Vancouver British Columbia - Though the City of Vancouver tried to stop Canadian Pacific Railway, a B.C. Supreme Court justice has ruled that CP is within its rights to tear out the community gardens dotting the dormant railway tracks along the Arbutus Corridor and move forward with plans to use the tracks to store empty rail cars.
 
Vancouverites across the city are not just scratching their heads, but rolling their eyes at this most recent action by CP.
 
It's a nasty move on the part of the railway.
 
Not even a sound business decision, it's more like something your ex would do in a bad break-up, just to make your life crappier.
 
Except the city and CP have never been romantic or even particularly friendly.
 
The City of Vancouver was born with the arrival of the railway, but the two entities have had a sibling rivalry since the railway was first granted the Arbutus lands in the 1880s.
 
Railways are not philanthropic organizations, let's be clear.
 
They are not triple-bottom-line companies balancing the welfare of the people and the land against their profits.
 
It's not their job to provide us with green space or the small bit of sanity a garden plot can provide.
 
Since before Confederation, railways have been raking in cash, not making us happier.
 
People across the city have expressed frustration.
 
Some have been gardening on this land since the 1980s.
 
Some feel the affront of the theatre in CP Rail's ripping out of the community gardens just before harvest, and right before an election.
 
As the pawns in this vintage game of chess, Vancouverites continue to be played by the railway.
 
We inherited a legacy of poor land use that pre-dates a city plan.
 
It's amazing to think that CP Rail, a company founded to unify our country, now links nothing, not the country, not False Creek to the Fraser River.
 
Now, it threatens to divide our city with a parking lot for freight cars, while the corporation hunkers down maybe to outlast the city council that refuses to buy the land for CP's asking price.
 
Are we mad because they ripped out the community gardens?
 
Sure.
 
More importantly, Canadian Pacific's parking lot just seems spiteful, a grandiose gesture by a mighty entity looking to stick it to a government that limits its influence on our future.
 
CP challenges more than our access to the 50-foot-wide ribbon of green space.
 
This is one more jab at what keeps us sane in a city we find increasingly hard to live in.
 
It's one more way that corporate interests aim to trump what is good for our city and for us.

Trish Kelly.

Editor's Note:  The title of this news article should read more like this:  "Little Gardeners Boots Stepping on Private Property". Where would we all be without respect for private property. The B.C. Supreme Court made the correct and proper decision. Get over it and stop whining.