Category Archives: BC Politics

#VanPoli Civic Politics | The Death of Cynicism | Part 2 of 4

May 7, 2019#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Vancouver City Council, 2018 - 2022 | Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato, Michael Wiebe Vancouver City Council, to serve from 2018 thru October 2022, clockwise: Councillors Rebecca Bligh, Christine Boyle, Adriane Carr, Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato, Michael Wiebe, Jean Swanson, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Colleen Hardwick, and Pete Fry.

VanRamblings’ four part series this week on the state and nature of civic politics, as practiced in the City of Vancouver, continues.
Today, we’ll provide a bit of history and insight into Councillors Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato and Michael Wiebe, all elected to Council this past October, providing as well a brief insight into how each is faring in the current term of office at Vancouver City Hall.

Second term Vancouver City Councillor Melissa De Genova, Chairperson of Council’s standing committee on City Finance and Services, and Council delegate to the Metro Vancouver Board, where she will be joined by her first term NPA colleagues, the estimable Colleen Hardwick and Lisa Dominato, as well as OneCity Vancouver’s entirely tremendous Christine Boyle, and the Green Party of Vancouver’s Adriane Carr, who will joined on the Metro Vancouver board by her Green Council colleague, Michael Wiebe.

Vancouver voters first elected the quite wonderful, on our side, Melissa De Genova to office in 2011, to our city’s much cherished Park Board — but, at the time, woefully underfunded, due to the Vision Vancouver City Council of the day’s demolition of the Park Board budget — securing for herself and the party with which she ran and remains a member, the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association, a fifth place finish, securing 56,501 votes, exactly 6,622 votes more than Vision’s Trevor Loke’s seventh (and last) place finish. Vision Vancouver + the NPA = trouble writ large.
The Vision Vancouver-led Park Board, first elected to a majority in the 2008 election, were quite something to behold, good people but very much loyalists to their party, often at the expense of serving the public interest.
From the outset, given Vision’s poor treatment of Ms. De Genova, and her NPA Park Board colleague, John Coupar, in her first term in elected office, Melissa (“Melissa, just call me Melissa”) knew she was in for the fight of her life — to know Melissa is to know that she was very much up to the task. Park Board Commissioner De Genova never gave an inch to her opposition on the Board, making it abundantly clear she felt they were scoundrels.
During her now eight years at the seat of political power in our city, Melissa De Genova, to be effective, has always needed a foil. At Park Board, in Aaron Jasper, Niki Sharma, Sarah Blyth, Trevor Loke and Constance Barnes, Ms. De Genova had foils times five, although she reserved most of her disdain for Mr. Jasper, Ms. Blyth, Ms. Sharma and Mr. Loke, in that order — more often than not, letting the admirable Ms. Barnes off scott free.
In her second term on Council, Ms. De Genova has acquitted herself well, adjusting to the more collegial approach to governance that has come to define our new Council. But ever in need of a foil, most unfortunately Councillor De Genova has chosen her very bright NPA colleague, first term Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung (the latter, VanRamblings’ favourite Councillor). Almost makes one harken for the good ol’ toe-to-toe battles Councillor De Genova waged with Vision Vancouver climate change warrior, Andrea Reimer, who always gave as good as she got — a worthy adversary, indeed.

[In an article from The Georgia Straight]. “Recently, Councillor De Genova was one of the five members of Council who voted against Council’s tax shift burden motion, joined by Mayor Kennedy Stewart and councillors Christine Boyle, Colleen Hardwick, and Jean Swanson.

‘That doesn’t mean that I voted against supporting small businesses, Ms. De Genova told The Straight’s Carlito Pablo in a phone interview.

Councillor De Genova said there are other ways of reducing the tax burden on businesses without pitting them against homeowners. One example she cited is for the city to work with the province to modify the business-property class so multinational companies pay higher taxes. Revenues can be passed on to help local businesses.”

Note should be made that Councillor De Genova was part of a recent unanimous vote to pass a precedent-setting climate action plan for our city.

