VancouverIAM's Daily Blog Report: Librarians will reject new contract, emissions decreasing as Vancouver's population grows

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This is a selection of recent popular blog articles from VancouverIAM where you will find the best blogs from Vancouver, British Columbia as well as video uploads, social networking, rumors, and blog authoring.

Striking Librarians Will Reject New Offer

According to the latest post from GungHaggisFatChoy, the Vancouver library workers strike has never been about money. In response to the set of recommendations published by mediator Brian Foley, the post declared that “this strike has been about fairness, respect and pay equity. Not one of these issues was addressed by Brian Foley's mediated recommendations.”Additionally, the post also reported that, following a meeting on Sunday morning, “CUPE 391 bargaining committee recommended to its membership to reject the mediator Brian Foley's recommendations.” GHFC remained insistent that one of the union's largest criticisms was “that the mediator did not understand the issue of pay equity.”

Noted left-wing author and journalist Naomi Klein reportedly made an appearance at the picket lines on Friday, speaking to striking workers and “giving her support for pay equity, stating that library workers have been under-valued.”

The post also noted that out of all of the recommendations issued by the 40 page Foley Report, less than 10 were related to the librarians- an indication that maybe the mediators aren't taking the librarians demands seriously. The post declared that “it has been typical that library workers have been seen as the most docile, least protesting - yet underpaid, and under-valued city workers. This is our first strike in our 77 year union history.” The lack of attention to pay equity issues, a lower than expected signing bonus, and a bias towards management are likely reasons why the city should “expect Vancouver library workers to reject his (Foley's) recommendations.”

Good Environmental News...Nobody Notices

Price Tags, a popular blog written by former city councilor Gordon Price, has a post revealing the details of a new administrative report from the City of Vancouver. The report states that while Vancouver's population “has experienced significant growth since 1990, with the number of people increasing 24%... Vancouver’s per capita emissions (4.9 tonnes/person) are down 15% compared to 1990.” According to the data, this is in stark contrast to many other Canadian cities of comparable size. The city report also declared that our per capita emissions are, “less than half of those for Toronto (9.3 t/person) and a fraction of those of other cities such as Calgary (17.5 t/person), Seattle (12.4 t/per person) and Portland (13.7t/person).”

The report also noted that Vancouver bucked the national and provincial emission trends by a significant margin. “Nationally, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have increased 25% and provincial emissions are up 30% since 1990.”

Gordon Price was adamant that many politically-active Vancouverites don't particularly care for this type of positive progress. He declared, “I always thought it odd, when sitting on Council, that some people just didn’t like good news... Most often, the reports didn't get much coverage.” In fact, Price insisted that during his days on council, whenever the City of Vancouver would release something akin to this recent report, political critics would simply say “Yeah, but what about...” and then launch into a diatribe about the Downtown East Side. This led Price to observe “that’s one of the main purposes of the Downtown East Side: no matter what we do, there always the DES.”

No light rail for twinned Port Mann Bridge

Jordan Bateman, a Langley Township Councillor, has written a new post in his LangleyPolitics.com blog revealing that an agreement has been signed between the Provincial Government and Translink to offer rapid bus transit between Burnaby and Langley. This is part of the long-term plan to twin the Port Mann Bridge. The bus ride will offer fast service between the two cities. According to the post, “travel time for the full trip between Langley and Burnaby will be less than 25 minutes as fast, or faster, than by car.” The bus will not mix with general traffic and will have its own lane.

The post states that while this announcement is “great news,” Bateman makes no secret of his desire to see a dedicated light-rail service operating in the Fraser Valley. Simply put, a fast bus probably isn't enough to make an entire generation of commuters suddenly buy transit passes. Bateman declared “to get large numbers of them out of their cars will take an attractive, modern, high-end light rail solution that goes where they want to go.”

Recently, Langley MLA Mary Polak declared that there wasn't enough population density to support light rail through the Fraser Valley. Bateman's post stated the opposite, “I believe there is enough continuous density (present and planned) along 200th and the Surrey Interurban line to support light rail. There is also enough in Abbotsford proper.” Bateman insisted that the biggest hurdle in the plan would be the “sea of farmland between west Langley and Abby.”

Condo Marketing Off the Mark?

A post from CondoHype, a popular blog about the marketing of residential property in Vancouver, has expressed frustration at a recurring trend in the advertising campaigns used by Vancouver condo developments. According to the post, real estate marketers have started to do nothing but “shovel up fantasy concepts of chic neighborhoods and lifestyle living, show us pictures of underused furniture and childless couples, and speak of luxury as if it’s affordable to all.” This latest advertising trend has led Condohype to openly wonder whether this marketing “speak(s) to the real Vancouver? What is the 'original' Vancouver? Does that even exist anymore? Did it ever?”

The post was insistent that Vancouver real estate marketing has gotten so completely over-the-top that the advertising no longer speaks about the product, and is merely concerned with selling a lifestyle.

CondoHype declared that “the condo marketers, shilling a product that cannot be sold on its own merit, took the approach of the selling the city to itself and to the world.”

Invariably, the post doesn't speculate whether this type of marketing is actually effective, but seemed more concerned with whether it was actually truthful or reflective of Vancouver. ConHype stated that this current trend “has meant presenting Vancouver in many different shades, each of which is driven by a sales goal rather than a truth.”

About VancouverIAM

VancouverIAM is part of a groundbreaking network of city-focused blog aggregation, user generated media and social networking websites currently rolling out across North America. Each IAM website filters and organizes blog content as well as offering video upload capabilities, social networking, blog authoring, favourites lists and rumours. The IAM Network is a division of SoMedia Networks Inc which also operates Inveslogic.com, Greenedia.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com. For more information or to register an account, visit VancouverIAM.com