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All posts by Raymond Tomlin
Vancouver Votes 2018 | Patrick Condon | The Man With a Plan
UBC’s Patrick Condon — The Unlikely Revolutionary
Patrick Condon, the tousle-haired 2018 revolutionary candidate for Mayor of Vancouver
In today’s VanRamblings post, we set about to introduce you to University of British Columbia professor in Urban Design and Landscape Architecture — okay, okay, let’s call him what he is: a City Planner, and a damn fine city planner at that, and a professor at UBC who has taught more than 80% of city planners currently employed across the Metro Vancouver region and who has played a key behind the scenes role in developing whatever livable aspects of life on the Lower Mainland that exists across our region today.
In today’s VanRamblings we refer to Mr. Condon — we’re going to call him “Patrick” from here on in, because that’s the way he’d want it, and that’s the way you should see him, as a friend, as a neighbour, and as one of us struggling to make ours a more livable city for all — as the Man With a Plan, and in the body of today’s post, as The Unlikely Revolutionary.
Why?
The answer is a simple one: never before in our city’s 132-year history have we had an accomplished city builder with a lifetime of experience in designing livable cities for all offer himself up as a candidate for Vancouver Mayor — that, at least in part, addresses the Man With a Plan headline.
Mr. Condon well elucidates his affordable housing and livable city plan in some great detail in the interview available at the top of today’s column.
You’ll want to listen closely to today’s interview with the affable, gregarious, and utterly charming and respectful of you and me, Mr. Condon — and if you don’t come away saying to yourself, “Patrick Condon is the guy I want to see as Vancouver’s next Mayor,” VanRamblings will be very surprised.
2018 Vancouver Mayoral aspirants Shauna Sylvester, Ian Campbell & Kennedy Stewart
All of which is to say that, as well, we continue to harbour immense respect for independent Mayoral candidate, Shauna Sylvester — Vancouver is long overdue for a woman Mayor — and that we kinda think the sun sorta rises & sets on Squamish Nation hereditary Chief Ian Campbell, one of the ‘great men’ we have met in our lifetime, accomplished and incredibly bright, and a man of integrity, wit and compassion — and a humble man of substance who means much good for our city; or, Kennedy Stewart — who’s worked as a federal NDP Member of Parliament for Burnaby-Douglas / Burnaby South since 2011, a Wolfville, Nova Scotia Maritime boy born and bred (Canadians don’t come any finer than those folks who’ve lived in the Maritimes), and an accomplished Parliamentarian with a democratic history of governance — and, the only candidate in the progressive coalition race with a successful electoral history, and first-hand experience in governance.
Patrick Condon’s entry into the Vancouver Mayoral race, though, has set the bar high for all the other 2018 Mayoral aspirants — there’s no bafflegab and no spin in the Patrick Condon zone, and when you’re a Mayoral candidate of vision and accomplished city building competence, how can you not have set the standard for what the electorate might expect in their next Mayor?
Still, we have referred to Patrick Condon as the unlikely revolutionary, and as such, we oughta explain ourselves — although Patrick does a pretty fine job of doing that all on his own, as you’ll hear in the interview above.
As Patrick told Straight editor Charlie Smith in a June 10th interview …
“With the support of the federal and provincial governments, the city should build sufficient public housing on land made permanently public like they do in many European countries,” he declared. “Vienna is a model for what Vancouver could do. If we fail, this city will soon become nothing more than a parking place for cash and a pretty place to visit.”
So, what makes Patrick Condon’s Mayoral candidacy revolutionary?
