Category Archives: BC Politics

Vancouver Votes 2018 | A Dystopian Nightmare Averted

October 29, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

With the election of Kennedy Stewart a Dystopian Nightmare was averted

Election night, Saturday, October 20th, Councillor-elect Christine Boyle addressed her OneCity Vancouver supporters, girding them for the “fight ahead” against the forces of regression, calling on them to work with her and the progressive forces across our city in order that, together, we might build the city we need. Christine Boyle’s call was an inspiring & clarion one.
The following day, VanRamblings published a column taking Councillor-elect Boyle to task for seeming to sew the seeds of division on a Council that, we thought and we continue to believe, is far from divided, her comment on election night unworthy of what we know and believe about the candidate we relentlessly championed daily in the six month lead-up to election night.
VanRamblings has, over the course of the past week championed the notion of “post partisan councils and boards of reconciliation” — a call by VanRamblings for elected members to work across the aisle with those electeds and members of the public with whom they have differing political philosophies and perspectives, all in aid of persons of conscience coming together so as to benefit every citizen who resides in the city of Vancouver.

But for 957 votes on election night, October 20th 2018 (and the election of Ken Sim as Vancouver’s next Mayor), Councillor-elect Christine Boyle’s election night address rallying her supporters of conscience might rather have garnered the opprobrium of VanRamblings for understating the dire consequential impact of a Mayor Ken Sim, and a majority Vancouver Non-Partisan Association contingent of electeds to Vancouver City Council.

The following is what would have transpired had Ken Sim become Vancouver’s next Mayor, along with the five current NPA Councillors-elect …

Mayor’s Advisory Board. An advisory Board to the Mayor would be struck, not unlike the advisory Board that drafted policy for Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. This NPA Board of Advisors would focus mainly on drafting policy on development, an influential and determinative, proto in-house real estate Board, if you will, as was the case with the Mayor Robertson administration. The Mayor would have input into the decisions taken the Board, but just that and no more;
Empty Homes Tax. The Empty Homes Tax that Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart proposes be tripled (an initiative that will find support among the “progressive” Councillor elects), under an NPA administration would be repealed, as one of the first items of business of the new Council. The Advisory Board would determine that the Empty Homes Tax was a counter-productive measure that had depressed investment in the real estate market by offshore investors in the Vancouver market. Consequent to the cancellation of the Empty Homes Tax, the initiative extant of the Advisory Board, investment in Vancouver’s real estate market would once again boom, creating tens of thousands of ‘man years’ of employment for builders and the building trades, while making hundreds of millions of dollars for developers, not to mention members of the Advisory Board. In other words, Vision Vancouver on speed;
NPA Mayor & Council as de facto opposition to the NDP government. Mayor Ken Sim and the NPA members of Council would call out the NDP’s speculation tax (first initiated by Christy Clark’s Liberal government) for the inherent racism of the policy, which commentary Mayor Ken Sim would broadcast to the world as discriminatory, given that the tax is aimed specifically at Chinese investors he would suggest, and to a lesser extent person of colour “immigrants” from across the globe;
An NPA administration at Vancouver City Hall would also DEMAND the revocation of the provincial government’s speculation tax as a top priority, a drum they would beat until their demands had been met. An NPA administration would also call out the provincial NDP government’s so-called “school surtax” (a particular bug-a-boo for NPA Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick), the rallies that had been held in the spring and summer opposing the provincial NDP government’s “school surtax” to look like a convivial picnic, as compared to the rallies that would be fomented by the NPA administration in office at Vancouver City Hall;
Affordable housing. Under an NPA administration at Vancouver City Hall, citizens could forget about an NPA Mayor and Council doing anything whatsoever on the affordable housing file — it’s just not an NPA bailiwick, and an issue an NPA administration would give two hoots about. Of course, Councillors Jean Swanson, Christine Boyle and Pete Fry would rally their troops (which is to say, all persons of conscience resident in the city of Vancouver) to hold a Ken Sim-led civic administration to account — but let’s face it, if there are ideologues on the left, there are ideologues on the right. The protests of progressive elected Councillors and Vancouver citizens of conscience demanding the construction of affordable housing built on city land would fall on deaf ears among the elected NPA majority on Vancouver City Council.

