Columnist Pete McMartin went to the Tsawwassen Mills mega mall on opening day October 5 stating “The mall is alarmingly big, and its construction on what used to be prime farm land between Ladner and Tsawwassen was greeted by both loathing and eager anticipation by locals — of which I am one. Some saw it as a welcome addition to the retail landscape, which was limited, or an abomination that would forever destroy the cozy feel of their communities.”
He also stated that his wife refused to shop there, but may have been outnumbered by the consumers eager to experience the mall. The Province reports that 284,000 people went to the mall in the first six days, including 201,000 from October 5 to October 8.
Vancouver Sun columnist Douglas Todd did a double take on a “Waste of Farmland” billboard protesting the building of the Site C Dam located on Tsawwassen First Nations land. As Todd notes, “The billboard is not questioning, however, how the giant Tsawwassen Mills shopping mall has just been built on more than 1,000 acres of adjacent farmland owned by the Tsawwassen band. The billboard is instead questioning why the B.C. government is building its Site C dam on farmland in the far-away Peace River district.”
Todd summarizes that as part of the 2007 Tsawwassen First Nation Treaty with the B.C. government and others “ added 1,072 acres of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) to the Tsawwassen band’s land, on which the mall, one of Canada’s biggest, has been built. The 180-store mall was constructed on Tsawwassen First Nations land by Ivanhoe Cambridge, a multi-national conglomerate based in Quebec. Members of the Tsawwassen First Nations expect the deal to be an economic boon for them. It’s always interesting how ecological values are tested when money is involved.”
“It’s always interesting how ecological values are tested when money is involved.”
Ain’t that the truth. Everyone talks a big game, but when push comes to shove, no one has the guts to stand up for what they know is right. Money talks.
It’s incredibly short sighted, but that’s how we as humans do it.
What would have been better: No mall ? or just a smaller mall ? Or one with a train and bike lanes and no parking lot only ? Or one with 10 stories ? or no more immigration to Canada and BC ? or no more exports / imports from a growing Canada to a growing Pacific region ? Or less humans overall ? Or just poorer less consuming humans ? Or a Canada with no white immigrants ? Or lower salaries and benefits for our overpaid civil servants apparatus ? Or a road toll on the highway to mall & ferry ? or an electric ferry to Vancouver Island, at 5 times the cost ? or a mall with e-cars allowed only ? or a mall with blueberries on the roof ? or a big sign (or a small one) that states “BC is closed for business – Canada too – go away” ? or a re-draft of our constitution with no preferential treatment for certain groups based on ancestry ? or a re-education of the shoppers that “shopping is bad” ? Or merely higher PST ? Or higher PST and lower incomes taxes in lieu ?
One of the most childish techniques of trolls is to be all over the map. Throw handfuls of ideological goop at the wall to see what sticks no matter how discredited they became when previously refuted by facts, or leads to nonsensical absolutist conclusions.
If you hate Canada so much Thomas then maybe you can find a remote island on the other side of the world and preach to the natives.
you had me at “no mall.” I thought it was obvious and self-explanatory that people who criticized a specific development generally wish to see that development either changed or not happen at all.
Douglas Todd is not quite right. He writes; ” The 180-store mall was constructed on Tsawwassen First Nations land by Ivanhoe Cambridge, a multi-national conglomerate based in Quebec. “.
Ivanhoé Cambridge is the real estate division of la Caisse de Depot et Placements du Québec, which is an investment arm of the Québec Government. La Caisse manages the funds of, primarily, Québec retirees and the Québec government employees retirees and other Québec employees funds such as the construction workers, as well as the the Québec government mandatory automobile insurance funds.
Ivanhoe Cambridge also owns Oakridge (which recently scaled back its plans for retail space in the Oakridge redevelopment (i.e. it won’t be double deckered), Metropolis at Metrotown and Guildford Town Centre.
Why is farmland to be valued above all else? Farmland creates economic value and human happiness… malls create economic value and human happiness…dams create economic value and human happiness. How do we decide what to build? How do we choose between alternatives? How do we allocate scarce resources?
Well, in Soviet Russia, these decisions are made by central planners and officials. They think really hard and determine what is best for everyone.
But in Capitalist Canada, we allow private individuals to put their capital at risk in pursuit of abnormal profits. They follow the will of consumers – apparently more money can be made by turning this land into a mall than by farming it.
The market values Lu Lu Lemons franchises more than farmland! But isn’t this wrong? Isn’t food more important than stretchy pants?
Well, think of it this why: the water-diamond paradox. Water is needed to live, but it costs almost nothing. Diamonds are practically useless, but cost a fortune!
Oh free markets – you so crazy! But are they? Prices rise and demand falls. Prices rise and supply rises. Then if demand does not equal supply, price can necessarily adjust until they meet. Prices ensure resources are not wasted, and as many are produced are as wanted at the cost it takes to produce them. Adam Smith that G knew this. THINK ABOUT IT!!!
Markets do not always recognize the limiting factors affecting commodities until they are actually upon us. This is how farmland is so undervalued by the market today. Of itself it is a scarce commodity (only 4% of BC land is arable, and so forth), but is currently under-utilized, hence cheap. It will no doubt leap in value if the province is forced to face a situation where we need to grow most of our own food.
