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 →

The Magical Device Known as the ‘Instant Pot’, an Indispensable and Must-Have Addition to Any Kitchen | Innovative Technology

April 28, 2018Food & Health, VanRamblings, Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

The Magical Device Known as the 'Instant Pot', a Must & Indispensable Addition to Any Kitchen

What Exactly Is the Instant Pot?
The Instant Pot is a 7-in-one, or 9-or-10-in-one, multi-cooker that does the job of a slow cooker, electric pressure cooker, rice cooker, steamer, yogurt maker, sauté and browning pan, and warming pot, a kitchen appliance that is designed to consolidate the cooking and preparing of food to one device.
Depending on the model you choose, you can use an app on your smartphone to programme your Instant Pot, or forego the model that makes Greek yogurt, or purchase the 10-in-1 Ultra model that steams without pressure — a godsend for al dente veggie enthusiasts — and has the ability to customize and memorize settings for each user … or not. Instant Pot beginners may simple choose a programme setting and press the “Start” button without any further tinkering, while more seasoned chefs can spin and punch their way through several additional options.
Want to know a bit more about the history of the Instant Pot? Watch this CBC News video that aired last November, just prior to Black Friday …

VanRamblings purchased the Instant Pot because we wanted to shake up our eating habits, to try new recipes, to prepare healthier meals, with more fresh veggies and more vegan items in our diet, as well as more soups — particularly in the cooler autumn and winter seasons.
VanRamblings also enjoys farm-fed, free-run, organic chicken, and thought it was well past time to come up with a few new recipes to complement our tried-and-true favourites, such as this delicious chicken stew, which we had for dinner last evening, along with fresh asparagus, and an organic carrot, apple and raisin salad, with a creamy, vegan homemade dressing.
For many — including VanRamblings — the Instant Pot is a life-changing kitchen device. We intend to prepare at least one new Instant Pot recipe each day over the course of our first year of ownership of this amazing device. Did we mention we prepared perfect poached eggs, in 2 minutes, in the Instant Pot, this morning? Really easy to prepare, no fuss and no muss.

A couple of Sundays back, a friend was over for an Instant Pot Umami pot roast dinner — he said it was the best dinner that he’d had in ages.
In the coming weeks, VanRamblings will set about to make creme brulée in our new Instant Pot, as well as potato salad for the upcoming David Eby picnic. We’ve already enjoyed incredibly delicious BBQ chicken wings prepared in our Instant Pot, as well as perfect basmati rice, garlic mashed potatoes, beets, broccoli with garlic, and apple sauce — as well as a myriad of vegetarian and vegan dishes.
We will also set about to make several different Indian recipes, with Aloo Baingan Masala set for dinner with a friend mid-week, next week.
Almost all of the recipes above may be found in Amy + Jackie’s 47 easy Instant Pot recipes for the newbie. Worth clicking on the link, we’d say.
Heard enough? We’ve only just begun (we’re only kiddin’ … sort of).

You’ll want to read these Instant Pot testimonials and reviews, like this review by Kevin Roose in the New York Times.
There are five Instant Pot Facebook groups that we’ve joined, each with tens (or, even hundreds) of thousands of members. We’ve already signed up to all of the Facebook Instant Pot groups listed below, and not a day goes by when we don’t find some new and delicious Instant Pot recipe.
As Claire Lower, with the Skillet division of Lifehacker.com writes, you should have no problem joining any one of the following popular Instant Pot Facebook groups that have taken social media by storm …

Instant Pot Beginner Recipes and Tips: This group is great for crowd-sourcing recipes, getting a grip on all those buttons and soothing your newbie jitters.
Instant Pot Vegan Recipes. Everyone should eat more vegetables, and you don’t have to be vegan to enjoy all of the creative plant-based recipes offered in this group.
Instant Pot Vietnamese Food Recipes: Quick, flavourful pho is the only reason you need to join this group, but be sure not to sleep on the Bo Kho, sticky rice, and milk tea.
“Dump and Push Start” Easy Instant Pot Recipes: This group features only the easiest “fix-and-forget” recipes for unfussy, single-appliance meal making.
Instant Pot for Indian Food: The Instant Pot makes short work of grains, legumes, and intensely-flavored sauces, lending itself extremely well to Indian cuisine. As someone who wishes to wean herself off of takeout, I find this group extremely exciting, says Ms. Lower.

