Watching the non-stop news on Japan and thinking of the earthquake in Christchurch, you have to wonder what exactly would happen in Vancouver if there were a similar earthquake. The tsunami rolling through the Sendai airport made me wonder about our airport. The stories of buildings pancaking in Christchurch made me think about how buildings [...]

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Another round of speakers Tuesday night, ably tweeted by several at the meeting. Earlier in the day, I spoke with the president of the casino workers’ union and others about the wave of opposition that has emerged. Story here. As well, just to try to sort out some of the past, I am appending here [...]

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Christy Clark has touched a lot of people’s lives, from her time as a student at Burnaby South to her junior-politico days as head of the Young Libs at Simon Fraser University, and from MLA to talk-show host. I’m working on a long-term profile of our premier-designate. I’ve talked to a lot of the usual [...]

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Trees make city streets beautiful. They also make a mess. All over this city, they provoke annoyance (dripping sap, falling chestnuts that dent cars, branches that come loose in high winds, leaves, leaves, leaves) and heartfelt love. The question for park staff, who manage the city’s 137,000 trees and growing (3,300 new ones planted every [...]

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Because I’m a dutiful person (that Catholic training sticks, even after all else has faded away), I briefly read through a big chunk of the city’s just-posted in-camera reports from June 2008 to May 2010 to spare all of you the pain of having to do so. They’re being posted, by the way, as a [...]

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B.C. Lottery got hit with a whack of bad publicity last year, some of because of reports that they had been fined close to $700,000 for reporting irregularities by FINTRAC, the Canadian agency that monitors suspicious or cash transactions in financial institutions, casinos, real estate and more. (No, suspicious and cash aren’t the same.) As [...]

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The longer the debate about a casino expansion goes on, the more we learn. What I learned today was something about how gamblers with lots of money get their money to casinos. Until a year ago, they could only bring cash — a problem if you’re coming across the border, where the limit is $10,000. [...]

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Thanks to a poster (Michael B) for this information, sure to be of interest to many. The long-awaited community meeting regarding the proposed development @ Kingsway and Broadway is finally happening. Here is the info: Sunday March 20th 2011. 12noon to 4:30pm at the Native Education College, 285 East 5th Avenue. Door open at 11:30 [...]

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Some are blowing up their malls entirely. Others are putting towers in the parking lots while reconfiguring the shopping-centre part. Either way, mall owners are planning some dramatic changes to what are seen as those flag-bearers of bad suburbanism: malls. I got inspired to write this story by the visit last fall of Ellen Dunham-Jones, [...]

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