Vancouver British Columbia - Vancouver's mayor is not backing down after the latest broadside from CP in the dispute over the Arbutus corridor lands.
 
"We are not going to be bullied into overpaying for a corridor to a big railway company."
 
Gregor Robertson continues to talk tough, after negotiations with the rail company broke down and a day after CP took out full page ads to claim the city is not being fair.
 
Robertson says the city has made a good offer and it is up to CP to return to the table with a constructive proposal.
 
"The only way to solve it for CP to come back to the table with a constructive proposal that does not insist on development on the corridor, which the city does not support. The Supreme court has supported the city. They have to be reasonable here. We are willing to sit down and look at constructive proposals, look at options for land swaps, but we are not going to overpay for that land."
 
Robertson says it is also the rail company, not the city, playing games.
 
"CP's tactics have all been about bullying and trying to get a lot more money out of this and thinking that somehow the election window is an opportunity for them to play games with this. But I think the people of Vancouver are a lot smarter than that and realize that this is a greenway and a transportation corridor."
 
Robertson says the city is open to a land swap, despite CP's full page ad claiming the contrary.

Shane Woodford.

Editor's Note: For some unfathomable reason the Supreme Court of Canada gave the City of Vancouver the authority to zone private property (CP railway's right-of-way known as the Arbutus Corridor) as a transportation corridor thereby depriving CP of the right to dispose of the land at fair market value. With the corridor now zoned as a transportation corridor what is stopping the city from re-zoning it for development after they acquire it at their low-ball price? Harrison says it's worth $400 million, Robertson says it's worth $20 million. That's a great big suspicious gap. What's it really worth?