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 →

Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical | Vancouver’s Cherished Politico

May 2, 2018BC Politics, Cinema, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical | Vancouver's Most Cherished Politico

Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical
Première of Teresa Alfeld’s new documentary film
17th annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival
Thursday, May 3rd, 2018, at 7pm
Venue: The Vancouver Playhouse, 600 Hamilton Street, just off Dunsmuir
SOLD OUT DÉBUT SCREENING
Tickets still available for the Tuesday, May 8th repeat screening

Cantankerous, opinionated, possessed of a pithy and often biting sense of humour — particularly around the Vancouver City Council table, where he sat, but more often stood on his feet, championing the interests of working people and the most vulnerable among us, the nemesis of veteran, ‘right-of-centre’ Vancouver Non-Partisan Association City Councillor George Puil (seeing the two of them go toe-to-toe in Council chambers was to witness transcendence and deliverance on Earth) who, if the whole truth be known, loved Harry Rankin as much as the rest of us (if not more), which is to say almost to distraction, for Harry Rankin was a charismatic figure who every Vancouver citizen loved — absolutely adored — as a great orator and champion of the public interest, whose often boisterous conduct at Council was tempered with a huge dollop of humility, and inveterate good cheer.
Harry, who died at the age of 82, on February 26th 2002 — his passing mourned by everyone who ever knew, or knew of, him — ran for civic office more than a dozen times before being elected to Vancouver City Council in 1966 as the sole independent “alderman”, as elected officials were called back then, sitting as the lone voice and soul champion of working people in Vancouver, on a City Council that was dominated by the corporate-minded, and ultra-conservative Non-Partisan Association.
In 1968, Harry was instrumental in co-founding — along with the Vancouver & District Labour Council — the Committee (now, Coalition) of Progressive Electors (COPE), who this year celebrate 50 years of championing the interests of working people, and the vulnerable among us, a legacy of caring among progressive political parties in Vancouver which has no equal. Teresa Alfeld’s new documentary on the legacy of Harry Rankin, offers a fitting tribute to a champion of the people, a political figure for whom most held great affection, others seeing him as “polarizing.”
In her interview with Ms. Alfeld, veteran PostMedia arts critic Dana Gee writes that “while the film outlines all Harry Rankin’s social causes and policies, the film doesn’t mythologize him to the point of revisionist history. There is no shying away from Rankin’s sexist views, views that had him once call fellow Councillor, a member of the NPA, Helen Boyce, “stupid.”

“As a feminist filmmaker of course I am disappointed, but I am not surprised. We work with it. We don’t shy away, and we don’t pretend things were different because we love Harry and we love his politics,” filmmaker Teresa Alfeld stated to Ms. Gee is the course of her interview.

So, yes, Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical is not hagiography, but as Ms. Alfeld avers …

“I think 2018 is the year to see this film and to understand as citizens we have a choice and a responsibility to get involved and to think about the kind of city that we want to live in.”

Although Thursday’s début screening of Ms. Alfeld’s film is sold out, there is one final DOXA screening of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical on Tuesday, tickets available by clicking the link at the top of today’s post.

Perhaps it is fitting that the final word on the making of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical should be given to the person who played a central role in getting the film made, retired Park Board Commissioner and Vancouver City Councillor Tim Louis, who raised the funds necessary for Teresa Alfeld to spend two years of her life in the making of a film, which — along with the invaluable contribution of Phil Rankin, whose Vancouver law practice is much in the tradition of his celebrated lawyer father, and who along with many others, including the work of Peter Smilksy, who gathered together clippings & memorabilia during Harry’s 1986 candidacy for Mayor, shooting 33 reels of 16mm film, with the intent of making a documentary in 1986 — along with the monetary contributions of good people, made the début of DOXA’s screening of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical possible.
Here, then, is political activist Tim Louis, on his friend Harry Rankin …

“Harry played a key role in my decision to go to law school – intervening on my behalf with the university, and supportive through all my years at UBC Law School, bringing me into his office as an articling law student near the end of my university days, and hiring me following my graduation from law school. Throughout the 20+ years I knew and worked with Harry, up until the time of his passing in 2002, and throughout the early years of his mentorship of me when I worked long hours with Harry in his law office just off Gastown, Harry politicized me — and in consequence, and I say this unabashedly, Harry is responsible for my political career.

In my time on Park Board, in the 1990s, and as a Vancouver City Councillor and Finance Committee Chair on the majority, progressive COPE 2002 – 2005 Vancouver City Council, I adhered to the advice Harry gave me early on in my political career …

“Don’t waffle. Get to the point. See past all the bafflegab.” Harry taught me to always treat the public with respect, because at the end of the day, it is the public, the working people of our city, who are the employers of the elected officials who sit at the Council table, in the Park Board meeting room, or in the large meeting room at the Vancouver School Board.”

Harry Rankin’s Political Legacy

“Harry’s legacy to the citizens of Vancouver remains to this day the acknowldegment that we, as citizens of Vancouver, have an obligation to care for one another, to care for all of our neighbours, every one of us resident in any one of the 23 neighbourhoods that make Vancouver the welcoming and diverse city that is has become.

Harry’s success as a political figure in the history of British Columbia, and Vancouver city governance, was due in no small part to the role he played in championing and giving voice to the interests of working families and children, and the vulnerable among us.”

