For author Michael Pollan, there’s a simple prescription for good health

Mia Stainsby
Sun

He may not be as famous as his brother-in-law Michael J. Fox but Michael Pollan has a captivated audience that can change a nation. One, in particular, is Barack Obama.

Last October, Pollan wrote a letter to Obama in the New York Times magazine, citing how he (a presidential candidate at the time) could put the nation’s food system on the right track if he became president. In short order, an Obama aide phoned requesting a summary but Pollan declined, basically saying if the story could have been shorter, it would have been. Undeterred, Obama quoted Pollan’s article at length in an interview with a reporter from Time magazine.

At the consumer level, Pollan is changing the way people eat, first with Omnivore’s Dilemma, which stayed on the New York Times’ best-seller list for 91 weeks. In his latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, he coined a phrase, summarizing the book’s message: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” (Perhaps Obama should have asked for a seven-word summary?) Anyway, the phrase has legs and is working its way onto T-shirts, coffee mugs and the bottom of e-mail signatures. Some Pollan fans have created a web petition, appealing to Obama to appoint Pollan as Secretary of Agriculture (www.thepetitionsite.com).

Pollan’s shorthand summary of the book is like a semaphore for eating whole, local, mostly vegetarian foods in lesser amounts (like the French, eat less, but more sensually). But the background history, politics, culture and science woven into the book is what makes you sit up. “Food” in his mind, does not include “food-like substitutes,” the 17,000 new ones that appear on grocery shelves every year.

I had a chance to sit down with Pollan when he was in Vancouver on a speaking engagement recently. (About 700 people showed up at the UBC Farm.)

“I spent two years looking at the whole question of what we really know about diet and health,” he said. “Usually, the deeper you drill into questions like that, the more complicated and ambiguous things become and it’s not as simple as you thought. With this question, the opposite was true. The further I went, the simpler it got. After two years of research, I had seven words: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”

And that’s his prescription for health and well-being.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

City council releases material in effort to boost transparency

Jeff Lee
Sun

Vancouver city council has released five of several confidential reports involving financing of the Olympic Village project.

Saying it was withholding only a small portion of the in camera documents that relate to current financing negotiations, the city has posted on its website a number of reports from 2007 and 2008 which include the first discussions on how to finance the controversial Southeast False Creek development.

Included in the reports are council’s June, 2007 decision to give Fortress Credit Corp a “completion guarantee” and council’s October, 2008 plan to become a financial guarantor for Millennium’s $683 million loan from Fortress Credit Corp. after Fortress halted payments.

The Vancouver Sun posted copies of these two reports on its website in January after receiving them from a confidential source.

The new Vision Vancouver-dominated council of Mayor Gregor Robertson voted in February to release all of the in camera documents so that the public could see for themselves the deals written by Sam Sullivan’s former Non-Partisan Association council. But it had to await review by legal staff and also the outcome of the Richard Peck investigation into how some of the documents were first leaked to other media.

The new documents released by the city also include: the city’s decision in May, 2007 to pay $5.1 million for a property at 125 West First Avenue; another May 2007 report on a proposed $100 million interim financing deal between the city, Millennium and Quest, a financial company; and a December, 2007 report on construction agreements for the city’s parcels.

None of the newly-released documents appear to have been censored or severed for legal reasons.

The release is one of the city’s first new acts of transparency that flows from Thursday’s council endorsement of Peck’s report, in which he advocated releasing in camera information as soon as possible to the public once it is no longer considered sensitive.

“We will be changing our processes to ensure the earliest and timeliest release of in camera information as much as possible,” said Councillor Raymond Louie, the chair of the city services and budgets committee.

“We will limit the number of items we can [keep] in camera in order to ensure that we conduct our business out in public.”

Louie said the public won’t be too surprised at what is in the newly-released documents since most of the contents were reported publicly in recent months as the city moved to take over the Fortress Credit loan.

On Thursday, city manager Penny Ballem outlined a proposed process that she calls “the bucket” for releasing or keeping confidential city business.

She said she plans to put into the “public bucket” all items that can go out immediately.

Other decisions that still need to be kept confidential for a little while (such as the current financial negotiations on the Olympic Village) go into a “later” bucket.

