(Please note: The image above is a photo-illustration in which Gordon Campbell campaign signs, circa 2009, have been photoshopped into an image of one of the Little Mountain social housing units that would soon be demolished.)
This week The Tyee published a piece by Jen St. Denis that returned to the scene of one of the former BC Liberal government's most egregious crimes - the developer-friendly sweetheart deal that kicked more than two hundred families out of their homes fourteen years ago for no good reason at all:
...In the 15 years since Vancouver-based developer Holborn Group bought the 6.2-hectare site, it’s remained largely empty — a frustration for neighbours, city residents and local politicians in a city known for its housing woes...
{snip}
...For five years, David Chudnovsky, a former NDP MLA, fought to make the sale agreement between the B.C. government and Holborn public through a freedom of information request. When that sales agreement finally came to light in 2021, the province confirmed that Holborn had paid just $35 million of the $334-million sales price.
In 2013, the then-BC Liberal government approved a five-year extension on a $211-million loan given to Holborn, extending the interest-free loan to 2026 — a benefit worth about $9.5 million to the developer based on provincial borrowing costs at the time. The developer also received a low-interest loan for $88 million to complete the social housing...
****
And with that, we move on to the history lesson...As you may (or may not) recall, the pro media-fuelled pitch to we, the people, back in the day was that this deal was going to provide $300 million, plus, to finance new social housing projects throughout the province.
Which, of course, we now know was total hokum given that the province did not, and still has not yet, received the great bulk of the cash from the sale (/not sale).
But something else was going on around here as 2008 rolled over and became 2009.
Which is that the BC government of the day, led by then premier Gordon Campbell, was putting together a balanced budget in the wake of a global recession in which he and his minions literally made up approximately $2.5 billion in revenue as they prepared for a re-election campaign later that spring.
After the fact, most of this faux revenue was attributed to bogus tax revenue projections.
However, the pretend revenue from the 'sale-not-sale' of the Little Mountain lands was very likely buried in all that phoney revenue as well.
Why do we come to that conclusion?
Because, a few years later, Christy Clark's then finance minister Michael de Jong quietly removed most of the revenue the government never received from the 2008 'sale-not-sale' in a budget update tabled in fall of 2012:
But something else was going on around here as 2008 rolled over and became 2009.
Which is that the BC government of the day, led by then premier Gordon Campbell, was putting together a balanced budget in the wake of a global recession in which he and his minions literally made up approximately $2.5 billion in revenue as they prepared for a re-election campaign later that spring.
After the fact, most of this faux revenue was attributed to bogus tax revenue projections.
However, the pretend revenue from the 'sale-not-sale' of the Little Mountain lands was very likely buried in all that phoney revenue as well.
Why do we come to that conclusion?
Because, a few years later, Christy Clark's then finance minister Michael de Jong quietly removed most of the revenue the government never received from the 2008 'sale-not-sale' in a budget update tabled in fall of 2012:
...(This) got me thinking of the long con of the original budget bump that occurred with the sale of the land back in 2008.And the conclusion I came to is that all those families and, as we now know for certain, all British Columbians, were screwed so that the BC Liberals could claim, yet again, that they were running a surplus in the run-up to the last of the GordCo, Inc. election victories the following spring.My, but that 'Golden Era' sure does have a long tail, eh?...
And the worst, most tragic part of all this political skullduggery from days gone by?
Well...
...Despite all the taxpayer-funded help, today the site is still an expanse of long grass and wildflowers. A chain-link fence is adorned with Holborn advertising banners that say, “Great Stories Take Time to Write.”...
Sheesh.
.
____
And, in case you were wondering...A history lesson on that other 'sale not sale' event from days of yore is coming...
And yes...We have archives...And, yes, I plan to keep using them.
.
1 comment:
Was not happy when the land was sold. Even if the government had received full payment it was a bad deal. Land owned by a government, once sold can never be replaced at the price they sold it for. Governments need to hold on to the land they own. It can be used for various things over the decades. If the government owns the land and a lease ends and they need something else, the one thing they don't have to do is buy land and that saves a shit load of money. Selling schools lands, ditto. Don't need the school now, but in 50 years you might. Use it for housing, offices, parks, gardens, etc. If you need a new hospital, prison, housing, the land is there, no cost.
El gordo was not some one I would have trusted with anything.
My suggestion is, give that company back the money, if any was paid, give them the interest and tell them, its been expropriated for housing--its a social emergency. Its really easy. Its not like it hassn't' been done before, i.e. all those farms which were expropriated to build dams going back to the Wilkinson lake situation. Some times big business just has to take a hit for the team and need to understand they are not the most important thing in town. The most important thing in town are the children who live there and need a decent place to live that their parents can afford. They are after all our future.
As to the business practises of those "capitalist" who say they know how to run an economy, Van der Zalm sold the Expo lands for about $50M and the buyer when they sold the first lot made about that much on the sale.
In Singapore they seem to have a better system of building: its on government owned land with 99 yr leases. The developer is the government. The placement of buildins and gardens are lovely. It appears you can purcahse a new 900 sq. ft. condo for between $450K and $500K.
Having watched the politcal landscape in B.C.since I was about 9 or 10, nothing surprises me. Not everthing seemed consistent with what I learned in Sunday School. O.K. I became an atheist. So after watching politcs in B.C. for over 60 yrs, my opinion hasn't changed, the taxpayers of B.C. got hosed.
Post a Comment