Lisa Dominato, another one of VanRamblings’ favourite new Councillors, the quiet intellectual heft behind this new Council, a Councillor who really knows how to consult and listen (and do her homework), a communicator par excellence, a woman of great accomplishment (as may be seen below), one of the four millennials on Council — in fact, one of the more than two dozen millennials elected across our region this past October — and a recent outstanding Vancouver School Board trustee, who served with distinction on Vancouver School Board following the 2017 by-election.

[From the City website]. Ms. Dominato is a a public servant who has held several senior management portfolios with the Government of British Columbia, specializing in social policy. A former chief of staff to the Deputy Premier and Minister of Education, and a senior advisor to the B.C. government’s Minister of Management Services, throughout her time in the public service, Ms. Dominato became known for her collaborative and pragmatic approach to tackling complex issues and building strong relationships to achieve common goals.

Graduating with a Master of Arts in Leadership from Royal Roads University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from UBC and University of Burgundy in Dijon, France, Ms. Dominato is fluent in French and English, a recipient of the Premier’s Annual Innovation and Excellence Awards, and (am I allowed to say this?), a loving and attentive mom.

An utterly charming person with whom to speak to and interact with (pretty rare in this day and age of too often rank partisanship), Councillor Lisa Dominato continues to live in Hastings-Sunrise with her husband, Dale, and their two daughters, who are aged 7 and 5.
Truth to tell and unsurprisingly, Councillor Dominato has proved to be one of the more fiscally conservative (or is that, fiscally responsible?) members, among her new colleagues on Council (but not socially conservative, by any stretch of the imagination), who among other initiatives, recently supported Council’s 2% tax shift from small business to homeowners …

“The small businesses are really fundamental to the character of our community, to our city, and when I talked to homeowners about [a tax shift], it was welcomed — they understand that it might be $40 or $80 more on their property tax,” Councillor Dominato recently told Vancouver Courier civic affairs reporter, Mike Howell. “I didn’t feel there was a divide of homeowners versus businesses. It was very much that we value our small businesses, we value having jobs in our community so people can work here and live here.”

On the environmental front, Councillor Dominato was one of the strong voices on Council supporting Councillor Christine Boyle’s activist and necessary climate action motion, and when responding to a query from the TriCity News’ Grant Lawrence averred that Vancouver is considering a plastic bag ban by 2021, referring Mr. Lawrence to the City of Vancouver’s director of waste management and resource recovery, who told the reporter that “a recommendation for a bag ban may come sooner than 2021.”
Councillor Dominato is also a heritage advocate, recently expressing concern at a public hearing about the pending demolition of the 71-year-old Kitsilano Lutheran Church, at 2715 West 12th Avenue.
Councillor Lisa Dominato sits on the Metro Vancouver Board, and in November 2018 was appointed as the Chairperson of the Pacific National Exhibition Board.

Arising from an often raucous 2018 change election, Vancouver City Councillor Michael Wiebe represents one of four millennial voices on Council — Vancouver’s other millennial councillors, Rebecca Bligh (NPA), Christine Boyle (OneCity) and Lisa Dominato (NPA) — has emerged as our city’s most passionate arts advocate, and staunch representative of small business (himself the owner operator of eight 1/2 Restaurant Lounge, just off Main on East 8th Avenue), last week supporting Council’s motion to shift the tax burden away from small business operator to homeowners.
Councillor Wiebe was one of only a few Councillors who supported granting the 4/20 organizers a permit, as he did last term, when he sat as both a Park Board Commissioner, and later as the Park Board Chairperson.

“If we permit them, we would be able to deal with the stage. We could work to make [the event] smaller, to make sure there are enough washrooms, and work to establish a site plan,” Councillor Wiebe told the CBC. “In a non-permitted event, we don’t have those controls.”