Okay, okay — we know you’re busy. We’re close to wrapping this up.

Our favourite Instant Pot recipe so far? Hands down, it’s the Vegan Penne Rigate, where you pretty much just throw everything into the pot, give things a stir when it’s done (about 20 minutes, including de-pressurizing time), scoop it out of the pot and onto a plate … and mmmmm, delicious, you’ve never eaten a tastier pasta dish in your entire life.
Who’da thunk that penne, extra virgin olive oil, chopped onions, shallots, garlic, mushrooms and zucchini squash, when combined with a touch of sherry wine, a pinch of oregano and basil, a cup of vegetable broth with 2 cups of water, light soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and fish sauce (omit these two items if your preparing the vegetarian or vegan version of this dish), and a pinch of kosher salt and black pepper, topped with a 5.5 ounce can of tomato paste just plopped right on top of everything … would together constitute a little taste of heaven on Earth?
Not to mention, the best galldarn thing you’ll ever eat!

Mmmm, scrumptious and delicious cheesecake prepared entirely in the Instant Pot

Now, we could go on extolling the many virtues of the Instant Pot, how preparation and clean-up is a snap (cuz, pretty much, everything just gets thrown into the pot, you can use the sauté function to soften onions or brown meat), how the Instant Pot not only helps you to make incredibly wonderful dishes in no time at all, or that the Instant Pot is not only a runaway international success, it’s a runaway Canadian international success, how no kitchen should be without one, and more, so much more.
But as VanRamblings is going to suggest in our Sunday column, sometimes you just have to put in the work yourself. Top 5 Instant Pot Hacks and Tips, 9 Instant Pot Don’ts, or A Beginner’s Guide to Using Your New Instant Pot — videos on all of these topics may be found on YouTube, along with a video for Starbucks Sous Vide Bacon Eggs Bites, and so very much more.
Once you’ve become aware that the Instant Pot exists, and you actually set about to purchase one (we like the 6-quart, 7-in-1 version which is, by far, the most popular model), you’ll begin to see references to the Instant Pot wherever you go; it’s sort of like a cult.
But a rare instance of a good, self-motivating, healthy for your body and for your mind, norm-challenging, community-building, Canada-supporting and vegan-friendly cult — and when you start to prepare your first Instant Pot recipes, you’ll come to find in short order that your new Instant Pot, sitting there on your counter, is an insanely easy kitchen device to employ on your new culinary road to a comestible bliss you didn’t know was even possible and so easily accessible to you, requiring surprisingly little of your time, with deliciously appetizing results that are just short of out of this world!

Indie Cinema, The Summer and the Salvation of Good Movies

April 27, 2018A & E, Cinema, Jude and Megan, Pop Culture, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

VanRamblings has always loved the cinema, from the time we held our younger sister’s hand to keep her safe, while on our way to the Grandview Theatre, just south of 1st Avenue on Commercial Drive on the east side of the street, every Saturday in every month throughout 1955 until near the end of August in 1958, when our family moved to Edmonton, where our movie-going regimen was kept up — alone this time, on the bus at the age of eight heading downtown during the most unforgiving of 40-below winter nights cascading towards the Rialto Theatre to see the latest Hayley Mills film, for we were in love with Hayley Mills and never, ever missed one of her films … through to the mid-1960s when we were once again resident on Vancouver’s eastside, just north of Semlin Drive & 1st Avenue, in the neighbourhood where we were raised, and where we lived for most of our first 18 years of life, through until … now, to this day, when this year we celebrate 50 years as a published film critic, and ardent lover of film.

