidarity in 1983.

in historical time, you understand, 3 years is a nano-bit of the blink of an eye. and from this distance it's frankly nauseating to read comments from folks who likely think that the harperites are the best thing that has happened to them. i turned 40 in 1986.

it's certainly true that there's not a great deal to look back on in previous ndp governments and feel good about. some things, but not a great deal.

but the socreds! in july of 1983. one of the first things they did after their landslide victory of May 1983 was to change the locks on the doors, and physically eject the Human Rights Commissioners from their offices.

and it just went on from there.

until jack munro got on a plane with the good wishes of many, but by no means all, of labour's big boys, and went to kelowna and made a deal with the devil. a hallucinatory deal it was, not written down, and not upheld.

and then out came the carousels, and the ponies and the dancing bears. a very nice paint job was stroked on to the socred edifice.

i never went to Expo86. i used to watch the fireworks with a friend sometimes from a great parking spot on the south side of false creek. i didn't have a job at expo. i didn't buy any tickets. and i'm glad of it.

nostalgia? pure unadulterated hype. and another coverup. doesn't make me want to get out a hanky or long for the past. makes me want to puke.

it's taken those 20 years plus more for the socreds to achieve many of the goals they set out for themselves in 1983. but have a look at the legislaive program they set out that year, and consider what's been done.

APEGIRL-Wow, if you were old enough to star in the Rainbow Wars (which was nominated for an Oscar-congratulations) aren't you a little old to STILL be sucking on the public teat?
By the way, people like you, who leave town whenever something fun happens, are the same people who whine about Vancouver not being fun enough!

LYNN-I have no idea what you're talking about. Illusions, appearances, reality, huh? Cut the new age hippy crap and talk like a human being.

FRANK- The end of Suburbia works for you? The greatest period of economic growth (the 50s to the 70s) was during a time of post-war suburban settlement. Where do you live and how is it superior to the suburbs? I love the suburbs. You claim that you have all this education, I bet it was expensive...what kind of return have you gotten on that investment?

CYCLING COMMUTER-ICBC should not exist. We should have private auto insurance. Instead of charging people to use the vehicles they have bought, let them choose their insurance. You shouldn't have to charge them for driving! Our economy is built on transporting goods and people.

IAMC-The consumption tax is a great idea. I believe we must eliminate the income tax. It was set up as a temporary measure.

If it was up to you folks the province would be a giant park with a used bookstore in the middle of it, lined with safe injection sites.

IAMC
You're absolutely right. You can't be compared to Hitler. That would be unfair to Hitler.

Taxcutter, I was the one who coined nowhere to nowhere. The Millenium Line is done deal and has compounded our 'metro' mistake.

The real problem is we are spending about 60% more to build fancy metro's, instead of much cheaper LRT. Expensive metro's mean a small transit network that will not attract enough ridership to support it except in the largest of conurbations such as London Paris, Washington, etc.

Cheaper light rail means a larger network, serving more destinations which will provide an attractive alternative for the car. Simple science of public transport.

Alcibiades-That reminds me of a comment at city council once when Raymond Louie was whining about developers...Peter Ladner said he was being "Stalinist." Elaine Woodsworth practically started crying. So Ladner comes back with "sorry to insult Mr. Stalin with so many of his comrades sitting here..."

The restaint era in the 80's was absolutely neceassary. It was out of control. Don't you remember this time period.
Interset rates were 15 % or more.
Wages were going up 15-20% per year.
I work for a corporation and I couldn't believe my good luck when I got a 20$ raise in one year.
We were all naive about the consequences of this goofy time.
Premier Bennett was a visionarry. I suppose it's al relative, but we would have been paying $10.00 for a Big Mac if this nuuty thinking went on much longer.
It had to be curbed.

I think miniwac had his best visions when he started the day with Scotch on his Wheaties; at least that's the story his sometime tennis partners used to tell.

It's just too bad the development on the former Expo site, along with Yaletown, is nothing more than a dull exercise in gentrified pomposity.

Who actually spends time in that area other than the out of touch uber-wealthy who lack originality and want nothing more than to display their status? In terms of arts and community, False Creek has neither.

I walked through there last weekend and was overcome by the feeling that I was traversing a cultural void. I was deafened by sepulchral silence. I suppose the people who live there might disagree; I'm sure they love it. But let's be honest -- since when were the super wealthy ever cool? False Creek and Yaletown are utterly boring communities. Back in the day Yaletown had character. It was real. But then the trendy "New York loft" crowd moved in and suddenly everything started to look a bit too perfect, sort of like Wisteria Lane.

So if Vancouver is racing to a cultural "goal" of sorts, it perhaps is in a race to the bottom (much like most of the world these days), because there's nothing innovative or interesting in False Creek. In fact, it's an abolute, insufferable bore. It's everything Vancouver shouldn't be, but the people with the financial power to develop the city obviously don't care.

Sarcasm. I thought that was obvious, perhaps we need a Sarcasm thingy to go with the quotes, bold, underline and italics. The point being don't make others pay for your suburbia lifestyle while imposing user pay fees on them.

Thanks to Keynesian economics. You'll notice the "greatest period" ended when the west adopted the crap coming out of the Chicago School.

I have? When? Where? I don't ask anyone to fax their degrees to me before I read what they have to say and no one has ever asked me to do likewise. As others often demonstrate you don't need higher education to be taken seriously or to prove you know what you're talking about.