Councillor Wiebe also spoke in favour of finding the capital funding for rebuilding Coal Harbour’s shuttered Harbour Green Dock, the closure of which in 2018 meant the end of a Bowen Island commuter passenger service provided by Bowen Land and Sea Taxi since 2010.
Councillor Wiebe, along with his Green Party Council colleagues and the full contingent of NPA Councillors, in December 2018, voted with a Council majority 7-3 to ask the B.C. NDP government to withdraw the province’s school surtax levied on homes valued at $3 million, or higher. Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and Councillors Jean Swanson and Christine Boyle of the Coalition of Progressive Electors and OneCity, respectively, cast the negative votes. NPA Councillor Lisa Dominato was absent during the vote.
Truth to tell, Councillor Michael Wiebe is still finding his feet on Council, attendant to the voices of City Hall staff, and his fellow Councillors.
To date we’ve not heard much from Mr. Wiebe on either of the critically important affordable housing or transit files — a circumstance that is likely to change this upcoming September, when City staff report back to Council on proposed changes to the Rental 100 programme. Mr. Wiebe’s fellow Green Councillor, Adriane Carr, has already spoken in favour of mandating that developers set aside 20% of units in all new rental (and we would hope, condo) construction at the CMHC / Council “moderate rental rate” — $950 for a studio unit; $1,200, one bedroom; $1,600, two bedrooms; and $2,000, three bedrooms (with lower “moderate rents” on Vancouver’s eastside), for those earning between $30,000 and $80,000, which would be one component of Council’s upcoming affordable housing strategy.

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#VanPoli Civic Politics | The Death of Cynicism | Part 1 of 4

May 6, 2019#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Canada, Environment, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Vancouver City Council, to serve from 2018 thru October 2022, clockwise: Councillors Rebecca Bligh, Christine Boyle, Adriane Carr, Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato, Michael Wiebe, Jean Swanson, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Colleen Hardwick, and Pete Fry.

The time has arrived once again for VanRamblings to weigh in on the state and nature of civic politics, as practiced in the City of Vancouver.
Today’s post will begin a brief insight into the 10 City Councillors who were elected this past October, and how each is faring in the current term.

As per the graphic above, Councillor Rebecca Bligh is Vancouver City Council’s delegate to, and a Board member of, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, replacing retired City Councillor Raymond Louie in that role.
The socially-skilled Ms. Bligh has emerged, as might well be expected given her background in business, as one of the more conservative voices on Council — although, as is the case with her Non-Partisan Association colleagues, a fiscal conservative and certainly not a social conservative.
Working with her fellow elected, progressive and feminist NPA City Councillors, Council Finance Chair Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato, Colleen Hardwick and Sarah Kirby-Yung, Ms. Bligh’s focus has tended towards looking after the public purse, keeping taxes low and, most recently, championing the shifting of the tax burden away from small business owners — who you may have noticed have been going out of business in record numbers these past months, with vacancy signs on arterials throughout the city — to homeowners — receiving support for this important initiative from councillors Sarah Kirby-Young, Lisa Dominato, Michael Wiebe, Adriane Carr and Pete Fry. Note should be made that small business bears up to 49% of the tax burden in the City of Vancouver.
Note should also be made that the passage of the tax shift motion represented the first time this current term Councillors voted contrary to staff wishes, who unsurprisingly emerged as the only voices in opposition to the tax shift — for a Council that has tended to be in sway to City staff, Councillors’ decision to act in the public interest rather than bureaucratic staff interest, represents hope on the horizon that Council, in future, may more consistently vote for us, rather than adhere to bureaucratic wishes.

Councillor Christine Boyle (pictured above) has emerged as Vancouver City Council and our city’s leading climate change warrior, this past January introducing a ground-breaking, precedent-setting motion that in the process of declaring a climate emergency, mandated Six Big Moves …

1. That 90% of Vancouver citizens will eventually live within an easy walk or stroll of their daily needs. That implies much more densification in South Vancouver, where this is mostly not the case — apart from in Marpole, Oakridge, Dunbar, Kerrisdale, and South Hill;

2. Council will set a target of 50% of kilometres driven in 2030 will be made in zero-emission vehicles. This implies a sharp increase in electric-vehicle charging stations and far more extensive efforts to make these available to tenants, who comprise 53 percent of the city’s population;

