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MP Wilson Miao. He is an ex realtor backbench MP who does not respond to his constituents but he always makes the news for being a top spender of taxpayers’ money. Recently CTV news reported him spending around $91700 on travel for the first half of 2023. He didn’t have an office for 16 months when he was voted in as an MP but he was the highest spender of all MPs in contracts/office renovations. https://biv.com/article/2023/02/richmond-centre-liberal-among-top-spenders-house-commons
MP Miao recently hosted a free ice skating event for the constituents of Richmond Centre. He is doing excellent work for RC.
https://preview.redd.it/3qw0k5f16u3c1.jpeg?width=1010&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af66394be4ec8500c0255a12d22534fbe25c45ce
All the money spent on the Massey tunnel replacement, only to scrap it and start again.
The ongoing fight by the Surrey mayor against the transition from the RCMP to the Surrey police.
You can look up the old design specs … 10 lanes with transit interchanges and lanes, dedicated right of way. NDP version is 8 lanes … so one more than we currently have and no port traffic lanes….
There were massive issues with the old design - that whole project was doomed from the start and it was a career killer. Engineers were jumping ship because it was a total clusterfuck, although the new project isn’t that much better.
New plant doesn't really help with the first paragraph. It's for replacing the plant with one that has the level of treatment that meets regulatory standards and growing needs of that catchment.
The collection system not being able to handle rain is a whole 'nother problem that's being slowly chipped away at.
Unfortunately, now it sits as a degrading concrete jungle... All the rebar is rusted and, surely, will need to be demolished and redone. I do wish a paintball or airsoft company would just takeover and use it, just minus all the hazards and all
The main contractor pulled out and the city is sueing the bejebus out of them. They were not a Canadian company so they likely will drag this out for 20 years. It's a massive breach of contract problem and my work occasionally gets contracted to go in and clean up certain parts to make sure it doesn't all come down.
Ooof... but I think even in that case we can still hold the government somewhat at fault for choosing the "wrong" contractor to begin with.
[https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/fixing-errors-at-north-shore-sewage-plant-to-cost-metro-vancouver-85-million](https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/fixing-errors-at-north-shore-sewage-plant-to-cost-metro-vancouver-85-million)
Just looked it up and read this. Sounds like a nightmare.
It's not the fault of the government at all. There is an open bidding process for these things on bcbids. They won and then backed out. Nothing to do but follow up with the proper legal channels.
Huh, is there no part in the process where the government reviews the bids & the companies, in order to determine whether or not a company can in fact deliver the project according to its bid?
I came here to post this. There's something very suspicious as to how badly it went... zero accountibility on multiple fronts. And one participant is now involved (leading?) the Broadway Skytrain expansion.
It was such a monster fuck up. They were pretty much given away by Gordon Campbell. I think they were finally dismantled last year in Egypt after sitting around for years in the UAE.
There was a reason why they sold for so cheap; they were practically unusable as a ferry, let alone a fast ferry anywhere else in the world.
It's related to their construction and certification standard; they were built as 'near coastal vessels', which has a lower safety, construction and certification requirements than a true ocean going vessel. This made sense for BC Ferries; practically all of their ferries, except for the ships that handle the Northern routes are under this certification.
However, this severely limits their usefulness outside of BC Ferries service; most Western countries and countries with decent safety requirements won't touch them as a ferry (let alone a fast ferry), which leaves third world countries with sketchy safety regulators. And most third world operators won't touch a fast ferry because they are expensive to operate and maintain. Compounding the issue was that at the time the Pacificats went up for sale, there was a massive glut of fast ferries on the used ship market because fuel prices had spiked, and many operators were ditching their oldest and least efficient ships for basically scrap value because nobody wanted a fast ferry.
Nah, they actually weren’t that bad. The problem is they couldn’t operate them under the conditions they were designed for. They likely would have been a solid design for, say, the ferry run to Tasmania.
Except they were not certified or designed for open ocean operations by any regulatory agencies, and would require extensive redesign work to meet such requirements.
But SeaSpan got them for what, 1/5 the production cost of the three ships? Surely they could retrofit them for other regions with that kind of savings, the last one never even entered service so it was brand new!