So was the consumption tax

THE THE-

Judging by this statement, your post, and the band in your screenname, I smell Hipster...
"Cool?" Ha ha. What are you in grade 9?

FRANK-

I believe you said this:

The contempt some people on this board have for success is bewildering...

IAMC

ok, bud. i'd like to meet you up in the bush.

Tax Cutter 99
success is completely arbitrary. you live in the suburbs hahahahahah pathetic. as max cavalera once said,
"The world will be extinct and your flesh will rot with mine"
of course you suburb "living" types have lost touch with the true soul of this province.... there is one, but i doubt if you can find many traces of it down there.
yah yah i know, disjointed hippie crap.. you lefties... sucking the teat... blah blah

I think you are a pathetic human

You are exactly right!
Real people lived and worked there, there was a new sensation at every step.
But that is all gone, sterilized to be like and look like any other yuppie community in any city.
That must be great for the crowd who travel the world but only stay in "approved american" hotels for fear of actually seeing the city they are visiting!

Frank,

While you are slowly starting to make a little more sense (though still are full of left wing rhetoric) - you are so far from the mainstream.

Like it or not, I AM the new mainstream. Fiscally conservative, socially moderate. It is my people that are in power throughout this country.

You're beloved NDP had it's final stand and lost to Campbell for a second time. The BC Liberals are in cruise control right now - surpluses, a strong economy, low unemployment, the Olympic parties!

The Tories are in power in Ottawa, Conservatives control the US. You left-wing lunatics are looking crazier to the mainstream every day.

Canadians are becoming more and more self-dependant and are adjusting to globalization. We no longer expect to go to the same job for 5 years, let alone 50. We no longer expect social programs up the Wazu....we get fit on our own and take care of ourselves!

By the way - EXPO ROCKED - I was only 18, but I remember those fireworks like it was yesterday!!!

He Darc,
Yes we're taking steps to fix the Downtown Eastside now. We're not making a lot of progress, but we will. The Safe Injection Site is a small step. There's lots we need to do, though. We need more treatment, and more supportive housing for the mentally ill so that fewer vulnerable end up down there. We need to revitalize Chinatown. We need to improve our already good record of distributing low-income housing around the city. And we need (watch some posters go ballistic here) to encourage a more diverse mix of housing in the Downtown Eastside itself.

Charles Campbell,

I agree that we need more support for the mentally ill. However, we need to close the Safe Injection Site immediately. I would love to see some statistics which show me that HIV and/or drug use is down in the DTES.

We cannot nurture these people. It makes it too easy for them to continue their lifestyles. They have many demons, and many don't even want our help.

We need to crack down on the drug trade at the street level. We need to convict the dealers and users of felony crimes and send them to jail, to detox.

We need to have entry level jobs waiting for them, and orders to stay far away from the DTES, drug users or dealers.

If they violate these order, we should throw them back in the slammer for 6 months.

Our children are at risk, and I am very worried. Kids more than ever are using heavy drugs, and we cannot allow this to become socially acceptable.

There was a lot of great music and some fun for some people.
Others just didn't get it and as mentioned never will.

Actually, Capitalism, Frank always makes sense. He uses logic and applies it to reality. Just like Fiat and Coyote. Logic is different from rhetoric, which with all due respect, is what I mostly what I read from you, and poindexter, and taxcutter.

The 'righ-wing' might lie, but the numbers don't. I always find it humourous that the so-called fiscal conservatives have the hardest time putting two and two together.

Back in the day I think they called guys like y'all 'Uncle Toms"

Sam Salmon
Sounds like a radio to me:

What's to get? Amusement parks are very amusing. They don't change your life unless you happen to own one.

It's interesting to see two or three of the prehistoric right who think they having their expo passes stamped again here at the Tyee and telling us how much fun they had in the summer of 1986 is actually meaningful. You’re not fooling anyone.
You can get that same full, slightly nauseous feeling again this year at the PNE. Enjoy

Guess you think that pillow on the edge of False Creek and its companion single shiny silver ball are a real legacy. Everyone knows the sky train hasn't been.

Maybelle, I'm surprised you're that old. I thought you just turned 18.

Nice piece, Charles, the truth hurts. Else why would these characters be screaming?

I would like to know how the "strong" are defined? Either among humanity, or in ecological systems?

The promotion of the Aryan race by Hitler was also based on the "survival of the fittest" idiocy, all others having been declared subhuman weaklings. Their enslavement and "solution" in the death camps was also for the promotion of the "fittest", as it is now under the neoclassical market capitalist system.

The "strong" are now colonizing and enslaving the "unfit" for the survival of the unionized "investor class" in the global Boards of Trade, Bilderbergers, Trilaterals, WEF, etc. in all free trade agreements, because they can't even take a leak on their own without the support of fraud and legalized crime.

Without these corporate unions protecting their crime waves, they'd all by in jails, because they have to steal to "survive" .

Of course, the nazis also did it very scientifically. When we were being taken to Germany for military training in Dec. 1944, the tops of our hands were examined by SS doctors for the direction of the growth of hairs, which was one of the "scientific signs" for racial purity. There were 2 guys declared Grade 1 in my company, 4-5 grade 2, and the rest, including me, Grade 3.

So much for the "survival of the fittest".

There are no "fittest" in nature, because the programmed evolution and existence of species is designed for the elimination of waste for the purpose of the long term survival of the overlapping ecological systems. When certain species overstay their welcome, they are eliminated.

