The Secrets Of Vancouver BC, Canada

Happy Canada D’eh!

Cool links for Canada Day in Vancouver:

1) Fireworks: For the second year, the Burrard Inlet Fireworks Society is proud to bring fireworks back to Canada Day!

This unique two barge simultaneous pyrotechnic extravaganza will be visible from numerous locations in Downtown Vancouver, West Vancouver, North Vancouver and Vancouver’s West Side.

2) Unique: Crab Park Canada Day Festival Features music on the beach by Blackberry Wood, Stingin’ Hornets and Top Drawers. Crab Park, foot of Main, free, 1-4 pm

3) Beer: Canada Day Club Crawl Molson Canadian-sponsored, four-club VIP experience, with bus transportation. Starts at the Roxy, 932 Granville (at which point multiple buses go on different routes to different clubs), 7 pm-2 am pm, $30

4) A Party That’s Sure to Get Out Of Hand (found on google):

Hey everyone just wanted to let you all know that there will be a BBQ on Tuesday to celebrate Tim’s birthday and of course Canada’s!!

Date: Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
Location: backyard of 3274 William st., Vancouver (map)
Time: 4:00pm

What to Bring? BYOB; bring something to share like watermelon, chips, salad, etc.

Tim and Julie are going to do up some bbq chicken donairs and Julie is going to make something awesome for dessert.

hopefully we’ll see you on Tuesday!

Feel free to bring friends along and oh yeah, maybe a lawn chair.

Happy Canada Day.. Tim.

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4)

Fill ‘er Up Tonight!!

Introducing: The BC Carbon Tax Grab

With the B.C. Liberals starting the sales push on THEIR carbon tax, ask the question…

Just what does a carbon tax really accomplish?

Where does the money go?

Tomorrow marks the day that they raise gas prices, among other things, in the name of global warming. It gives BC the title as the most carbon-pricing aggressive regimes in the world.

Now we get the incentive of $6/gallon gas, I guess their work is done.

The 2.4 cents a liter (9 cents a gallon) tax is going to hit all those evil drivers.

It’s styled to change your lifestyle – so you’ll be more green.

What concerns me – is the hidden part of this grab.

Most of this crazy tax will be hidden, and business will get hit by the lions share of it.

We’ll end up paying more for everything we buy.

If a dollar increase at manufacturing equates to say, $3 retail, hang on. Food, utilities, and anything that is made using electricity, fuel, or oil, are all to get an increase.

This tax has been referred to as a “smart carbon tax”.  Revenue neutral.  If this is true (it’s not), then what’s the point?

If ridiculously high oil prices haven’t slowed down oil’s use, carbon taxes sure won’t reduce anything but the cash flow of the poorest working Canadians.

The Liberals thinking is that once all those working Canadians are finally broke, carbon footprints will finally be reduced.

Sad fact is that the ones with the biggest footprint won’t feel a thing. They get to pass along their costs.

My prediction is this is the first of many more new taxes to come, in the name of “green”.

(By the way, my $100 bribe hasn’t shown up yet.)

Steve Janke has an excellent post on the situation.

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Getting Vancouver Car Insurance

After weeks of paperwork, and fees, and upgrades to Canadian-ize my vehicles, it’s time to get insurance.

2 cars – 1999 and 2002

The quote I got from ICBC is $1,400 for 6 months. No collision, just liability. Collision is another $1,600 per vehicle. (I am 45, married, never had a ticket or accident). That makes it about $6,000 for two vehicles per year.

But get this – this is only after I get my 43% discount!??

Unfortunately they can’t (or won’t) bother to look me up to see that I have no accidents or tickets. So I have to call to my last 2 insurance companies in Connecticut and Florida to get them to sign a letter saying so.

Now the fun begins. Florida is easy. Connecticut doesn’t keep your records after you have left them.

Now what?

What’s interesting is that when I went to get my driver’s license, they connected right into the Florida system. They can pull abstracts if they want, but are putting the burden on the driver so they can generate more revenue.

In the US, I insured a 26′ boat, 3 cars and a motorcycle for $965 every 6 months – and that includes collision, liability of 1 million, and all the rest of the goodies. They realize we can only drive 2 vehicles at one time…

So let’s say car insurance is just a little obscene here in Vancouver.

I’d love to really see the books. I have a hunch they are paying gov’t costs like pensions and such. The profit is probably many times more than advertised. It has to be… or they are totally inept.

Here’s a interesting clip from icbc sucks

This week it was revealed that, while premiums paid by B.C. drivers have gone up in the past few years, premiums paid by drivers in other provinces have gone down, substantially.

