Vancouver voters go to the polls three weeks from tomorrow, although for those so inclined, Vancouver civic election advance polls open on Wednesday, October 10th and run through October 17th — whatever the case, whenever it is you decide to cast your ballot for Mayor, City Council (10), Park Board (7) and School Board (9), please, please please keep yourself informed, and please vote for the progressive candidates running for office in this year’s critical-to-our-future Vancouver municipal election.
Advance voting locations, October 10 – 17, 8am til 8pm …

• Vancouver City Hall, 453 W 12th Avenue

• Roundhouse Arts & Rec Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews
• Britannia Community Services Centre, 1661 Napier Street
• Hastings Community Centre, 3096 East Hastings Street
• Renfrew Park Community Centre, 2929 East 22nd Avenue
• Killarney Community Centre, 6260 Killarney Street
• Trout Lake Community Centre, 3360 Victoria Drive
• Sunset Community Centre, 6810 Main Street
• Marpole | Oakridge Community Centre, 990 West 59th Avenue
• Kerrisdale Community Centre, 5851 West Boulevard
• Kitsilano War Memorial Community Centre, 2690 Larch Street
• West End Community Centre, 870 Denman Street

Next week, VanRamblings will publish a feature interview with our friend Rob McDowell, who is seeking a seat on Vancouver City Council, running as an independent in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election. Rob is a must-vote, one of the most brilliant men we’ve ever met, with broad support across our community, an individual who hasn’t missed a meeting of Council in seven years, and a future member of Council who will hit the ground running when he’s elected to office on Saturday, October 20th, to make life better for you (not to mention: the other Council candidates we’ll be endorsing, Christine Boyle, Derrick O’Keefe & Sarah Kirby-Yung, to name just three, who will find themselves over-the-moon at the opportunity afforded them to work with the accomplished & adroit Robert McDowell!).

There is no question Charlie Smith, the well-respected veteran editor of The Georgia Straight, is the most beloved journalist in our town — as has long been the case — loved not only by his peers, but the many thousands of his readers, and followers of all things civic, provincial and federal politics.

Now, we here at VanRamblings aren’t quite sure how Mr. Smith managed to acquire the transcript of the conversations the Devil recently had with many of the current and more serious (?) candidates for Mayor in the City of Vancouver, but he did — and for our amusement and edification, he published those conversations. We’re glad, and we bet you’re glad, he did.

Somehow, in these busy days, VanRamblings managed to overlook the independent candidacy for Vancouver City Council of Abubakar Khan, even though Charlie Smith identified Mr. Khan as one of the noteworthy independent candidates running for civic office in the current Vancouver municipal election. VanRamblings thanks our friend (and, as it happens, saviour — we’ll write about it someday), author Maureen Bayless, for bringing Mr. Khan’s recommendable candidacy to our attention.

As Mr. Khan wrote in a recently published article in The Straight …

My name is Abubakar Khan, and I’m running for Vancouver City Council to break down the pervasive isolation in our community, to help all of those of us who live in Vancouver to feel less alone and better cared for, to connect them to a government that cares, and neighbours with the time to know their names.

And that means doing two things.

First, it means dealing with the affordability crisis in an innovative way. It means supporting traditional policies — like creating high-density zones and using municipal funds to build affordable housing — while also partnering with the tech industry to solve local problems.

Second, it means tying people together, directly. It means securing full provincial coverage for psychotherapy, so we can have support when we really need it. It means more citywide events — food festivals, block parties, art projects — and cheaper community centre fees. It means building our shared memories together.

Earlier this week, Charlie Smith, the longtime beloved and respected editor of The Georgia Straight published an article in The Straight titled 12 noteworthy independent Council candidates running for office in the current Vancouver municipal election. One expects that Charlie did so to make some sense of this confusing election: 71 candidates will find their names listed on a non-alphabeticized, randomized ballot; when you head to the polls, you’re gonna have to sift through those 71 names, and make some sense of the jumbled mish-mash of names with which you’ll be confronted.

Independent candidates for Vancouver City Council Sarah Blyth, Rob McDowell, Erin Shum & Wade Grant, acknowledged by The Straight’s Charlie Smith as noteworthy candidates.

Bartender, independent & utterly unknown Council candidate Mario Franson tops the ballot. As may be seen in the graphic below, placing second on the ballot, OneCity Vancouver’s splendid candidate Christine Boyle — the single most important Council candidate to elect to City Hall in the next term of office — followed by Vancouver First’s Nycki Basra, who we know nothing about given that she left her disclosure statement blank — maybe she exists only on paper. Enquiring minds want to know a bit about you Ms. Basra, given that you’re applying to voters for an $88,000-a-year job at City Hall as a City Councillor; your résumé offers thin gruel. I’m afraid that we’re going to have to reject your application. Better luck next time.