1. A movement to 50% non-market housing: Patrick Condon says his goal is to increase the percentage of non-market housing in Vancouver, from 15% to 50% — as you’ll hear in the interview, a mix of co-op, co-housing and rental, with a social housing component for those requiring supports. Patrick explains how he’d go about that: building on city land — as he avers, there is currently $2.7 billion in Vancouver’s much-lauded Property Endowment Fund, and both the federal and provincial governments own hundreds of acres of Crown land in our city — Patrick Condon proposes to build non-market housing on those lands, on a leasehold basis, similar to what we see along south False Creek, as he explains today, in VanRamblings’ interview with the good Mr. Condon;
2. Neighbourhood consultation. With Patrick Condon as Mayor, you’d see him in your neighbourhood often, consulting with and listening to you, working together to build the city we need;
3. Negotiation of a fair collective agreement with City workers. And a collective agreement that would continue to set the standard for municipal collective agreements across British Columbia. A Patrick Condon candidacy would not come at the expense of city workers, nor any other worker employed by the city of Vancouver;
4. A radical re-think of Vancouver’s property tax system. A Patrick Condon Mayoralty, following an application to the province to make the required changes to the Vancouver Charter, would see a shift away from the current property tax system, such that first-time owners would pay much less, while properties assessed at $5 million or more would pay more, as would the multi-national corporate head offices located in Vancouver, with cuts to the small business tax — similar to the plan retired Vancouver City Councillor Tim Louis put in place when he was Finance Chair on Vancouver City Council, from 2002 – 2005.
There’s a great deal more that Patrick Condon has on mind that you’ll want to attend to when you listen for all of the detailed explanation in his unassailable plan, fiscal and otherwise, for creating a fairer, more just, and more inclusive city for all, a legacy for Patrick, and as he says a capstone for his career — and for all of us, the realization of the city we need.
VanRamblings to Take a Summer Break | Sporadic Posting
Kitsilano Beach sunset in Vancouver, on the early evening of Monday, July 2nd 2018
As we had indicated earlier, for the next seven weeks VanRamblings will reduce posting, through until Monday, August 20th.
Families are on vacation & voters’ attention is focused elsewhere than on who will comprise our next City Council, School Board and Park Board.
Even so, this upcoming Thursday, VanRamblings will publish the interview we did with UBC’s Patrick Condon, who is currently seeking the Coalition of Progressive Electors’ Mayoral nomination — this is the most provocative, gut-punching, wide-ranging interview with a person of character, integrity, passion and commitment that VanRamblings has conducted in 30 years!
Be sure to return here this Thursday to hear what democrat Mr. Condon has to say about where Vancouver would be headed were he to become our next Mayor, working with Council and working with folks in the 23 neighbourhoods across Vancouver to create a fairer and more just city.
Still and all, we were impressed during our interview with independent Mayoral aspirant Shauna Sylvester, published last week on VanRamblings, and going forward each Thursday in July we would hope to publish interviews with the remaining Mayoral aspirants, independent Kennedy Stewart (who, in fairness to readers, we would have to say has been our favourite mayoral aspirant to date), Vision Vancouver’s Ian Campbell — for whom we harbour much respect, and would feel just fine were he to become Vancouver’s next Mayor — and Vancouver Non-Partisan Association Mayoral candidate Ken Sim, who is currently odds-on favourite to become Vancouver’s next Mayor, and as such is very much deserving of our respect.
With the exception of the Vision Vancouver nomination meeting scheduled for this upcoming Sunday, July 8th, the Coalition of Progressive Electors’ Mayoral nomination decision set for Sunday, August 19th, and the announcement of the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association candidates for office, and who will comprise their 2018 team for City Council, School Board and Park Board candidates — the announcement likely to be made in the next couple of weeks — BBQ’s, picnics and informal gatherings of candidates for office aside, politicking in the summer months will be at a near standstill over the coming weeks, as should reasonably be the case.
Although VanRamblings’ postings will be haphazard through much of July and August, our intention is to post twice weekly on Vancouver Votes 2018 — each Thursday, for certain, interviews with Vancouver Mayoral aspirants — and through July 28th to post to Stories of a Life each Saturday in July.