All of the above only scratches the surface of the havoc that would be wreaked by a right-leaning NPA administration, which catering to their “base” would not give two hoots for the majority of Vancouver citizens.
Fanciful conjecture above? Not on your life.
Fortunately for all of us, Ken Sim was not elected Mayor on Saturday night, October 20th. The nightmare scenario above is one that the conscience-less Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick (who possesses many good qualities, a social conscience and a commitment to equity not being among them) would have readily signed onto. Opposition to the imposition of the dictates of the NPA Advisory Board would have been led by Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, who would have been brow-beaten (as was Kim Capri, in the Sam Sullivan administration — one of the ugliest misuses of power by a Mayor directed at a party stalwart and elected Councillor, VanRamblings has ever witnessed), as would the four other NPA Councillors. We may have a “weak Mayor” system — but as was the case with Larry Campbell and Sam Sullivan, and to a somewhat lesser degree, Gregor Robertson, the Mayor has the bully pulpit from which to exclaim, and an outsized influence over Councillors. Quite simply, that is the reality of Vancouver realpolitik.
A four year Vancouver civic political nightmare was averted on election night. Now Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart and all members of Vancouver City Council will be afforded an opportunity to work together towards the realization of VanRamblings’ much-ballyhooed “post partisan Council of reconciliation”, working for and on behalf of all the citizens of Vancouver.

As an addendum to today’s VanRamblings column …
The past few days has proved particularly challenging for VanRamblings. For the first time in the 14½ year history of VanRamblings, senior members of one political party demanded we take down a post — a positive post in support of this party, strangely enough. Further, the writer of this blog was instructed, under penalty, to NEVER again write about two of the Councillor-elects — again, both of whom we have written positively on, as we presume will continue to be the case. Perhaps, the persons who are issuing these demands are unfamiliar with the notion of “freedom of expression.”
Although VanRamblings plans to continue our penchant for a degree of (what we hope is becoming and entertainingly engaging) hyperbole in our writing, and because we believe deeply in freedom of expression but not license, we will continue to publish positively about realpolitik in Vancouver, and write what we will about the electeds — while never deigning to publish libelous statements or pejorative commentary about our elected officials.
Detractors and those political operatives who choose to intimidate as a modus operandi, who choose monetary gain in service over integrity: yell and threaten all you want. At VanRamblings — post our battle with cancer — we’re on a mission to make a difference. Threats and intimidation, name-calling and rebuke from on high will not deter us from that which we have set about to do on VanRamblings as we post each day, as we work towards making ours a fairer and more just city and province for all of us.

Vancouver Votes 2018 | Colleen Hardwick About to Rise Above

October 25, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

This past Monday, two days after being elected Mayor of Vancouver, Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart suggested he would be inclined to support Surrey Mayor-elect Doug McCallum’s bid to convert the 10 years in the making, approved & funded 40-year light rail plan for Surrey to the orphan SkyTrain technology, as he told The Vancouver Sun reporter Jennifer Saltman …

“I just have to wait and hear what the details of (mayor-elect) McCallum’s plan are and see what other support he’s been able to build, and also to make sure that he’s familiar with my push to get the Broadway subway built all the way to UBC,” Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart said.

If Kennedy Stewart were to vote in favour of exploring building SkyTrain in Surrey, McCallum would need only 10 more votes on the Mayor’s Council to make his dream of a Surrey to Langley Skytrain line a reality.
Of course, there’s the issue that costs for a Surrey Skytrain line would double the $1.65 billion in monies already allocated for the approved light rail plan for Surrey-Langley, Surrey-Guildford & Surrey-Newton-White Rock, the latter two lines that would be sacrificed in favour of the former.
As UBC urban geography professor Patrick Condon was saying to VanRamblings earlier in the week, “This is Kennedy Stewart’s first huge mistake. Why he would throw his support to McCallum beggars belief.”
No sooner had former Vancouver Mayoral candidate Patrick Condon uttered those prophetic words than Vancouver Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart was walking back his support for Skytrain in Surrey.
From an Ian Bailey story in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail …

In the aftermath of last weekend’s municipal elections in British Columbia, (Kennedy) Stewart has said he backs the transit upgrade efforts of Doug McCallum, elected in Surrey, which is B.C.’s fastest-growing city. But Mr. McCallum’s position threatens to undo years of painstaking compromises to come up with a 10-year plan for the region because other mayors are worried that if Surrey takes a more expensive route, it will cost all of them more money.