And then, there are some things, such as personnel matters, that go into a third bucket from which the public will likely never be able to dip.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

No public hearing necessary despite competing bid, staff says

Jeff Lee
Sun

There are no residents yet in the new Olympic village on False Creek, but already a dispute has erupted over who should supply the emerging neighbourhood with liquor.

City planners want to permit a massive new private liquor store in the heart of the brand-new village, adjacent to many of the highrise towers. At 8,600 square feet, the site would become the third-largest booze outlet in the city, behind two government-run stores.

But they’re being challenged by a Burnaby company that already holds a preliminary liquor licence from the B.C. Liquor Control Board and wants to open a more modest store 400 metres away at the corner of Quebec Street and Second Avenue.

The Burnaby company, West Coast Liquor, needs the property to be rezoned.

But in a report going to a city council committee today, city staff want the politicians to refuse West Coast Liquor’s rezoning application outright without letting it go to a public hearing. They argue that the store wouldn’t fit with the city’s planning policies for the new Olympic village, which contemplates a central commercial core that would include a grocery store, pharmacy and liquor outlet.

The planning department’s stance has angered West Coast Liquor’s co-owner, John Teti, who accuses the city of acting as a de facto agent for Millennium Development, the company building the village. He also says the city might be in a conflict because it owns the land and has also become Millennium’s major financial backer with the $100-million-plus construction loan guarantee it gave late last year.

“They can deny me going to a public hearing, but they are in a conflict of interest on this,” Teti said. “They’re acting as agents for their own developer.”

Teti said he followed the city’s rules for private liquor stores and applied for and received a provincial liquor licence. He said the city tried to push him into leasing the Millennium property, but he balked because of the high cost. He said he’s paying $32 a square foot for the Second Avenue location, as opposed to the $75 a square foot he was quoted for the Millennium property. The difference, he said, was in the order of half a million dollars a year in leasing costs, and to him that makes a liquor store inside the village a financial bust. He also wonders why the city would want such a large liquor store in a neighbourhood that already has five public or private liquor stores in a 15-block radius.

However, the city says it has been told by another company, Granville Entertainment Group, that it is willing to locate a liquor store in the village.

Ron Orr, Granville Entertainment’s chief financial officer, said it signed a lease recently with Millennium and has applied to transfer an existing but dormant liquor licence to the proposed site, but can’t get provincial approval because Teti’s application took precedence and is within 500 metres of the village. He said Teti’s proposed store is too far from the core, is not near any commercial businesses and doesn’t have enough parking.

Teti, on the other hand, says his proposed store is within the city’s planned redevelopment of the Southeast False Creek area and would adequately serve the new neighbourhood.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Tech-savvy criminals make law update necessary, government says, but privacy advocates are opposed

Janice Tibbetts
Sun

Police will be given new powers to eavesdrop on Internet-based communications as part of a contentious government bill, to be announced Thursday, which Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has said is needed to modernize surveillance laws crafted during “the era of the rotary phone.”

The proposed legislation would force Internet service providers to allow law enforcement to tap into their systems to obtain information about users and their digital conversations.

Police have lobbied for a new law for almost 10 years, saying that they need to access “Internet safe havens” for gangsters, sexual predators and terrorists.

“This is really not about the warrantless tracking of Canadians’ Internet use,” said Clayton Pecknold, of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

Privacy advocates and civil libertarians, however, have vocally opposed the prospect of giving police “lawful access” to the digital conversations of Canadians by being able to access such things as their text messages, e-mails, web surfing habits and Internet phone lines.

“It is an issue that has proven to be very, very controversial,” said Michael Geist, a law professor at University of Ottawa and public commentator on Internet legal issues.

“The consistent criticism and concern that has been expressed is that there has to be some evidence that there is a real problem here and in the past we haven’t seen that,” he said.

“Why is the status quo not good enough? What investigations have been impeded?”

Federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddard recently warned that forcing ISPs to surrender information “is a serious step forward toward mass surveillance” that violates the rights of Canadians.

Van Loan’s bill has been posted on a notice paper of pending government legislation and it is expected to be tabled in the House of Commons before MPs break for their summer recess on Friday. He has scheduled a news conference for Thursday with Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.

Earlier this year, Van Loan publicly stated his intentions to pursue legislation, which had been promised for years but relegated to a back burner by his predecessor, Stockwell Day.