3. By 2030, two-thirds of trips will be by walking, cycling, rollerblading, and transit. This implies that more road space for motor vehicles will be taken away to accommodate non-motorists. This process has already begun on the Granville Street bridge;

4. That all new replacement heating and hot water systems will deliver zero emissions, which implies a sharp expansion of neighbourhood energy utilities and the use of heat pumps;

5. Setting a target of reducing embedded emissions in new buildings and construction projects to 40% of 2018 levels by 2030, which as Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith writes, “would inevitably lead to far more wood construction and far less use of cement, as well as fewer underground parkades”;

6. Passing policies that will remove one million tonnes of carbon annually by 2060 through regeneration of local forests and coastal ecosystems, which as Mr. Smith writes, “… implies a whole lot of tree planting.”

This past week Council unanimously approved the climate action initiative.
As VanRamblings has long contended, 34-year-old Councillor Christine Boyle represents the hope of our future, a visionary leader made for our times, a humble political figure who surveys a broad cross-section of public opinion (listening, really listening) before acting, a Tommy Douglas-like figure (although, she’s not there yet — but she will be!) who inspires, has consistently proven she can work productively with others, and whose clarion voice — as is the case with many of her Council colleagues — is undeniable, honest and true & in Ms. Boyle’s case, authentically her own.

Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr celebrating Pride Day in our city, in 2018.

After serving two terms in office leading the charge at City Council on behalf of citizen interests, three-term Councillor Adriane Carr has taken somewhat of a back seat to her more vocal, recently-elected, activist, and ambitious colleagues on Council: think Councillors Christine Boyle, Sarah Kirby-Yung and Ms. Carr’s Green colleague, Pete Fry, in particular — all of whom have proved, as well might be expected to anyone in the know, as the most media savvy of our Vancouver councillors, consistently articulate, the most progressive and forward thinking, plain spoken and engaged councillors, and absolutely tireless in their service of the public interest, out and about our city engaging with the broadest range of citizens in every neighbourhood across our city every opportunity they get … and who, for the record, constitute VanRamblings’ favourite councillors.
Still and all, we’re talking Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr here — two elections in a row emerging as Vancouver’s most beloved City Councillor, reflected in poll topping numbers on election day in both 2014 and 2018 — no piker she. As the Chairperson of Vancouver City Council’s Standing Committee on Policy and Strategic Priorities (Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung is vice-chair), chairperson of the Metro Vancouver Board Climate Action Committee, and since 2009 the co-chair of the Canadian Women Voters’ Congress non-partisan Women’s Campaign School, Ms. Carr has long worked on behalf of citizens, as she continues to do to this day.
Councillor Carr has argued articulately and well in the current term for awarding extra density to developers in exchange for renting 20% of the suites in new construction at CMHC (and Council’s) “moderate rental” / median market rental rents, rents well below market, the best example of which is the proposed Kitsilano development at 2nd and Larch.
Let us all hope that Councillor Carr carries the day on this important initiative, a constituent element of a broader affordable housing strategy.
At present, under the existing Vision Vancouver-initiated Rental 100 programme, in exchange for extra density, developers offer rents only slightly below market rates (e.g. $1,768 for a studio, $2,056 for one bedroom, $2,703 for two bedrooms, and $3,559 for three bedrooms), as opposed to $950 for a studio unit; $1,200, one bedroom; $1,600, two bedrooms; and $2,000, three bedrooms (with lower “moderate rents” on Vancouver’s eastside), as the “moderate rental rates” proposed by Councillor Adriane Carr, for those earning between $30,000 and $80,000.
In case you were wondering: yes, Adriane Carr remains very much on our side, as we presume will continue to be the case throughout the term.

