I am fascinated by this news story from Toronto.

A group representing dozens of lawn care companies trying to bring charges against Ontario’s environment minister and senior bureaucrats over the province’s controversial pesticide ban is now calling for charges against 23 activists.

Group spokesman Jeffrey Lowes of MREP Communications said Wednesday that information has been laid for criminal charges against 23 individuals….

…The activists worked with the Ontario government to ban pesticides using alleged false and misleading information to undermine the industry, Lowes said.

The documents filed on Tuesday allege the activists knowingly presented false and misleading information about the health and environmental risks associated with pesticide products, knowingly misled the public, lawn care industry and government officials, and impeded access to Health Canada approved pesticide products through fraudulent means.

Hmmm.  I wonder if this has been happening in Calgary too?  I’ve written on this subject previously (here and here) – and while Calgary’s city council avoided such a ban (here), there are still forces at work trying to change that.

for the wrong reasons…

Calgary city council decided last night to kill the proposed pesticide bylaw because it doesn’t include a ban on cosmetic pesticides.  As I’ve written previously on two occasions (here and here), we don’t need a ban on cosmetic pesticides because they aren’t considered dangerous by any rational group.  By Brian Pincott and the other socialists on the city council don’t care about science.  If they cared about public and environmental safety, there are numerous things I can think of that they could focus their efforts on before turning Calgary into a thistle and dandelion farm.

Tobacco is legal.  Health Canada says it is dangerous.

Pesticides like 2,4-D are not dangerous, according to Health Canada.  Which one should city council ban?

This past week, the members of the Tsuu T’ina Nation voted 60% to reject a plan put forward by the City of Calgary and Province of Alberta to trade land on the eastern edge of the reserve for other lands to be named later.  The City wanted this land to build the southwest leg of the ring road around the city.

I can understand the Tsuu T’ina rejecting this, because of the concept of lands to be named later is pretty dodgy when you are dealing with politicians.  Additionally, most of the land adjacent to the reserve is either privately held or part of provincial parks and natural areas – so where exactly was the province going to get these lands?

Of course, I also think that the Tsuu T’ina were unwise to reject this plan. Read the rest of this entry »

Calgary city council has decided that charging transit riders $3.00 to park their cars at park-n-ride lots at train stations is a good idea, because it will raise $6 million per year.  Of course, with increasing fares, it will now cost a commuter $8 per day.  Now, admittedly parking costs downtown are significantly higher than this, but a lot of people who take transit may find paying an additional $60 per month for transit (assuming 20 working days) is pretty steep. 

Do you think this is going to make more people want to take the train?

OK – so Bronco and his minions at City Hall (Calgary) want to raise property taxes by 25%.  This is ridiculous.  The city is growing, yes.  And growing at a rate of 3-4% per year.  And yes there is inflation.  But growth also means more taxpayers.  So hosing everyone with this gigantic increase is completely uncalled for.  Additionally, the city budget plan includes expenses for items that aren’t actually going to be paid for by the City, such as EMS services.  But the tax money will be there to pay for it, giving Bronco and his cronies more “play money” to waste on things the city doesn’t need.

Read the rest of this entry »

So, the economy is starting to slide, oil prices (and provincial royalties) are slipping and unemployment are likely to rise…  Crime is a high profile news item on most days and the city wants more police…

So they decide to spend $25 Million on fancy new pedestrian bridges because they will “help reduce traffic congestion” and be “aesthetically pleasing”.  I have trouble thinking that that many more people are going to walk or cycle to work in the downtown core to make a bloody difference to traffic…

And then the city council, led by our socialist mayor Dave Bronconnier, are considering a 22% increase in property taxes…

Let’s just make Calgary a less attractive place to live and do business – yeah that’s a good idea.  You know, you could design and manage the oil sands from Houston or London.

While on my travels in the United States, I rediscovered the value of HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) Lanes, where people car-pooling car drive with less traffic congestion.  I think that such lanes would be a valuable addition to cities in Canada that do not have them, such as Calgary or Edmonton.  This would create an incentive to carpool, and could help reduce traffic.

I also rediscovered the value of toll highways that run parallel to public freeways, or toll lanes that allow more free movement of traffic.  The CA-91 freeway east of Los Angeles is a good example of these toll lanes.  The only toll freeway in Canada to my knowledge is the 407 in Toronto, but I think it would be valuable for other large cities to pursue this idea.  People will happily pay tolls for faster commutes.  5 dollars to cut 20-30 minutes off of a commute is worth it if you are paid more than $20/hr and it buys you more family time.

Yesterday, Calgary city council decided (8-7) to ask the city bureaucracy to put together a plan to ban chemical pesticides.  They not only directed that the bylaw ban pesticides, herbicide and fungicides for residential use, but even commerical use by firms that have a permit from the province or federal government.  It also removes any exemption allowing their use for agriculture, forestry and health and safety considerations.

But the problem is that there is little to no scientific evidence that these chemicals are harmful to human health and normal concentrations.  This is no different than banning DDT – it’s not harmful to people or animals at normal concentrations yet it is still illegal (even though it would save millions of lives from malaria around the world).

Quoting from the CBC website:

Ald. Joe Connelly said council wasted its time getting involved in an area that is beyond its jurisdiction and mandate. He said that the city should rely on Health Canada’s science to determine the safety of pesticides for cosmetic use.

“I am looking for science. I am looking for someone to say there is a definitive link here,” he said, arguing that the city should follow the lead of Health Canada, which has found most pesticides can be used safety.

He is absolutely right.  Why are we banning something Health Canada said is safe?