According to data from the General Insurance Statistical Agency, between 2003 and 2007, average auto insurance premiums fell by almost 16% in Ontario, 14% in Alberta, 24% in Nova Scotia, 37% in New Brunswick, 15.5% in Prince Edward Island and 21% in Newfoundland.

During that same period in BC, average premiums rose 5.1% between 2003 and 2006. BC’s 2007 premium data is not yet available but given the recent announcement of a 3.3% increase in basic rates coupled with a 3.8% decrease in optional rates, average premiums will likely increase, as about 56% of ICBC’s insurance business is basic insurance.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is blaming the higher rates in B.C. on the fact that ICBC has a monopoly on providing basic insurance rates and drivers here are paying the price.

“The evidence clearly shows that the government’s monopolization of the auto insurance market is a bad deal for BC consumers,” said Maureen Bader, BC Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

So, when everyone here quits accepting ICBC, and realize it is the worst run insurance company on the continent, maybe it will be privatized.

You’d think an absolute monopoly would mean lower rates…

Remember this anytime anyone tells you the government should take over something.

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Free Health Care

Yahoo.. free health care.

No more co-pays, HMOs and high priced drugs.

Now if we could only find a doctor that’ll take on new new patients.

There are some, but in Canada, you can’t go to a specialist without a referral – this means two things:

• You better find a family doctor that is connected..
• “The family physician decides, based on his/her medical knowledge, if the referral is necessary.  Similarly, if he/she feels that a second opinion is unnecessary, he/she is not obliged to provide that referral.” So better find a good one.

It’s no wonder why this problem exists. Health is now 50% of the provincial budget. And it’s a big chunk.

On average, family doctor’s incomes in BC are already 40% lower than those of other specialists – and this discrepancy is increasing.

Plus doctors are capped at how many patients they can treat. Probably cause we don’t want a hard working doctor making too much money.

So by limiting the amount of patients a doctor can see, they can control costs.

Until we show up in the emergency room.

Interesting Canada Health Care Stats:

4 million people (approx. 12% of Canadians) lack a family doctor.

86 per cent of those who were born in Canada or immigrated more than five years ago have a doctor; just 65 per cent of more recent immigrants can say the same.

That means me. And now my family has to wait 3 months before they can get on the “free” health care, even though I have been paying my taxes for 7 months. At least they’ll have time to find a doctor.

Hey! Health care in the US wasn’t bad.

Michael Moore – can you look into this for me?

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Got a HDTV and Helped Pay For Someone To Get Rid of Theirs

Decided to bite the bullet and buy a new TV – so decided to get an LCD to really enjoy my HDTV cable. Golf and hockey never looked so good.

Yes, it was more $$ than I was used to, but hey, Canada $ at par will eventually take hold.

Paying the bill and I noticed that on top of PST and GST, they hit me with a disposal fee. I wasn’t getting rid of a TV, I was buying one.

So why the fee?

The province wide Return-It Electronics Program, a levy, ranging from $10 to $45, is applied to all new desktop and notebook computers, monitors, printers, fax machines and televisions.

Encorp, a federally incorporated not-for-profit product stewardship corporation (?), is running the program along with the Electronics Stewardship Association of British Columbia, an industry led agency.

So I guess I am paying for others to throw theirs away… I promised to throw mine away in Alberta if that helps.

Nope – pay the fee sir.

They also get a fee (on top of the deposit fee) for bottles and cans and look after the recycling.

God bless them.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLBZHrWdQB0]

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Greenwashing?

Now that I’ve learned to separate all my garbage, (help… just what can I throw away?) now I have to be on the lookout for “greenwashing“. This is where marketers sin by fooling people that their product is green. Paper vs plastic… who’s the greenest.. how green is the new question.  Off with their heads!

It got me thinking…

China is probably the biggest threat to the environment – cars for billions, low standards, etc…

Try buying anything at the Bay, Sears, Wallmart, etc., that isn’t from China. It’s a game my wife and I play when shopping and never win.

So if you want to be really green, ignore the ads and quit shopping. It’s a quick way to force everyone cut back.Kind of hard to spend when your pay is under pressure from a rapidly declining economy.

Trying to decide how green everything is will drive you nuts. Common sense is probably the best guide.

Proof the green movement is king here in Vancouver only takes a quick search of “Vancouver green” It yields 458,000 results. Not sure what the fear of greenwashing is when you’re up against a force of opinion like this.