When he was public safety minister, Day also promised that any federal initiative would require police to obtain a warrant to access personal information of users, such as names and addresses.

Pecknold said it is “an ongoing frequent occurrence” that police want to act to stop a crime, but they are blocked at the technological door at a time when criminals have shifted increasingly to online communications.

“Terrorist groups, pornographers and pedophile networks, illegal traffickers in weapons, drugs and human beings, money launderers and cyber criminals, Internet and telemarketing fraudsters all use technology to develop activities, perpetrate crimes and avoid detection,” the police chiefs said in a November 2008 position paper supporting a new law.

Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service already have the power to wiretap private communications, provided they have judicial authorization, but the law does not require ISPs to grant them access.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Civil investigations can turn into criminal

Vern Krishna
Sun

Some individuals who filed their tax returns by the April 30th deadline await the results of their assessments by Canada Revenue Agency with some trepidation.

Although the income tax system relies primarily upon self-assessment by taxpayers and “voluntary” reporting of tax liabilities, the CRA is always looking over its shoulder to ensure compliance.

The taxpayer initially determines his or her liability and submits the tax return. The CRA checks the mathematical accuracy of the return, reviews supporting documents, performs perfunctory cross checks, and issues a “quick assessment” within approximately eight weeks of filing.

Mercifully for most taxpayers — particularly employees who have income and payroll taxes withheld at source — that is the end of the tax ritual for another year. But it is only the beginning of the process for the tax collector.

The CRA has substantial audit and investigative powers. These powers are of two types: civil audits and criminal investigations.

However, the line between the two is not always clear and the taxman likes it that way. The blurred line allows the CRA to cross over from the civil to the criminal without alerting the taxpayer.

A civil audit is an examination to determine the accuracy of the taxpayer’s self-assessed income.

Such an audit under the CRA’s regulatory powers is a routine process for verifying the taxpayer’s financial information and examining relevant supporting documents.

The purpose of the audit is to ensure regulatory compliance and mathematical accuracy. If the CRA disagrees with the taxpayer’s self-assessed income, it will reassess him and charge interest on any deficiency in taxes paid. The CRA also has the power to impose civil penalties in circumstances where it can show egregious conduct by the taxpayer in preparing his or her return. Civil penalties can add up to an additional 50% (plus interest) of the tax deficiency to the final bill. The courts grant the tax authorities considerable latitude under the civil audit provisions and taxpayers have minimal constitutional rights.

In contrast, a tax investigation is essentially a criminal examination.

The courts vigilantly protect Charter rights in criminal matters.

In an investigation the state is pitted against the individual in an attempt to establish culpability. The adversarial relationship escalates because the liberty of the subject is at stake.

The CRA must look to s. 231.3 (the part of the tax code that deals with obtaining a warrant for search and seizure), which deals with serious offences under the act.

For example, for the purpose of investigating penal liability, s. 231.3 sets out an application process for an ex parte (without notice) search warrant similar to that found in s. 487 of the Criminal Code. The courts are always on high alert in criminal law.

The difficulty is an examination that starts out as a routine civil audit can turn into a criminal investigation. If this happens, the nature of the relationship between the CRA and the taxpayer changes from regulatory supervision to potential criminal prosecution and becomes subject to restrictions under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Nevertheless, the CRA may use any information that it procures during the proper exercise of its audit function in a subsequent penal investigation.

The use of such information for criminal purposes does not offend either s. 7 (the principles against self-incrimination) or section 8 (reasonable expectation of privacy) of the Charter.

Individuals have few privacy interests under section 8 of the Charter in materials and records that they are obliged to keep and produce for the purposes of the Income Tax Act. Once an auditor has inspected or compelled the production of a document or information, the taxpayer cannot be said to have a reasonable expectation that the auditor will guard its confidentiality.

Given the taxpayer’s diminished expectation of privacy, the government’s interest to intrude on the individual’s privacy in order to advance its goals of law enforcement outweighs the individual’s privacy interest in his materials and records.

The CRA may also conduct an audit and an investigation concurrently.

However, once the CRA begins its investigation, it can use further information that it obtains under its concurrent audit powers only for the purposes of the audit and not for the purposes of the investigation.

It is not easy in practice, however, to distinguish the divergence in powers and obligations related to civil audits and investigations.

An inquiry becomes an investigation when its predominant purpose is to determine penal liability.