The market does not immediately recognize that our imported food (e.g. roughly 70% of our produce) is highly subsidized and is very sensitive to water shortages, likely set to become extreme in California and Mexico, as long as the produce is delivered cheaper than what local farmers can deliver. In other words, the BC market and local farmland are inextricably attached to the subsidy structures, export policies and water management policies of foreign jurisdictions facing an unprecedented drought. But the price of farmland here does not capture that link.
http://www.californiadrought.org/drought/current-conditions/
We have a “market” situation where cheap farmland was converted to a mall with “greater” social value. The same can be said about a 10-lane bridge connecting to a 20-lane freeway. The market doesn’t care about the dirt these things displace when decisions to build are imposed. However, as a commodity, that dirt is as valuable as gold for its rarity and potential to sustain human life, things that have not been put to the test to its full potential yet. Inevitably, 1,000-acre chunks of the ALR are eaten up by malls and freeways before the drought and water management policies in far-off agricultural markets has fully played out. Let’s hope there’s enough quality soil left up here when it does. Meanwhile, the San Joaquin Valley soils are down to dust and gravel.
The market is not a magic kingdom. It is a dumb, reactionary beast. What is magic and wonderful is when human innovation, creativity and soundness of planning can influence the market in ways that have a great long term benefit to humans.
Maybe the market is not a magic kingdom, but it is certainly not a dumb reactionary beast either. I don’t think central planning is as magic and wonderful as you think either.
Consider the abundance of foods available to Capitalist Canadians vs the chronic shortages of food in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The former does literally almost nothing to plan the food supply. The latter plans and controls every detail. The former uses coercion to compel any actors to behave in any way – all actions are voluntary. The latter ultimately relies on the threat of violence and imprisonment to achieve its miserable economic outcome.
This is EXTREMELY counter-intuitive. And I think it can almost be said to be magic. And it’s in a way a surprise people often have such suspicion of markets.
Markets aggregate the private information of millions of people. And they do it all without any intelligent design. In this way they are a bit miraculous kind of like evolution is. It is a process that can create tremendous outcomes, that appear almost as if they are planned, but there is no designer – they are merely equilibria.
Think of it this way: could a central planner plan evolution of a species better than the natural process? The economy is probably as complex as an ecosystem. Humans fail to plan economies because they are just too complicated, we are not smart enough, and we do not possess enough information or computing power.
I think markets are amazing. And when someone proposes overruling a market with some law, I think the burden to explain why should fall on them.
I think markets are amazing too when they practice full life cycle accounting. Too often they are manipulated to benefit private interests while the public pays for their external costs, socialized pollution cleanup costs, for example.
These absolutes about central-planning vs “free” markets are really a political sop to folks like Milton Freidman, whose acolytes in power practiced the utmost in central planning when it came to the publicly-funded military infrastructure and overseas interventions. No questions asked. Yet they can’t seem to muster a modicum of courage to apply a few basic limits to control the debt-to-asset ratio of their own banking institutions, let alone address the extent of the toxicity of that debt to the world economy, and therein the phenomenal extent of centrally-planned bailouts where the socialize-the-losses meme is standard practice.
I’ll go along with politicizing the economy when the “free” market accounts for the second law of thermodynamics.
Crap typo!
“The former uses NO coercion to compel any actors to behave in any way – all actions are voluntary. “
There’s a video called: Last Feast of the Crocodiles. As a drought intensifies, the crocs get fatter – feasting on the desperate animals coming to the remaining water-hole. Eventually, however, they too succumb.
How valuable is farmland? Almost as valuable as water. Yet vile bully corporations like Nestle essentially steal our water; put it in plastic bottles, and sell it at 4,000 per cent profit. Trick poor mothers into buying their disgusting baby formulas – manipulating them to think breast-feeding is primitive. And these poor mothers mix this expensive garbage with dirty water – sometimes killing their children in the process. How does Nestle feel about it? It’s profitable.
Is this the benign “market” doing the will of the people? Or is this corporate bullying that can’t be stopped.
People talk about “the market” as though it were a force of nature; the same way religious whackos talk about the will of god. It’s not. It’s a plutocrat’s playground and they will crush interlopers – crush you like a cockroach. They have the cash; the lobbyists; lawyers; pr flacks; media; advertising.
They will pluck you like an unwitting goose and the commonweal be damned.
If there were no wars, famine, grotesque inequities – you could talk about a reactive fair marketplace. But it’s not. Not by a long shot. Ask some of the 7,000,000 or so Syrian refugees how they feel about the marketplace. Ask people who are starving to death. Ask kids who have lost their parents – or body parts. Then ask one of the corporate sponsors – the makers of landmines, killer drones, and fighter planes. It’s profitable.
We are hostages to a bully capitalist system who put out the spin that it’s a free market. On their side they have trillions in cash, armaments, death star control structures. Predatory capitalists.
On the people’s side we have the Raging Grannies and social media. We have people like Jacque Fresco, Peter Joseph, Joel Salatin, Bernie Sanders.
But you can’t fight the fight until you know how manipulated and brainwashed you are – drinking the purple Kool-Aid made with muddied waters from an apocalyptic dystopia.