In contrast, the market economy system is designed for the licencing of the fastest conversion of resources and the creation of the most, profitable waste with the licencing of the creation of imaginary capital by the banks. So, how long can such system survive?

On the personal level, let me ask our heroic "survivalists" what each of them can do for real survival, apart from voting master thieves into governments, speculating on the markets and blowing hot air ?

I have no secrets: I'm a WW2 veteran, wounded in combat, master marksman, former POW, English was my 5th language, educated at Cambridge, since 1957 I owned 3 incorporated businesses in BC. I can build a house from foundation up, install all the wiring and plumbing, make all the furniture from Chinese, or Danish modern, to Chippendale and Louis and anything in between, paint all the pictures for the walls, carve the sculptures. I can weld, fabricate, repair engines, build equipment, have been inducted into the Greater Vancouver Motorsport Pioneers hall of fame, am under nomination for the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame. I can grow all the foods and raise all the meat for our table, and can cut any neoclassical economics professor to pieces.

In other words, kiddies, a "leftie" means somebody who can think, work and act independently, without ideological, or religous crutches and reliance on fraudulent economic theories.

I live at Big Lake BC, which is halfway between 150 Mile House and Likely, so anybody's welcome the check out my statements.

So, now let's hear what you great "fittest" and "strongest" can do, before you waste more of our time with your ideological nonsense about "survival".

On the arts scene you, again, show your ignorance. Van Gogh sold 2 paintings in his lifetime and Rembrandt hasn't sold one for the last 20 years of his life. Now their paintings are selling for about $70. million, and more, the last I heard of.

How about trying to preach your economic theories in some kindergarten? But in the meantime let's hear what you can do to survive?

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

I don't believe I have ever once on this board said I was mainstream. I have always considered myself to be on the left. I do try to be pragmatic, I support Carol James' move to the centre for example as good politics. Other than that I do push a lot of points of view that are in fact close to mainstream, such as a child-centric political agenda.

Yes, and I wouldn't expect different as it is how the mainstream media even describe themselves and of course whatever message they pound out every day will filter through eventually. A lot of the population would describe themselves as socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

However, social conservatives don't like the media message any more than I do. And unlike your comment, the people in power are not all social liberals, many are social conservatives.

I would also argue that many fiscal conservatives are unsure exactly what they believe in. They think believing in balanced budgets means they're fiscal conservatives.

In many respects I'm more of an economic conservative than many on the right. As was Tommy Douglas.

Winning an election is nice but gov'ts live to be defeated, its never over. I'm older than you but I would imagine the NDP will be in power several more times in my lifetime. And their opponents will change what being a conservative means several more times too. There was a time after all when being a conservative meant you were against the squandering of public tax dollars on parties like the Olympics. Someday I'd like to see Conservatives come back to that stance.

Now here you're looking pretty radical, very un-mainstream. This might be the age-thing but you'll learn that these things go in cycles. In 20 years you could be considered as far from the mainstream as one could be.

Polling doesn't back up your assertion. Canadians seem to want balanced budgets, low debt to GDP, good jobs that provide for a family, a good social safety net and the eradication of things like child poverty. They've tired of Liberal promises and are giving the Cons a chance. Its democracy, its healthy to change governments but don't mistake that for some great shifting of opinion in a moment of gleeful triumph, its very 1984 (Mulroney).

Its a pity you waste your talents here at the tyee with your anti-capitalist diatribes comrade. You could be out there publishing your enlightening economic truths for the world to see sparking a glorious uprising.

Mr Lux

BOI-YAH!

Also, speaking of the supposed genetically "superior" ruling corporate class, who would seek to weed out the weak, why don't you guys and me hook up for a little contest.
I'll come by myself and you guys can all come as a group.
Then we'll sort out who the weak and the strong are.
Any takers?

Simon, Ed did publish his economic theory.

Tax Cutter 99

More proof that modern life is racing towards mediocrity.

FIAT LUX I am honoured to speak to a war hero! You are the true stars in our world. Thank you for your service to your country in the cause of freedom. I tip my hat to you and salute your efforts, scars, and fallen brethren. I hope that you understand that your heroic efforts overseas have not been forgotten, and that it is the sacrifices you and other brave men of your ilk made that affords us the wonderful freedoms (social, economic, and political) that we enjoy today. I only pray that these same freedoms be spread out to other across the world.

As for the stuff about you building homes and growing veggies, you should try to market those skills into some cold hard ca$h...

I don’t believe in survival of the “fittest.” I believe that we should provide the economic atmosphere for people to survive…instead of feeding people, give them the job market and ability to feed themselves.

Cycling Commuter:

I do think you have some rational thoughts, but I disagree with the pay as you go system. It is very difficult for many who don't have good access to public transit, including myself.

While it may be great for an urban-dweller like yourself, it will never fly in the mainstream.

You are part of a small niche of people that doesn't really need your automobile.

If you are a safe driver, your rates should come down. You shouldn't be paying up the wazu to get to work.

If you did, watch the city of Vancouver deteriorate and re-locate into the suburbs.

What have we got here?
Is there a Tyee equivalant of "survivor series"?
Why not admit that there are people who can adapt to situations and survive / win?
They may come in many flavours, some socialist some capitalists!
The difference would be that socialist have a conscience and survive by honest work, while capitalist forever are looking for easy pray!
My main peeve is that the capitalist brag about how they screwed society.

THE THE please explain to me how my "outing" of you as a Vancouver hipster with black rimmed glasses and 2% bodyfat means society is more mediocre?

