"A Cruel Tax," Bill Vander Zalm tells Rally today at Canada Place

You would think Bill Vander Zalm was a movie star, the way people reacted to him at this afternoon’s Anti-HST rally at Canada Place in Vancouver, crowding around him afterwards to take his photo or get theirs taken with him. Now in his seventies, the former premier of British Columbia who’s leading-man-looks have faded a little but his charisma not at all, took to the stage three times to encourage the crowd to fight the new Harmonized Sales Tax. The HST being slapped on British Columbians by Premier Gordon Campbell of the Liberal party, a tax which will fuse the current Goods and Services tax with the provincial sales tax, has brought Vander Zalm out of retirement as it will result in more taxes on more things. Vander Zalm told the crowd, which he estimated to be between four and five thousand people, that the HST is “hitting a lot more places than we realized previously.”

Photo: Bill Vander Zalm at today's rally (Sorry, date stamp is incorrect.)

Despite having been head of the right of center Social Credit government, Vander Zalm did not temper his criticism of the ruling right of center Liberal party. ”The HST is a cruel tax. . . . It takes from those that are packing lunch buckets…and it’s giving to big corporations.” The government is “picking your pockets”, Vander Zalm said, emphasizing repeatedly that the money is “all going to the big corporations.” He was starting to sound like a left winger, and there were many of those at the rally too. In fact, Vander Zalm introduced Carole James, leader of the left of center New Democratic Party [”NDP”] , saying she was “doing a great job.”

James was on the same page as Vander Zalm today in criticizing the Liberals for thinking they could impose a harmonized sales tax. ”I think they really thought that they could sneak it in in the summer.” James asked people to contact Liberal Members of the Legislative Assembly and press them to oppose the HST.

Sylvia MacLeay, President of the Council of Senior Citizens Organizations, described seniors as being worried about the planned HST. ”Seniors are really upset.” They are upset about the “process”, MacLeay said, that the Liberal goverment has used in “sneaking in a new tax.” They are upset that the HST will result in “an instant rate of 12%” tax on heating fuel, hydro, some grocery items, and items that have not previously been taxed. MacLeay echoed Vander Zalm’s comments, saying the HST would result in “significant gains to big business”, but for seniors and others, “It’s all bad, there’s no up side, we’re just going to pay more money.”

It was around this point that Vander Zalm asked for money from anyone who "could spare some change or better still a bill.” The organizing effort has overhead, he explained, “signs, a sound system”, so people were being sent through the crowd carrying buckets to collect donations. ”We’re not finished today," he reminded the crowd, "We’re only just starting.”

A central strategy in fighting the HST is a "Citizen's Initiative petition". If a Citizen's Initiative collects signatures of 10% of registered voters in each riding in B.C., a referendum on the GST could be forced.

Bill Tielman, a left wing political commentator on CKNW radio, spoke directly to Premier Campbell from the stage at the rally. “I know you’ll be watching this on television tonight. I know you can’t resist. I have a message for Gordon Campbell. This is what democracy looks like in British Columbia.”

Australian Slang Catches on in Canada

Have you noticed the new expression that is as popular with twenty-somethings as a new tattoo?

"No worries."

It's Australian slang, meaning "no problem", but it has caught on in Canada.

Sometimes it doesn't quite ring right. Like when the host of Good Morning America thanked twenty year old Alena Jenkins of Vancouver for agreeing to appear on the show to discuss her brother Ryan Jenkins, who was accused of killing his wife, cutting off her fingertips, yanking out her teeth, and stuffing her into a suitcase, before hanging himself from a coat rack. She responded, "No worries."

Main St. Mystery Store with No Customers

Photo: Aramic store on Main St., 2009 (Ignore the date on the photo; the date stamp on my camera wasn't working.)

What do you do if you have a store with no customers? You expand.

That's what happened at Aramic, a men's wear store that opened on Main St. near National about three years ago. I walked by there everyday and only once saw a customer. I saw a man standing at the cash register.

The locals had been joking about this store since it opened, more about the type of merchandise than the fact that there were no customers buying it. We used to look through the window and laugh about the rows and rows of "pimp shoes" they were selling. Flashy shoes that west coast Canadians just don't wear.

The clothes were odd too. Dress suits, often in a safari style. No sign of the gore-tex rain gear that might actually sell here in the rain forest.

After being in business for about a year and a half, the owners, possibly encouraged by the one customer who had shown up, expanded.

Yes they opened a women's wear store next door. The women's wear outlet has been operating for about a year and a half now. They have odd clothes for women, dated styles, often leaniing toward garish. Nobody will be embarrassing themselves in these clothes any time soon though. I've yet to notice a customer.