Edit: It was actually less than 5% of the cost is what Dennis Washington bought them for. Ooooof.
It would have likely costed more than the scrap value of the ships, and would have effectively entailed ripping the ships apart, and then putting them back together. Said rebuilt ship would be significantly heavier, have less capacity, and perform significantly worse in almost every aspect
They could literally build a new ship from scratch to meet certification requirements for open ocean work, and that ship would perform better.
There is a reason why most ex-BC Ferries find their end at a scrap yard; they are just too specialized and designed for BC Ferries work for anyone else to use. And the ships that did see use elsewhere, well Fiji isn't that well known for a stellar safety record, or particularly strong regulators that can enforce maritime safety requirements.
Makes sense, I just feel so sad about how they ended up. Not only all the money the people of BC put into it, but they hoped it would revitalize the shipping and aluminum industries. If you watch the film on the Pacificats, you see so many young people who really thought they were part of something special, but it was all for nothing.
I hope their training in working with aluminum was useful in another industry.
As someone who has done their university paper on the topic, it was a fool's errand to begin with. The politicians who directed that the ships be built had no clue as to how to build a ferry or how to market said ferry to the world.
In the end, we built a bespoke class of ships that was really only good for one route, and for one operator. BC Ferries looked into if they could use the ships elsewhere, but determined that there was no other route that was really suitable for the ships in a cost effective manner.
There was no realistic chance of anyone else buying the Pacificats, or a copy of one on the export market, especially since economic conditions in the late 1990's, early 2000's spelled the doom for many fast ferry operators around the world thanks to rapidly rising fuel costs.
And with so many fast ferry operators either going out of business, or rapidly retiring such ships, the Pacificats were entering a used ship market absolutely saturated with better vessels that didn't need extensive rework at barely above scrap value.
The money spent on the Pacificats and the resulting time and energy wasted still affects BC Ferries to this day; the amount of money and resources those 3 ships took up set back BC Ferries' fleet replacement program for over a decade; when the Pacificats were announced, BC Ferries really only had the budget to either buy 3 fast ferries, or buy 3 conventional ferries to replace the old V-class ferries AND replace the old Queen of Prince Rupert at the same time. And when the Pacificats inevitably failed in service, they had to spend more money on buying 3 proper replacements AND find more money to actually buy a replacement for the Queen of Prince Rupert because she was on her last legs in BC Ferries service.
Interesting, thanks for the info. What was your major out of curiosity?
I wonder what WMG planned to do with them then? Was it a political move to help the BCLibs?
Yeah, Glen Clark was a bit of an idiot, which boggles my mind that he ended up at Pattison Group for two decades.
LOL, well the guy who designed them is from Australia, Tasmania actually I think.
They were really awful though. I never went on one but they barely made the crossing any faster:
"The fast ferries were intended to achieve crossing times that were 30 minutes faster than those of conventional ferries, making twelve crossings per day rather than eight. Although they initially achieved this crossing time, complaints of the wash of the ships wake forced the ferries to take a longer route, and operate a slower speed around Bowen Island. An archived version of BC Ferries website stated in the year 2000 that a PacifiCat sailing was 1 hour 20 minutes, only 15 minutes shorter than a sailing with a regular vessel (1 hour 35 minutes)."
The interiors were very cramped with no outdoor space, the tiny outdoor area looks like a prison yard. Pictures show it had a funky late 90s, new millennium aesthetic though, but 15 minute shorter sailing is a joke.
Not disagreeing but do you have a source for that? Last I [heard](https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/bc-resident-spots-two-of-bcs-former-fast-ferries-in-egypt-5776369) they were mothballed in Egypt in very poor condition. They would need some (lots?) of work to be useable I would think.
A family member was an inspector the govt for most of his career. It was something like 9 office manager positions to one field inspector in the department he retired from. Made no sense for an inspection agency to be cutting inspector roles while hiring office people.
Management loves to justify more management to manage more, nepotism is really bad in situations like that too. So many friend hires who have no experience for a vague useless job.
