WANTED: Leaders Focused on What Really Matters (or, Why I'm Done With Vision Vancouver)

I've finally had it with @VisionVancouver.

I live in the West End where Vision is currently campaigning to raise the parking permit rates by nearly 900% to “free up spaces” and "increase availability". No doubt it’ll free up spaces, as families already barely making it are finally squeezed out in Mr. Robertson and company’s commitment to make Vancouver THE BEST CITY EVERRRRR! 

(Cue the Urban Reconstructionist chorus: “Well, did you think you and your family could live in Vancouver forever, Paul?” To which I respond, Go love yourself, these are real flesh-and-blood human beings trying to live here.)

Of course, Vision has really, really good reasons for jacking the prices, at least that’s what they tell me. And to find out what I think of the proposed change, Vision invited me to complete an online survey. I’m not sure where the survey came from, or what it’s actual reasons for being are (correction: I know exactly what it’$ for), but apparently I asked for it. Guess I’ll take their word for it. Well, I've tried to complete the survey three times now, on my phone, on my laptop, on my work computer, but it freezes every time just before I finish. How symbolic. Happened last time I was asked to "Talk Vancouver", too.

(Side note: I don't recall having any say in the double-digit car share spots imposed on our neighbourhood. Or the lanes they keep taking away from our bridges and streets. Or the wholesale conversion of a section of Point Grey into one big bike lane when we lived there. News flash, Mr. Mayor: While we applaud your “Go Green” mantra, some of us actually need vehicles. Bigger families, tradespeople, people with disabilities - people who legitimately have no other choice. So if you’re going to ask our opinion about things that affect us, do it consistently, yes?)

I love Vancouver's commitment to being the eco-friendliest city in Canada. I don’t just love it, I’m proud of it. But am I the only who feels we've become a bit manic and borderline fascist about the whole thing? This government has decided to make the world LOVE Vancouver, damn it! In the process, though, those of us who live here and are most directly impacted are only consulted on a politically convenient or need-to-know basis, with a few glitch-ridden surveys thrown in for optics. That’s not community-friendly, much less democratic. It’s merely the appearance of democracy. But that’s what Vancouver has become: the appearance of a grand city full of wonders, while its lifeblood - we, the people - is slowly drawn from its veins.

If our municipal government gave half the attention and effort to making Vancouver the most liveable city in Canada that they do to increasing bike lanes and making incessant cosmetic upgrades, where families and single people can afford to rent/own a home without constantly feeling squeezed out by fees and bylaws, Vision would get my vote every time.

Instead, Vision’s best attempt at addressing the real elephant in the room, the one that's sucking the emotional oxygen out of the city - escalating housing prices - is to tax empty dwellings, a dubious and ultimately unenforceable non-solution. That, apparently, is the limit of this government’s power or willingness to solve the one, soul-sucking, life-altering issue we unanimously agree is numero uno. Vision (and, to be fair, every previous regime for the past 30 years) stood by and watched homes go from a basic right to an investment commodity, knowing it was a growing problem but doing virtually nothing to stop the commercial and financial forces causing it, then swung in at the last minute with a politically-expedient “solution”.

Yup, a home vacancy tax. That’s what going to make homes affordable again. “Too little too late” doesn’t even begin to summarize this epic non-starter. Well-intentioned or not (and I’m going with not), most of us see it for what it is: smoke and mirrors, shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic, a frog in a frying pan - like installing more recycle and compost bins while the city burns.

But, hey, at least the tourists think we’re great! I had a kind German visitor tell me on the weekend how lucky I must feel to raise my kids in such a beautiful place. It is beautiful, I’ll give them that. In the same way a Venus Flytrap is beautiful to a fly.

Well, you fooled me once, Vision, but not again. I don’t doubt you have a vision, it just clearly has nothing to do with my own. Nothing has more quickly and effectively turned this liberal into a social conservative than a so-called progressive government hell-bent on making Vancouver look good on the outside while making it consistently harder to breathe on the inside.

I mean, who cares of we're greener, cleaner, and leaner when living in Vancouver has become so much meaner?