Not for us, the big blockbuster films that have dominated movie landscapes for most of the past three decades. No, we’re a ‘window on the world’ foreign film aficionado, as Rocky Mountaineer President and founder Peter Armstrong will tell you if you ask him, and we love small, lower-budget independent films to near distraction, and we love reading and writing about the film festivals that dot the cultural landscape throughout the year, from January’s Sundance Film Festival — founded by Robert Redford in Salt Lake City in August 1978 — to the Berlin “Berlinale” Film Festival in February, to March’s annual, Austin, Texas-based South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, followed in April by Robert DeNiro’s Manhattan-based Tribeca Film Festival — and this next month, the grand mama of them all, the prestigious and much-anticipated Cannes Film Festival, which has taken place on the leisurely French Riviera every year since 1946.

As we write above, VanRamblings loves independent — or, indie — film. But what is indie film? Hang on to your hat, because here we go …
Indie films are movies produced with a low budget, most often by small, boutique production companies, and produced for less than $20 million.
Originally, the defining quality of indie media (film, music, publishing, etc.) was that it was produced outside of the traditional systems of production. So in film, for example, movies produced without the support of the major Hollywood studios would be independent films, or “indies” for short.
After a few decades of independent media, however, aesthetic patterns and themes have emerged that make “indie” more of a style or genre label.
Confusing matters even more, in recent years the six major Hollywood studios — Fox, Paramount, Warner, Sony, Universal, and Disney — have brought indie films in-house, with Disney acquiring Miramax, Paramount (Vantage), Sony (Classics), Fox (Searchlight), Universal (Focus, Working Title), and Warner (New Line, Castle Rock), the major studios competing each year for prestigious Oscar attention with their much-ballyhooed “independent” art house releases, most of the films acquired by the studios but not financed by them, from many of the film festivals mentioned above.

With indie films, the director’s approach is paramount, these auteur films creative, artistic and personal in tone, with subject matter that reflects the lives of everyday people, or as is sometimes the case, the marginalized persons or communities within our cities, provinces or states; indie films also often take on forbidden subject matter considered to be taboo by conventional society. Indie films will more often than not use music sourced from bands or indie music groups or artists, rather than employ original orchestral scoring to aid in the telling of the film’s story.
At the most recent Oscars ceremony, as the latest clutch of arthouse films — including Darkest Hour, The Shape of Water, Call Me by Your Name and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — were feted throughout the awards season, indie films grappled with Hollywood’s blockbuster addiction, and the new challenges presented by Netflix and Amazon.
While the big six Hollywood studios made 113 movies last year, taking in $11 billion in domestic box office and another $14 billion internationally, a record number of smaller-budget films were released from the beginning of January to the end of December 2017, most —&#32but not all — of the indie films released onto silver screens at a multiplex near you.
Why “not all”? Where did the “other” indie films secure release?

With 80 independent films currently set for production at Netflix, none of which will be given a theatrical release, in 2018 if you want to watch what might be a few of the most provocative films of the year, films made by some of the most prominent names in filmmaking, you’re going to have to stay home, or watch the latest Netflix “indie” on your smartphone or tablet.
Over the past couple of years, Netflix’s dominance of streaming platforms has proved game-changing for Hollywood, as they work to rewrite the film and TV universe to match its model. For anyone who cares about film and its future, that may be a scary thought, or sound potentially threatening.
But is it really?
Today, most studio greenlight conversations are at their most reductive: “Can we sell this in China?” By contrast, Netflix doesn’t care what “plays” in China, given its utter lack of presence in the country, and seeming lack of desire to gain a presence in the countries that comprise east Asia.
For now, the Netflix model injects a deep-pocketed force in the indie mix, their massive, near global reach casting a wide net, placing Netflix at the forefront of the wave of alternate narrative forms —&#32allowing producers to successfully argue for niche-audience titles that might struggle within the theatrical model —&#32while challenging the conventional distribution model.
As we write above, the early year annual Sundance, SXSW (South-by-Southwest), Tribeca and Cannes film festivals remain primary sources for the discovery of new directors and the first-rate indie films they take on the festival circuit, films that tend to garner critical and awards recognition at the end of each calendar year and, increasingly, films that are produced and screened only on Netflix. But not always. Cinema is not dead, yet.
Next month, VanRamblings will write about all the indie films that you can screen within a darkened, air-conditioned movie theatre, in this sure-to-be-sweltering upcoming summer season. In the meantime, look for …