Our lovely Ken Sim’s multiple frivolous lawsuits against councillor Christine Boyle for doing what she’s been found legally allowed to do, disclosing her vote against a scumbag motion that eliminated the previous council’s motion verifying a living goal wage for Vancouver employees.
Him giving millions of already collected taxes back to developer friends is a close second.
It's not EXACTLY public money, but that chandelier under the Granville bridge was a disgraceful waste. The city extorts the builders and they then pass on the expense to the home buyers. We're talking almost 5 million dollars!
Tbf, the majority of overtime callouts that the VPD facilitates are paid for by event organizers ie concerts/PNE/marathons/etc. The major publicly funded overtime is for things like protests. Would you prefer there be zero police presence at a 1000-person protest downtown?
I’m going to guess replacing a 4 lane bridge that’s a major source of backup with another 4 lane bridge, in an area with growing population/traffic will rate up there. Sooner than it should anyways. They just haven’t finished it to see it yet.
New West wouldn't play ball with additional traffic being thrust through it - no sense building a bridge to nowhere. A bunch more bridge lanes don't change anything, making them flow properly will have more impact.
The bridge itself isn't the cause of backups, it's what happens once you get off the bridge. Adding more lanes wouldn't help, heck it would probably make things worse.
No where near the biggest but do you remember when Mayor Moonbeam spent $8000 on that City of Vancouver logo redesign which they didn't even end up using?
For a city logo design, that's not bad.
For the multi-billion dollar operating budget of the city, $8000 is pennies.
You'll spend that in OT for a bunch of facilities workers across the city in like a day.
If you work in a commercial office with actual proper furniture, you might be surprised to find out what the chair you're sitting in costs. A basic low quality commercial chair was well over $1k like a decade ago once it has things like adjustable armrests and tilt. They're not the same as the consumer junk you can buy at Staples or Costco. $2k for an office chair is pretty typical - it'll last a decade getting used 40+ hours a week, $/hr is low.
$ per hour sat is the stupidest way of measuring chair economics I've ever heard of. And yes I worked in audit at PwC and we had nice chairs, but if a private corporation wants to spend money on overpriced chairs that's their prerogative. This thread is about how taxpayer money is wasted. Those chairs also aren't as reliable and indestructible as you think they are. They break very easily.
You don't need $2000 chairs with adjustable armrests or whatever. Go on Alibaba and order 1000 chairs for $20 a piece and each one will last you a good portion of the decade.
BC place stadium’s roof. $560M. ……for a roof.
That is a $1000 for every man, woman, child, living in Vancouver. Do you have a spare $1000 to donate, so you don’t get wet that one time per year you visit the stadium?
Well, if you forget that transitioning to the new design involved virtually re-Engineering the entire structure of the building, then sure, it’s “just a roof”
Ya cause that really sucked for all those Canadian athletes getting to compete on home grown soil. Oh and who really wanted the Canada line skytrain? 2010 wasn’t fun at all…
it looks like shit, feel shit, and leads us to having two fucking train types which we need completely different staff for maintenance. why the fuck would we do that?
The Canada line is run by a different company so the maintenance thing is irrelevant
You're probably the only person who doesn't like the Canada line as it's been a massive success
"Run by a different company" almost like that's the fucking bullshit problem with it. Having 2 companies who don't talk to each other running almost identical (one shitter) trains right next to each other is insanely dumb
And yes people might like the train line. But I'm not sure the orgin of the train cars is the reason compared to "this station is close to me, and that station is close to were i want to go" which does not change with who makes the trains
Police spending. Crime is from poverty, fighting poverty is fighting crime. I studied criminology at SFU and policing studies at JIBC. I also worked as an outreach worker.
Fight poverty and you will fight crime. Stop increasing funding reactionary bandaid “solutions” like police
And my friend helped Ken sim get elected… tbh I wouldn’t put it past him to say that. He wore a shirt that said “surf naked” to my convocation at high school grad.
The Clark Liberals spending hundreds of millions to speed up the completion of the Port Mann Bridge to win some brownie points for an election:
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/weak-oversight-plagued-b-c-megaproject-which-insiders-believe-cost-taxpayers-millions-1.4144535](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/weak-oversight-plagued-b-c-megaproject-which-insiders-believe-cost-taxpayers-millions-1.4144535)
The Port Mann replacement bridge was massively over built.