Other than the fanatics, the biggest single factor really changing things is high energy prices… and it’s taken its toll on everything. It’s put auto manufacturing in Canada in dire straits – and trying to save it is going to be an uphill battle. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Oshawa. (Can you say Flint, Michigan)

I’ve considered changing my ways. My car and SUV both get a bit over 20 miles per gallon – 40 would be better. But as we have a family of 4 (me being 6’2″), a Prius doesn’t seem to be an option. Plus 30K for one would buy me gas for 4.5 years. So if I get, say, 3x better mileage, that makes the payback at 6.5 years.

I am thinking I should wait for 2-3 years and get a real car of the future instead of one that is guaranteed to become obsolete in a year. (Anyone remember the Ford Pinto from the last gas crisis?)

Hopefully it seats 4 comfortably for a trip over 15 minutes.

Off to spend my $100 cheque (or I could send it to the “environmental non-profit” on the link…lol).

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Psst… Wanna Buy a House

Looks like real estate “reality” is on its way to Vancouver… and hopefully in the next 6-12 months prices may go from “it’s how much!?!”, to “it’ll only take half of our income to pay the mortgage”

Here’s a few observations from Vancouver real estate blogs. (hint: watch the realtor blogs of you really want to know what’s happening – In Florida they went through sheer panic as the decline started)…

This from realtor Jeff at Rob Chipman’s blog

“No open houses for me this weekend. Why bother, no one would show anyhow. I have 8 listings sitting on the MLS and I got 1 phone call for a showing for Monday evening. The seller did 2 price drops on that particular listing and the 2nd price drop got processed on Friday. Time and time again, I have proof that price is the single biggest factor influencing the sale of a property. If any Realtor tells you they have a 20 point marketing plan… it’s BS. If they tell you they have a full marketing program and promise significant exposure… again it’s BS. I’ll tell you what sells properties… MLS and PRICE.”

This from house browser exx at Rob Chipman’s blog

“We went to 6 open houses today in Port Moody, completely at random but all 2bed/2bath, which is what we’re looking for. They ALL had 3 things in common: 1. 60+ DOM, 2. Motivated Sellers, 3. Prices reduced repeatedly (20-40K). Another thing in common, though with the realtors, was the acknowledgement of a very different market. A couple of them pushed the “It’s a buyers market now, you have room to negotiate” line. Room to negotiate? Yes. Buyer’s market? Not yet, but it’s getting there! I got to talking with one of them who went off about how last year at this time there would’ve been multiple offers. Now she’s insisting to people, us included, to just MAKE an offer.”

In the US, the sign of the demise (the mortgage mess is a reaction to it/ not the cause) was when rents became half or less than the mortgage on a home (with 25% down). In Miami rent is now getting to almost the same as the mortgage – meaning the bottom is near.

This is after a 25% + decline – a 3,000 sq ft home now can be had for 500K

In Vancouver I am paying rent of about 40% of what it would cost me to buy the place. Once it gets to 70% (meaning a decline of about 300K) I’ll be interested in buying a home.

For now, I am sure there’s no upside in this market.

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Wow.. Summer May Finally Be Here

After what seems like forever, the sun finally came out. It hit 70 and people dropped their clothes. Pools opened and it makes 4 months of cloud and rain seem worthwhile.

Office air conditioning doesn’t work, so it was hot indoors too.

I guess I should be happy that we aren’t in California. They could send a bit of their heat here and we wouldn’t complain.

It’s funny how 20 degrees celcius now feels warm (70 degrees for US peeps). 90 degrees/ 90% humidity felt just right a litlle while ago.

The 14 day trends continues to be nice.. so golf is on the agenda. (If I could actually find a Golf website that allows online booking… c’mon LastMinuteGolfer.com – there’s a real opportunity here)

Gasoline in Vancouver… Price Fixing?

Read an article about price fixing (collusion?) out east.. and began to watch what happens in Vancouver.

Funny thing… the price of gas goes up first thing in the morning and then drops in the afternoon. (Although the signs don’t always reflect the current price.)

Asked a station manager why this is, and he got a bit anxious.. told me head office sets the prices.

I heard somewhere it was against the law for a gas station to raise the prices more than once in 24 hours.

Does anyone know if there is such a law?

Also, we are getting a price increase next month thanks to Al Gore.. global warming.

Lets see…

The price of gas is now $1.48 a litre in Vancouver.

That works out to $5.60 US gallon.

Then add 2.4 cents for Al Gore tax next month (Al – it’s now freezing up here – go away)

Also, the premium is about 20-24 cents more per litre  (or 75 cents a gallon). In the US it’s about 15-20 cents a gallon more.

Someone is gouging the good folks of Vancouver and they’re using the metric system to do it.

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