After voicing hearty support for Mr. McCallum’s position on Monday, Mr. Stewart added a caveat Tuesday: “At the same time, we cannot put in jeopardy any infrastructure dollars that have already been committed, including funds earmarked for the Broadway Subway line,” he said in a statement released to the press … “Replacing the approved light rail with an extension of an existing SkyTrain rail line, mostly elevated above ground, would double the cost from the planned $1.65-billion for light rail. Some leaders re-elected or elected last weekend are saying they are wary about supporting more money for Mr. McCallum’s transit agenda.”

In fact, one of the few returning mayors in Metro Vancouver, re-elected to a fourth term in office this past Saturday, has some advice for Surrey’s mayor-elect, Doug McCallum: Switching from light rail transit to SkyTrain would be throwing away money and time already spent, while delaying expanded rail transit by years …

“The plan is approved, implemented, money has been spent on it,” Richard Stewart, re-elected mayor of Coquitlam told The Globe and Mail. “We’re well down the path.”

The Mayors’ Council, established by the B.C. Liberal government and then Minister of Transportation Kevin Falcon in 2007, is comprised of 21 municipalities, the electoral area that includes UBC’s Endowment Lands, and Tsawwassen First Nation. It’s the governance body that assembled the current transportation plan in conjunction with the communities affected.
The Mayor’s Council approved Vancouver & Surrey rail expansion (SkyTrain on Broadway in Vancouver, light rail transit in Surrey) along with bus and other expansions. About $50 million has already been spent on LRT, according to Translink. Surrey has spent $20 million in pre-construction.

“I don’t think it’s a case of just switching technologies, from light rail to SkyTrain in Surrey,” Mayor Richard Stewart told the Vancouver Sun. “It will be interesting to see the argument put forward. I worry, though, that if someone succeeds in getting the current work cancelled, it could result in another decade of work to get SkyTrain for Surrey. It took a decade to get the current plan.”

Without a doubt the most informed and dedicated member on Vancouver’s newly-elected City Council when it comes to issues of planning, urban development and transportation is Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick.

Vancouver Councillor-elect Hardwick, currently completing work on her PhD in urban studies at the University of British Columbia, studying with founding Chair and professor at the Urban Design programme at UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Patrick Condon, is the one current elected official in our region who is the most passionate, well-informed and well-studied proponent of light rail across our region.
Many the hour VanRamblings has engaged in lengthy discussion and debate with Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick, who does not exactly hide her bright light under a bushel — nor should she — our region’s most fervent proponent of slow-growth, human-scale, community and neighbourhood consulted urban development, a key component of which is a low-cost, environmentally-sound, readily accessible, easily expandable, respectful of neighbourhoods region-wide light rail infrastructure programme.
Something else about Councillor-elect Hardwick? Ms. Hardwick also demands the best from those around her. During the course of the 2014 Vancouver civic election, at 4:30pm one rainy summer’s afternoon in July, VanRamblings received an irate call from our friend and supporter …

“What is this crap you’re publishing every day on VanRamblings? Your blog has devolved into little more than a scurrilous gossip rag. I know you. I know you can do better. Given your wide readership and your outsized influence in the political sphere, do yourself and the voters of the city a favour, and get serious. Do better. When I wake up tomorrow morning, I want to read something you’ve written where I can say, “That’s my friend Raymond Tomlin. He done good. Now get started!”