Bisbee ’17. A Canadian première at next month’s 17th annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival, screening only once (so you’ll want to get your tickets now!), on Sunday, May 13th, 6pm at SFU Goldcorp Cinema, filmmaker and writer Robert Greene will be in attendance to present his latest film, and participate in a post-screening Q&A, responding to audience questions about a film that has variously been described as the “most talked-about documentary film of the year, an audacious, arresting dream-like mosaic”, Greene’s film focused on a traumatic 1917 immigrant deportation, when an Arizona sheriff —&#32backed by union-busting thugs hired by the mining companies —&#32rounded up striking workers, exiling them to the New Mexico desert … never to be heard from again. Greene’s film, while confronting an ugly truth, discovers a measure of healing and solidarity. See Bisbee ’17 next month at DOXA, or miss out on it forever.

C’mon back next Wednesday for more DOXA Documentary Film Festival coverage, which will fit nicely into our ongoing Vancouver Votes 2018 coverage. We’ll look forward to seeing you back here next Friday for feature coverage of DOXA 2018, and an interview with the tough, the brilliant, the wonderful, our friend, Selina Crammond, who this year succeeds the near irreplaceable Dorothy Woodend, as the festival’s new Programme Director.

Vancouver Municipal Election | Still Almost 6 Months Out

April 25, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Today, a catch-as-catch-can VanRamblings column, focusing on the necessity of citizen engagement, and how critical it is that voters get out to the advance polls early in October, or on Election Day, Saturday, October 20th, to exercise their franchise, take power over their lives, and determine how our city will grow and address the issues of importance facing the citizens of Vancouver over the next four year period of life in our city.

In the 2008 Vancouver civic election —&#32one of the most closely-observed elections in Vancouver history, and following a brutal, life-altering summer of 2007 3-month strike / worker lockout brought on by the then Vancouver Non-Partisan Association Sam Sullivan-led civic administration —&#32voter turnout was a paltry 30.79%, with only 124,285 eligible voters out of a registered civic voter base of 403,663 turning up at the polls. That means, 69.21% of eligible Vancouver voters could not be bothered to cast a ballot, to “throw the bums out”, to keep or elect a new civic administration.
As has often been said, municipal government is the most important level of government, the one that is closest to the day-to-day concerns of its citizens —&#32the level of government that keeps our streets clean, fixes potholes, picks up our garbage and recycling, supplies water & services to our homes, levies property tax, builds new community centres, and determines the livability of the city where we live, the level of government that is closest to our homes, dramatically impacting on the quality of our daily lives —&#32saw Vancouver voters either staying at home sitting on their duff, going to a pub or hockey game, or otherwise avoiding exercising their franchise, as if voting, being involved in the democratic political process, and taking some degree of power over our lives, simply didn’t matter.
All of which attitude of disengagement and civic anomie, beggars belief.

If you’re here reading today’s VanRamblings column, good for you. You are a member of an elite group, that 4% of the population (2% left-of-centre, 2% right-of-centre) who are actually engaged in the process of helping determine the policies that will affect the quality of your life in this city, in our province, and in your home country of Canada. If you’re here reading today’s column, it means that you actually care about the quality of education your children, grandchildren or neighbour’s children will receive in our public education system, and whether we’re going to get that new community centre in Marpole, whether addressing homelessness and the affordable housing crisis that has plagued our city for well over a decade will emerge as a priority for the next civic administration, among a myriad of issues Vancouver voters will address at the polls this upcoming autumn.

