View From Victoria: Where’s the replacement for the Massey tunnel?

0:00America leads the world in medicine development. It matters. We get new medicines first nearly three years faster. Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home and not relying on other countries keeps us safe. But China is racing to overtake us. Will we let them or will we choose to stay ahead? When America leads, America cures. Let's tell Washington to keep us in the lead. Learn how at americancures.com. Pay for it by pharma. All right, let's check in with von Palmer for the Vancouver Sun on this Monday morning. Good morning, Von. Good morning, Sydney. Okay, first step. Do you check your emails right away? Do you have anything waiting for you that needs to be dealt with? Let me just give you a statement of policy. First of all, like governments often do. And then I'll give you a statistic which tells you how successful my policy has been which governments don't often do. Okay. So my statement of policy is I have learned with emails from long experience that you should read them when they come in, respond immediately if they need a response, file them immediately so you can find them if you

1:05need them later. That's my policy. It has been for a long time. However, since you were talking about unread emails this morning, I thought the least I can do is check. And so I checked one of my three email accounts, the main one, unread emails 10,365. What? 10,365 God only knows what's in them. For all I know, you know, the mortgage has been for close. The bank account has closed out the provincial government is doing me something I have no idea. That must be the account though that you don't need though. Please help me here. Well, you know, the big thing obviously and you do this too is the main thing that I get emails on. I mean, first of all, I get reader response to things and I do try to politely respond to thoughtful and polite notes from readers and I get them and they're great. I appreciate. So I do respond to those, but I get a huge amount connected to work because of course my work email addresses

2:09in a lot of files and I get press releases. I do, you know, I'm surprised that there's 10,365 that I haven't read because I do actually look at an awful lot of emails and I respond if they need a response and I print a lot out and put them in files. So when I have to write a piece or talk to you about something, I actually have the background I need to be able to talk about it, but I've missed that 10,365 times. I will never know what's in most of those. So far down the queue that, you know, I need to take a month off. I love that. All right. Well, actually we were this morning going to be talking about the saving times which that we have made. I thought maybe for the last time, but what do you think? Well, you know, we always say, right, as we're trying to shake ourselves awake after spring forward. Well, we lost an hour, but don't worry, we'll get it back

3:12in the fall or we're not going to get it back in the fall according to David. He owes us an hour for all time and he says we're doing it and he is a premier and he's pushing forward. They need new Democrats official line on this. It's public agrees. They support it. They think this is the way to go. I've just been going over the feedback. Okay. So it's pretty Columbia. It wouldn't be surprising. There'd be contrary viewpoints, but it looks to me like the feedback on this that strikes me as legitimate is twofold. The first thing government hasn't addressed. School kids going to school in the dark. That won't really happen until the fall and then I think it will be a subject of debate. The last time we talked seriously about doing this, that was one of the big concerns that, you know, the sun doesn't come up and you're getting your kids to school. I know in the big cities, there's streetlights and parents drive their kids to school and all that. I think that will be an issue. Come the fall. I'm already seeing a lot of

4:15concerns. The other one that I find really interesting and I recommend people have a look at the feed on social media from Andrew Weaver, the former leader of the Greens. He's flagged the health concern. So we're always told it's healthy not to have to keep switching back and forth because it throws everybody off and he doesn't disagree with that. But he says the science is actually better in favor of sticking with standard time and the reconnection is circadian rhythms. You need the light in the morning to set your body up for being on the right schedule with the sunlight for the day. If you take that away, you start off the day on the wrong foot. So there's there's two arguments there. Both of those arguments are in favor of switching of of making the switch permanent. But say we shouldn't be making the switch permanent on daylight saving. We should be making it

5:20on standard time. So I throw it out there for a debate. We got plenty of time to argue about it. We don't really face this until what? November. So I expect the debate will continue. I have all got that's been my strong feeling about this for the moment that, you know, Premier John Horgan mentioned this in 2017 is that standard time is preferable and we people are good as soon as the middle of winter hits and it's, you know, kids are going to school in the pitch dark. I thought, oh boy, we're going to start complaining about this, right? Although, you know, the Premier wrote an open ladder to the state's south of us, which is, you know, for business reasons and tourism reasons. We're film industry and all that. We're going to try to coordinate with them. But I think all three of our neighbors to the south, Washington, Oregon and California are looking at daylight savings. So, yes, you know, I saw Patty Murray, the senator from Washington tweeting about that on the weekend. Yeah, now they need the permission of US Congress and it's gridlocked on every subject under the sun. So I don't know if they'll get it, particularly since that's three blue states. But, you know, again, they are going

