Reducing red tape allows for innovative solutions to housing for growing populations, ultimately lowering housing costs
By Kenneth P. Green Ian Herzog and Josef Filipowicz The Fraser Institute A recent Wall Street Journal article featured a number of cities that stand out, giving well-deserved praise to Vancouver’s walkable urban landscape. But while Vancouver continues to become even more pedestrian friendly, a much bigger problem is going unsolved. Growing housing costs are…
What will life be like in Vancouver in 2046, once climate change kicks in?
As the Virgin Dirigible Air super-shuttle settled slowly onto the Vancouver Pacific Spirit Regional Park Airport gantry, I got a great view of the Higher Mainland. Predictably, Vancouver’s downtown condo towers sparkled under cloudy skies. Some things never change in Vancouver; others definitely have since my last visit in 2026. To begin with, way back…
Oligarch kleptocratic immigration is detrimentailly affecting those cities deemed as safe havens for their investments
The word oligarch has a weighty feel to it. After you master it, it rolls off the tongue. Derived from the Greek language, today it usually means “business magnate.” It often describes the men who acquired vast wealth in the transition of the former Soviet Union to today’s Russia. The word kleptocracy is also derived…
Unlike previous immigrants who arrived with very little, the offspring of wealthy Chinese parents are products of an alien culture
The roots of Canada’s immigration narrative run through struggle, adversity and survival. Eventually we triumph – sort of, either by channelling our remaining energies into cooperation (see Wallace Stegner’s magnificent 1962 prairie memoir Wolf Willow), or a kind of raw-boned optimism that suggests pluck might work for you eventually (see Allerdale Grainger’s 1908 classic Woodsmen…
Think about the last time you went to the bank to visit your safety deposit box. If you're like me, you forget what is left inside from the last visit. It is basically a box of investment certificates and documents like wills, and most of us just visit once or twice per year. The banks…
Apparently not all Vancouverites understand the need for jobs
Port Metro Vancouver needs more land to expand its services, but it is running up against a wall of local push-back. The port is vital to the economy of Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada. In a global economy, it is a door through which our resource exports go out the many imports that enable us…
There were drug addicts on the street in 1976, but somehow many of the interactions seemed to involve mentally ill people
For four months in 1976, I was a pretend cop in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. I was really a UBC Law student who had just finished first year, and had landed a summer job as a ride-along with the Vancouver Police Department. The program was geared towards students who were interested in criminal law, and its day-to-day…
Vancouver has to begin catering less to the needs of the international elites and more to its own citizens
Vancouver is a case study in catering to newcomers and abiding old problems. The downtown core juxtaposes two neighbourhoods, Yaletown and the Downtown Eastside (called Skid Row in the logging era), enabling casual observers to pass through two solitudes in a matter of minutes. I do it every day when I walk to work down…
The young and the mobile are exercising their right to just leave
Signs of the end of summer are beginning to appear, and with it the back to school sales are starting. Most retailers are forecasting that the back-to-school season will be better than in 2014. However, beside the Back to School sale signs are more Help Wanted signs –not only in retail stores but also in…
Look to existing budgets and not new taxes to fund transit expansion in Metro Vancouver
By Charles Lammam and Hugh MacIntyre The Fraser Institute With 62 per cent of Metro Vancouver plebiscite voters rejecting a $250 million annual sales tax hike, local politicians have been scrambling for another way to help fund their $7.5 billion new capital spending plan. Much of the discussion has revolved around alternative sources of revenue…
By Kenneth P. Green Ian Herzog and Josef Filipowicz The Fraser Institute A recent Wall Street Journal article featured a number of cities that stand out, giving well-deserved praise to Vancouver’s walkable urban landscape. But while Vancouver continues to become even more pedestrian friendly, a much bigger problem is going unsolved. Growing housing costs are…