If you don’t have a ticket for Thursday’s début screening of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical, VanRamblings urges you to attend DOXA’s second and final screening of the film, this upcoming Tuesday, May 8th at 6pm, at SFU Goldcorp Theatre, adjacent to the Woodward’s building downtown.

Engaging in the Life of the City | On Presenting to Council

May 2, 2018BC Politics, Politics, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

With the well-attended protest Tuesday evening by residents of West Point Grey, Dunbar, Kerrisdale and Shaughnessy — demanding of our provincial government that Finance Minister Carole James reverse the imposition of a newly-created school surtax that will see homeowners living in homes assessed at more than $3 million (you know, the wildly sympathetic 1%) paying up to an additional $26,000 per year in property tax, or as Georgia Straight editor, Charlie Smith, writes in an opinion piece published today …

“It’s disingenuously called a school tax, but the money goes into general revenue. The so-called “additional school tax on high-valued properties” imposes a 0.2 percent levy on residential portions assessed between $3 and $4 million, starting in 2019.

That adds up to $2,000 in extra property tax per year.

For the residential portion above $4 million, there will be a 0.4 percent tax rate applied. That adds an additional $4,000 in property tax per $1 million in assessed value. Anyone who owns an $8-million home, for example, would end up paying an extra $18,000 in property taxes to the province.

Last evening’s Trimble Park protest of the wealthy following a day of boisterous and demanding protest at Vancouver City Hall, with protesters demanding of our civic and provincial governments, the immediate commencement of construction of thousands of new, affordable homes to house not just the homeless, the working poor and seniors, but those first responders and wage earners raising their families in Vancouver, a city where the average “affordable” studio apartment rent starts at $1750 (and this, on the east side of the city!), with $2450 a starting point for a one-bedrooms, $2800 to $3450 the range for a two-bedrooms, with more than $4000 each month established as the market rate for a three-bedroom apartment, the imposition by the John Horgan BC NDP of the “school tax” necessary to fund affordable housing, and to help the tens of thousands of children enrolled in British Columbia’s public education system to be lifted out of poverty and wont, where children might attend the school in the neighbourhood, having slept in a home that provides safe haven and security for them, an important provincial government social justice initiative, long overdue and absolutely and utterly necessary.
Protests garner attention, be they organized by the weathy or our society’s disenfranchised, the media eager to provide coverage.
Sometimes — but not often — the protests result in a near immediate change to government policy. Old fogey and democrat that we are, and as many protests as we are wont to attend — and we do, because it is of critical importance that we stand with our neighbours, friends, our sisters and our brothers to demand that citizen voices be heard on a societal issues of concern — VanRamblings believes even more strongly in a thoughtful and empowering engagement with government, in multi-faceted campaigns designed to impact on the decision-making of government.
Through the composition of and posting of pointed, poignant, thoughtful, well-researched and well-argued hand-delivered letters to the offices of our elected officials and government administrators; along with reams and stacks of hand-delivered, signed petitions containing hundreds and thousands of signatures, arguing to our electeds that citizen voices must be heard on issues respecting the livability of our city and province, we can make a difference.
Or, when a specific issue of concern to you and your neighbours has been placed on — as will be explored below, in this instance on — a City Council’s agenda, VanRamblings believes strongly in a thoughtful and empowering engagement with government, a respectful engagement that encourages reasoned and thoughtful input into the final decision-making that will take place around the Council room table, towards making ours a more just city, region and province.

New Westminster, British Columbia, City Council Chambers

Monday evening, an activist friend of VanRamblings presented to New Westminster City Council, having already forwarded to the members of Council an expression of concern regarding issues of ingress and egress from her multi-family dwelling condominium complex respecting a proposed condominium complex that is to be built adjacent to my friend’s existing multi-family building, being presented to Council on Monday evening, with a recommendation for approval by senior staff employed within New Westminster’s Planning and Development Services Department.
In addition to concerns respecting ingress & egress, in her hand-delivered letter to the Mayor and each Councillor, my friend expressed concerns as to privacy respecting the overheight, glass-fronted balcony, bay window facing “wall of clear glass” building that would have her new neighbours looking directly into my friend’s home, and that of her neighbours.
In respect of the proposed condominium complex presented Monday evening to Council for approval, not to put too fine a point on the matter, in its currently-proposed configuration, my friend argued, the new building was utterly unacceptable to her, her husband and her neighbours.
If changes were not made to the configuration of the proposed new condominium, my friend and her neighbours would suffer grievous harm.
The proposed new complex is to be constructed within the well-consulted-upon, neighbourbood-negotiated-and-approved RS2-CD77 zoned neighbourhood, and given that the complex in order for it to be built in its currently proposed configuration would require of Council their approval of several relaxations of the zoning bylaw, relaxations that would confer a much ‘healthier’ economic benefit to the developer bringing the proposal forward, to the detriment of the interests of my friend and her neighbours, my friend would argue, “relaxations” respecting height, density, frontage to the street, and overshadowing would result in a condominium complex that would work a hardship on her and her aggrieved neighbours.
My friend would argue to New Westminster City Council, that Mayor and Council must not approve the development at their Monday evening meeting, that Council must send the plans for the new condominium complex back to the Planning Department, not for further consultation — because no consultation had ever taken place with her, her husband or her neighbours, resident in the building that would be most greatly impacted by the proposed new condominium complex — and if Council were to do such, my friend would argue, it is entirely likely that the commencement of a respectful consultation process with she and her neighbours would result in the development of an in-character to the neighbourhood building, reconfigured to reflect the addressing of the concerns she and her neighbours had raised in their letters and presentations to Council.
Presenting to Council. Daunting that.
In the days prior to presenting to Council, VanRamblings was asked, “Do you have advice for me before I address Council on Monday evening, any pearly words of wisdom that will help make this most difficult situation I face in addressing Council somewhat easier for me, because speaking before members of an elected body is not something that is usual for me, and if I am to tell you the truth, hardly constitutes for me a comforting and welcoming diversion from the protean concerns of my daily life.”