On the other hand, we have cities, towns and provinces falling all over themselves to regulate where people can smoke cigarettes.  First it was offices and schools, then restaurants and bars, and now in cars with children present.   All in the name of public health, particularly the fear of second hand smoke.  Now I will admit that tobacco smoke is hazardous.  That is obvious.  I’m not sure that second hand smoke is as scary as some play it up to be, and I thought it should be an adult’s choice to enter a smoke-filled bar if they so chose.  Then we ban the advertising of tobacco products and force retailers to hide tobacco products behind doors so people can’t see the labels in the store…

But the issue here is that we are banning one set of chemicals completely, even though there is limited data indicating that pesticides are dangerous, and Health Canada says they are safe to use.  But we are not banning the other set of chemicals (tobacco), but trying to regulate where you can use it, even though Health Canada says it is highly dangerous to human health.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to ban the dangerous chemical completely?

OK, so in a couple of weeks less than 20% of Calgary residents will trudge to a polling centre and vote in municipal elections. In all likelihood His Worship Dave Bronconnier will be re-elected mayor, along with the rest of the socialists currently sitting on city council (hopefully Rick McIver will be re-elected – he’s the only sane one there).

Calgary has a mass transit system like many other cities – our’s is a Light Rail Transit system called the C-Train. It has it’s problems but it does move a fair number of people. Currently there are three legs of the system running out from the downtown core, as can be seen here.

Dave wants to extend the NW and NE legs out to the essentially the very edge of the city, much like he did with the South leg. This doesn’t make a lot of sense as the trains are already very full. He also wants to build the West leg of the C-Train out to that edge of the city through mostly low-density neighbourhoods. This might provide some reduction in traffic, but will further overload the downtown stations, which are all along 7th Avenue South.

Some of the other candidates, like Alnoor Kassam and Sandy Jenkins have better ideas. They propose:

• expanding existing train stations to allow for 4-train cars instead of the current 3 car limit. This would increase system capacity by 33% and reduce the crush of people on trains during rush hour.
• rerouting the planned West leg of the C-train south so it reaches Mount Royal College, which would be helpful due to the student load in that area and the prevalence of higher-density housing.
• Rerouting the downtown C-train line from the surface of 7th Avenue to be underground either 7th or 8th avenue. This would help reduce the number of train/vehicle and train/pedestrian accidents. There have been over 20 fatalities involving the 7th avenue C-train line since 1981, while the subway in Toronto has had only 5 since 1950…

One idea I haven’t seen proposed by any of the candidates is to reroute/extend the NE leg expansion to include a stop at Calgary International Airport. This would help alleviate the taxi shortage in Calgary by introducing competition. It makes no sense that the C-Train should avoid the airport. At other cities around the world the public transit system is available at the airport (Chicago O’Hare, Washington Reagan, all New York airports, London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle, etc). Why does no one propose this?

Recently, there have been many news stories on radio, television and in print regarding the lack of affordable housing in Alberta (and Calgary in particular – although it applies to most large municipalities). The news stories have also covered the proposals of various groups and governments to deal with this problem.

First, I agree that housing costs have gotten a little out of control in Calgary (and Vancouver, Edmonton, Ft. McMurray). Additionally, rents are rising quickly as landlords’ costs rise and the market becomes tight. This is an unfortunate reality of the free market when demand outstrips supply.

However, the solution is not to have the state interfere in the market in ways that have been shown to be at best ineffective and at worst detrimental.

Rent Controls
Some advocates have called on the provincial government to impose rent controls. In one way they already did, by changing the regulations on how often landlords could raise the rent from six months to twelve. The result: Landlords raised the rent significantly more because they realize they cannot adjust for increasing costs (due to property taxes, energy costs, maintenance costs) as often. This means that the landlords’ must raise the rent further to reduce their risk over the next year. In the old system they could wait until events unfolded, thereby reducing risk.

Strict rent controls, such as those in Vancouver or New York, have clearly been shown not increase the availability of affordable housing. What they do is increase the affordability for the small group that already have low rents. But government regulated rents make the business of owning a low-rent building unattractive to an entrepreneur, because the state restricts how much profit they can make.

The solution to this problem is that the state should not impose rent controls, but should take action to make affordable housing more attractive to landlords.

Government owned housing
In Calgary recently, the cit council has proposed that all new developments (neighbourhoods) should be zoned to include affordable housing. Not a bad plan. However, one alderman (I don’t recall which one) stated that the provincial government should purchase the land and build low income housing. So basically what this alderman wants is for Calgary to follow the lead of numerous US cities (New York, Chicago, Philadelphia) and Toronto to build what are affectionately known as “The Projects”. While the projects started out as low income housing for working people they quickly became the “ghettos” of these cities with soaring crime rates.

Like most other programs, government ownership and operation do not result in quality housing for people or low cost for society. Private ownership would be far better in most cases.

For those that think that government owned property for housing of low income people is the solution, I would advise you to visit one of the hundreds of Indian Reserves in this country and then tell me whether nearly a century of government owned property has helped that group.

Solutions
A solution that should be seriously considered to increase the availability of affordable housing is for the cities and provinces to make private ownership attractive. For instance, if the city wants there to be low income housing, they should waive the requirement for property taxes on housing units that meet a predefined affordability criteria. This criteria must be linked to the income achievable by the landlord to prevent the state from reneging this promise after the housing units are built.

Second, the province could subsidize housing by paying landlords some portion of the rent charged for those tenants who are on very low incomes or fixed state-provided incomes in areas with high inflation (and therefore increasing costs for the landlord).

These plans would be far more effective in increasing the availability of affordable housing without resorting to “big stick” approaches like rent controls (which don’t work anyway).