Who were we to refuse Colleen Hardwick (note. for the record, no one refuses Colleen Hardwick, a force of nature if there ever was one)?
VanRamblings immediately got to work on At Issue: Form of Development, and the Livability of Vancouver, which we published at 6:30am the next morning, probably the best piece we published during the 2014 Vancouver civic election cycle. At 7am, we received a text from Ms. Hardwick …

“Good. Better. Now get to bed!”

When the newly-elected Vancouver City Council takes office next month, know this: Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick is going to come at Mayor Kennedy Stewart like a freight train for his ill-considered faux pas on the transit file, with a reasoned and thoughtful evisceration of our new Mayor. Kennedy Stewart? He won’t know what in the blue blazes hit him.

Vancouver Votes 2018 | Your New Park Board | Oh Thank God

October 24, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when life on the Park Board was riven with dysfunction and division, when Commissioners derived satisfaction from scoring points off the opposition, as if politics is all about one upmanship, with nothing to do at all about responsible governance in service of voters who elect civic bodies to represent our collective interests.
VanRamblings is pretty sure that re-elected Park Board Commissioners Stuart Mackinnon and John Coupar recall those woeful days of their previous tenures on Park Board. For here we speak of the days when Vision Vancouver led governance of the Park Board, as a stepping stone to higher office, all but ignoring their responsibility to the people who placed them in office. And then 2014 rolled around, and Vision Vancouver was all but no more on Park Board, and the birds sang and all was well with the world.

Why on God’s green earth are pundits talking post 2018 election night of a “divided Council” where decisions will be hard come by, where pundits all but celebrate the potential for fist fights between the dastardly folks elected from the Non-Partisan Association, while the “progressives” on Council attempt to hold their own against an onslaught of evil from NPA electeds.

As if somehow, Sarah Kirby-Yung is going to go toe to toe with Michael Wiebe and make his life on City Council a living hell, or Lisa Dominato will target Christine Boyle with the sort of name calling and acting out that was rife on the last Council and was the usual operating procedure of Tim Stevenson and Kerry Jang, as if on the new Council Colleen Hardwick has her sights set on that dastardly Pete Fry (we mean, just because she voted for him in the past, and considers him to be a friend, and respects the beejeezus out of him, isn’t it somehow Ms. Hardwick’s new job to make Mr. Fry’s life a living misery on Council this next four years?), as if Melissa De Genova just can’t wait to get Jean Swanson in a corner to show her who’s boss, and how about NPA newly-elected Rebecca Bligh, dollars to donuts she has her sights set on her neighbour Adriane Carr because …
Because why? Because that’s what the press wants, because cynics in our community believe our newly-elected City Council is all about the same ol’ same ol’, when voters sought change at the polls when they went into the voting booth, and now somehow change is no longer on the agenda? Oh, puh-leeze. We know every single one of the newly-elected members of Vancouver City Council, and occasional family disputes to the contrary, we know each and every one of our newly-elected members of Council to be persons of honour and integrity who mean well for the city. Those of you expecting Gun Fight at the O.K. Corrall, well, you’re just going to have to wait til next time to elect a Council that will meet your low expectations.
What does all this have to do with the newly-electeds on the Vancouver Park Board? Everything, and more. Because it was Sarah Kirby-Yung who, after years of misery on Park Board following Vision Vancouver’s tenure, created a Park Board of reconciliation, where Commissioners were focused on the work that was to be done, in order to do themselves and the people of Vancouver, proud — by creating the best galldarn parks and recreation system to be found anywhere on the continent. Because Melissa De Genova (now about to start her second term on City Council) fought — yes, because she did fight for what is right during her tenure on Park Board, and in her first term of office on Council, because that was what was required, not because opposition and unpleasantness is fundamental to one of the kindest, most thoughtful political figures VanRamblings has ever witnessed.
Don’t believe us? Just wait to see how much good Vancouver City Council gets done on our new, halcyon post-partisan City Council of reconciliation.
Dr. Janet Fraser, recent Chairperson on Vancouver’s Board of Education set a tone of reconciliation this past year at Vancouver School Board — and woebetide the Trustee who did not accede to her instruction that interaction among Trustees should be one of economium over vituperation.
In the last term at Vancouver Park Board, although things got off to a rocky start (recovery from Vision’s tenure took awhile), by the end of the term, with Stuart Mackinnon as Board Chair, as was the case the previous year with his colleague Michael Wiebe (now, newly-elected to City Council) in the Chair, an environment of co-operation washed over Commissioners — the process begun under the tenure of Sarah Kirby-Yung, the focus on what Commissioners could do together to make Vancouver’s parks and recreation system the best of its kind on the continent, all the while protecting our beaches, waterways, the natural environment, and our urban forests.