For anyone paying attention to the goings-on at Vancouver City Hall this past six months, you have to know that our new Council is the most action-oriented, public interest serving, neighbourhood-consulting and activist City Council Vancouver voters have elected to municipal office in years.
Although, the new Council members sometimes lose the thread of the argument that got them elected (which we’ll write about on Thursday), most Councillors consistently finding themselves in these early days of their four-year term too often in the sway of bureaucratic staff. In consequence, even given their activist bent, our new Council has emerged as quiescent.
VanRamblings believes that our current very bright and dedicated group of Councillors by this autumn will finally have begun to find their feet (and independent activist, community-serving voices), leading to a new era of hope in our city, and as we suggest in the headline of today’s VanRamblings’ posting, the death of cynicism in Vancouver civic politics.

Decision Canada | Dancing With the One That Brung Ya, Part 1

April 29, 2019BC Politics, Decision Canada 2019, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Loyalty is a scarce commodity in politics.
When an individual decides that they’re going to go into politics, generally there’s both a fair bit of ego and ambition involved.
A novice candidate first has to secure the nomination, which takes organizational ability, and an energized, experienced and crack team behind her or him. Once the nomination is achieved — no mean feat, that — there’s a whole campaign team that needs to be put into place, competent, organized professionals who know how to get the candidate’s message out.
A bit of history concerning Justin Trudeau

Justin Trudeau, age 24 in 1996, as a student at the University of British Columbia

After attaining a bachelor of arts degree in literature from Montréal’s McGill University at age 22 in 1994, Justin Trudeau traveled to British Columbia — the province where his mother was raised, continues to live, and where he had spent a great deal of time with his mother’s family — to enrol in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Education, where he went on to attain a Bachelor of Education degree in 1998, and a teaching certificate, securing employment post graduation at the West Point Grey Academy, where he taught both French and math, later going on to employment with the Vancouver School District, as a much-beloved teacher and colleague at Winston Churchill Secondary, in Vancouver’s Oakridge neighbourhood.
Active always in politics, and long committed to a reconciliation process with Canada’s indigenous peoples, Mr. Trudeau first met Jody Wilson-Raybould when both were students at UBC, continuing their relationship when he was teaching school in our city, and after passing the bar in 2000, she was employed as a provincial Crown prosecutor in Vancouver’s Main Street criminal courthouse for three years, from 2000 to 2003.
Colleagues of Ms. Wilson-Raybould, like respected criminal defence lawyer Terry La Liberté described Ms. Wilson-Raybould as a smart, fair, and a skilled prosecutor, who treated defendants with compassion, saying …

“She has actually talked to the people who are affected. She has worked with these people and made choices about their future in a really meaningful way.”

In respect of the federal Liberal party, after almost a decade in the wilderness, when newly-elected Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau ran to become Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister in the 2015 federal election, in the lead up to the election, he made it a point to approach and speak several times with Jody Wilson-Raybould, asking her to consider running as a candidate in the newly-created riding of Vancouver-Granville, promising that he would put the full weight of the Liberal party campaign apparatus behind her campaign to secure her run for office.

Mr. Trudeau made it clear to Ms. Wilson-Raybould, on numerous occasions, that he believed it was past time that a Prime Minister elevate an indigenous woman into a federal cabinet, which was exactly what he did when he appointed his first Cabinet on Wednesday, November 4th, 2015, appointing Jody Wilson-Raybould as Minister of Justice & Attorney General.
At present, Justin Trudeau is Canada’s Prime Minister. Let’s take a look at those two latter words: Minister, means Mr. Trudeau is a Minister of the Crown. In respect of the word Prime, according to the Oxford dictionary, prime means primary, chief, principal, foremost, first, paramount, major, dominant, supreme, overriding, cardinal, pre-eminent and number one.
Politically, it is understood federally that Cabinet Ministers serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister, and in the case of provinces, the Premier.
Read what Sonya Savage — a star candidate for Alberta’s United Conservative Party and respected Calgary lawyer, with a master of laws in environment and energy, who has worked in senior positions with Enbridge and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, the MLA-elect for Calgary-North West and the likely choice to take on the energy portfolio — has to say in this CBC article on who will make the cut when Alberta Premier-elect Jason Kenney announces his cabinet tomorrow morning …

“You serve at the pleasure of the premier-elect and I’ll be happy to serve in any capacity,” Savage said on Wednesday. “First and foremost is to represent the people who elected you.”

