All posts by Raymond Tomlin

About Raymond Tomlin

Raymond Tomlin is a veteran journalist and educator who has written frequently on the political realm — municipal, provincial and federal — as well as on cinema, mainstream popular culture, the arts, and technology. View all posts by Raymond Tomlin →

Vancouver Canadians Baseball | Order Your Tickets Now!

May 6, 2018VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Vancouver Canadians Baseball | Time to Order Your Tickets for the Season!

Although, we’re only midway through the spring, at the very moment you’re reading this, every local baseball lover’s attention is laser-focused on the ‘boys of summer’, and most particularly that this coming week is the time to order your tickets for the Vancouver Canadians baseball season!
As every Vancouver Canadians fan knows, during the season every single Canadians evening home game sells out, with single tickets harder to come by than hen’s teeth. Unless, you’re committed to acquiring a 10-or-15 game Nat Pack — allowing you to choose the date of the game(s) you want to attend, and your preference as to section, row and seat — or a 38-game home stand Season Ticket order — ranging from $495 to $725, a pittance when compared to a Vancouver Canucks Season Pass, that starts at $1500 for nosebleed seats, and proceeds from there into the stratosphere, and another galaxy — you’re either going to have to bite the bullet, or find yourself just plain ol’ out of luck if you have any designs whatsoever on attending a baseball game at Nat Bailey Stadium this upcoming summer.

Why on this sunny Sunday — a day of rest, isn’t it supposed to be? — is there pressure on you, and Vancouver Canadians season ticket or Nat Pack holders? Take a look at the Nat Pack graphic directly below …

Tomorrow, Monday, May 7th is the day you can commence the critical process of ordering specific tickets, on specific days, in a specific section, in a specific row and the specific seats of your choosing.
At 9am Monday morning, the box office phones lines at Nat Bailey Stadium will be ringing off the wall, with hundreds of Vancouver Canadians fans ordering their tickets for the entire season. Have a favourite section, row and seat (we do!), either you get on the blower Monday morning, or line up at the Canadians’ box office, or you can kiss your chances of securing tickets for you favourite section, row and seat(s) good-bye, sayonara, been nice knowin’ ya … cuz ya just ain’t-a-gonna get the seats you want.
Boo hoo, so sad … it is to weep.
Okay, okay — we exaggerate just a little, but not much. Wouldn’t want to cause undue alarm to the nicest guy in baseball — that’d be the phenomenally social-skilled-and-organized Vancouver Canadians Ass’t GM Allan Bailey, who oversees the box office (and myriad other tasks), and for a great long while now has been widely acknowledged as the heart and soul of Vancouver Canadians baseball, in our town. We’re sure Allan would tell you not to get your knickers in a twist (he wouldn’t use such decorous language, though) — there’ll be tickets for ya and seats you want, probably throughout the week, and maybe, just maybe you can pick up a single ticket or two during the upcoming Vancouver Canadians baseball season.

Now we get down to brass tacks — the 2018 Vancouver Canadians baseball season promotional schedule!
Fireworks! There are spectacular fireworks to gladden the hearts of children and adults alike included in the price of your tickets, the best fireworks you’ll see anywhere. This upcoming season, you can see fireworks at the end of the Vancouver Canadians opening night game on Wednesday, June 20th (the first 2500 fans to arrive get a magnetic schedule to stick on the fridge!) — and there’ll be more fireworks nights after that: a fireworks extravaganza on Saturday, June 30th, a pre-celebration of Canada Day — and again on Saturdays July 7th, 21st and 28th. After that you’ll have to wait til Saturday, August 18th for the second-to-last fireworks night of the season, which honour goes to an end-of-season fireworks extravaganza on Saturday, August 25th, when the sun will set at 8pm, the night air chill.

Where’s the poetry in today’s post, you ask, as there is always poetry when one writes about baseball, isn’t there? Yes, there is.
We just take it for granted that you’re a Vancouver Canadians baseball fan, that you can see the poetry in the videos above, and that you have come to appreciate the changing weather of the summer baseball season, sitting out in the open stands to feel the warmth and cool of the season, from the often sweltering opening June 20th day, through to the “it’s getting darker earlier, I better bring along a jacket with me, summer’s ending and I can feel the chill in the night air as the sun sets earlier than it did two months ago,” the verdant green of the grass of the field darkening as the night sky darkens into purple, the 5th-inning sushi race, the 6th-inning chicken dance, and mid-7th inning when the entire crowd stands, singing a rendition of Take Me Out to the Ballgame that is nothing short of goosebump-inducing, a warmth and solidarity in the crowd that if politicians were able to bottle it, all of us would be in a much better place socially, environmentally and politically, on our way to baseball nirvana on Earth.
VanRamblings is looking forward to seeing you at a Vancouver Canadians baseball game or two or three or four this summer. We know that our friend, Bill Tieleman, will be standing by his phone first thing Monday morning to purchase Canadians’ tickets for his family for this upcoming season, as we know is the case with Mel Lehan and every progressive person of conscience in our town, who loves baseball for the camaraderie, the warmth of spirit of the crowd, the conversations with those sitting near to you, and the palpable sense of hope that emerges over the course of a game, a hope that promises more, better, kinship, peace & understanding.

Stories of a Life | The Inaugural Edition | 1974 European Vacation

May 5, 2018Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

In the summer of 1974, Cathy and I traveled to Europe for a three-month European summer vacation, BritRail and Eurail passes in hand, this was going to be a summer vacation to keep in our memory for always.
And so it proved to be …
On another day, in another post evoking memories of our cross-continental European sabbatical, I’ll relate more stories of what occurred that summer.
In this inaugural edition of Stories of a Life, I will set about to relate the following story, one of the most salutary and heartening events of my life.

Only 10 days prior to the event I am about to relate, Cathy and I had arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, alighting from a cruise liner we’d boarded in Southampton, England (passage was only 5£s, much cheaper than now).
After a couple of wonderful days in Lisbon, Cathy and I embarked on the first part of our hitchhiking sojourn throughout every portion of Portugal we could get to, finally traveling along the Algarve before arriving in the south of the country, ready to board a train to Spain. Unfortunately, I developed some intestinal disorder or other, requiring rest and fluids. Once Cathy could see that I was going to be fine, she left the confines of our little pensão to allow me to recover in peace, returning with stories of her having spent a wonderful day at the beach with an enthusiastic retinue of young Portuguese men, who had paid attention to and flirted with her throughout the day. Cathy was in paradisiacal heaven; me, not so much.
Still, I was feeling better, almost recovered from my intestinal malady, and the two of us made a decision to be on our way the next morning.

To say that I was in a bad mood when I got onto the train is to understate the matter. On the way to the station, who should we run into but the very group of amorous men Cathy had spent the previous day with, all of whom were beside themselves that this braless blonde goddess of a woman was leaving their country, as they beseeched her to “Stay, please stay.” Alas, no luck for them; this was my wife, and we were going to be on our way.
Still suffering from the vestiges of both an irritable case of jealousy and a now worsening intestinal disorder, I was in a foul mood once we got onto the train, and as we pulled away from the station, my very loud and ill-tempered mood related in English, those sitting around us thinking that I must be some homem louco, and not wishing in any manner to engage.
A few minutes into my decorous rant, a young woman walked up to me, and asked in the boldest terms possible …
“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
“Huh,” I asked?
“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? That’s the filthiest mouth I’ve ever heard. You’ve got to teach me how to swear!”
At which point, she sat down across from me, her lithe African American dancer companion moving past me to sit next to her. “Susan. My name is Susan. This is my friend, Danelle,” she said, pointing in the direction of Danelle. “We’re from New York. We go to school there. Columbia. I’m in English Lit. Danelle’s taking dance — not hard to tell, huh? You two traveling through Europe, are you?” Susan all but shouted. “I come from a large Jewish family. You? We’re traveling through Europe together.”
And thus began a beautiful friendship. Turns out that Susan could swear much better than I could; she needed no instruction from me. Turns out, too, that she had my number, and for all the weeks we traveled together through Europe, Susan had not one kind word for me — she set about to make my life hell, and I loved every minute of it. Susan became the sister I wished I’d had, profane, self-confident, phenomenally bright and opinionated, her acute dissection of me done lovingly and with care, to this day one of the best and most loving relationships I’ve ever had.
Little known fact about me: I love being called out by bright, emotionally healthy, socially-skilled and whole women.

The summer of 1974, when Cathy became pregnant with Jude, on the right above

Without the women in my life, Cathy or Megan, my daughter — when Cathy and I separated — Lori, Justine, Alison, Patricia, Julienne or Melissa, each of whom loved me, love me still, and made me a better person, the best parts of me directly attributable to these lovely women, to whom I am so grateful for caring enough about me to make me a better person.
Now onto the raison d’être of this first installment of Stories of a Life.
Once Susan and I had settled down — there was an immediate connection between Susan and I, which Cathy took as the beginnings of an affair the two of us would have (as if I would sleep with my sister — Danelle, on the other hand, well … perhaps a story for another day, but nothing really happened, other than the two of us becoming close, different from Susan).

J. D. Salinger's Nine Stories, an anthology of short stories published in April 1953

Danelle saw a ragged copy of J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories peeking out of Cathy’s backpack. “Okay,” she said. “In rounds, let’s each one of us give the title of one of the Salinger short stories,” which we proceeded to do. Cathy was just now reading Salinger, while I’d read the book while we were still in England, about three weeks earlier.
Cathy started first, For Esmé — with Love and Squalor. Danelle, Teddy. Susan, showing off, came up with A Perfect Day for Bananafish, telling us all, “That story was first published in the January 31, 1948 edition of The New Yorker.” Show off! I was up next, and came up with Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut. Phew — just barely came up with that one! Thank goodness.
Onto the second round: Cathy, Down at the Dinghy; Danelle, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes; Susan, showing off again, De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period, “turned down by The New Yorker in late 1951, and published by the British Information World Review, early in 1952.” Me? Struggling yet again, but subject to a momentary epiphany, I blurted out, Just Before the War with the Eskimos. There we were, eight stories down and one to go.
But do you think any one of us could come up with the title to the 9th tale in Salinger’s 1953 anthology of short stories? Nope. We thought about it, and thought about it — and nothing, nada, zero, zilch. We racked our brains, and we simply couldn’t come up with the title of the 9th short story.
We sat there, hushed. For the first time in about half an hour, there was silence between us, only the voices of children on the train, and the clickety-clack of the tracks as the train relentlessly headed towards Madrid.
We couldn’t look at one another. We were, as a group, downcast, looking up occasionally at the passing scenery, only furtively glancing at one another, only periodically and with reservation, as Cathy held onto my arm, putting hers in mine, Danelle looking up, she too wishing for human contact.
Finally, Susan looked up at me, looked directly at me, her eyes steely and hard yet … how do I say it? … full of love and confidence in me, that I somehow would be the one to rescue us from the irresolvable dilemma in which we found ourselves. Beseechingly, Susan’s stare did not abate …
“The Laughing Man,” I said, “The Laughing Man! The 9th story in Salinger’s anthology is …” and before I could say the words, I was smothered in kisses, Cathy to my left, Susan having placed herself in my lap, kissing my cheeks, my lips, my forehead, and when she found herself unable to catch her breath, Danelle carrying on where Susan had left off, more tender than Susan, loving and appreciative, Cathy now holding me tight, love all around us. A moment that will live in me always, a gift of the landscape of my life, and the first such Story of a Life that you’ll read from here on in, should you choose — each and every Saturday for a very long time to come.

DOXA Documentary Film Festival | A Window on Our World

May 4, 2018Cinema, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

The 17th annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival kicked off Thursday evening with a raucous and jam-packed sold-out screening of filmmaker Teresa Alfeld’s indispensable chronicle of Vancouver’s most beloved City Councillor ever, the lauded première of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical.
The second DOXA 2018 screening of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical, scheduled for this upcoming Tuesday — sad to report — is also sold-out.
Fortunately, for those who were not able to secure a ticket to Alfeld’s wildly popular DOXA 2018 opening nignt film, the Vancouver International Film Festival’s Vancity Theatre programmer, Tom Charity, has booked two additional screenings of the film, in early June, with tickets available here.
Of course, every cinéaste in town, every person of conscience who knows how critically important it is to support the arts in Vancouver, and to remind ourselves in the most compelling way possible — through film and the window on our world independently-made cinema presents to us — knows how important it is to turn up for the DOXA Documentary Film Festival. All of which means, that if you haven’t booked your tickets, Festival Pass, ticket pack or Industry pass, you’ll want to do so now by clicking right here!

The first question VanRamblings is asked by any filmgoer planning to attend one or another of our town’s many film festivals is: what do you recommend, what’s worth seeing, where do I start?
Well, Shawn Conner — long one of our town’s most-respected arts critics — in an article written for and published on Inside Vancouver, has found five DOXA films that you just shouldn’t miss. Otherwise, DOXA 2018’s incomparable Programme Director, Selina Hammond — one of our town’s very best people, an activist (and lover of cinema) of the first order presents a few stirling ideas for you, as to where you might turn your attention between now, and DOXA 2018’s end date, Sunday, May 13th.

“At DOXA, we pride ourselves on programming independent documentaries and unique voices.

In 2018, I would like to highlight for your readers our FRENCH FRENCH programme, another spectacular programme this year, curated for the fourth consecutive year by Thierry Gorel. This year, DOXA’s Spotlight French Programme is dedicated to the work of Alain Cavalier.

Cavalier, was awarded the Maître du Réel (Master of the Réel) at the Visions du Réel Film Festival last year, as a renowned member of the Nouvelle Vague. At DOXA 2018, we’re presenting six Cavalier shorts, 13-minute beautifully observed mini vignettes of the most elegant and intimate kind, focusing on women and trades, which are paired with his latest film — which, by the way, is a North American première — Six Portraits XL, created from material Cavalier filmed of six different friends over the course of many years.

There are also several new French documentaries by women directors that are amazing. Secret Nest is one of my favourites, The Neighbours is also quite lovely, and very much worth catching. We are fortunate this year to have the directors of both films at DOXA 2018, Sophie Bredier and Ruth Zylberman, respectively, will who will present the screenings of their films, and afterwards engage in a Q&A with the audience.

For many years, Ms. Crammond — who as we’ve written above — loves film, and in consequence has worked with the good folks who bring us the Vancouver International Film Festival each autumn, where a much-looked-forward-to highlight of VIFF’s programme are the “shorts” lovingly curated by Sandy Gow. Such, musta rubbed off on Selina Crammond, cuz …

“As is the case every year, if folks are looking to gain an inside track on filmmakers on the verge of worldwide feature film recognition, DOXA’s shorts programme just can’t be beat, each year and again this year challenging the viewer with groupings of the most humane and provocative films you’ll find inside of a darkened movie theatre.

Shifting Worlds includes some beautiful work, as does Framing Landscapes, and the Rethinking Representation shorts programme.

In Vancouver, we don’t really have a proper venue for filmmakers working in different lengths. The various elements of DOXA’s shorts programme presents an opportunity for the work of great filmmakers to shine, and an opportunity for filmgoers to be blown away, always the best part of attending one of our town’s many film festivals, don’t you think?”

Well more than 100 films, lovingly curated by an activist, democratically-inspired programming group, and the one opportunity that you’ll get this year to attend western Canada’s première non-fiction film festival.
DOXA 2018. Requires your support. Get your tickets now. See ya at DOXA!

Adriane Carr. MAYOR !!! How Many Times Do We Have to Say It?

May 3, 2018BC Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Time for some basic math on the Mayoral nomination 2018 Vancouver civic nomination front. Hey you, fine folks with OneCity Vancouver (the folks we are head-over-heels in love with this election cycle), Alison and Anna, Cara and David and Christine. Hey you, Derrick and Riaz and Maddy and Laura and Wendy (and, you too, Jean) on TeamJean — the hardest-working, best organized, most enthusiastic and focused vanguard of folks we’ve witnessed since, gosh, at least the 1970s.
And, hey you, Connie and Rider, Gary and Carol (and, you too, Justine) on the COPE train to freedom and social justice. Hey you, social justice warriors on the Vision Vancouver team, that’d be you Catherine Evans, Heather Deal & Finance Chair on Vancouver City Council, Raymond Louie. And, hey, you Pete Fry and Jacquie Miller (enjoy your freedom while the enjoying is good, cuz law school at UVIC in the fall — well, it’s gonna keep you busy!), and you, too, Mike Wiebe and Stuart Mackinnon and Janet Fraser and Estrellita Gonzalez, with the Greens — and that includes you, too, Adriane Carr Mayoral aspirant, two-term Vancouver City Councillor, your visage so lovingly captured in the warmly re-assuring photograph published yesterday in the Charlie-Smith-edited Georgia Straight.
Adriane Carr, beloved Vancouver City Councillor, expresses her interest in seeking the Mayor’s chair; her party endorses her at their recent AGM. Around the same time, former Visionista and all-around good person, Shauna Sylvester “soft launches” a campaign to become Vancouver’s next Mayor. Meanwhile, COPE thinks — whoops, first, to correct the record, we’re going to quote COPE candidate for City Council, Anne Roberts …

“Raymond, I’m not particularly worried about inaccuracies in your column last week about Patrick Condon, but I would like to set the record straight, especially when it to the comes to the involvement of others, and hear I am thinking about the reference you made concerning current COPE co-chair Connie Hubbs, that she had not met, nor was she aware of Patrick Condon prior to my raising his name with her as, perhaps, a potential “unity candidate” for Mayor, or maybe running under the COPE banner, or possibly as an independent who COPE could support.

In words of one syllable: that’s wrong.

Here are the true facts of the matter: Some months ago I e-mailed Patrick in a spontaneous moment of inspiration, after having read what I found to be an inspiring piece of journalism, a column that he’d written for The Tyee. In an e-mail I posted to him, I re-introduced myself to Patrick, who I had first met when sitting as a COPE member on City Council, when COPE held power at Vancouver City Hall, from 2002 – 2005.

In my e-mail to Patrick, I asked him if he had ever considered running for office.

Patrick replied that he indeed had been thinking of exactly that.

It turned out that he’d been talking to the Greens for the past year about running with them for a position on Vancouver City Council. I’m not sure whether Patrick is still interested in that (ed. note. Patrick may or may not be. But the Green Party folks VanRamblings has spoken with would be over-the-moon with a Patrick Condon candidacy for Vancouver City Council). In the e-mail that I posted to him, I suggested that if he could see himself running as some kind of “unity” candidate for the Mayor’s Chair, I thought it possible, perhaps even probable, that in addition to the Greens, COPE, OneCity & TeamJean might be open to a Mayoral run by him in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election.

I told Patrick that I would try to arrange some sort of meeting to discuss possibilities.

Given that Patrick was just about to set off on his sabbatical, we had just a day or two to invite interested parties. We ended up with COPE and TeamJean meeting at my house. You guessed it: Connie Hubbs — you know, COPE’s co-chair — was at that meeting, many months ago, where we all had an enlightening conversation about the city needing to take a much stronger stand on the provision of affordable — and social — housing, focusing on transportation policies for the City of Vancouver that would not only prove to be cost-effective but environmentally responsible and neighbourhood-sustaining.

We also talked about a key plank in Jean Swanson’s bid for a seat on City Council during her by-election run last year, the Mansion Tax that is already in effect — as it has been for some while — in Seattle, and various other critical issues of importance to the Vancouver electorate.

I assure you, Raymond, contrary to what you posted on VanRamblings early in your coverage of the current civic election cycle, that much prior to the meeting the group of us had a few months back with Patrick Condon, Connie Hubbs had read a significant body of work that had been written by Patrick over the years, in addition to a surfeit of academic, mainstream press, journal and other articles where he had been interviewed, contributing his thoughts on sustainable city building.

Before Connie — in her capacity as COPE co-chair — talked to the media, she had been in e-mail communication with Patrick on multiple occasions, and had on numerous occasions been a part of live Skype video conversations COPE and TeamJean were having with Patrick while he was on his sabbatical, and distant from Vancouver. Connie was anything but ill-informed. Hope this sets the record straight.

…well (continuing from above), the 50-year-strong Coalition of Progressive Electors — and, apparently, Team Jean — think (as Anne relates), “Hey, a Patrick Condon for Mayor “unity” candidacy for Mayor. Worth exploring.”

Okay, here’s where the math comes in.
Shauna Sylvester tells VanRamblings and anyone in the mainstream media who will listen, that if Adriane Carr decides to launch a bid for the Mayor’s job, she’ll close up shop on her announced, and still yet hardly energetic mayoral bid. Meanwhile, Patrick Condon has said from the outset, “If Adriane Carr decides to run for Mayor, I’ll be supporting her.”
Math time. Three possible progressive candidates for Mayor. Two prepared to withdraw: leaves one progressive candidate for Mayor: Adriane Carr.
Yippee! Hallelujah! What’s that, you say? OneCity Vancouver ain’t playin’ ball with an Adriane for Mayor candidacy. Vision, well heck, although they haven’t weighed in on an Adriane for Mayor candidacy, you can bet that both parties — all set to meet with the good, worker-and-family defending Vancouver & District Labour Council this weekend — well, OneCity and Vision will be on board with an Adriane for Mayor candidacy if that’s what the good folks — such as VDLC President, Stephen von Sychowski, who we interviewed yesterday — get around to cottonin’ onto the notion that, “Hey. Maybe, just maybe, Adriane Carr for Vancouver Mayor, running as a “unity Mayor” under the Green banner that is so important to her, maybe that’s not such a bad thing, after all. In fact, maybe that’s a good thing.”
In the meantime, Ms. Carr — if we might address you directly — we read Carlito Pablo’s interview with you in The Straight yesterday (hey, you two, Adriane and Carlito we’re talking to you, you gotta phone us at home, or on our cell, if you find yourself just plain confused about something that’s been written on VanRamblings that is concerning to you, so we can set about to “make things right”, to lessen any confusion you may be experiencing).
Okay, Adriane. Listen up and listen tight. Here’s what you told Carlito yesterday …

“If it turns out that I don’t get the support, and I end up running for Council, I love what I do at Council, and I think that I play a very key role in pushing ideas that other parties don’t at the council table”

“So either way, my hope is that I would be serving the city of Vancouver and the citizens of Vancouver. That really is my bottom line. Whether it’s as Mayor or as Councillor is going to be determined by a) the citizens themselves in terms of their support, and b) the other parties.”

VanRamblings reads a bit of fatalism in your comments to Carlito, Adriane. Seems to us that you may be thinking, Mayor? Maybe, maybe not.
VanRamblings would suggest to you, our most esteemed Councillor Carr, that it is too early, as you suggest above, to make a decision either way. Wait to see what happens at the VDLC meetings this weekend.

And, oh yeah, some advice from us: read only the good things written about you on VanRamblings — ignore the rest (really, honest, ignore the rest … clearly, the more dispiriting things that are written about you on VanRamblings are the work of a dangerous and deranged mind).
Councillor Carr, your candidacy for Mayor is not over before it’s begun. Puh-leeze (forgive us for being impolite). Even if it appears to you that it’s “over” or even that it may be over — it’s not. VanRamblings talks with everyone — believe us when we write, an Adriane Carr for Vancouver Mayor mayoral bid is far, far, far, far, far, far from over. Honest. Cross our heart & hope not to die anytime soon — been there, done that, it’s no fun.
You’re just getting started, Ms. Carr — wait for folks to rally around you, and they will, and all will be well with the world, all will come together as it is meant to, and you, Patrick Condon and Pete Fry (sorry, Mike), and Christine Boyle and two of Brandon Yan, Ben Bolliger or RJ Aquino, Catherine Evans and one of Raymond Louie or Heather Deal, the spectacularly wonderful and principled Anne Roberts and an as-yet-undecided second COPE / Team Jean candidate will ascend to Vancouver City Hall on the glorious and captivating evening of Saturday, October 20th, when a new and progressive and affordable-housing-supplying, and worker-interest-defending Mayor and Council — working with our incredibly wonderful John Horgan provincial government, and “Hey, you can make a deal with him” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — will transform Vancouver into a new Valhalla, a social justice warrior’s paradise by the sea.

Stephen von Sychowski, President of the Vancouver & District Labour Council

Yesterday afternoon, VanRamblings was afforded the opportunity to speak with a very bright, articulate and supremely socially-skilled President of the Vancouver & District Labour Council, elected to the position in February following the retirement of the equally wonderful, socially-skilled & incredibly well-organized, Joey Hartman — who recently told VanRamblings that, from the outset of her election to the position at the VDLC, she had let everyone know that she would stay for seven years, and not a moment longer. Stephen von Sychowski succeeds Joey — and man, oh man (and woman, of course), we who live in Vancouver are fortunate to have two such strong-minded people on our side, fighting for us each and every day.
VanRamblings came away from our brief conversation with Mr. von Sychowski thinking that, if there is anyone on the planet who might ‘broker a deal’ with the five, disparate — yet uniformly progressive — Vancouver civic parties, it is recently-elected VDLC President, Stephen von Sychowski.
You know how some people are gifted with emotional intelligence, have within them an innate understanding of both the human psyche and the human heart, are that rare breed of human being who are born leaders, inspiring and possessed of a fidelity of spirit and goodness that the moment you feel and see it, a calmness washes over you, a feeling of safety and self-assuredness invests your spirit? Meet Stephen von Sychowski. Wow!
Prior to speaking with Stephen (pronounced Stef-awn), we were a little querulous about the potential for success of this weekend’s upcoming May 6th / 7th ‘broker a deal’ meeting at the VDLC offices. Not any more.
In Stephen’s own words …

“The objective of the Labour Council — continuing with the work in which we’ve engaged these past months with the five progressive parties who will field candidates in the upcoming Vancouver civic election — will be to encourage co-operation between the five groups, or at minimum an accommodation between the progressive forces in this city, around the coming election, to ensure that we don’t have a repeat of the by-election last fall where, despite the vast majority of Vancouver citizens voting for progressive candidates the NPA was elected because of the fact that those majority votes were split fives ways.

Clearly, to progressive voters in Vancouver that’s an unacceptable scenario, and one that is detrimental to their interests. Losing progressive government in Vancouver as a result of the inability of folks to work together is simply not a circumstance that our members — and we feel quite certain, representatives from COPE, Team Jean, OneCity, Vision Vancouver and the Greens cannot and will not allow to occur again.

This weekend, the Vancouver & District Labour Council will engage in a more formal discussion with representatives from the five progressive civic parties, than has been the case to date.

Mediated representatives from the Labour Council will work with the five civic parties, as we hope to achieve — if not this Sunday, then in the coming days — an agreement respecting how many candidates would run in order to minimize vote-splitting.

The citizens of Vancouver deserve a civic government that is on their side, an elected Mayor and majority City Council who will work with the federal and provincial governments to ensure a supply of affordable, member-owned housing co-operatives built on city and Crown land, and who will work to ensure that transit for children under the age of 12 is free, will work with the provincial government to eliminate poverty and wont in our city, will work to ensure that city workers are treated fairly, and that a negotiated collective agreement will set the standard for municipal employee collective agreements across the region, and our province.

For VanRamblings’ complete coverage of #VancouverVotes2018, click on this link. VanRamblings continues to publish civic election coverage Monday thru Thursday and will do so through the end of August, at which point our civic election coverage will transform daily into Vancouver municipal election coverage, through until Election Day October 20th, leaving our Friday VanRamblings to ‘arts coverage’ (tomorrow, with coverage of the DOXA Documentary Film Festival — although you’ll want to read yesterday’s column on the DOXA débuting, Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical, which kicks off our socialist / feminist / activist / COPE-member friend, Selina Crammond’s first-ever Vancouver-based doc festival where she’s the head honcho Programme Director — yippee, Ms. Crammond!), with Saturdays given over to —&#32commencing this weekend — Stories of a Life (we’ve all got ’em), and on Sundays … who knows?