On Earth Day this past Sunday, at the well-attended Earth Day Service: The Life of this Land, hosted by the Canadian Memorial United Church at 15th and Burrard, a young indigenous man —&#32a 21-year-old man by the name of Cedar George-Parker, who along with his sister, Kayah George-Parker, the children of Tseil-Waututh Sundance Chief Rueben George, and Tulalip Band Councillor, Deborah Parker —&#32spoke movingly about the necessity of being involved in the movement for change, and the necessity that everyone, all of us, must come together, work together, and become involved in the decision-making that affects the quality of all our lives, and the lives of our children, our children’s children, and all the generations to come.

“I could sit at home watching TV,” he told the congregation, “but that would be a disservice to my sister, to my family, to my godchildren, and to each and every one of you. We are at a critical juncture in the history of our planet, where our oceans are being polluted and our fish stocks depleted to the point where we soon won’t have a fisheries in British Columbia, where the lush green valleys of our province are being flooded in service of an electricity-generating dam to serve monied interests, a dam that will not only destroy habitat, but impact in the most destructive manner possible the lives of our northern indigenous peoples and those who live on the land, who grow the food for our tables, raise the cattle that feed our families, and those lands that allow our planet to breathe, allowing each one of us to breathe cleaner, fresher and life-giving air.

I am here today to ask you to stand with my sister Kayah and I, to stand with your brothers and sisters, to fight for your home and the preservation of our planet, to do all that you can do to make a difference.

VanRamblings has friends who have all but taken up residence on Burnaby Mountain fighting the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, who daily wage the battle against racism, bigotry, hate and intolerance, who fight for the proper funding of our public schools, and who are engaged with others —&#32with friends and neighbours, with their families and their colleagues, and people they don’t even know but whose values they share, and who recognize as they do that life on our planet, and life in our city is our responsibility, and that it is critical that each and every one of us work with others for the change we want to see, to become engaged in the political process —&#32in this case, our upcoming Vancouver civic election —&#32that will determine our collective future, and the livability of our city and our planet.

Do you have friends, neighbours, colleagues or family members who are disengaged from the political life of our city, disengaged from the decision-making that affects the quality of their and all of our lives, those of us who live in the city of Vancouver, who prioritize going to the movies or to their neighbourhood pub, or who find themselves sitting home most nights smoking a doobie, or watching TV or who otherwise are letting life pass them by, as if somehow it doesn’t matter that the new tower being planned for down the street that will affect the livability of their neighbourhood is a fait accompli, and what can they do about it anyway? If so (and you know that you do), take them out for a coffee, remind them that they can make a difference, that their voice is powerful, and their time, energy and commitment is required to create the kind of city we all want to live in, to raise our families in, and to share with our neighbours, family and friends.
Take it upon yourself to convince them to join the political party of their choice, and accompany them to a meeting of —&#32the Green Party of Vancouver, who prize the environment and independent thought; or OneCity Vancouver, the Vancouver municipal political party that means to make a difference in 2018; or Vision Vancouver, the party that has held civic office for the past 10 years, the party that has championed LGBTQ2+ issues, and enacted healthy, environmentally sound active transportation initiatives that have transformed our city; or, the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association, who mean to return service to citizens as its number one priority; the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), the political party that will this year celebrate 50 years of service to the citizens of Vancouver; or, the good folks involved with Team Jean, originally formed to champion, support and ensure the election to City Council of longtime community activist, Jean Swanson, and —&#32if truth be told —&#32the most energetic and well-organized amalgam of community activists / change makers our city has seen in years, some members of whom have now joined COPE.
Take this advice: turn that damn TV off, read about what’s going on in our city, in the Vancouver Courier, the Vancouver Sun and Province newspapers, the Globe and Mail and the new StarMetro Vancouver daily, on VanRamblings, and in the Georgia Straight (most particularly, online —&#32the opinion pieces written by editor Charlie Smith always a must-read).
Click on each of the party websites above, gain some cogent insight into what each party stands for and prioritizes in its electoral platform, and the programmes and policies each will set about to implement should they be elected to office at Vancouver City Council, Park Board or School Board, in the coming civic election, in this most critical of election years.
Go out to coffee with your neighbours to discuss the issues of importance that are facing Vancouver voters in the coming civic election, or when you’re with your colleagues at the lunch table, in the BBQ in the back yard or on the roof, in our parks, or any place where you are gathered with your friends, your neighbours, your colleagues, and those with whom you gather together in your neighbourhood, in your community and across our city.
In 2018, set out to make a difference, set out to prioritize engagement over anomie, get to know the issues, and work with your friends and neighbours to make ours a better, fairer and more just city. You’ll sleep better at night, your health will improve and your levels of stress decline, you will feel empowered and will one day very soon arise and know that you truly are making a difference, that you have stories to tell, a life to live, and a past to look back on where you know that you’ve done your part to make things better, not just for your family, but for all of us who share this planet, who live in this city we call home, a paradise by the sea named Vancouver.