At Park Board in the last term, as was the case the past year at Vancouver School Board, a team of rivals worked together in service of the public, in service of creating, maintaining or working towards the realization of the best public education system in the province, and the most welcoming and accessible to everyone parks and recreation system anywhere in the world.

Take a gander at who you elected to Vancouver Park Board on Saturday.

Stuart Mackinnon, who always comes out on the side of the issues that: protect our environment, the sustainability of our parks and beaches, the viability of our community centres — among a host of others issues — all the while emerging as Park Board’s most compelling & articulate speaker of heart and conscience, perhaps the best off the cuff orator around the Park Board table we’ve ever heard, quiet, authoritative, unassuming and bereft of ego, who marshalls his arguments in such a fashion as to make them unassailable, and in this new term working with his newly-elected Green colleagues, Dave Demers and Camil Dumont, hold much promise for the stewardship for Vancouver’s parks & recreation system;

John Coupar and Tricia Barker, the former who loves Park Board, and lives, eats and breathes the life of the natural environment in our city, and his newly-elected colleague, Tricia Barker (both of whom VanRamblings heartily endorsed), who believes as her colleague John Coupar does, in slow, responsible and well-considered incremental change, and a re-commitment to building a new, replacing, or renewing a community centre every term, and who believes in sustainability as a core value and in preservation of our natural environment;

And then there’s Gwen Giesbrecht, far and away our favourite new elected at Park Board, her fellow Commissioners about to see why.

Perhaps more than any other “newcomer” to the Board, Gwen Giesbrecht, along with her newly-elected COPE colleague, Dr. John Irwin, not only has a handle on the issues, both have a well thought out philosophy of governance and activism that serves all of our interests. As Gwen says …

Building neighbourhood pools, which were closed by the seemingly anti-park Vision Vancouver majority Park Board (always under the thumb of then City Manager, Dr. Penny Ballem) is a top priority for her;
Renewing our community centres, many of which are ten years past due renovation, or replacement, while also ensuring the proper funding of our community centre programmes, of such value to the community;
Fighting against the 12-foot wide asphalt bike path through Kitsilano Beach, through the basketball court, and the children’s play area that HUB, for years, and Vision Vancouver have tried to shove down the throats of residents;
Resisting Vision Vancouver’s VanSplash initiative that would close Lord Byng and Templeton pools, replaced by a gigantic, multi-million dollar destination Olympic competition pool in the midst of a Kitsilano neighbourhood, all the while destroying scarce green space, which is to say Connaught Park to the west of the Kits Community Centre, which would come down, as would the hockey rink attached to the Kits Community, VanSplash all in favour of an environmentally irresponsible Olympic competition pool paid for out of your dollars, but meant to be inaccessible to the public for large portions of the year.

And those are just some of the issues that the new Park Board will face.
Make no mistake, it is the newly-elected members of Vancouver Park Board who will set the stage and the table for tone and style in civic body governance in this next term, as will be the case should Dr. Janet Fraser be elected by her Trustee colleagues to another term as Chairperson, and as will be the case at Vancouver City Council if the cynics, the media and academic ne’er-do-wells give our new Council an opportunity to show their stuff, to let the people of Vancouver know that finally, finally, finally after all these past years of miserable civic governance at Vancouver City Hall, School Board and Park Board, hope for a better day is on the near horizon.