Come to think of it, why aren't the Olympics a P3? Or opened up to professional management by one events firm, instead of creating a government/partisan hack organization to eat up salaries and cost analyses and build white elephants?

Why not just privatize government altogether? I'm sure elections could be better run by Ipsos/Reid - in fact, they could get the same results by only having 2000 voters, and only those 2000 voters would have to pay attention to the b.s. coming out of politicians' (and reporters') mouths.

The Social Credit secret handshake was to rail against Stalinism in the media and to the party faithful, but to actually apply it in policy, spending and management style.

And what'd you do to get the 2% bodyfat? Diuretics? 6% is getting down into the x-ray zone (see-through skin etc.)

Tax cutter 99,

To clarify the picture, through the accident of birth, I was born in one of the nazi satellite countries, Hungary, whose government sucked up to Hitler the way Harper is sucking up to Bush. They took us into his war of colonization for "Lebensraum", "not to be left behind", again like our neocon economic globalizers are doing now, at the cost of half million of Hungarian lives.

I joined the army from grade 12, at 17, just after the beginning of the schoolyear, when the Russians started shooting into our suburb, but by then I had 5 years of compulsory military training and was a platoon commander in the cadets and a master marksman.

I saw combat for a few weeks and was wounded defending the Breslau, now Wroclaw-Berlin Autobahn, in what is now part of Poland, while my mother was gangraped by Soviet troops, my grandparents died of the effects of starvation and no medical care under Soviet occupation. Just as Canadian troops are now dying in Afgh. for oil company stocksholders, while the Taliban still control the country.

I was sentenced to death by the nazis, but was saved by the end of the war, and to the gulags by the communists, in both cases for "high treason", in the latter case, saved by the British and taken to England.

In other words, I have seen every superior ruling class burped up by history and have studied thousands of books on the ones I haven't.

When we talk about the "survival of the fittest", glorified as the lions, elephants and eagles by empire builders, we should perhaps remember that lions, tigers and elephants are on the endangered species list, but cockroaches aren't, and the soaring eagles, on the flags of all empires, are powered by the carcasses of rotten fish.

As are the stock portfolios of market economy capitalists powered from the handouts taken from the rotting bodies of millions of human beings.

I would like to see the "hero" Jim Pattison survive a single week on my present work schedule, and I'm 5 years older than he is.

Ed Deak.

Why would he need to market anything into more cold hard cash when he's already got the real thing through his own ingenuity...a real home, real quality vegetables to eat...a real life.

You keep munching on the dollar bills, Tax Cutter/NoLeftNutter. Watch out for all the trans fats.

Lynn- I have no idea what you're talking about. Real food? huh?

Tax Cutter 99:

I reckon you wouldn't make much money as an intuitive, since I don't live in the Vancouver area, I don't wear glasses and I wouldn't fit in with the "hipsters" because I think their lifestyle is rather trite.

Frank:

You are on the far left, though not radical left like Coyote...

I have a friend who once suggested we should privatize government and elect bankers. He was joking, of course, but... The old socialist-capitalist debate is such a losing proposition. The vast majority of the population agrees that government should perform some societal functions, business others, and individuals yet another set. We agree that governments should regulate business -- not to death, but to protect the public interest. We agree to live under common laws. We might even agree that governments should drive big initiatives that create economic opportunity and advantage. Hey, W.A.C. Bennett the nationalizer, Tommy Douglas the health-care reformer, Glen Clark the shipbuilding dreamer, any president you could name and the U.S. military. The questions are simply "Which group does which thing best? What should the mix be? How do we decide? Where do we draw the line?" We're all socialists and we're all capitalists. Well, almost all. There are a few freaks out there in Tyeeland.

Maybelle
An interesting morning you've all had, eh!
Just one quick question. Why do you come and post here? Not that I care obviously since it makes no difference to me. I'm just curious. Although I disagree with practically everything you write I would find it interesting to learn more about your motivation.

Could be, not that it matters. I'm Canadian and I vote and am a member of my community and I know why I believe in what I do. Unlike some on here that adopt as their own whatever opinion their favourite party has adopted that day. I'll avoid that if that's what's called "mainstream" these days.

Ever take one of those political spectrum tests Cap? Were you in the centre?

I'm still waiting for someone to tell the name of a roughly equivalent "right-wing" site to the tyee. i.e. one where I can enter comments on a variety of topics with other bloggers
Does no one know such a site?

p.s.-yes, I am a glutton for punishment!

There are no right-wing sites that will allow the same freedom we have here jesterjogger.

Good posting, Charles.

I solved this problem 21 years ago with my economic efficiency principle based on thermodynamics. In other words, economics based on strict physical laws.

As long as we submit ourselves to ideological fanatics, we'll be going up and down, kicked around by ruling sectors using ideologies to control, steal and kill.

WAC made some bad mistakes, I never voted for him, but he did have some brains. Capitalism of the day thrived under his regime, but we also, only had to pay $5/day for hospitals. Friends of ours had a baby in Vancouver for a hospital fee of $25. in 1956, and another one in New York city a year or so later for $600. for the same care.

Get rid of all "isms" and use our heads to make it a better world for everybody, where all people can use their inborn talents and hard work to make something for themselves, instead of waiting for knock downs, or handouts either from political parties, or from stockmarkets, the biggest racket going.

Economics based on physical laws can eliminate all inequalities and legalized robbery by rulers, because they apply equally to every and anybody, no privileges for priesthoods and thieves.