Exactly. Should Ms. Savage make Jason Kenney’s first Cabinet, as is likely, she will serve at the pleasure of the Premier, as all of the Ministers of the current British Columbia NDP government serve at the pleasure of Premier John Horgan. That is Politics 101. Canada’s is Justin Trudeau’s government. British Columbia is John Horgan’s government, plain and simple.
Baleful that Jody Wilson-Raybould never grasped this basic political precept, in place across every government, in every country across the globe.

Justin Trudeau shares a moment with this wife Sophie Gregoire on election night 2015

On October 19th, 2015, the Justin Trudeau-led Liberal Party won 184 seats in the 338 Parliament, gaining an unexpectedly large majority government. One of those seats belongs to Mr. Trudeau. When it came to appointing his first cabinet, Mr. Trudeau had an embarrassment of riches from which to choose, of the 183 returning or newly-elected Members of Parliament in Canada’s 23rd national government, ambitious and accomplished all, and possessed of the belief that s/he would make a superb Minister of the Crown and serve the people of Canada well in such capacity, 153 of whom were to be sorely disappointed when Mr. Trudeau announced his cabinet.
Note should be made that Canadians heard no whinging or public gnashing of teeth from the 153 Liberal members of Parliament who failed to make Justin Trudeau’s first cabinet.
At least for most Liberal Members of Parliament, loyalty to the party under whose banner they ran, and the Prime Ministerial candidate they had committed to support and (they did, and with the exception of Jane Philpott, Jody Wilson-Raybould and Celina Caesar-Chavannes) still do, remains of paramount importance, as does loyalty to the Prime Minister.

VanRamblings’ studied & informed supposition as to the outcome of this year’s election

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the leader of the country, and the leader of the Liberal Party, the political figure who offers the Liberal Party of Canada, its many thousands of members, the sitting and supportive Members of Parliament and the people of Canada, the best opportunity to retain government, to continue to work on behalf of all Canadians, even if the win this coming October 21st is to result in a reduced majority, the latter thanks to the imprecations of Jody Wilson-Raybould, a sentiment of condemnation many members of the Liberal caucus, in every province and territory, have expressed to attentive and heedful members of the press.

Let’s take a look at the qualifications of Canada’s current Attorney General and Minister of Justice (pictured above), the Honourable David Lametti …

Prior to his recent appointment, Dr. Lametti was a full, tenured Professor in the Faculty of Law at Montréal’s McGill University (Mr. Trudeau’s alma mater), specializing in property, intellectual property as well as private and comparative law. He was also a member of McGill University’s Québec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law and a co-founder and member of the McGill Centre for Intellectual Property Policy. He served as the Associate Dean (Academic) of the Faculty of Law, McGill University, from 2008 to 2011. Multilingual, Minister Lametti has taught at the university level in French, English, and Italian.

In addition to his responsibilities as a professor, Dr. Lametti was a member of McGill University’s Senate and a Governor of the Fondation du Barreau du Québec, as well as president of the governing board for his children’s — André, Gabrielle, and Dominique’s — school.

Dr. Lametti holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science from the University of Toronto, a Bachelor of Civil Law and Bachelor of Laws from McGill University, a Master of Laws from the Yale Law School, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Law from Oxford University. Prior to starting his doctoral studies in law, he served as a Law Clerk to Justice Peter deCarteret Cory of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Clearly, Minister Lametti is a piker, and unqualified to become, and now serve as, Canada’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
When Justin Trudeau appointed his first cabinet, did he appoint the accomplished Dr. Lametti as Canada’s new Attorney General and Minister of Justice? Nope, he didn’t. He appointed a former junior Crown Counsel, Jody Wilson-Raybould, who went on to believe that she had the divine right to serve in that capacity for as long as she remained interested in doing so.
Humility and forbearance, thy name is not Jody Wilson-Raybould.
Part 2 of 3 of Dancing With the One That Brung Ya, tomorrow.

