It’s just wrong to bulldoze gardens before the harvest

Though the Arbutus corridor has belonged to Canadian Pacific Railway since 1881, residents have used the land for gardens since the Second World War with little interference from CPR—until late August, when they tore down the community gardens—right before summer harvest, too, a cruel bully’s tactic [“Vancouver seeks permanent injunction to stop CP Rail from reactivating Arbutus corridor”, web-only]. This isn’t a typical land-ownership dispute as both CPR and the city have a say in how the land is used.

CPR ignores that 350 of the gardens were officially registered with the city as the area had been rezoned as green space. After nearly 20 years of trying to sell the land to the City of Vancouver there seems to be no end to the negotiations between CPR and the city.

So who gets hurt in this stalemate? We do: residents who live along the corridor do; Vancouverites who are again robbed of communal green space in a city that’s known for prostituting its body to foreign investors do. In a conflict between big corporation and city hall, we’re the victims; it’s people who suffer the loss. So until negotiations are finalized, people should be able to keep using the land that they obviously care very much for.

> Mimi Yu / Vancouver

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