As August is VanRamblings’ birthday month, the first 19 days of August posting will consist mainly of re-posts, August 1st through 10th Stories of a Life re-posts, August 12th through 19th, re-posts of relevant Vancouver Votes 2018 columns — although somewhere in there, it’s likely we’ll manage to sneak in three or four Vancouver Votes 2018 August columns.
We have also made a commitment to ourselves to work on a book project this summer, arising from a commitment we made to ourselves during our cancer journey, August 2016 through March 2017, a commitment that we have not kept thus far, but will seek to keep this summer, a writing project that we imagine will consume much of our spare time in July and August.
VanRamblings’ intention is to resume daily posting on VanRamblings on Monday, August 20th, through until election day exactly two month later. From September 6th through 27th, we’ll also post a great many columns on the upcoming 37th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, for VanRamblings the première arts & cinematic event of the calendar year.
Don’t forget, c’mon back here on Thursday for the absolutely fascinating and inspiring interview with Patrick Condon, and check in with us on succeeding Thursdays throughout July. We post to our Twitter account when we publish on VanRamblings, and seem to have a penchant for posting to our Facebook account with alarming frequency — so, feel free to follow either or both of our social media accounts if you’re of a mind to do so.
The Future is Female | World Wide | The Revolution is Upon Us
Winner of the 2018 Prism Prize for best Canadian music video, for R&B artist Charlotte Day Wilson and director Fantavious Fritz, during their acceptance speech the winning duo announced their prize money would be given to two important causes they champion: for Wilson, a women’s shelter in her neighbourhood, for Fritz the creation of a “one-time grant” to be awarded to a nascent woman director to make a music video.
Toronto-based R & B singer Charlotte Day Wilson, and director Fantavious Fritz, were awarded the 2018 Prism Prize for best Canadian music video, for their video, "Work"
Day Wilson told CBC Music following the gala presentation …
“I knew I wanted to donate my portion because the video didn’t cost me any money to make, and I didn’t want to profit off people who had volunteered their time to be featured in this gorgeous, moving video. Every day, I walk past a women’s shelter on my way to work, and when the two of us won the Prism award, I thought, ‘Who really needs the money, who could I help, where could my portion of the $15,000 prize money best be spent, make the most difference?’ The answer to that question for me, as a feminist and an artist, was easy, and that’s why I donated my $7500 to the women’s shelter, to make a difference.”
In fact, we are in the midst of a women’s revolution that began with the worldwide suffragette movement and women’s involvement in the union movement of the 1920s through WWII — when women worked in the factories that kept western economies alive, and made the difference in the fight to preserve western democracy, through until the 1960s and 1970s with the works of Germaine Greer, Bette Friedan, Kate Millett, Diana E. H. Russell, Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Laurence, Andrea Dworkin, June Callwood, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Doris Lessing and Gloria Steinem, and in more recent years Susan Faludi, Joy Kogawa, Marilyn Fry, Inga Muscio, Charlotte Bunch, Eden Robinson, Judy Rebick, Sheila Rowbotham & Naomi Klein, among many, many other feminist writers of consequence.
In 2018 in Vancouver, voters will be given a choice — and a must-elect contingent of women political candidates to vote for — women of conscience and accomplishment, social justice warriors and difference makers from across the political spectrum, from the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association’s tremendous Sarah Kirby-Yung; the always hard-working woman of the people, Melissa De Genova (we’re not sure where she’s gonna land); independent and hero, Sarah Blyth; the Green Party of Vancouver’s democrat par excellence, Adriane Carr; Vision Vancouver’s women of conscience City Council candidates, Heather Deal, Catherine Evans and Margot Sangster; the Coalition of Progressive Electors’ near-revolutionary must-elects Anne Roberts & Jean Swanson; to 2018’s must-must-elect OneCity Vancouver Council candidate Christine Boyle — and that’s only at City Council, for this feminist contingent of must-votes in the critically important to our collective future 2018 Vancouver civic election.