Taking a look at the randomly organized City Councillor ballot above, there’s a goodly number of those candidates who will be elected to Vancouver City Council. Voters tends to vote by name recognition, ballot order of names, and political party, all of which leaves the NPA’s Melissa De Genova and Colleen Hardwick in good shape, as well as the Green Party’s Pete Fry, One City’s Christine Boyle, independent and top polling School Board candidate in the 2014 civic election, Penny Noble, COPE’s Anne Roberts, and current Park Board Commissioner, Catherine Evans. Four or more of these candidates are almost a lock for Council come October 20th.
For the record, we neither support, nor are we endorsing either of Colleen Hardwick or Penny Noble, who we believe would make for terrible, non-co-operative, right-of-centre City Councillors, blustery narcissists and non-progressive candidates, who have their but not our best interests at heart.
Voters generally scan the whole ballot before casting their votes. If there’s a candidate’s name in the middle of the ballot that jumps out at them (i.e., name or party recognition), a voter will generally put a check beside that candidate’s name. For the most part, though, for time immemorial, voters cast their ballot for candidates topping the list, and feeling a pang of guilt, head to the bottom of the ballot to cast their remaining votes.
This is what “the end” of the City Councillor randomized ballot looks like …

The end of the ballot sports a surfeit of well known candidates who will be elected to City Council in the 2018 Vancouver civic election. COPE’s Derrick O’Keefe is all but a lock (yippee!), as are the Green Party’s Adriane Carr and Michael Wiebe. Independents Sarah Blyth and Rob McDowell and the Coalition Party’s Glen Chernen have strong name recognition, and Heather Deal’s chances for re-election rise astronomically by being the final name on the ballot — a necessary vote for Heather will mean preservation of institutional memory, which will be sorely lacking on the next Council.
Candidates at the top of the ballot, and candidates at the bottom of the ballot have to be feeling pretty darn good about their chances for election this next four year term to Vancouver City Council.
Candidates whose names appear in the middle of the ballot (#36, active transportation advocate Tanya Paz; #40 Sarah Kirby-Yung, a current Park Board Commissioner, who we believe is a must, must-elect; and #45, anti-poverty activist, Jean Swanson — although she’s got good name recognition) have to be feeling that there names will get lost amidst the morass that is the 2018 Vancouver civic election randomized ballot.
Voters have only 33 names to consider on each of the randomized School Board and Park Board ballots — but you have to figure that wading through 158 names on this year’s oversized election ballot when considering who to vote for at the polling station will prove to be a significant concern to many voters. Perhaps by the time most voters get to the School Board and Park Board ballots, they’ll either leave those ballots blank, or cast their votes hither, thither and yon. We continue to believe, as well, that in 2018, we’ll experience a record low turnout among voters — only time will tell, though.
As Winnie the Pooh would say, “What to do? What to do?”

In order to make sense of the mishegas that is the 2018 Vancouver municipal election, you’ll want to make some sense of what’s going on.
You can certainly do that by returning to VanRamblings each day for the next 24 days — you can read what we write, or read between the lines. Christopher Porter is doing a pretty fine job of covering the election over at Canadian Veggie. Ian Bushfield, Patrick Meehan and Matthew Naylor, of this election’s indispensable Cambie Report blog, are doing a pretty darn fine job of covering the election with some of this civic election’s most pointed, poignant and informed repartée on the podcasts you’ll find on their site.
Charlie Smith at The Straight continues to do a bang up job of covering our current municipal election, as does Frances Bula at the Globe and Mail, Jen St. Denis at the Star Vancouver, Dan Fumano at Postmedia (the Vancouver Sun and The Province); and Mike Howell, Allen Garr and my friend and civic affairs columnist, Mike Klassen at the Vancouver Courier.
Stephen Quinn, on CBC’s Early Edition, is providing some of the best municipal election coverage you’ll find anywhere. A must listen. If you miss Stephen’s interviews and commentary live, you can always subscribe to the podcast (as VanRambling does), or listen online to the very same podcasts.
You’ll also want to attend as many all-candidates meetings as you can make it to, which is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. We’re updating our DEFINITIVE upcoming candidate forum and townhall listings daily. Today we’ve added a Science & Policy Integration forum, an Arts Alliance of BC townhall, a new Mayoral debate scheduled for next Monday in Mount Pleasant, and a must-attend Women Candidate Civic Election Forum.
To access the listings, all you have to do is click on the link directly below.