Vancouver Votes 2018 | Middle of the Road School Board Elected

October 23, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Saturday night was quite the night in Vancouver politics.
At Vancouver City Council, voters chose a majority progressive Council, led by Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart, who will work with fellow progressives, the Green Party of Vancouver’s Adriane Carr, Pete Fry and Michael Wiebe, One City Vancouver’s Christine Boyle, and the conscience of the new and incoming Council, COPE’s Jean Swanson.
All of the above is not to say the cadre of five NPA Councillors who were elected to Council on Saturday evening are not progressive — they are. They’re just not in quite the hurry their ‘more progressive’ counterparts are to bring substantive change, much sooner than later.
At Park Board, it was pretty much the same story: three Greens and two COPE elected, five progressives on a renewed Vancouver Park Board.
At School Board, though? Tch, tch — naughty, naughty Vancouver voters.
One supposes that the most salutary outcome of Saturday’s election, in respect of Vancouver’s Board of Education newly-elected crew of trustees for office, is that the new make up of the Board will provide narrative fodder for The Straight’s first-rate education columnist, Patti Bacchus — who we expect shed some hot tears at Saturday night’s outcome (note. Patti is neither given to tears, nor other displays of emotion, given her stoic, working for the betterment of public education ethos).

No, what voters did on Saturday night, in electing a majority centrist / leaning right Vancouver School Board was just short of a high crime and misdemeanour, electing a contingent of mean well folks not ordinarily given to challenging the status quo or the provincial government. Except …

Yes, that’s newly-elected OneCity Vancouver elected Jennifer Reddy above — who, along with OneCity’s Christine Boyle (who ran for, and was elected to Council) represented our two favourite new candidates seeking elected office in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election. In time, you’ll see why.
Trustee-elect Reddy will play the same role on the incoming Board of Education, as did her OneCity running mate, Carrie Bercic (about whom we will be writing more in just a moment), the conscience of the School Board over the past year — who it was imperative be re-elected, but was not.
Trustee Jennifer Reddy, then, will emerge as the new conscience of the Board of Education (VanRamblings is looking forward to covering the new Board, and Ms. Reddy, in particular) — just listen to what incoming Trustee Reddy has to say in her campaign video, above.
At this juncture, VanRamblings wishes to say that for many (and for us) the most heartening outcome of the 2018 Vancouver civic election was the re-election of the entirely extraordinary Allan Wong to Vancouver’s Board of Education, who will begin his seventh term, and 20th year on the Board of Education next month. Allan Wong was the only candidate running for office with Vision Vancouver, elected to office on a devastating evening for a progressive political party of conscience that deserved better, much better.
On the progressive side of the ledger, Trustee Wong and incoming Trustee Reddy are joined by COPE’s Barb Parrott, who was just floating on air on Saturday night at COPE’s Election Night celebration, and about whom Patti Bacchus wrote the following in endorsing Ms. Parrott’s run for office …

Parrott is a retired teacher and vocal public-education advocate who would be a tremendous asset to the VSB. Parrott’s experience working in the school system has given her a deep understanding of what students need in order to be successful in school, and she would work hard to ensure the board is doing everything it can to guarantee that teachers have what they need to do the best job they can in their classrooms. Parrott is a past president of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers’ Association (VESTA) and would be a valuable asset in helping the board build and maintain a respectful collaboration with its education partners.

All of the above said, VanRamblings is not unhappy about the re-election of the Greens’ Janet Fraser and Estrellita Gonzalez — both of whom VanRamblings endorsed — nor are we necessarily displeased with the re-election of the NPA’s Fraser Ballantyne, and his colleague, Carmen Cho.
For the moment, VanRamblings will hold our fire on Green newcomer, Lois Chan-Pedley, with whom we are not quite familiar — although, we are pleased voters elected a person of colour to office, in an election year when that proved to be an unusual circumstance. A young mother, and an accomplished woman, we hold out much hope for Ms. Chan-Pedley and the contribution she will make to the incoming Board of Education

Still and all, VanRamblings is verklempt that the conscience of the last Board of Education, Carrie Bercic, was not re-elected to office.
A correspondent asked us a couple of days back why Carrie Bercic was not re-elected? Without wishing to offend, VanRamblings offers the following …