I don't want to drive on roads without strict law enforcement, or live under systems where ruling classes can walk over and steal from anybody whenever they feel like while calling it "wealth creation".

Ed Deak.

Charles Campbell said,

Now as a Keynesian I would point out that even Richard Nixon once said "We're all Keynesians now".

This just reionforces my point that things go in cycles. Keynesians were the mainstream and now I see we're considered almost as far to the left as the communists.

I think its the Monetarists that are the radicals and far from mainstream based on polling data but who knows, maybe in 20 years they'll be considered the far left too.

Thanks for this article. I'm so relieved that I'm not the only one Who is tire of all the BS about this. I dare say that the Expo lands would have gotten to be developed exactly as it did even if the Province had sold it a fair market price, instead of the give away. The amount of $'s the City and Province had spent on partially cleaning up this site is far more than what is being publicized and claimed, and exceeds the purchase price. There still are highly contaminated areas, which are capped and being used as park on he site. PARK! Where kids, pets and you are breathing in the gases escaping into the atmosphere for thousands of years more.
Anyway, I could go on and on. But, thank you for a reality check article.
Nostro

"FIAT LUX I am honoured to speak to a war hero! You are the true stars in our world. Thank you for your service to your country in the cause of freedom."

LOL. Good thing I wasn't drinking coffee when I read that or Taxcutter would owe me a keyboard. Too funny.

(No disrespect intended Mr. Deak)

It was an honest error by Taxcutter, mistaking me for a hero fighting for democracy. Although, very few people in history have indeed ever fought for real democracy, but most of the time for a fraudulent version of it. Certainly not promoted by our neocons.

Unfortunately, as a brainwashed kid, although my family were strong anti nazis, albeit also strong monarchist fascists, I was fighting for the nazis and wanted to kill Russians, to revenge what happened to my family.

I wrote about it many times, showing what happens when a government sells a country and its people to some so called "great power". For me it was the beginning of a very hard road that gave me a wonderful life partner and ultimately led us to where we are now.

It was also a tremendous eye opener for me and I've been fighting against any and all dictatorships and power elites ever since. Regardless, whether they call themselves fascists, nazis, communists, or capitalists.

I've studied this question for over 60 years by now and found that it is always the same people, with the same character profiles, who become the predators, regardless of the ideology they're pursuing.

So, in a roundabout way and on the long run, I did end up fighting for real democracy for over 50 years, a concept understood by very few people now.

Ed Deak.

Has anyone seen Fun with Dick and Jane, starring Jim Carey??

This movie is funny....

ED....I had no idea...I misread it. So you fought for the enemy?
Well I take back what I said about saluting you. But atleast your a good example of when good overcomes evil later in life. I hope Taliban fighters can become contributing members of society one day like you have.

Tax Cutter 99
Always pays to actually read text before engaging keyboard. Personally, I've no problem saluting Ed under any circumstances. You can learn a lot from him if you'd take a minute to think about what he's writing.

Expo '86 didn't do much at all to contribute to anywhere in BC outside the lower mainland. 2010 won't be doing that either. Looks like there are two BC's....the lower mainland/Southern Vancouver Island....and the rest of BC.

fiat lux:

"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
- Robert Heinlein

Heinlein is, of course, correct. I don't know when he wrote the above, as I haven't read anything by him for a long time, but, having lived under all known ideological systems, I have come to the same conclusion many years ago and, have discarded all ideologies and religions, as breeding grounds for excesses, enslavement and mass murder. We have thousands of years of written history proving it.

My definition of this division, under every known ideological system and religion, is: "The exploiters and the exploited." They're always the same people on either side.

This is why I have developed the theory of physical laws based economic systems about 21 years ago, because physical laws can not be distorted and they apply equally to any and everybody. In other words, physical laws are the ultimate basis for democracy.

I have no scientific training, or background but have received a lot of support from independent scientists, and even many economists, not on corporate payrolls.

Note to Tax cutter: There are no "enemies" in real life, as wars are not between peoples, or nations, but their rulers and governments, who send their peoples to fight and die for their own self interests. I call this the "scaling ladder syndrome", where people are sent to die so their lords can take the properties of others and enrich themselves. Of course, the other side have to defend themselves, so the pendulum keeps swinging forever.

We can witness and document this madness right now.

Ed Deak.

Cycling Commuter could you kindly list some of the jurisidictions that allow pay as you drive auto insurance?

While you are at it add the rates charged and the coverage available.

Otherwise you come across a just another right-wing whiner who still hasn't grown up enough to admit the public sector can do it better.

In fact, I'd suggest, based on the support you got from IAM Confused, your primary problem is you do realize how successful ICBC has been.

We've had some of the most right-wing pro-business governments in BC since the NDP brought it in back in the '70s, yet not one has been willing to dismantle ICBC.

Why?

Because the general public knows how good it has it despite all the hype and bs the private auto industry and their lapdogs yap on about ripoffs.

Let's get real. There isn't a jurisdiction in Canada that provides auto insurance as cheaply and efficently as ICBC.