There are signs of life in the stores though. Clothes on manequins are changed regularly. Once there was a car accident outside and I saw a staff person standing in the window, looking out at the police and firemen working.

You can bet the locals have been speculating. Maybe these stores are fronts for selling something else. Downtown Eastsiders put up for years with grocery stores with dated merchandise on the shelves while the real thing was sold from under the counter, although the City did start cracking down. If somebody wanted to launder money, buying a cheap load of dated clothing and setting up a web site and storefronts would seem to be one way of going about it.

I'm not saying that's what's going on in these stores with no customers. Maybe they do a good business over the internet. They do have a professional looking website where you can fill up your virtual shopping cart and pay by credit card.

I don't know. But I can't help wondering every time I walk by.

Three Car Collision at Main & 1st Ave.

At roughly 2:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, there was a collision involving three vehicles -- two red and one blue in the photo above -- on Main St. at 1st Avenue just past Burger King. (The date stamp on my camera wasn't set so the date on the photos is wrong.)

There did not appear to be life-threatening injuries.

Cats Do the Darndest Things

Tonight Art Bell guest hosted the late night radio show Coast to Coast, a show which has a loyal following amongst the unemployed on the Downtown Eastside who don't have to get up in the morning.

The retired Bell, who has a bit of a cult following, hosted from his home radio studio in the Philippines. [He is fascinated, he said on a previous show, that technology actually allows him to broadcast half way around the world and sound like he's in the U.S.] When he guest hosts, he treats his fans to photos of his Filipina wife forty years his junior, his growing daughter, and his cats.

Cats do the darndest things.

So do older men. A die hard Art Bell fan on the Downtown Eastside has said several times that he lost respect for Bell when he took up with a woman who was almost a kid. He reminded me that Rick, a guy who goes to Carnegie off and on, had done the same thing. Rick had shown him photos of his life in the Philippines. He showed a photo of a wife he'd had there; she was nude. He showed a photo of her cousin; she was nude. He showed a photo of the maid; she was nude.

I know Rick too. He told me that both of his young wives had left him after he brought them to Canada. "As soon as their feet hit the tarmac at the airport," he told me, "consider them gone."

Veranda to be Built at Mcdonalds will keep Shopping Carts of Homeless away from Front Door

Above photo: a homeless man sleeps in the sun this morning in front of Mcdonald's restaurant at Main & Terminal.


Mcdonald's restaurant deserves a humanitarian award for the tolerance they have shown for the homeless.

At one point an older manager, a Chinese guy with his head shaved bald, did start insisting that the homeless move their shopping carts away from the front door. "We can't have this," I heard him tell them, asking them to at least park their shopping carts in the parking lot. There was one homeless guy who he asked not to come back because he was parking his shopping cart inside the restaurant. That homeless man sat in the dining area of Mcdonalds one evening and trimmed his hair and put on shaving cream and shaved. The staff didn't notice.

Eventually the manager who was setting limits left. The new managers tend to be teenagers who are not equipped to take on the street people. And they're just earning a few dollars between high school classes, so they really don't care.

Then the City of Vancouver made things worse by setting up a homeless shelter across the street from Mcdonalds. That added to the congregation of homeless people hanging out at the tables in front of Mcdonalds at night, smoking cigarrettes and pot and parking shopping carts filled with stuff pulled from garbage cans beside the door. But many of the regular homeless people at Mcdonalds are not actually linked to the homeless shelter. Those places are more for the homeless-light. The hard core homeless just keep living outside like they've always done.

But Mcdonald's has a plan. A staff person mentioned that they are going to renovate, turn the front patio area into a veranda. It's difficult to get a shopping cart onto a veranda. The veranda will have tables with umbrellas. (The current front patio once had umbrellas but they were stolen. The tables behind Mcdonalds also once had umbrellas but they were stolen too, and later Mcdonalds removed those tables because they were having problems with the homeless and street people hanging out back there all night.)

The homeless will still be at Mcdonalds though. The cheap coffee with a free refill is too good a deal to miss. Most of the regular homeless don't panhandle but they sometimes pick up a customer's discarded coffee cup and take it up to the cashier for a free refill. Some do buy food; the guy sunning himself in the photo bought a burger and an ice cream sundae yesterday.

So many businesses in Vancouver have to work around Vancouver's homeless and drug addicts. It's a real headache trying to use the washroom at Mcdonalds because they now lock the door and you have to buzz and buzz and buzz until the busy staff hear you and let you in. Before that they tried to discourage drug addicts from using their washrooms by installing special lighting that made it more difficult for them to see their veins.

Major renovations at Mcdonalds will begin very soon. In addition to a veranda, they will be installing fireplaces and internet wifi.