6:27daylight. So, you know, if you look at the practical argument of being on the same time as your neighbors, it doesn't really make sense for us to say, no, no, we think standard time is the answer when they're going daylight. So it's messier than the Premier and those school kids let on, let on when they were dancing to what was a deaf punk? Wow, look at you. Look at it. Yeah, it was deaf punk. Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now and they're up to 60% off. Stock up and save on rag and bone made well. Vince, all scenes and more of your favorites. How did I let no rack as a deed? Why do we rock for the hottest still? There's so many good brands. Join the Nordic club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Score more with the college branded Venmo debit card and earn up to 5% cash back with

7:29Venmo stash. Got paid back with the Venmo debit card, you can instantly access your balance and spend on what you want like game day snacks, gear, tickets and more. The more you do, the more cash back you can earn. Plus, there's no monthly fear minimum balance. Sign up now at vemo.com slash college card. The Venmo mastercard is issued by the bank court bank NA select schools available, Venmo stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo.me slash stash terms max $100 cash back per month. We are back talking with Vom Palmer for the Vancouver's son this morning. I'm also wanted to ask you of on this morning about the drippa update, too, because we have some some I guess updates on that from the interior. Yeah, I mean, the government is working on fixing the declaration act, which is this law we passed unanimously in a legislature 2019 that requires the province to reconcile, update its legislation with the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people and the government circulating proposed amendments, because the government thinks a court got it wrong reading all

8:33last fall. So in the meantime, however, the law is being applied and it's having an impact and there's an interesting story in country life in BC, which online publication someone sent to me over the weekend. So in the interior Williams Lake area, 12 ranches, 45,000 hectares of land, were offered for sale last fall and bids were due to come in January of this year. As story says, just getting caught up on it, I am, that there were no bids, nobody bid them. There was one potential purchase that was set up and the would be buyer checked with the local First Nation. Will you sign off on this because we know you're involved, you have to be consulted, it's your traditional territory and the First Nation said no way. They wouldn't sign off on it and the buyer walked away. So these 12 ranches are in limbo and again, if you look at the details around the

9:40province, questions of ownership, questions of signing off, First Nation's consent, which is one of the principles of the UN Declaration, free, prior and informed consent, and it's already having effect on land deals in British Columbia. And I think, Jimmy, as words spreads about this, you're going to see more and more of this. This is certainly what I'm hearing from people in the real estate industry, in the property industry, in the development industry, that it's just starting to connect with people. Hey, maybe we better find out if we actually have clear title to this land. Now with ranches, it's tenure, right? Right. You get the right to ranch. Crown land. Well, the government where ownership changes, the government has to decide whether or not to allow the tenure to transfer with the ownership. And that's where you have to consult First Nations. And that's where

10:41First Nations, in this case, only one case admittedly is First Nation is saying, no, we don't consent to the transfer of that. We want to look at it. We want to study it. We want to see whether it should be transferred to us. And these are all things that have been set in motion by British Columbia's embrace of the principles of the UN Declaration. Oh, boy. Okay. More complications. I also wanted to ask this morning about the Massey Tunnel update. It's a done deal. Oh, really? You're sitting there, you're sitting there waiting to get through the tunnel this morning. The Transportation Minister, Mike Farmer says, you're wondering where this replacement is. We've been talking about it for years. It's a done deal. Says Mike Farmer. It's done. Okay. Is it point of no return? Is it point of no return? What? That's what he says channeling Christy Clark on site C. And Christy Clark turned out to be right, right? She said, we're going to get site C project past the point of no return. And

11:41she did before she lost power in 2017, because there it is. The new Democrats built it. And Farmer is saying the same thing. So he says what's already been spent, you know, they rebuilt the intersection at the North end, the Stephenson interchange and everyone's using that. And it's aligned with the coming twin tunnel that we're going to get. And prep work has already started south of the river. And Farmer says there are 200 people already working on the project. Money's already been spent. More money is being spent. And he says it's past the point of no return. Now I'm compelled to point out there are a couple of problems with that claim. The first is we don't have a budget because the number we were given, Simmy, is five years old and pre-COVID. So how good is that number? And we don't have a firm completion date either. It's supposed to be a replacement open in 2030, but they're revisiting that as well. And the environmental review isn't complete.

12:47And there are some major outstanding issues with that. You're talking about dumping, a giant concrete tunnel into a trench that you're going to dig on the basis of the Fraser River, which is a major fish habitat among other things. And there are all kinds of issues on that, which haven't been settled yet either. But whatever, Mike Farmer says, not past the point of return. So relax. Before you know it, you'll be driving through the new tunnel around about 2030 or who knows, maybe 2031, something like that. Oh, sure. That's, yeah, yeah, we won't worry about it until then. Thank you for that, Vaughn. I feel like I should have put a trigger warning on that thing, but it's like sitting there this morning. Yeah, exactly. Thank you, Vaughn.

13:50We're in game now, boys. TV is hot at show. It's off. Be safe. Keeps getting hotter. Will you help? Happy to. Fire country, only Fridays and 90s turn on global. Stream on Stack TV.