Saskatchewan and Manitoba, allan, don't forget Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Insurers provide car insurance within a strict framework of provincial laws and, because of that, insurance systems cost what they cost whether they are owned by government or the private sector. Because the laws vary according to regions comparisons are not valid; one can't compare the no-fault system of Manitoba, for example, to the tort system that would be implemented in Prince Edward Island. It's even inappropriate to compare the very different tort system of BC with that of PEI. In BC, the government-run auto insurer has a policy of "no crash - no cash" which means that accident victims involved in minor fender benders are not eligible for a compensation linked to a soft tissue injury. In PEI, insurers are paying these types of claims daily.
While it is true that the Prairie provinces have some of the lowest premiums in dollar terms, their deductibles change the story. If their deductibles are included (at levels rejected by Prince Edward Islanders when given the choice – even though they lower premiums), then the price of government insurance climbs even more.

Government insurers also change rating territories as a way of increasing rates for consumers without applying for a "rate increase." Rating territories have been changed in BC every several years. In November 2002, ICBC made a number of dramatic changes to its rating territories, unilaterally moving thousands of motorists into higher priced territories. This resulted in these motorists' rates increasing dramatically, some by as much as 30%. These are the kind of "backdoor" rate increases given to the public by government-run auto insurers who have had their "front door" rate increases capped or limited by government.

By the way I work in the private insurance industry

By the way Alcibiades.... In Manitoba, an accident victim who is catastrophically injured has no right to sue for economic loss that exceeds the prescribed schedule of payments, including suing for future lost wages.

Why am I not surprised that a parasite like you would work in the insurance industry.

Alcibiades...no need for name calling

Ahem...if I may just go back to Expo '86 for a minute here ;-)...I remember very long lineups for the Spirit Lodge pavilion. Does anyone remember whose pavilion that was?

Cut to the closing ceremonies of the Torino Olympics, where the world got to see all sorts of silliness involving ice fishing and inukshuks and native drummers.

Cut to Gordon Campbell waxing eloquent on the need to "partner" with FNs for the benefit of this great province.

Is it just me, or is the commodification of FN culture sticking in anyone else's craw?

Tax Cutter 99 sez 2 Hours Ago

I take it then you didn't post the following selections which appear under your name in another thread on this site:

and:

I should think you have no lessons to teach anyone in that department...name calling, that is.

I din't call anyone on this site a derogatory name. i just stated facts.

I really don't understand people who keep trashing the skytrain. I moved to Vancouver two years ago, and the public transit system here, including the Skytrain, is amazing. It's extemely frustrating to live here in this incredible city and here the residents constantly complaining. Obviously you've never lived anywhere else.

As for Expo, I was five years old living in Edmonton when it happened, and it while I'm not sure I knew what it was, I had a hat, t-shirt, and a positive feeling about Vancouver that has never left me. I don't think anyone is saying it was perfect, but if you can't see the positive impacts it has had on this city, you're quite disturbingly cynical.

TC99

Let’s let readers judge for themselves - truth is obviously not an important consideration when it comes to what you write. Those are your words - the words of a misogynist.

Alcibiades, maybe you should learn how to quote. I said

You took my words out of context to imply that I said pregnant women are worthless commodities. What i did was LIST what happens to these spoiled brats...Including one you mentioned on another thread that wants me to pay for her irresponsible behaviour while on a sex bender to the UK: Pregnancy, worhtless commodities to employers (IE: No skills, experience, education or promise), riddled with disease or on drugs. You clearly have trouble with reading comprehension.

Well cmcl14, SkyTrain is just very expensive and obsolete. We could have had 3 to 4 times more route mileage if we had built with LRT as was originally planned for. The $200 million+ annual subsidy could built up to 10 km. of LRT every year!

Even the RAV people didn't want to build with SkyTrain and went instead with a Hyundai product instead!

TC99
Not at all taxcutter. Look up the thread a couple of posts - where I included the whole quotation. You are firmly in context when you write - calling anyone a commodity is the kind of judgment a wide variety of questionable exemplars have made throughout history.

Fortunately, you are nothing more than an angry, unhappy man with little power over real peoples' actual lives. Continue to believe whatever nonsense pops into your mind and pretend the world is full of people determined to do you personal ill. It isn't; people aren't; and living that way is punishment enough.

I guess that makes sense, Grumpy, I'm not familliar with the costs.

According to Webster:

com.mod.i.ty \k*-'ma:d-*t-e-\ n something useful or valuable 2: an economic good

People are an asset and a value. My employees are 1) useful 2)valuable and 3)an economic good worth protecting.

Actually, anyone who evaluated this post would take you as the angry one. I simply state facts, backed up by official stats then offer some of my opinion (which could be right or worng). You sir, go on making generalizations, value judgements, resort to name-calling, taking things personally and not being able to tak a few jokes at the expense of anyone. Anyone who disagrees with you is considered evil.

The humourless left is really sad these days.

Sorry bud, can't agree. You are so owned. People as a commodity - give me a break. You'd have been right at home in 18th century Alabama.

Years from now we'll discover that the Olympics will have achieved the same goal as Expo86: drawing in Federal money for infrastructure projects, giving a political and legislative excuse for the govt to expropriate and spend on infrastructure- all of which provides a backdrop for property development.

Expo 86 was the only way Vancouver could get a Skytrain and break the gridlock of NIMBY-ism. And all that deeply affected Vancouver real estate prices as Yaletown, False Creek became prime development property. It was kind of ironic that local big shots like Jim Pattison, Peter Brown, Peter Wall or the Bosa brothers could afford to buy the Expo site. Ultimately, it was Li Ka Shing who did it- and he did it with his own private money which shows how rich he is.