The Inevitable Candidacy of John Coupar for Mayor of Vancouver

April 24, 2018BC Politics, Park Board, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Park Board Commissioner Sarah Kirby-Yung (left), with bearded Avalon Dairy owner Everett Crowley, and NPA Mayoral hopeful / candidate for nomination, John Coupar.

John Coupar is a decent man. A loving husband and father, a near lifelong Vancouver resident who raised his family in Dunbar, but now lives (with his wife Heather) in a condo in the Olympic Village (“North America’s most sustainable community”, as you’ll hear John say in the video below), a dedicated and hard-working two-term Park Board Commissioner, and recent Chairperson of Vancouver’s cherished Board of Parks and Recreation — where he’s made an unparalleled difference for the better during his near seven years in elected public office — a fighter and an advocate for our parks and recreation system, whose work in our parks system knows no equal, one of the kindest, gentlest, most open and most gregarious, yet settled and centred men you will ever have had the welcome opportunity to meet, the estimable John Coupar is — among the four NPA mayoral aspirants — VanRamblings’ overwhelming choice to secure the nomination, when members of Vancouver’s oldest, most established political party cast a ballot for their next Mayoral candidate, to carry them into office in 2018.

There’s an old saw among the left — or, if you will, “progressive” — forces in Vancouver that any candidate offering their name up for elected office and choosing to run with the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association must and will, perforce, emerge as little more than a right-wing Trumpian nightmare, devoid of conscience and empathy and an “enemy of the people”, a despicable toady to the elite corporate forces that seek to control our lives, denying us equality of opportunity, so as to maintain their capitalist class interests to keep the majority population oppressed and in a constant state of wont, confusion, self-hatred, alienation and disempowerment.
If anyone is going to put that not entirely inaccurate shibboleth to bed, it is the tremendously engaging John Coupar, who is a democrat to his core, an advocate for all people, welcoming of hearing and engaging with all persons on all the myriad positions on the issues that affect the quality of our day-to-day life, movingly socially progressive, and just about as non-partisan as one could possibly imagine in this age of identity and destructive dog-whistle politics, and narcissistic and egoist, self-serving hyper-partisanship.

The single most moving experience to which VanRamblings has been witness, in recent years in the public realm, respecting an elected official — a moment which will reside deep within our heart and memory always, a moment of hope and inspiration which informs VanRamblings’ life and the way we bring ourself to the world, every day — involves John Coupar.
As we wrote on November 11th, 2014, when endorsing the candidacy of John Coupar for Park Board …