Decision Canada | Passover | Liberation, Freedom & Democracy

April 23, 2019BC Politics, Decision Canada 2019, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Passover is a major, biblically derived Jewish holiday, a commemoration of Jewish liberation by God from slavery in ancient Egypt, their (our, for VanRamblings is a Jew) freedom as a nation under the leadership of Moses, commemorated by the story of the Exodus as described in The Five Books of Moses, most especially in the Book of Exodus.
As with Passover and the theme of liberation and freedom, that too is what our democracy promises us, and that is what Canadians will be voting for come this October, in Canada’s 43rd general election.
As Canadians find themselves at the beginning of our country’s quadrennial federal election season, those of the Jewish faith today celebrate the midway point of Passover, which commemoration began this past Friday evening, and will end late on this upcoming Saturday evening.
As the Jewish celebration of liberation, freedom and democracy draws to a close in just a few days, Canadians’ celebration of the three central tenets of democratic life across our nation is just now beginning.
Commencing with publication of VanRamblings columns effective this upcoming Monday, April 29th, VanRamblings will provide our own idiosyncratic insight into a variety of subjects, including the recent Jody Wilson-Raybould ‘scandal’ (sure not to please many), the state of our provincial governance (ditto, although overall, we’re supportive of our New Democrat government), and Vancouver’s municipal government — of which we will be somewhat critical, but much less so than you might imagine.
In the interim, we’ll leave you with our early prediction as to how the federal election will unfold late in the evening of Monday, October 21st …

With the Jody Wilson-Raybould ‘scandal’ fading back into the deep recesses of the consciousness of fickle Canadian voters, come Monday evening, October 21st, 2019, while the Liberals will end up losing seats in BC (5 – 8), Ontario (23+) and the Maritimes (6), they’ll pick up seats in Québec. The Conservatives will gain seats in BC (8 – 10), Ontario (23+), Québec (5 or more), and perhaps as many as a half dozen seats in the Maritimes.
Meanwhile, the NDP will be all but wiped out in Québec, taking their seat count down in that province from 16 (as of election night 2015) to one lone seat, that of the much-beloved Ruth Ellen Brosseau, in the riding of Berthier — Maskinongé. Meanwhile, the Greens are set to gain additional seats on Vancouver Island and in the Maritimes, and if Jane Philpott joins newlywed Elizabeth May’s ascendant Green party, a seat or two in Ontario.
Although we’re looking at an ugly election, as Justin Trudeau has predicted for months, the Liberals possess the most experienced and effective campaign team, are well-financed, and have in Justin Trudeau a born campaigner, who lives to interact with the electorate.
Andrew Scheer, sad to say, simply lacks Trudeau’s charisma, and although the Conservatives will gain seats in the next Parliament, we predict Scheer will not catch on with most of the electorate.
Jagmeet Singh, as with Trudeau, will also prove to be a first-rate campaigner, but what with 17 resignations and defections from his caucus in recent months, unless Mr. Singh catches fire with the electorate, the woefully underfunded federal New Democratic Party will find themselves having one helluva not-so-good time on the campaign trail.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth May’s political star is in its ascendancy, which will translate into votes for her from disaffected members of the Liberal, Conservative and New Democratic parties, resulting in an effective rump Green caucus in Canada’s next Parliament.
Take note: you read it here first.

After completing the writing of the above post, a friend posted a text message at the conclusion of a lengthy text tête-à-tête we were having on the upcoming federal election, resulting in the writing of the following …
For another, not too dissimilar projection, the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy’s Barry Kay last evening published his seat projection on the Global News website, giving one seat to Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party, and only two seats to Elizabeth May’s Green Party.

Source: Laurier Institute. Blend of polls from Nanos, Forum, Angus Reid, Leger and Mainstreet between mid-March and mid-April, derived from over 15,000 individual interviews. Link provided by VanRamblings reader (friend and politico), Jacob Kojfman.