Unfortunately, Yaletown and False Creek are only human file cabinets- unlike parts of NYC, there is no distinctive neighbourhood atmosphere. There are many reasons for it, but the main one is that all of those buildings were put up too quickly. It takes a long time to develop history and culture in a neighbourhood. Vancouver has become better because of the post-Expo expansion- just bigger.

It's not the relaxed Vancouver I grew up in. If you want that move to Prince George or Kitimat. Vancouver has become unaffordable to alot of average people and it's going to stay that way. It's going to have the worst features of a big city- crime, over crowded roads and none of the best features of a big city- art, culture, sophistication, excellent public transportation.

The end of Expo86 also marked the beginning of the large scale growth of marijuana grow ops in Vancouver. The combination of technology, slack law enforcement, laid back West Coast attitudes and US demand made Vancouver a natural epicenter for this business. Today, like it or not, grow ops are entrenched and here to stay as an important force in driving the real estate market in the Lower Mainland.

First of, your post is highly subjective. Some people like Kitimat, some people like Surrey, that's why God gave us choice.

How elitist is this??? We won't have "art" or "culture?" We already have the Vancouver art gallery, the coastal peoples gallery with Native art, Appleton, the Buschlen, Artworks, Romanov, Petley, The Lux, The Pendelum, The Ramsey, Artspeaks, Hill's native showcase (or whatever its called), The Helen Pitt collection, Dynamo, and the one on carrall street (the brickhouse?).

PS: I'm not into this stuff but I have a girlfriend who drags me to crap. I'd rather stay home and watch the NBA Playoffs.

As for culture, we have the VSO, different places for concerts, my buddy works at the Van East cente, besides to me our culture is like, Chinatown and the Punjabi Market on Main street. Plus commercial drive. We got the scotia bank dance centre. What more do you want?

Vancouver does have a newness. That's because we were built in the 20th century. We are what we are and we're proud. So take you bohemian culture crap and live among the spray painted crap hole somewhere more "cultered" to your liking.

Now as for crime, you give no data, statistics, or evidence saying our city will have more crime. In fact, places with higher property values typically have less crime. But I agree with you. We have to do something about it, particularly property crime which makes me wanna grab a gun myself and go to work to protect my city...
We need the Giuliani solution:

In his first term as mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, in conjunction with NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, adopted an aggressive enforcement-deterrent strategy based on James Q. Wilson's Broken Windows theory. This involved crackdowns on relatively minor offenses such as jaywalking, turnstile jumping, and aggressive squeegee kids on the principle that this would send a message that order would be maintained, and that the city would be "cleaned up"
The city crime rate dropped 30 percent in the first two years when Giuliani applied zero-tolerance measures. They were the lowest they'd been in 35 years when he left office, going down 57%. Vehicle theft was at a lower level than it was in 1965!

Of course my comments are subjective, that's the perception of living in Vancouver. I'm just saying for a supposedly "world class" city we don't have many or any world class things to do. Snowboarding is the only world class activity around here. Really, Vancouver's Science and Technology Museum could just fit into the lobby of the one in Toronto.

You are paying very high prices in order to live in Yaletown and False Creek and compared to other metropolitan centres, Vancouver's moribund night life and culture don't justify it. False Creek was simply developed too quickly and needs a long time to find a distinct identity.

For all those in the Lower Mainland who want less building and a return to more the days of peace and quiet I suggested they move to Kitimat or Penticton. Vancouver has been exploding with growth since Expo 86 far outstripping the sensibility of any Vancouverite who remembers Expo.

Tax Cutter- Vancouver..Canadians will never step up to a Rudy Guiliani law enforcement regime. Too expensive and too right wing. Don't forget Vancouver is a liberal drug haven so property crime will rise to meet addicts' needs. I feel sorry for those residents in East Vancouver or Southeast Vancouver where thieves operate with impunity.

I was too busy and just caught up...this time on the subject of the "insurance industry", which is the biggest fraud.

In my Cambridge days I received a notice that my motorcycle insurance went up halfway through the term. I used the bike to go to my classes, living out of town. I had no claims, no accidents, no tickets, so I went to my agent to find out why? "Oh, that's because you're not English". "I have a British citizenship just like you" "Yes, but you weren't born in this country". Good reason for the crooks to jack up the fee.

In the private car insurance days, a friend with very limited English came to me, almost crying, that he was put into the "assigned risk" category and his insurance went from about $200. to $900., which was about 2-3 months of his wages at the time. No tickets, no claims, no accidents. He was driving a spotless Studebaker. So, I called a friend in the insurance racket. He laughed: "That's because of the switcheroo game?" The companies went to the Superintendent of Insurance every year, demanding the raising of fees, but they never got what they wanted. So, as they had the right to cancel policies without reason, they canceled a certain percentage every year, which then could to be picked up on the assigned risk level by others at grossly inflated rates.

I had a shop at 7th and Cambie, when my insurance was cancelled. I called my agent by the name of Doug Hague, who said he'll get me another one. 2 weeks later he called me that he couldn't find any and suggested I'd go to a large agency who could push it through with their buying power. According to Doug, an investigator reported that I had a stove in the shop, with the pipe sticking out of the window.

Of course, as Doug knew it very well, I had a proper furnace and brick chimney with fire dept. inspection twice a year, but it was the excuse to cancel, because I was in business for 7 years by then and statistically, due to have a fire. I got new insurance at exactly twice the old rate and never had a fire in 35 years of business.

