The must-vote for political party and candidates in the 2018 civic election: OneCity Vancouver’s Jennifer Reddy, Erica Jaaf, Brandon Yan, Carrie Bercic and Christine Boyle
In this, the summer of our political discontent, no Vancouver civic party (save, perhaps, COPE - the Coalition of Vancouver Electors) has been left unscathed by party in-fighting and the ruinous politics of personal destruction — and none moreso than OneCity Vancouver, and their VDLC-endorsed candidate for City Council, Brandon Yan, who while fighting for a “kinder, more just, and more equitable Vancouver” has consistently been made the target of an ongoing untoward, unconscionable and entirely despicable wholesale attack on his character, his heart-filled candidacy, and the edifying and entirely necessary tenets of his party’s platform — where the provision of truly affordable housing stands at the centre of its civic election program — which OneCity Vancouver has assiduously championed on the party’s indispensable Twitter feed throughout these summer months.
In July, given the political climate of our times, Mr. Yan made the entirely necessary decision to delete his old tweets from his Twitter feed, which as The Straight’s Travis Lupick wrote in a column published July 24th “he would have been stupid not to, (given that) an embarrassing old message posted on Twitter or Facebook can torpedo a politician’s entire career.”
Bad enough that holier-than-thou ProVancouver council candidate, and recent NPA member, Raza Mirza, wrote in a tweet published on July 23rd …
“How can people trust you, @CitizenYan, to bring transparency to decisions making at #Vancouver city hall, when you started by hiding all your Twitter history?” wrote Mirza, a Vancouver resident active with the advocacy group Housing Action for Local Taxpayers (HALT).”
What was worse was when failed OneCity Vancouver Council candidate Ben Bolliger jumped on the “take Brandon Yan down” bandwagon, hardly showing loyalty to the party for which he unsuccessfully sought a Council nomination, and the candidate he was to support this election season.
And the hits on Brandon Yan just kept on comin’, right through until last evening when VanRamblings’ longtime friend and former Park Board Commissioner Bill McCreery attacked Mr. Yan for a candidacy that Mr. McCreery wrote he believes is designed to “promote class and racial warfare”, all of this in response to an August 26th Jen St. Denis article in the StarMetro when, as Ms. Denis writes …
Brandon Yan is running for council with OneCity, and he doesn’t agree with (ProVancouver mayoralty candidate David) Chen’s position that the right course of action is to have a dialogue with those on the far right.
As an example, Yan referred to a rally in Vancouver in April where a group opposed to B.C.’s new sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum protested alongside the Soldiers of Odin. The Soldiers of Odin is a street-patrol anti-immigration group whose founder was convicted of racially-aggravated assault in Finland. The group denies ongoing accusations of racism and white nationalism.
“I don’t want to see my elected officials sit down with them,” Yan said. “Dialogue is good, but it can look like they’re trying to placate them and letting them present their ideas.”
Brandon Yan stands for openness, humanity and social justice, and stands against hate and oppression, and he finds himself under attack?
Here’s what VanRamblings knows: Brandon Yan is a bright, articulate and socially conscious person of conscience, an activist, involved citizen who …
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Served on the City of Vancouver’s City Planning Commission from 2014 to 2016 — which means he knows about the development process at City Hall backwards, forwards and inside out, knows all the players, and is intimately familiar with development policy, all that has come before and all that is on the order paper under the current regime at City Hall;
- Completed his Masters in Urban Studies at Simon Fraser University, researching civic education and public engagement practices, and is …
- Currently employed as the Education Director for Out On Screen, which on top of all of his other qualifications also means that Brandon Yan is committed to promotion of the arts in our city.
Qualified candidate for Vancouver City Council, thy name is Brandon Yan.