There is no “bright-line” test for determining the predominant purpose of an inquiry or when it changes.

Apart from a clear decision to pursue a criminal investigation, no single factor governs in every circumstance. Hence, a court has considerable latitude in its decision to admit evidence resulting from an investigation. In arriving at its decision, however, the court will consider the totality of the circumstances to determine whether the inquiry sufficiently engages the adversarial relationship between the State and the taxpayer to warrant Charter protection.

– Prof. Vern Krishna, CM, QC, FCGA, is tax counsel and a mediator and arbitrator at Borden Ladner Gervais and is executive director of the CGA Tax Research Centre at the University of Ottawa.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Toronto 3rd, Calgary in 6th spot

Kelly Sinoski
Sun

VANCOUVER — Vancouver has once again snagged top honours as the world’s most livable city, while Harare, Zimbabwe, was pronounced the toughest city to live in.

Canadian and Australian cities hold six of the top 10 slots in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s global livability poll, which ranks 140 cities on five factors: health care, stability, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

“I’m not surprised,” Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said. “There’s often focus on our challenges and negativity, but when you look at the big picture, Vancouver is a remarkable place to live and work and it’s great to be recognized for that.”

The poll listed Vancouver in first place with a rating of 98 per cent, with the report noting the city’s only challenges were “petty crime and availability of good-quality housing.”

Vancouver was followed by Vienna, Melbourne and Toronto in the top four, while Helsinki, Geneva, Zurich and Sydney also placed among the top-10 livable destinations.

The report noted there wasn’t much difference among the top- 10 cities, which tended to be mid-sized, in developed countries with a low population density and with lower crime levels or infrastructure problems often caused by large populations.

London and Manchester, for instance, also placed in the top tier, but weren’t as high, reflecting “the challenges faced by many large urban centres,” the report said.

“London and Manchester both benefit from the attractions that a big city offers but also suffer from the problems that can be faced such as crime, the threat of terrorist attacks and overloaded transport infrastructure,” said the report’s editor Jon Copestake.

Most of the poorest performing locations were in Asia and Africa, “where civil instability and poor infrastructure present significant challenges,” the report said. “The prospect of violence, whether through domestic protests, civil war or the threat of foreign incursion, plays a significant role in the poorest performing cities,” the report said. “They can exacerbate the impact of instability on other key livability categories.”

Robertson said he hopes Vancouver can use its honour to bring more investment and “help us build an even better city.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

Three hives on third-floor deck provide kitchen with honey, guests with stories

Christina Montgomery
Province

Graeme Evans is undoubtedly Vancouver‘s nattiest — and most hospitable — beekeeper.

You won’t catch Evans in one of those bulky, netted helmets and spacesuits that most of his colleagues don when tending their hives. He looks after his trio of nests while wearing a dapper, crisply pressed suit. And tie.

Then again, Evans is director of housekeeping for the posh downtown Fairmont Waterfront hotel.

And beekeeping is just part of his busy day ensuring that guest facilities pass muster.

Those facilities grew to include the hives, and a lush, bee-friendly garden surrounding them, several years ago when the international hotel chain decided to adopt a signature environmental program for each of its facilities.

Evans thought immediately of beekeeping, given what he knew of the massive threats faced by the world’s bee populations and their key role in agriculture everywhere.

The hotel liked the idea and set up the hives in what was once a pretty but nectar-free stretch of ivy bed on the north side of the hotel’s third floor above the busy downtown streets.

The hives, just metres from the spa’s outdoor pool and just across the roof from the hotel’s kitchen garden, are thriving.

And Evans’ idea has caught fire with the hotel chain. Toronto‘s Royal York and New York‘s Algonquin hotels both host bees now, too. So do the chain’s hotels in Dallas and Singapore, he says.

Locally, it’s meant heavier pollination of plants within a six-kilometre radius, including Stanley Park. Ultra-locally, it’s meant the hotel kitchen gardens bear massive loads of everything from apples to pumpkins.

Evans didn’t know much about beekeeping when he came up with the plan, but he took courses at Surrey‘s Honeybee Centre, which has since partnered with the hotel to fill and maintain the hives.

Across the street, on the roof of the province’s new harbour-side convention centre, there’s a similar bee development that’s getting a lot of publicity as the centre launches is first season.