The Sun reported one day that the car insurance of a man was cancelled, because an investigator saw "obscene material" in his home. He has a small replica of Michaelangelo's "David" and a print of Picasso's "Blue Nude". A young, unmarried couple's was also cancelled because they were living together. We had an insurance underwriter in our club and I was pulling his leg about the way his business was handling people, when he blew up: "I had to cancel them because when people break laws one way, they'll break them other ways!" I had no idea he was involved, but when I met him on Granville, several years later and asked how his wife was, he said: "We're no longer married, I'm now living with my secretary". Yes, I have the names.

An old guy hit my van and his New York based company sent me a cheque for $300. instead of $400, as per 2 estimates. Their agents etc. ignored me and I was driving my van for 5 1/2 months with the driver's door smashed and unopenable. Finally, I phoned the poor old guy and told him that I was forced to sue him at Small Claims, so he sent me a personal cheque.

Later, I had 2-3 breakins into my shop on Powell, and each time received a fraction of the losses. E.g. a typewriter and camera used in my business were not "tools". Damage and losses $850. settlement $125. and an invitation to "sue us"

During the Vander Zalm years the insurance racket smelled blood and gave $1. million to a former ICBC executive by the name of Bobby Scherrell to propagandize the privatization of ICBC. He was running full page and TV ads aboit the benefits of private car insurance.

I was getting worried and asked the then President of the insurance agents association, the late Don Southerland, in Williams Lake, what were the chances for the wrecking of ICBC?

Continued.......

Ed Deak

Continued....

Don laughed and said: "Don't worry, Ed. We went to Victoria and told them we don't want any privatized car insurance. People used to storm into our offices, wrecking furniture and beating us up, because some insurance company was screwing them around. Now, all we have to is fill out the forms, collect the cheque, press the "send" button and collect our fees. We're happy, have no problem and don't want any"

When I was insuring my 1980 farm truck last year, and paid my $650. the agent told me that at 78 with a farm truck, I couldn't get any insurance in some provinces and if I did, it would probably cost $6 or 8,000 per year.

I'm perfectly healthy, take medication ,or pills, need no glasses, had no accidents, claims, or tickets, my truck is in perfect shape, me partner being a master mechanic, and as an old competition driver I cans still drive circles around anybody. But the insurance barracudas could decide to stop me from driving.

This is the difference between services provided for the benefit of the public as opposed for unlimited profits.

I'm a very peaceful man, a private enterpriser, never had any fights or quarrels with my neighbours and abhor violence of any kind, but if any government would try to privatize ICBC it would give me good reason to pick up a gun and man the barricades.

Ed Deak.

Fiat Lux
Amen to that. I remember, as you no doubt do too, when ICBC also offered other types of general insurance. That part of the business 'did' get privatized, unfortunately.

Yes, my daughter and husband had a home insurance by ICBC and when their home burned down in 1984, due to an electrical failure, when they weren't home, they received fair compensation in about 2 weeks. They were storing some of our own custom made furniture, which was also paid for at replacement value without any debate.

In the past years, we had some fires around here, thank goodness not at our place, and people have been fighting the shyster companies, in some cases, for over a year.

Zalm sold the company. That's when I got the wind up that the vehicle part would also be sold.

We can't get insurance for our house, because we have a home made furnace, I made it, welded up from 1/4" steel and insulated all around with double sheet metal, with air circulation, used it for 18 years without the slightest danger, but it has no stamp. No stamp,no insurance.

Ed Deak.

Dubuke is spelled Dubuque, unless Charles is referring to some hamlet in SK that i've never head of. and I bet your friend was a bass player, (hopefully not a 'free base' player). david, some proofreading, please... btw, was the base (sic)player Hamm the same Hamm of 'Canned Hamm' fame??
the irony to the article is that it 'caught you' as well. people obviously STILL have memories, reactions, and emotions in and around Expo, as the next circus prepares to enter the city. any publicity is good publicity... even for the Terry Fox statue!
still, don't you cringe at that 'world-class' moniker? what does it mean, exactly? do parisians or muscovites or barcelonans go around calling THEIR cities 'world-class?' i bet not.
i'm in complete agreement about the Expo Theatre Venue. John Lee Hooker/Van Morrsion. Emmylou Harris. The Pogues. The Everley Brothers. Bruce Cockburn. Great concerts all, in an awesome venue, at prices that were not unreasonable, even for working class stiffs such as myself. there was also cool little theatre over by the Science World gate where i saw Ian Tyson.
nobody's mentioned this one - and i'm red with embarassment at the thought of it, but my girlfriend at the time loved the fireworks and that hokey 'closing time' theme song. and, alas, so did i...

sthrendyle
The author actually corrected Dubuke(sic)himself, see comments 3 days ago for this:

As a teacher, memories of Expo 86 simply remind me of the huge cuts education took to pay for Bill Bennett's extravaganza to put BC on "showcase for the world".

Now, 20 years later, we are moving foward on Gordo Campell's extravaganza to, again, put BC on "showcase for the world". We all know how education has suffered huge cuts over the past 4 years to pay for this!

I can hardly wait for 20 more years to pass...what will we do to showcase BC to the world?

I worked at Expo 86 in MacDonalds, one of the six outlets there, the busiest MacDonald's in the world. I didn't hear about the 20 year anniversary party for Expo workers until after it was over (very sad), yet I heard it was a blast.

But what really irked me was how Bill Bennett only spoke at a high-priced Board of Trade dinner, but not to the Expo workers' party. A snob, right to the end. I wish the media who fawn on his greatness could have noted that.