When the gender-variant policy was presented to Park Board, the most moving address to those gathered in a crowded Park Board conference meeting room was given by John Coupar, who thanked all of those who had presented to Park Board on an issue of importance to each person in attendance, and to him, saying in part, “Sitting on Park Board for the past almost three years has proven to be the most enlightening and moving experience of my life, and never more so than was the case this evening. I want you to know that you have an advocate in me, and in my fellow Park Board Commissioner, Melissa De Genova, that we will fight for you, we will fight for inclusivity in our parks and in our community centres. Working together with all of the Commissioners around the table, I commit to you today that our parks and community centres will become welcoming and safe havens for you, where you will be respected always. I look forward to working together with you, and with Park Board staff, on the early implementation of all facets of the gender variant policy on which you have worked so hard, and has proved of such service to our community. Throughout my life, I have made a commitment to inclusivity, fairness and equity — let us work together, go forward and write a new chapter in our social and political history, as we work toward a community of comfort, respect and acceptance that serves the interests of all of our citizens.”

If you’ve read this far, you won’t be surprised to learn that when John Coupar became Chairperson of the Vancouver Park Board in early December 2014, his first order of business was to get to work to implement the gender-variant policy throughout Vancouver’s parks and recreation system, and that in early January 2015 when Templeton Pool had its first, inclusive, late morning and early afternoon swim, John Coupar was front and centre, trunks on, swimming laps with the members of Vancouver’s gender-variant community, inclusivity an issue he continued to fight for throughout his second term of office on Vancouver Park Board.

All of which above probably leaves you thinking, apart from what has been written, “What kind of Mayor would John Coupar be, should he be successful in winning the NPA Mayoral nomination on Tuesday, May 29th”?
John would be a ‘back to the city’s political roots of service to citizens’ Mayor, where you could wake up every morning and know to a certainty that the streets and roads would be clean, free of clutter, cleared of snow in the winter season and safe to drive on (or, if you’re riding your bike or walking to work, or traveling to a friend’s home, that your journey there would be safe), where the medians on our boulevards would be well-kept, where our Park Board would once again be properly and fully funded (as has not been the case this past 10 years under the current civic administration) — given the Greens and the NPA would seem to be the only Vancouver civic parties who would appear to give a good galldarn about our parks and recreation system (which, for the left, ought to be an access and a class issue, but is not, and is given little or no consideration) — where John’s door would always be open, where debate in the surprisingly snug room where Council meets would be temperate and respectful and where the focus would be on getting things done, co-operatively and in a timely manner in the interests of all the citizens of Vancouver.
John Coupar, then, would be a ‘back to the basics’ Mayor, supportive of and sympathetic to social justice issues, but focused more on the core issues of service to the community.

Vancouver Park Board GM, Malcolm Bromley & Mike Klassen, Vancouver Courier columnist

If we might suggest such, should John Coupar secure the NPA Mayoral nomination and win the Mayoralty come October 20th, we would advise that he appoint a tough, strong and knowledgeable Chief of Staff to aid him in traversing the shoals of inevitable dysfunction at Vancouver City Hall, and would suggest to John that he give consideration to bringing Vancouver Courier civic affairs columnist Mike Klassen on board for that critical role to his Mayoralty, and that he, as well, give strong and thoughtful consideration (as must already be the case) to appointing current Park Board General Manager Malcolm Bromley as his “there’s a new, temperate, very bright, city building sheriff in town, one who intends to reach out to the citizenry to ensure that citizen voices are heard in all the decision-making that takes place at City Hall, the central tenets of my job to ensure that Mayor and Council accomplish that which needs doing, as reflected in the majority decisions of Council & the will of the people of Vancouver” City Manager.
As VanRamblings indicates above, we endorse John Coupar’s candidacy to secure the Mayoral nomination of the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association. If you’re not already a member of the NPA, or you’re not working with the progressive coalition of left-of-centre civic parties to ensure a majority progressive Vancouver City Council this upcoming autumn, VanRamblings would encourage you to take out a membership in the NPA today (or before cut-off day, this upcoming Sunday, April 29th), in order that you might cast your ballot for John Coupar as the NPA Mayoral candidate in the critical and tremendously important 2018 Vancouver municipal election.