But Evans likes to think his hotel’s lodgings are “a bit nicer” for bees — not as windy, a good range of nectar-producing plants and a building full of guests who, starting last week, are able to watch as the hives are inspected and the honeycombs removed each Friday.

Evans thinks the demonstrations might become popular, once guests get used to the idea that the few puffs of smoke that are used to calm the bees really do the job. And that no one’s going to get stung.

And then there’s the honey. One week a full 27 kilograms of lavender honey was culled and sent to the hotel’s kitchen. In return, Evans says, the bees get their own reward: “the most magnificent view in the world.”

© Copyright (c) The Province

Ontario-federal agreement worries residential-construction leaders across country; top bank economist also fears ‘stress’

Peter Simpson
Sun

Harmony, according to the the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is ”an agreeable effect of apt arrangement of parts.” Harmonization, in this case the blending of provincial and federal sales taxes, has the potential of becoming a wallet-draining ”arrangement” for new-home buyers in B.C.

I may be getting a little ahead of myself, but I have heard too many hints that an HST agreement between Canada and B.C. is being fine-tuned as I write.

Three months ago the finance ministers of Ontario, Dwight Duncan, and Canada, Jim Flaherty, signed a memorandum of agreement to harmonize Canada‘s and Ontario‘s sales tax. The Yours-to-Discover province will receive $4.3 billion in federal transfer payments for jumping aboard the harmonized sales tax train.

Ontario home builders and some prominent housing analysts believe Ontario embraced the HST too quickly and without considering how it would negatively impact housing affordability.

The (Ontario) Building Industry and Land Development Association thinks the ”massive tax grab under harmonization” will take ”$2.4 billion out of buyers’ pockets” in Ontario.

The Ontario Home Builders’ Association thinks the agreement ”a poison pill.” ”Housing is the only product that keeps on paying property tax after it is consumed. To cripple an already challenged new-homes market not only damages the provincial economy, it also hurts governments in terms of revenues.”

Letters from home builders and industry groups such as the Ottawa-based Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA) have been landing on the desk of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, urging him to ensure Ontario harmonization is neutral for new homes and renovation.

Surrey builder and CHBA president Gary Friend has already written three letters to the prime minister, relating how harmonization will have an adverse impact on new homes, renovation and — a player not many are talking about at this point — purpose-built rental housing.

“The proposed Ontario HST will have the effect of increasing substantially the tax burden on rental housing. On a $250,000 rental unit, the net new Ontario tax revenues would be some $15,000. This contrasts with the $9,500 reduction in costs provided by federal measures implemented since 1999. Additional costs of this magnitude would lead to rent increases of $63 per month,” Friend writes.

And academics are weighing in on this issue. Noted housing analysts and economists Frank Clayton and Peter Andersen believe harmonization is a huge mistake that discourages home buyers.

In a special report – Home Truths: The Heavy Impact of Ontario’s HST on Housing – released by BMO Capital Markets Economics, deputy chief economist Douglas Porter wrote: “The proposed new harmonized sales tax in Ontario, set to begin in mid-2010, threatens to add further stress to the home-building industry – a sector that is already dealing with a suddenly very intense downturn.”

Last week, Flaherty met provincial and territorial finance ministers at Meech Lake to discuss the state of the Canadian economy and measures taken to provide stimulus. You can bet the Ontario experience was a hot topic, particularly when every province is trying to find ways to replenish diminished coffers. That $4.3 billion Ontario will stuff into its pockets must look mighty sweet.

Before the recent B.C. provincial election, I asked all major-party candidates for their positions on harmonization of sales tax.

The Green party did not respond. The NDP said it had “no current plans to promote an HST in B.C.”

The Liberal Party offered this response: ‘ . . . the BC Liberals are also mindful that a harmonized GST would reduce the provincial government’s ability to unilaterally adjust sales tax rates. The harmonized GST would make it harder for future provincial governments to lower or raise sales tax rates, which reduces flexibility. In short, a harmonized GST is not something that is contemplated in the BC Liberal platform, but we are committed to improving the tax system.”

It’s the “but” that bears watching. Might it mean, if improving the tax system means receiving billions of federal dollars, we could be convinced to hold out the bucket. Just watch how this story plays out.