As we did in the 2014 School Board by-election, when we sang Carrie Bercic’s praises to the skies, we failed to be as supportive (correspondents might suggest more accurate phraseology, such as “over-the moon” and “enthusiastically florid”) as we were in the 2017 School Board by-election. VanRamblings had enough readership in the past month so as to make a difference — and we failed to do so;
The NPA. The NPA got their vote out; witness the 5 elected at Council. There is no way under the sun that NPA voters would support Ms. Bercic’s re-election, as over the past year, Trustee Bercic emerged as the re-birth of public education advocate, Patti Bacchus. In an election with only a 38% voter turnout, and given how important the NPA has deemed School Board to be (we could say mean things, but we won’t), the NPA got their vote out in sufficient numbers so as to quash Trustee Bercic’s re-election. All of which leaves VanRamblings despondent;
Morgane Oger. Make no mistake, our admiration and respect for Ms. Oger is deep and abiding. VanRamblings believes, however (rightly or wrongly), that Morgane Oger’s last minute entrance into the run for School Board, and the 27,157 seventeenth place votes she secured, ended up taking votes away from Trustee Bercic, and her OneCity running mate, Erica Jaaf, both of whom are longtime, effective public education advocates;
NDP voters. Carrie Bercic challenged the status quo, and (respectfully) challenged B.C. Minister of Education, Rob Fleming. In other words, Carrie Bercic stood as a countervailing force to our hanging-by-a-thread provincial NDP government. VanRamblings surmises that there were enough NDP supporters in Vancouver who said to themselves when they arrived at the polls, “Carrie Bercic has proved a staunch defender of public education. But she’s also been critical of the NDP Minister of the Education, and our tremulous progressive NDP government. Gosh, maybe I should just vote for the progressive candidates running with the Greens and Vision Vancouver. Although, with the white guilt I’m feeling, I guess I’d better cast a vote for Jennifer Reddy, who seems articulate and bright, and perhaps not too challenging in her approach to governance. Yeah, Jennifer Reddy, that’s the ticket. Otherwise, I’ll plump my ballot.”

How voters failed to re-elect the strongest, most articulate democratic parent and child advocate in the city of Vancouver since Patti Bacchus left office in 2016, who has performed service on the Board of Education this past 12 months to a fair-thee-well, we just don’t know? But it’s done now.
Tears have been shed, and what might have been is no longer, and — if we might — VanRamblings believes we are all a little, perhaps more than a little, worse off that Carrie Bercic will not sit on the Vancouver School Board in this next term, as our public education advocate extraordinaire.
Carrie Bercic’s penetrating, insightful voice and presence at Vancouver’s Board of Education table, her keen intelligence and staunch advocacy of public education and the some 548,000 students enrolled in British Columbia schools, will be missed, more than words can express.
And you know who will miss her the most?

The Greens’ Estrellita Gonzalez and Janet Fraser, who have sat at the Board table alongside Carrie Bercic this past 12 months, who more often than not voted with and advocated for Trustee Bercic. Returning Trustee Allan Wong, who always seconded Trustee Bercic’s motions, will miss her as a colleague, and for her support of his endeavours at the School Board table. The cause of public education is just a little worse off for the absence of Carrie Bercic as a clarion public education voice in the province of British Columbia.
We trust this is not the last we’ll hear from Ms. Bercic in the political realm.
One heartening election night note: 97,809 voters cast a ballot for Vancouver School Board, while for Council only 90,851 voters cast their ballot, and at Park Board, 95,834 — so something was going on when so many more voters in 2018 came to the polls to vote for School Board.
When all is said and done, the voters of Vancouver — at least the 38% of Vancouver voters who cared enough to vote — made their decision, as faulty as we believe that decision to be, given how imperative was the need to elect an activist Vancouver Board of Education who would staunchly defend our public education system, sitting around the Board table over the next four years, representing the largest, most diverse school district in Canada’s western most province, and long the Board of Education that has set the political education agenda in the province of British Columbia.
Godspeed to Vancouver’s incoming Board of Education.
May wisdom govern your decisions, and may your advocacy for student success remain your paramount endeavour this next four years.