Here is what VanRamblings wrote to my friend, advice that pertains to you should you ever present to Council, which VanRamblings believes you should do often, an aspect of your civic responsibility you should not — and must not — forego, if you are to feel the life of the city deep within you, your participation in civic affairs the lifeblood of our city.

1. Don’t be nervous. Sometimes, it’s okay to be nervous — but you don’t have to be. Focus on the information you’re imparting. When you set about to relay to Council the issues of importance to you, any
nervousness will fade into the background, because your presentation is not about you — it’s about imparting information of value to help the Councillors you’ll meet on Monday evening make the proper, the humane, the necessary and the right decision, for you, for them, and for New Westminster, a decision that will serve not only to represent you and your husband’s interests, but that of your neighbours, as well as all the citizens of New Westminster, and perhaps, most importantly, the interests of the City Councillors who you’ll be addressing Monday night — because you have to know that they want to do the right thing, they really do. Let them know that you believe they want to do the right thing.

2. Introduce yourself, tell them a little about yourself and your husband, humanize yourself for them, let them know where you live — describing your neighbourhood in near-poetic terms. That’ll take 45 seconds of your allotted five minutes, but it’s a good, humanizing and important to do.

3. Stay calm, stay focused, don’t raise your voice, but do speak firmly, clearly and with authority, and with that good ol’ fashioned wit and charm for which you are so well known.

4. Be respectful.

5. Do not refer to the developer — or any good that the development might do (the developer can speak for herself quite well enough).

6. Decide on three (four, at the most) key points you want to make: the exhaust from the cars coming to and from the parkade of the newly-proposed building, exhaust that will filter directly into the apartments in your building, exhaust fumes that will be a hazard and will impinge on the quality of life for the resident owners in your condominium; the overview / privacy concerns; the necessity of sober second thought on the development proposal and the absolute necessity of Council sending it back to Planning for further consultation. DO NOT use the word disingenuous when speaking with the members of Council, do not call out the process — that will be off-putting for them, and for the members of the Planning Department who will be present Monday night — and who, if all works out well for you, you’ll be working with to come up with a new, livable and much more appropriate development for the neighbourhood.

And in closing, I reminded her, “You’ve got five minutes. Stay calm, focused, be of good cheer, but dead serious, be respectful, and be appreciative that Council is affording you an opportunity to speak to them.”

Alas. In the wee hours of yesterday morning, I learned from my friend — a person of salty countenance — that she had “slipped up” … twice.
During my friend’s address to Council, forgetting herself for a moment, she used the word “shitty”. Mayor and Council were aghast, my friend reports, as the electeds she was addressing experienced an onset of the vapours not seen since Gone With the Wind’s Scarlett O’Hara’s feinting (the correct spelling) spells, my friend ever-so-gently chastised by the Mayor.
My friend could live with that. What she couldn’t live with is that midway through her address to Mayor and Council … she cried, her voice still one of authority, but catching, she finding herself perhaps in need of oxygen.
My friend wrote to me …

When they told me I could go on in a second round, I said no. I told them this was hard enough, I would finish then would just go outside and have a good old cry. Then, I stood at the back of the room and was seen wiping a tear from my eye. Then, I left the chamber, came back loaded for bear. Not an insincere act in that performance. I DID cry. That was my response. I just refuse to apologize for it.

I am so sorry for men (and the women who emulate them), who think there is something wrong with crying. I find it one of the most liberating of the physical autonomic responses.

VanRamblings responded as follows …

In my time sitting as a member of Vancouver’s Board of Variance, when each of the 30 appellant individuals or groups Board Chair Terry Martin, and my fellow Board members Quincey Kirschner, Jan Pierce and Bruce Chown on whose presentations of appeal we adjudicated — on issues of critical, life-changing import — not once, in hundreds of appeals, no matter how stoic the presenters, not once did an appellant get through their five-minute presentation without crying, wholly unexpectedly to them, but not for those of us who sat on the Board.

Thirty seconds or a minute in, you could see and feel the presenter’s demeanour change, an utter surprise to them, their voice catching, a look of roiling pain on their face, and then the first tear, and before they even realized it, they were crying, sometimes inconsolably, at times the meeting drawing to a halt, a recess necessary before proceedings could continue. Humanity and life, human existence laid bare in a large committee room with a long polished oak table, five members of the Board of Variance, the male members in suits and ties, resplendent in our freshly laundered and ironed white shirts, the women dressed in casual but elegant business attire, but these were not your regular and expected meetings of an august, quasi-judicial body of civic governance … this was spiritual transcendence writ large on the human tableaux we call life. Crying, you say. Good for you. Serves only to prove that you are human … but you knew that already.

Update: My friend writes to say that New Westminster Mayor and Council rejected the development application as proposed.
And so, today’s column draws to a close.

Later today, VanRamblings will publish our interview with former Vancouver City Councillor Tim Louis, on the Thursday evening première of The Rankin File: Legacy of a Radical — a world début for Teresa Alfred’s warts and all biography of Harry Rankin, one of the most impactful men ever in the governance of our city, a champion always for the working man and woman, the wage labourers whose concerns had so long been ignored by generations of right-of-centre civic government in Vancouver, dominated for generations by the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association.

Mayor Adriane Carr. Vancouver’s next Mayor. Count On It.

April 30, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

On our continuing mission to alienate just about everyone we know, and most particularly those poor, woebegone individuals who have chosen to throw their hat into the ring in the boisterous 2018 Vancouver civic election, today on VanRamblings we take a swipe at the Mayoral candidacy of two-term Green Party of Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr …
… the really quite wonderful, incredibly hard-working, uncommonly and peerlessly-principled, joy-and-heart-filled, elected civic official of conscience, the top vote-getter in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election, the person who most thinking and conscious Vancouverites have either long known, or come to realize, is on their side, always and forever — a Vancouver City Councillor you know you can count on, a person who possesses that rare quality of being a good listener, someone who does not only hear what you’re saying, but processes and contexualizes your words, who values your input, who finds grace in the interactions with her constituents (which is to say, all of us who live in Vancouver), a fine, warm-hearted, incredibly bright human being who has dedicated her life to service on your behalf. No mean feat that, and a feat for which we all should be eternally grateful, and thankful of her invaluable service to us.
And yet, even given all of the above, VanRamblings harbours concerns, and a patina of misgivings about Councillor Carr’s — we think, ego-driven — mayoral ambitions, and certain 2018 candidacy for Mayor of Vancouver.

The most admirable trait any political figure can bring to public life is humility. Across Vancouver City Council, Vancouver Park Board, and Vancouver’s Board of Education, each and every one of our elected officials comes to their job absolutely and utterly devoid of ego. Heck, if each or any one of our elected civic officials had an ego, they’d never be able to put up with the continual attacks on their character, or the supposed “wrongness” of whatever decision they had made on any given day.

No, in Vancouver and much to what should be our undying gratitude, whether it be (l-r) John Coupar, Casey Crawford, Catherine Evans, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Stuart Mackinnon, Erin Shum or Mike Wiebe at Park Board, or …

(left to right, well sorta) … Melissa De Genova, Adriane Carr, Andrea Reimer, Heather Deal, Raymond Louie, with Mayor Gregor Robertson standing in the centre, Tim Stevenson, Kerry Jang, Elizabeth Ball, George Affleck, Hector Bremner — fine, upstanding, on your side Vancouver City Councillors, each and every one of them … or

And, once again left to right, the wonderful Carrie Bercic; along with multi-term trustee Fraser Ballantyne; Vision Vancouver’s Ken Clement; Vancouver’s longest-serving trustee and incredibly great person & staunch social justice warrior, Allan Wong; with brooks no nonsense Chairperson Janet Fraser in the centre, one of the finest Chairpersons of any board, anywhere, anytime, that we have ever witnessed; the appropriately-named, Joy Alexander; the Beedie School’s Dr. Judy Zaichkowski; the heart-filled and hard-working Estrellita Gonzalez; with relatively, recently-elected Lisa Dominato next to her; and, finally, last but certainly not least, principled Student Trustee, Eugene Jeoung — each of whom serve with distinction, as trustees on Vancouver’s distinguished Board of Education …
Each one of the public servants whose names appear above constitute, as elected groups, the finest, civically-minded amalgam of municipally-elected officials Vancouver has ever had the good fortune to have represent them in civic life in our city. Are they “perfect” human beings, are the decisions they take always, and without fail, the “right” ones — no, and each one of them would be the first one to say so, wrestling with and losing sleep over the decisions taken at the Council, Park Board or School Board table as part and parcel of what it means to be an elected official in our too often riven and far, far, far too cynically-minded paradise by the sea.

The Vancouver & District Labour Council Meetings are Imminent
Days from now, the august and most definitely on your side, Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC) will hold a “let’s broker a deal with the progressive forces in Vancouver” series of meetings — with good-hearted, honest and integrity-filled representatives from OneCity Vancouver, the Green Party of Vancouver, the Coalition of Progressive Electors, Vision Vancouver, and Team Jean in attendance — in order that the forces of regression and repression, as represented by Vancouver’s corporate-funded Vancouver Non-Partisan Association, who must be kept from taking a majority position at Vancouver City Council, upon which undesired outcome would rest the unwelcome fate not only of the people of Vancouver, but the some 3500 hard-working City of Vancouver employees, the folks who work within the Engineering Department to repair our roads, or the good people who process your development permit application when you either set about to build your new home or renovate your existing residence, or any of the other invaluable, incredibly hard-working civic staff who contribute daily to your quality of life in British Columbia’s largest metropolitan city.
Ostensibly, too, the upcoming May 6th / 7th VDLC meetings will seek to find agreement among the five progressive parties as to one, agreed-upon “unity candidate” for Mayor of Vancouver, around whom Vancouver’s progressive civic parties, the 46,000 Union employees who reside in Vancouver, and all persons of conscience might rally, so that those of us who have dedicated a good portion of our lives to the realization of a fairer, and more socially just, inclusive and equitable Vancouver might rally in support, in order that this unity candidate might emerge as a voice for us.
In other words, a voice for Vancouver’s future, and a Mayor who would work together with her fellow progressive city councillors in order that Vancouver might continue to be a city of reconciliation, a sanctuary city, a nuclear-free zone, a city welcoming of refugees and immigrants, where an unbridled and dedicated advocacy force for our gender-variant communities would remain of paramount importance on the city’s social justice agenda, and a principled civic government which represents the best that we can be — all the while, of course, laser-focused on what must become a whirlwind of affordable housing construction in our city, housing as a human right.
But, alas, Adriane Carr has chosen a “go it alone” path — last evening posting notice of her Adriane Carr for Mayor candidacy on a newly-created Facebook page, days in advance of the proposed VDLC “broker a deal” meeting, when yesterday, the civic party destined to be the most powerful political force in the coming civic election - which is to say, OneCity Vancouver - went on record to state that their party of greatness will not support Adriane Carr as a mayoralty candidate in the current civic election.

Ms. Carr has, in recent days, told anyone who will listen that if she were to seek the Mayor’s chair — as now would appear to be the case — she would do so as leader of the Green Party of Vancouver, and under no circumstance would she consider putting her name on the ballot for the Mayor’s job as a “unity candidate” for the five progressive parties seeking office in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election.
So much for playing nice with others, so much for being the much-desired-by-the-left “unity candidate”, so much for waiting to hear what has to be said at this week’s upcoming VLDC “broker a deal” meetings.
No sirree, Jill — Adriane Carr is going to go it alone, throw caution and co-operation to the wind, fight it out with the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association, and now that the estimable Ms. Carr has rejected the notion of “unity”, you’ll likely see a Mayoral bid by Vision Vancouver City Councillor Raymond Louie, who is just chomping at the bit to enter the civic race.
Unity — it was nice knowin’ ya, have a good life, maybe by moving to Saskatoon you can find what you’re looking for, because it sure ain’t happenin’ in Vancouver, not now, not anytime soon. Oh woe is all of us.
Why would Adriane Carr — person of principle and character — reject the notion of running as a “unity” Mayoral candidate, when it represents her best chance to achieve the Mayor’s chair the evening of October 20th?
One word: hubris (about which VanRamblings knows more than a little, we are sad to report).
Adriane Carr. Mayor of Vancouver. Name in lights. A ‘go it alone’ gal — who oughta have a helluva time trying to whip her City Councillors into adopting measures she places on the city agenda, whose mayoralty will only succeed in sewing the seeds of dissension and dysfunction, which we all know works just tickety-boo in civic government. And if Adriane Carr is the Mayor with a majority NPA-elected City Council, well, gosh, won’t that be just swell … nothing will ever get done, like the antipathies of the Republican Congress & Senate imported into Vancouver. Great, that’d be great, just great.
Oh, you can just see the headlines in newspapers across Canada, and on the late evening network news programmes: “Adriane Carr, Canada’s first Green Mayor of a major metropolitan city. Hallelujah, and love a duck! Good times are here again.” Or not, as the case may be …
To say that VanRamblings is unthrilled with the prospect of an Adriane Carr as Green Party of Vancouver Mayor is to understate the matter; which is not to say that we do not believe Ms. Carr will succeed Gregor Robertson, to become Vancouver’s next Mayor — that’s likely, and it’s probable that against their best possible judgement OneCity Vancouver, COPE, Team Jean, the Greens (of course), and maybe even Vision Vancouver will only just grudgingly get behind a Carr for Mayor campaign — awaiting the inevitable fireworks that will follow from her ‘far from unified and any notion of unity’ ascendancy to the Mayor’s chair.
One supposes that at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who becomes Vancouver’s next Mayor — most of the progressive parties are focusing on, together, electing a majority (of at least six Councillors) to Vancouver City Council, who would wield the real authority at City Hall.

Now, if you don’t know who the person above is, you haven’t been paying close enough attention to VanRamblings. We’re here to let you know: in the next few months, you will become absolutely smitten with Christine Boyle, who you MUST vote for in the current Vancouver civic election.

And, let’s face it, too, whoever becomes Mayor on October 20th will only be a placeholder Mayor, pending a run by sure-to-be-elected OneCity Vancouver Council candidate Christine Boyle who, in 2022, will become Vancouver’s once-and-forever Mayor, allowing those of us who reside in Vancouver to live in peace, prosperity and goodness for the remainder of our live-long days. Hallelujah — can’t wait til those halcyon days arrive!
In 2011, upon being elected as Vancouver’s first Green Party Vancouver City Councillor, Adriane Carr tied her wagon to the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association (or vice versa, as the case may be), appearing up front with NPA Councillors on the steps or front lawn of City Hall, anytime the NPA held a press conference — which was often. For all the world to see, and most particularly for members of the NPA, appearances were that Ms. Carr was an adjunct NPA member of Council. Come 2014, NPA voters turned out en masse for Ms. Carr, as did independents and deluded left-of-centre voters who thought, “Heck, yeah — Adriane Carr is one of us!”
Upon electing three Vancouver City Councillors in the 2014 municipal election, and seeing that Adriane Carr had emerged as the top vote-getter, the NPA’s Board of Directors gave their newly-and-re-elected Councillors a metaphorical slap upside the head, intoning, “No more deals with Adriane Carr. No more your putting her up front at press conferences you hold, no more helping to make people believe that she’s one of us — she’s not. Just what the hell were you thinking, anyway?”
Will Adriane Carr secure the right-wing vote in 2018, as the Green Mayoral candidate running to oppose Hector Bremner (who we believe has the NPA Mayoral nomination sewn up … it is to weep). You think so? Heck, c’mon over for coffee; we’ve got a bridge we’d like to sell you.
And will Adriane Carr secure the “progressive vote” in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election — not if Patti Bacchus has anything to say about (and she does!). Oh sure, it’s likely and even probable that the progressive forces will end up, begrudgingly, lining up behind an Adriane Carr bid for the Mayor’s chair, when it comes down to the crunch. But they won’t do so happily, and with any degree of enthusiasm. Oh woe is all of us.

In closing today’s column — yes, yes, today’s column is coming to its merciful end — as we are wont to do, a tale involving Adriane Carr, because as regular VanRamblings’ readers know: narrative counts for everything …
Early in her second term of office, VanRamblings attended an early morning meeting of Vancouver City Council, the city not yet having firmed up legislation that would make Vancouver a City of Reconciliation — on this particular, ‘overloaded with items of import’ agenda Council day, a just after Christmas mid-January, Tuesday morning sitting of Council, the onerous activities of the day began with an indigenous invocation ceremony that in its various parts proceeded over the course of a bit more than an hour, with frequent breaks to set up, delaying the work of the day, VanRamblings thought — callously, wrong-headedly and much to our undying shame and a measure of chagrin that we will carry with us always, from that day to this, and for the rest of our days on this Earth of ours … as we said to Councillor Carr as she approached us, welcoming VanRamblings to the Council room floor, we said to Councillor Carr, “it’s too bad, when there’s such a packed agenda, and it’s been over a month since Council last met that so much of yours and Council’s time is being taken up with today’s ceremony and presentation”, Adriane turning to us, saying …

“Raymond, the ceremony that is taking place today is more important to me and to the people of Vancouver than I can find words to express to you, the acknowledgement of the contribution of our indigenous peoples to the land, the ancestral home of our Coast Salish peoples, the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations on which Vancouver sits, which we have only borrowed from our indigenous sisters and brothers remains, as has been from the outset of my political career, one of the strongest motivating factors that has lead me to where I am today, as a sitting, 2nd-term member of Vancouver City Council.

The job I have taken on at Vancouver City Council not only concerns the recognition and acknowledgement of the invaluable contribution of our First Nations peoples it is, as well, to work on behalf of those who do not have a voice in the the critical, life-changing decisions that take place at the Council table. I work for the vulnerable among us and give voice to their issues. I work for families living in poverty. I work with my colleagues on Council to achieve the realization of a truly affordable housing stock for seniors, the working poor, for our refugee and immigrant population. I work for members of our vibrant gender-variant and LGBTQ communities, who add so much to the life of our city. I fight for young people, for the children of a generation raised by their families in Vancouver, but who cannot find a home in our city, in a place they have called home all of their lives, the city of their birth or who have come to call Vancouver home, a city where they might raise their own families, as may their children and their children’s children in the future. I fight for those of us who live in Vancouver and call Vancouver home who are being denied the opportunity to succeed and find residence in what is quickly becoming a resort city, and not a city that serves the interests of the vast majority of its citizens.

Every day at the Council table, I fight for all of Vancouver’s citizens who are being denied access to opportunity, to make Vancouver — as I have seen you write many, many times — a fairer, more inclusive and more socially just city, a vibrant and environmentally sound home for all of us who live in any one of the 23 neighbourhoods that make Vancouver the welcoming and socially just city that it is, the place we call home.”

At which point, seeing that the indigenous ceremony was set to begin once again, Councillor Adriane Carr turned away, took her seat on the south side of the room at the Council table, her focus solely on the moving ceremony that was unfolding before us, which VanRamblings now saw with newly opened eyes, and a heart filled with appreciation for Adriane’s work to make our city better — one small, but very important step at a time.
Adriane Carr as a difference maker, a social justice warrior and a person of conscience and commitment to the greater good, a person possessed of the heart and the commitment to make Vancouver a great city for all of us who are currently resident in our hilly town, and for all of those who will join us in the years to come, comprised of vibrant, welcoming neighbourhoods where we would live and prosper, where we might raise our families, in this village by the sea we call home, we call Vancouver, the city we love.

Today’s VanRamblings’ post represents the sixth post in our Vancouver Votes 2018 series — where next month, we’ll introduce some of the declared Council candidates, Park Board Commissioner candidates (we’ve got to respond to our friend and UFCW stalwart Abby Leung, who’ll be placing her name forward for Park Board) and the fine, upstanding folks / defenders of public education, like the tremendous and integrity-filled community activists Erica Jaaf and Jennifer Reddy, who’ve put their names forward as candidates to be a “it’s consuming my life” (just ask Carrie Bercic, who we’ll see at tonight’s School Board meeting — everyone reading this should attend — when we’ll sign her nomination papers … and yes, Christopher Richardson, we’ll be happy to sign yours, as well, and support your candidacy for) trustee, on the Vancouver School Board.

Hey, You. Don’t Ask Me. Just Google It. C’mon Now. Really?

April 29, 2018VanRamblings, Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

VanRamblings loves our Apple iPhone 8 Plus, the prospect of acquiring the latest iPhone one of the factors that kept up alive and hopeful during our dreadful, scarifying and none-too-pleasant 2016 – 2017 battle with cancer, the terminal, inoperable hilar cholangeocarcinoma that was destined to make us a goner — but, as you can see, did not come to pass.
We’ll say why, we’ll write about the miracle, another day — but for now, we’ll just say that it was VanRamblings’ readers, those strong, clear-minded persons of conscience that have read VanRamblings (who we thought, at best, found us annoying) who pulled us through, it was your love and spiritual and tangible support that, quite literally, saved our life.
We’ll write about our cancer journey in a series of posts that will likely begin once the current Vancouver civic election has come to its glorious conclusion, electing (we imagine) once-in-a-lifetime candidate Christine Boyle, and one of her outstanding, ready-for-prime-time colleagues (either Brandon Yan — we wept openly during his address to OneCity Vancouver members, last Sunday); the energetic and very bright, Ben Bolliger; or new dad, R.J. Aquino (three kiddos now, RJ, in a house full of joy); Pete Fry, who along with Christine Boyle, represents the single most important candidate to elect to Council, come October 20th; our friend (and, boy, are we proud to write that), and a true hero in our city, in our province and for our age, Sarah Blyth; the incredibly-principled and on-your-side, Anne Roberts; generational candidate and democrat-to-her-core, Sarah Kirby-Yung; our fave guy (you’ll read why later), Rob McDowell; the very decent, bright and accomplished, Catherine Evans; and we’re not sure who else at this point, all of the candidates above it is our intention to write about, at length and often, in the days, weeks, and months to come (each of whom, and all of whom, constitute our favourites in the current election cycle, for Vancouver City Council — just in case you were wondering).
However, we’re not here today to proselytize about candidates in the coming civic election, our mission today is decidedly more prosaic.
Heck, it’s Sunday — not a day for partisanship.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The 2018 ‘Heck, Just Use Your Cell’ Version
At least a half dozen times a day — when we run into a friend on the street or at the grocery store, while we’re out with a colleague or neighbour at our favourite local espresso house, when we find ourself near recumbent in the seating area at the Vancity Theatre waiting for the doors to open for the next film, or while we’re on the bus engaged in conversation, or in any one of another myriad of other circumstances, inevitably and much to our consternation, VanRamblings’ friend, neighbour or colleague will ask a question; not our opinion on a matter of debate, not something about which we might have information not readily available online, just a simple question that could be answered by the person VanRamblings is with simply taking their galldarn, latest model smartphone out of their pocket, and looking up the information themselves, on their state-of-the-art cellphone.
But do they? Do they take the phone they’re paying $70 and more a month for out of their pocket, check the Cineplex app if they want to know where a particular movie in town is playing or what time it starts, or fire up their smartphone’s Safari or Chrome browser, or tap on any one of the apps on their smartphone — ranging from their IMDb, CBC News, Google Maps or Weather app, to their readily available SoundHound, Shazam, TSN, Sinemia or Amazon app — hell no, they don’t. Yep, you’ve got it: they ask VanRamblings, because we’ve got a near photographic memory, an uncanny ability to recall or contextualize information, and because we’re a font of relatively useful facts — a burden we bear, but not gladly and well.

Time for a number of stories. Hang onto your hat.
The wonderful, hope of our future, Danika Skye Hammond — political activist, environmentalist, youth advocate and current BC Young New Democrats Facilitator Co-Chair (who Jeff Lee, former civic affairs reporter with the Vancouver Sun, will want to get in touch with this summer, given that both now live in or nearby the Kootenays’ beauteous Creston Valley) — was brought on last year as Volunteer Co-ordinator on current Attorney General David Eby’s winning re-election campaign, Danika — always with a genuine and heart-filled smile on her face, always with a cheery greeting at the ready, the single most humane, competent, no nonsense, and well-organized campaign co-ordinator we have ever worked with, during our 55-year history of working on federal and provincial NDP campaigns — daily wrangled some 400 eager (some new, some veteran) volunteers, each of whom needed direction, each of whom Danika kept in touch with to schedule shifts for any variety of activities in the community (Patti Bacchus & VanRamblings managing to secure a year-long case of incredibly painful plantar fasciitis, resultant from the two of us knocking on so many doors, traipsing through the neighbourhood and climbing up and down those damn stairs, while wearing ‘inappropriate for canvassing’ flat-bottomed shoes) by texting them on their smartphones. Imagine! Technology put to good use.

Every volunteer on David’s campaign, save one — a nomination candidate for office in the current Vancouver civic election campaign — who whined to Danika about his not having a cell phone, and could she please call on his home phone (which he never answers) instead, and yada, yada, yada. All his kvetching was for naught, of course. The solution? VanRamblings took this luddite (a teacher in the public school system for some 30 years!) to Virgin mobile at Oakridge, secured a new Apple iPhone for free, along with 6 gigabytes of data, unlimited calling in Canada, as well as an unlimited international text facility — all for only $45 a month, with a promise that we’d negotiate with Telus to reduce his $340 monthly Optik TV, Internet and home phone bill down to a more reasonable $140 each month!
Many years ago when travelling through Mexico, and shopping at the Libertad Market in Guadalajara, VanRamblings was surprised to discover that we love the art of the deal (no, not Donald Trump’s phony, soul-destroying ‘art of the deal’, but), the back-and-forth and human connection involved in negotiating a reasonable settlement as to the cost of goods — just about as much fun as it is possible to have with both feet planted firmly on the ground. We still, to this very day, love the art of the deal.

So, this fellow now has a brand-new, free Apple iPhone, with a great, instantaneous texting facility that the good, young folks at the Virgin kiosk give him instruction on, supplemented by further instruction from VanRamblings on the Canada Line trip to Broadway and the #9 bus ride to David’s campaign office on West Broadway, where we showed a delighted Danika Skye Hammond (future, much-beloved Premier) that a new smartphone has been acquired, passing on the new telephone number (employing a 778 exchange, the remainder of the number identical to this fellow’s home phone) — and what does this guy do? Yep, he takes the phone home, places it in a drawer, never takes it out of the drawer (even a year later), while continuing to pay the $45 a month plus tax.
Needless to say, no more work on David’s campaign. VanRamblings asks this cogent question of you: do you really want this fellow representing your economic and social justice interests on a publically-elected body?
VanRamblings would like to comment that, “Perhaps the fellow we write about above represents a not-so-out-of-the-ordinary use of new technology.” But we don’t believe that’s true. Every single one of our elected officials in Vancouver, as well as all senior staff at City Hall, Park Board and School Board, all but live on their cellphones — comfortable with and appreciative of the technology, the whole idea of having a powerful computing device at your fingertips representing the most powerful communications device each might have ever imagined.
Yes, when it comes to use of technology among our erudite, wit-filled, endlessly curious, adept and engaged political friends, who view their smartphones as an entirely necessary, revolutionary device, VanRamblings supposes we run with a pretty tony crowd, for which we are grateful.

Still, it seems that not everyone among our friends — and everyone among your friends, we’re willing to bet — sees their smartphone as the revolutionary device that it is (and just wait til 5G comes in … wow!!!).
Nevertheless, we’d appreciate it if the folks in our circle of acquaintances & friends never, ever, ever again ask us a question that they could answer for themselves simply by pulling their cellphone out of their pocket.
Concerned about your data cap?.
Migawd, there’s free WiFi everywhere across our region, on our streets (both Telus and Shaw have established WiFi on every block in Metro Vancouver), in all of our public buildings (City Hall, School Board, Park Board, our community centres and pools), in most retail businesses (high traffic retail outlets like Starbucks and McDonald’s have reliable, lightning-fast WiFi inside their stores).
Let’s face it, with your smartphone handy, you’ve got lightning in a bottle — how incredibly fortunate we are to live in an era when transparency of communication is so readily available, where we really do have access to an information highway that only a few short years ago was unimaginable.

VanRamblings will leave you with the following story …
On Friday evening, having ridden our bike to a nearby grocery store, and while we were shopping inside the store, a young girl holding a smartphone whizzed past us, crouching down a ways along the aisle, talking to beat the band on her phone, which was directed towards the shelving that held a variety of sparkling beverages, an animated conversation taking place with another girl, a friend it seemed, who appeared to be in the process of planning a party of some sort and who were, together, shopping for all of the items that would be necessary to purchase in order to make the party a success, the girl on the other end of phone just as animated and excited in her commentary as the young girl crouching a ways down the aisle.
“Slumber party,” a woman approaching with a buggy said to me — the woman, clearly the girl’s mother, who could see the look of amazement on our face at what we were seeing transpire. “A slumber party, and a birthday party for her best friend,” the mom said, nodding in the direction of her daughter. “I’m just here to place the items in the buggy, and pay for the whole thing when she’s done. Fascinating, isn’t it? Realistically, would either one of us have thought, even a few years ago, that in 2018 we’d find ourselves in an era when a young girl would have access to a technology like Facetime to do her shopping with a friend, when her friend lives miles away, across the water, in a whole other community?”
At which point the young girl in the store arose from her crouch, waved her mother over to load the 2-litre bottles of sparkling juices into the buggy, and off the two went to continue their scurry around the grocery store, in cheery and focused pursuit of the “perfect” items to make the slumber / birthday party the success that it was most definitely destined to be.
VanRamblings asks: if a 9-year-old girl is as comfortable with technology as she surely appeared to be, employing her smartphone to its maximum capability to make her life easier, to enhance the quality of her life, to take the greatest delight in ‘shopping with her friend’ who lives kilometres away, on the other side of the water, the communication just as peerless and joy-filled as one wish and hope for this young girl / woman of promise and capacity, is it not possible that we — each and every one of us — might develop the same facility with, the same ‘you don’t even have to think about it’ love for a device of utility, a device with access to wisdom and knowledge, and information that will serve only to make our lives easier and perhaps, even, more fulfilling?
And, oh yeah: Don’t Ask Me. Just Google It. C’mon Now. Really?