Peter Norman of Altus Group Economic Consulting, in a report to the Canadian Home Builders’ Association of B.C., commented there is significant risk that a harmonized sales tax in B.C. would impose undue harm on the housing sector. “Our advice to B.C. regarding a move to HST is to consider carefully the manner in which taxation of residential investment is handled,” said Norman.

Wise words. So, if the B.C. government is even thinking about tax harmonization – and you would have to be a little naive not think so after the Meech Lake meeting of finance ministers – it should take seriously the potentially damaging impact on housing affordability. For the sake of harmony, focus on neutrality.

Peter Simpson is the chief executive officer of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association.

E-mail: [email protected]

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Amy Minsky
Sun

Scientists from around the globe are developing a massive online observatory of the Earth’s biodiversity.

The “comprehensive virtual observatory” will act as a field-guide for professional scientists and citizen scientists alike, according to Jim Edwards, executive director of the Encyclopedia of Life, that is creating an online database for every known species, based at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

The technology will be similar to the popular online mapping tool Google Earth. After entering a query, the user will be guided while “drilling down” to as specific of a species as they want — whether to a forest, a tree, a leaf, a bug on that leaf, or the DNA inside that bug.

It will also function the other way. If someone discovers an insect in their backyard they’ve never seen before, they can take a picture and upload it into a database, then compare it to bug species around the world, said Norman MacLeod, London’s Natural History Museum’s keeper of paleontology.

The developers are calling on the public for observational input for this project.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Critics call the campaign discriminatory, but police say many cyclists don’t realize they’re subject to specific rules under the Motor Vehicle Act

Denise Ryan
Sun

There is good news and bad news for Vancouver cyclists.

The bad news is that during June, Bike Month in the city, traffic cops will be ticketing cyclists who violate the rules of the road.

The good news is that they’ll mostly be handing out “information tickets” aimed at educating bikers.

The fake tickets list all the possible violations bikers can commit — and just how much they’d be on the hook for if they get caught when the police are more focussed on enforcement than education.

Cyclists can be dinged for $109 for riding without a bell, another $109 for not having a red reflector on the rear of the bike or a light on the front. Talking on a cellphone while wheeling down the road is also worth $109.

Forget doubling your kid on the back; that’s another $109. And no, you can’t grab on to the back of a car for a free tow. Nor can you stand up on your pedals to get up that hill — if you don’t have your butt in the seat, that’s another $109.

If you bump into a pedestrian and cycle away without turning over your particulars, that’s considered a hit-and-run — and it’s a criminal offence.

“A lot of cyclists, and usually it’s the casual cyclist, may not realize they are subject to specific requirements under the Motor Vehicles Act legislation,” said Lindsey Houghton of the Vancouver police department.

Houghton added, “By conducting this information campaign we want to educate cyclists rather than punish them. We want to see people on bikes obeying the rules of the road.”

Houghton said that 3,730 violation tickets at $29 a pop were issued to cyclists without helmets between Jan. 1, 2008, and May 1, 2008.

Arno Schortinghuis, president of the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition, said many cyclists are infuriated by the campaign.

“It’s discriminatory. You would never see a police officer pulling over a car to hand out the rules of the road to a driver.”

Schortinghuis said he believes the campaign is misguided, and would prefer a campaign that addresses both drivers of vehicles and cyclists.

“Yes, cyclists are breaking the law if they don’t follow the rules of the road, but it’s not the cyclists that are going to kill or injure the driver of the car,” he said. “We want cyclists, drivers and pedestrians to be very well-educated and get where they are going as safely as possible.”

He said the money might have been better spent by policing bike routes for drivers who speed or cut around diverters meant to keep the routes car-free.

Schortinghuis complies with all VPD and city cycling bylaws, he said, including a few he considers ridiculous.

“The bell rule is totally absurd,” he said. “A bell is going to do nothing to alert a car that you’re coming. The biggest focus should be on changing behaviour of drivers.”

He said Vancouver could use improvements, such as vulnerable road user legislation, to protect cyclists, but “it’s probably safer than a lot of people think.”

He recommends bikers educate themselves through safety courses such as the one the cycling coalition offers called Streetwise.

Houghton said that during Bike Month while the information campaign is under way, real violation tickets will be issued “with a very high degree of discretion.”

While he agrees that drivers also need to be educated, he said the focus of the campaign is on cyclists. “If we save one life, it’s worth it.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun