They first appeared on the Westside. Then slowly migrated to EastVan and now they are everywhere. You’ve seen them in your neighborhood and on your street. They are the symbol of everything that is the housing debate. They are, those white surveyor pins. Harbingers of destroy and replace. That old rancher? Coming down. Faded Vancouver Special? Bulldozer bait. Hundred year old Craftsman? Just keeping the lot warm until that 3500 square foot stack of shipping containers-looking box is approved.
It is to the point that the pins go in, the house comes down, and you can’t even remember what was there. Walk through any East Van neighborhood and you can predict which house is next to sprout the white pins. The pins are like an invasive species. Nobody was paying attention, nobody took them seriously, now they can’t be stopped. There’s no natural predator or pesticide and they’re pretty much impervious to social activism. In fact they’ll be around long after all of us because of what they consume and excrete. Money.
This city, as I’ve said before, has always been about money. George Vancouver didn’t drop anchor in Burrard Inlet to further His Majesty’s geographical knowledge. The heroes of Vision ran this city for 10 years and they weren’t financed by citizens riding Mobi bikes to council meeting eithers.
But, there’s an election coming in November, and the people seeking your vote aren’t beholden to money and have a solution for the white pin proliferation. Whether it’s Burnaby MP Kennedy ‘How about I drop in and solve your problems?’ Stewart, hereditary Squamish Nation Chief Ian ‘cash in on all that white guilt’ Campbell, neophyte politician Shauna ‘what happened to being the frontrunner?’ Sylvester, tech entrepreneur Taleeb ‘lost twice federally’ Noormohamed, or popular favorite Adrianne ‘don’t want to be the tallest weed’ Carr, they have a plan. Maybe.
What is certain, is that no matter who is in power enacting their “plan”, your rent is going to continue to go up. Moving to a larger more affordable space will continue to only be an option if that space is in Harrison Mills. The price of the faded Vancouver Special you pass by every day is not suddenly going to be reasonable, and the white pins will continue to dot the East Van landscape.
However it’s not all gloom and doom especially if you like a little schadenfreude. Watching Hector Bremner cry over the NPA rejecting his mayoralty candidacy has been pretty entertaining. Bremner is the same guy who won his city council seat because the progressive vote was split into five but still thinks he earned it. The same guy that said after he won his council seat that Vision was done. The same guy who said he’d donate his councilor’s pay to charity. Now he alleges that he’s a victim of racism. Shocking! The poor man. Course if you believe that, I’ve got a Vancouver Special you can have for its original price. Plus it’s on a street free of those white pins.
By Contributing Writer Al Tee
ILiveInEastVan.com 
LOVE it! Well written!