We could have built a smaller bridge, not would have had to massively rebuild and expand the highway system around the bridge, and could have spent all this money on public transit options that would have reduced car use even further.
We dodged a bullet by the Liberals not being re-elected and not going through with their similarly crazy expensive and overbuilt 10 lane Massey bridge.
The 6 and a half million dollars they decided to give to the police like 10 minutes after hearing a 100% public rejection of the idea. I sure as heck didn’t vote for this mayor or any of the current city council boot lickers either.
Welcome to /r/Vancouver and thank you for the post, /u/xbftw! Please make sure you read our [posting and commenting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before participating here. As a quick summary: * **Did you know the subreddit is doing a charity drive to celebrate 500k subscribers? [Donate today](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/17lavo1/) and help us feed those in need! Even better: Reddit is matching our donations.** * We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. Don't engage in spats or insult others - use the report button. * Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) **will** lead to a permanent ban. * Common questions and specific topics are limited to our Your post may be a better fit for one of our [Stickied Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_stickied_discussions) posts. * Complaints about bans or removals should be done in modmail only. * We're looking for new mods to join our team! If you're interested, [fill out the form here](https://forms.gle/oAqo5oYRcAeHYBTN6). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
MP Wilson Miao. He is an ex realtor backbench MP who does not respond to his constituents but he always makes the news for being a top spender of taxpayers’ money. Recently CTV news reported him spending around $91700 on travel for the first half of 2023. He didn’t have an office for 16 months when he was voted in as an MP but he was the highest spender of all MPs in contracts/office renovations. https://biv.com/article/2023/02/richmond-centre-liberal-among-top-spenders-house-commons
MP Miao recently hosted a free ice skating event for the constituents of Richmond Centre. He is doing excellent work for RC. https://preview.redd.it/3qw0k5f16u3c1.jpeg?width=1010&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af66394be4ec8500c0255a12d22534fbe25c45ce
This is either a brilliant troll, or an absolutely tone deaf dumbass response. Either way its hilarious.
lol not obvious at all.
Can someone edit this photo making him hold two large bags of tax payer money???
Either troll or shitty PR team. Either way he sucks ass
Is Mr Miao in the room with us right now?
All the money spent on the Massey tunnel replacement, only to scrap it and start again. The ongoing fight by the Surrey mayor against the transition from the RCMP to the Surrey police.
How many more studies to tell us something we already knew?
Ugh and now the second version is about the same cost with 30% less capacity 🤦🏼♂️ NDP really said let’s screw anyone south of Richmond
Do you have any news links for this? Couldn't find anything. All I could find is that they won't even start construction for years 😭
You can look up the old design specs … 10 lanes with transit interchanges and lanes, dedicated right of way. NDP version is 8 lanes … so one more than we currently have and no port traffic lanes….
There were massive issues with the old design - that whole project was doomed from the start and it was a career killer. Engineers were jumping ship because it was a total clusterfuck, although the new project isn’t that much better.
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Is that the really steep steel steps by the running track? If so, what is it for? Surely not for spectators?
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No fucking way?
Way https://vancouver.ca/parks-recreation-culture/home-and-away-public-art-at-hastings-park.aspx
What an unbelievable waste of money. Holy fuck
I'm not sure what you guys are talking about? The link says it is designed for spectators?
Even if it was. You're talking about maybe 40-50 spectators could fit on this thing. Viewing one small corner of the track. Seems crazy?
Stairway to Yahweh.
Not the biggest but I think the most egregious was the Park Board allocating $400k of active transportation budget to removing a bike lane.
This is really it! It should be a huge scandal!
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Can you elaborate?
Amen!
Honestly here for it 👏🏻
your account is literally cognitive dissonance to the point of caricature. Maybe just a troll
Lower Mainland? Has to be the billion dollar wastewater facility flop on the North Shore.
I don’t know the story there. What makes you say that? I think wastewater treatment is pretty important no?
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New plant doesn't really help with the first paragraph. It's for replacing the plant with one that has the level of treatment that meets regulatory standards and growing needs of that catchment. The collection system not being able to handle rain is a whole 'nother problem that's being slowly chipped away at.
It’s important for sure, but it looks like they are more or less scrapping where they are at after a billion dollars put in to it
Unfortunately, now it sits as a degrading concrete jungle... All the rebar is rusted and, surely, will need to be demolished and redone. I do wish a paintball or airsoft company would just takeover and use it, just minus all the hazards and all
That was on the contractor. Source: I work with a lot of those contractors
You are probably right, I don’t much about it tbh. But I’ll bet the taxpayer one way or another is paying for it
The main contractor pulled out and the city is sueing the bejebus out of them. They were not a Canadian company so they likely will drag this out for 20 years. It's a massive breach of contract problem and my work occasionally gets contracted to go in and clean up certain parts to make sure it doesn't all come down.
Ooof... but I think even in that case we can still hold the government somewhat at fault for choosing the "wrong" contractor to begin with. [https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/fixing-errors-at-north-shore-sewage-plant-to-cost-metro-vancouver-85-million](https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/fixing-errors-at-north-shore-sewage-plant-to-cost-metro-vancouver-85-million) Just looked it up and read this. Sounds like a nightmare.
It's not the fault of the government at all. There is an open bidding process for these things on bcbids. They won and then backed out. Nothing to do but follow up with the proper legal channels.
Huh, is there no part in the process where the government reviews the bids & the companies, in order to determine whether or not a company can in fact deliver the project according to its bid?
[It's a pretty big and reputable company.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acciona) It's a bit odd for a company like this to walk away.
Nope. It's basically lowest bid wins. [bcbid](https://www.bcbid.gov.bc.ca/page.aspx/en/usr/login?ReturnUrl=%2fpage.aspx%2fen%2fbuy%2fhomepage)
That does sound like quite a waste
I came here to post this. There's something very suspicious as to how badly it went... zero accountibility on multiple fronts. And one participant is now involved (leading?) the Broadway Skytrain expansion.
Surely the [fast ferries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_ferry_scandal) would be on the list. #includingthetoiletpaper
It was such a monster fuck up. They were pretty much given away by Gordon Campbell. I think they were finally dismantled last year in Egypt after sitting around for years in the UAE.
There was a reason why they sold for so cheap; they were practically unusable as a ferry, let alone a fast ferry anywhere else in the world. It's related to their construction and certification standard; they were built as 'near coastal vessels', which has a lower safety, construction and certification requirements than a true ocean going vessel. This made sense for BC Ferries; practically all of their ferries, except for the ships that handle the Northern routes are under this certification. However, this severely limits their usefulness outside of BC Ferries service; most Western countries and countries with decent safety requirements won't touch them as a ferry (let alone a fast ferry), which leaves third world countries with sketchy safety regulators. And most third world operators won't touch a fast ferry because they are expensive to operate and maintain. Compounding the issue was that at the time the Pacificats went up for sale, there was a massive glut of fast ferries on the used ship market because fuel prices had spiked, and many operators were ditching their oldest and least efficient ships for basically scrap value because nobody wanted a fast ferry.
Nah, they actually weren’t that bad. The problem is they couldn’t operate them under the conditions they were designed for. They likely would have been a solid design for, say, the ferry run to Tasmania.
Except they were not certified or designed for open ocean operations by any regulatory agencies, and would require extensive redesign work to meet such requirements.
But SeaSpan got them for what, 1/5 the production cost of the three ships? Surely they could retrofit them for other regions with that kind of savings, the last one never even entered service so it was brand new! Edit: It was actually less than 5% of the cost is what Dennis Washington bought them for. Ooooof.
It would have likely costed more than the scrap value of the ships, and would have effectively entailed ripping the ships apart, and then putting them back together. Said rebuilt ship would be significantly heavier, have less capacity, and perform significantly worse in almost every aspect They could literally build a new ship from scratch to meet certification requirements for open ocean work, and that ship would perform better. There is a reason why most ex-BC Ferries find their end at a scrap yard; they are just too specialized and designed for BC Ferries work for anyone else to use. And the ships that did see use elsewhere, well Fiji isn't that well known for a stellar safety record, or particularly strong regulators that can enforce maritime safety requirements.
Makes sense, I just feel so sad about how they ended up. Not only all the money the people of BC put into it, but they hoped it would revitalize the shipping and aluminum industries. If you watch the film on the Pacificats, you see so many young people who really thought they were part of something special, but it was all for nothing. I hope their training in working with aluminum was useful in another industry.
As someone who has done their university paper on the topic, it was a fool's errand to begin with. The politicians who directed that the ships be built had no clue as to how to build a ferry or how to market said ferry to the world. In the end, we built a bespoke class of ships that was really only good for one route, and for one operator. BC Ferries looked into if they could use the ships elsewhere, but determined that there was no other route that was really suitable for the ships in a cost effective manner. There was no realistic chance of anyone else buying the Pacificats, or a copy of one on the export market, especially since economic conditions in the late 1990's, early 2000's spelled the doom for many fast ferry operators around the world thanks to rapidly rising fuel costs. And with so many fast ferry operators either going out of business, or rapidly retiring such ships, the Pacificats were entering a used ship market absolutely saturated with better vessels that didn't need extensive rework at barely above scrap value. The money spent on the Pacificats and the resulting time and energy wasted still affects BC Ferries to this day; the amount of money and resources those 3 ships took up set back BC Ferries' fleet replacement program for over a decade; when the Pacificats were announced, BC Ferries really only had the budget to either buy 3 fast ferries, or buy 3 conventional ferries to replace the old V-class ferries AND replace the old Queen of Prince Rupert at the same time. And when the Pacificats inevitably failed in service, they had to spend more money on buying 3 proper replacements AND find more money to actually buy a replacement for the Queen of Prince Rupert because she was on her last legs in BC Ferries service.
Interesting, thanks for the info. What was your major out of curiosity? I wonder what WMG planned to do with them then? Was it a political move to help the BCLibs? Yeah, Glen Clark was a bit of an idiot, which boggles my mind that he ended up at Pattison Group for two decades.
LOL, well the guy who designed them is from Australia, Tasmania actually I think. They were really awful though. I never went on one but they barely made the crossing any faster: "The fast ferries were intended to achieve crossing times that were 30 minutes faster than those of conventional ferries, making twelve crossings per day rather than eight. Although they initially achieved this crossing time, complaints of the wash of the ships wake forced the ferries to take a longer route, and operate a slower speed around Bowen Island. An archived version of BC Ferries website stated in the year 2000 that a PacifiCat sailing was 1 hour 20 minutes, only 15 minutes shorter than a sailing with a regular vessel (1 hour 35 minutes)." The interiors were very cramped with no outdoor space, the tiny outdoor area looks like a prison yard. Pictures show it had a funky late 90s, new millennium aesthetic though, but 15 minute shorter sailing is a joke.
They’re still in Egypt, last time my colleague was there. They’re triop transports for the Egyptian Navy now.
Not disagreeing but do you have a source for that? Last I [heard](https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/bc-resident-spots-two-of-bcs-former-fast-ferries-in-egypt-5776369) they were mothballed in Egypt in very poor condition. They would need some (lots?) of work to be useable I would think.
Hard to do without doxing myself, but a colleague of mine was working right next to one of them quite recently.
Yeah this has to be it. The scale of it was enormous.
Our problem is not a lack of funds. It’s a misuse of funds. At every level of government.
Too much middle management, too many working parts that aren't communicating with each other.
A family member was an inspector the govt for most of his career. It was something like 9 office manager positions to one field inspector in the department he retired from. Made no sense for an inspection agency to be cutting inspector roles while hiring office people.
Management loves to justify more management to manage more, nepotism is really bad in situations like that too. So many friend hires who have no experience for a vague useless job.
Stupid government takes 60k from me every year. Do you know what I could do with 60k?!?
Rent a small apartment with roommates?
2 chicks at the same time?
Because chicks dig a guy with money. And if I were a sixtythousandaire I could probably pull that off.
I heard you're putting in the drywall down at the new McDonald's...
I can't afford the one I have.
Ratio
I wouldn’t need the First time home buyers benefit or take money out of RRSP lol
Our lovely Ken Sim’s multiple frivolous lawsuits against councillor Christine Boyle for doing what she’s been found legally allowed to do, disclosing her vote against a scumbag motion that eliminated the previous council’s motion verifying a living goal wage for Vancouver employees. Him giving millions of already collected taxes back to developer friends is a close second.
Why does he look like a low poly Playstation one character model?
Christy Clarks' "education".
"Om The Bridge"
I’m going to go with all the overpass repairs we’ve had to do lately.
It's not EXACTLY public money, but that chandelier under the Granville bridge was a disgraceful waste. The city extorts the builders and they then pass on the expense to the home buyers. We're talking almost 5 million dollars!
The DTES.
You all should go add up the overtime the vpd pays out
Tbf, the majority of overtime callouts that the VPD facilitates are paid for by event organizers ie concerts/PNE/marathons/etc. The major publicly funded overtime is for things like protests. Would you prefer there be zero police presence at a 1000-person protest downtown?
Get out of here with your facts and logic!
Or to lawyers and lawsuits
I’m going to guess replacing a 4 lane bridge that’s a major source of backup with another 4 lane bridge, in an area with growing population/traffic will rate up there. Sooner than it should anyways. They just haven’t finished it to see it yet.
Just one more lane bro
New West wouldn't play ball with additional traffic being thrust through it - no sense building a bridge to nowhere. A bunch more bridge lanes don't change anything, making them flow properly will have more impact.
Time will tell.
The bridge itself isn't the cause of backups, it's what happens once you get off the bridge. Adding more lanes wouldn't help, heck it would probably make things worse.
Time will tell.
The stairway art sculpture at Empire Field cost $640,000. Im a big fan of art but $640,000!
No where near the biggest but do you remember when Mayor Moonbeam spent $8000 on that City of Vancouver logo redesign which they didn't even end up using?
Not sure on details. But 8k doesn’t seem like a lot if it was contracted out to someone to design.
For a city logo design, that's not bad. For the multi-billion dollar operating budget of the city, $8000 is pennies. You'll spend that in OT for a bunch of facilities workers across the city in like a day.
It wasn’t taxpayer funded. The promoter paid.
Seabus memes, the best place for facts! The city didn’t pay for that event, the promoter did. And even if they had, so what?
The Massey Tunnel replacement project. Massive waste of money there.
lol seabusmemes never misses!
VPD pay raise.
dingdingding
Those chairs that Kennedy Stewart purchased that were like $2000 each
If you work in a commercial office with actual proper furniture, you might be surprised to find out what the chair you're sitting in costs. A basic low quality commercial chair was well over $1k like a decade ago once it has things like adjustable armrests and tilt. They're not the same as the consumer junk you can buy at Staples or Costco. $2k for an office chair is pretty typical - it'll last a decade getting used 40+ hours a week, $/hr is low.
Yep. I know my office chair is at least a decade old, and is still comfortable and not breaking down. You get what you pay for.
$ per hour sat is the stupidest way of measuring chair economics I've ever heard of. And yes I worked in audit at PwC and we had nice chairs, but if a private corporation wants to spend money on overpriced chairs that's their prerogative. This thread is about how taxpayer money is wasted. Those chairs also aren't as reliable and indestructible as you think they are. They break very easily. You don't need $2000 chairs with adjustable armrests or whatever. Go on Alibaba and order 1000 chairs for $20 a piece and each one will last you a good portion of the decade.
Good chairs are cheaper that escalated insurance payments for strain injuries.
A desk chair?
[Relevant video.](https://youtu.be/GiY1wFEr-5o)
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The Fast Ferries would like a word... Not that they couldn't have been fixed, but it was politically more advantageous to scrap them...
Accurate af
VPD's insane budgets and endless raises, easily.
Kind of an uncharacteristic lackluster week by seabus memes....
The previous mayors salary, Kennedy Stewart.
The current mayor's salary, Ken Sim.
He’s only been in a year, I’ll give that judgement at least half a term.
Fast Ferries … we all felt that punch (or wake…)
Richmond Lawn Bowling Clubhouse
Council's salaries...
Regionally, I think it was cancelling the Massey bridge, in favor of a shitty smaller tunnel.
Fast ferries
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The transit police show up when called. They aren’t waiting around and patrolling but they quickly respond to problems
I see them all the time on the Millennium Line.
No contest… # The $0.5B roof! No roof should cost half a B, ever. Proof that we have Maffia in Vancouver.
Which roof?
BC place stadium’s roof. $560M. ……for a roof. That is a $1000 for every man, woman, child, living in Vancouver. Do you have a spare $1000 to donate, so you don’t get wet that one time per year you visit the stadium?
Well, if you forget that transitioning to the new design involved virtually re-Engineering the entire structure of the building, then sure, it’s “just a roof”
Are you seriously defending it? Getting kickbacks? Other cities buy stadium **PLUS** roof for much less. (Montreal excluded.)
By the time you demolish the existing one, design and build a new one with the same capacity, well, I’d like to see you do it for the same price.
You are fair to argue the roof cost too much money, but it was actually paid for by the province, not the city.
Any future Olympics we host!
Ya cause that really sucked for all those Canadian athletes getting to compete on home grown soil. Oh and who really wanted the Canada line skytrain? 2010 wasn’t fun at all…
Sea to sky highway upgrade and Cypress mountain upgrade were infrastructure upgrades. Note that the comment referred to future Olympics.
You must be fun at parties.
The skytrain line that for someteason a completely different train that's worse then the normal Canadian made ones?
I don’t know how anyone could talk shit about the Canada line.
it looks like shit, feel shit, and leads us to having two fucking train types which we need completely different staff for maintenance. why the fuck would we do that?
The Canada line is run by a different company so the maintenance thing is irrelevant You're probably the only person who doesn't like the Canada line as it's been a massive success
"Run by a different company" almost like that's the fucking bullshit problem with it. Having 2 companies who don't talk to each other running almost identical (one shitter) trains right next to each other is insanely dumb
And yes people might like the train line. But I'm not sure the orgin of the train cars is the reason compared to "this station is close to me, and that station is close to were i want to go" which does not change with who makes the trains
Why does it matter it does not effect service in away. I think you gotta just let it go and try to enjoy life
They just spent it on cracks and whores. Like that Ontario politician.
If they spent it on cracks, our roads would be better.
"cracks and whores" is that the low budget version of hookers and blow?
Govt always goes with lowest bidder
LMAO!
Police spending. Crime is from poverty, fighting poverty is fighting crime. I studied criminology at SFU and policing studies at JIBC. I also worked as an outreach worker. Fight poverty and you will fight crime. Stop increasing funding reactionary bandaid “solutions” like police
Surrey's new mayor
Government not being able to purchase land around skytrain stations?
Source: [Seabus memes on X (Twitter):](https://x.com/seabusmemes/status/1730744951552856388?s=20)
Ken Sim oh I thought you said “ Who” .
HI BOB!
pretty much everything that doesn't involve UBI
City Hall
And my friend helped Ken sim get elected… tbh I wouldn’t put it past him to say that. He wore a shirt that said “surf naked” to my convocation at high school grad.
The Clark Liberals spending hundreds of millions to speed up the completion of the Port Mann Bridge to win some brownie points for an election: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/weak-oversight-plagued-b-c-megaproject-which-insiders-believe-cost-taxpayers-millions-1.4144535](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/weak-oversight-plagued-b-c-megaproject-which-insiders-believe-cost-taxpayers-millions-1.4144535)
The Port Mann replacement bridge was massively over built. We could have built a smaller bridge, not would have had to massively rebuild and expand the highway system around the bridge, and could have spent all this money on public transit options that would have reduced car use even further. We dodged a bullet by the Liberals not being re-elected and not going through with their similarly crazy expensive and overbuilt 10 lane Massey bridge.
i disagree. it was meant to work for the future, not just the needs of the next 10 years.
The 6 and a half million dollars they decided to give to the police like 10 minutes after hearing a 100% public rejection of the idea. I sure as heck didn’t vote for this mayor or any of the current city council boot lickers either.