Category Archives: BC Politics

The Inevitable Candidacy of John Coupar for Mayor of Vancouver

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

The Inevitable Candidacy of John Coupar for Mayor of Vancouver 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.

Shauna Sylvester, Trojan Horse? The Destruction of a Candidate

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

On Saturday afternoon, when returning home on the bus from a friend’s place, in checking our Facebook timeline on our iPhone (as we are wont to do), we ran across a post by former Coalition of Vancouver Electors City Councillor, Tim Louis, titled Shauna Sylvester: A Trojan horse for Vision?
For reasons we have yet to get a handle on, VanRamblings found ourselves becoming emotionally verklempt and stricken, as if we had just taken a punch to the gut. Our whole demeanour saddened. Stumbling off the bus at the stop nearest to our home, we had to steady ourself, leaning our arm against a building wall protusion, remaining stock still, our eyes downcast, standing there for a number of minutes, before finally making our way home to our cozy co-op apartment, at which point upon entering the living room, we slumped down onto the sofa, where we remained for a half hour.
VanRamblings was struck, upon re-reading Tim’s piece, by what we feel is the rank unfairness and mis-characterization of a person of conscience, a strong, accomplished woman with agency, a social justice warrior who has fought for inclusivity and for a fairer and more just world during the course of her entire adult life, one of the kindest, most welcoming and spiritually soulful women we have encountered during the course of our own lifetime.

A digression. VanRamblings has known Tim Louis well for 14 years. We worked on his 2005 re-election campaign, and in 2008 acted as a co-campaign manager for Tim (along with his spouse, Dr. Penny Parry, and if memory serves, longtime Tim Louis devotee and founder of Free Geek Vancouver, Ifny LaChance), creating his campaign website — with the able assistance of our longtime friend, current Vancouver Courier civic affairs columnist, Mike Klassen (yes, Michael — then a member of the dreaded Vancouver Non-Partisan Association — was instrumental in creating Tim’s 2008 and 2011 campaign websites, a job assumed by COPE Executive Director, Sean Antrim, in the 2014 Vancouver civic election campaign).
In each of the campaigns we worked on closely with Tim, we posted regularly to his campaign website, shot and edited video, and assisted him in developing a platform in each of three municipal election cycles – playing a key role in developing Tim’s 2014 affordable housing and transit policy (which, if truth be told, was a direct steal from Dr. Patrick Condon, a Mayoral aspirant in the current civic election, & a longtime, well-respected Professor of Urban Planning at the University of British Columbia).
VanRamblings, too, is a longtime devotee of the estimable Mr. Louis. But we think he’s got it wrong in 2018. As we’ve suggested before, in the era of #MeToo and #TimesUp, when men are allies in the fight for sustaining social justice for women, it is wrong-headed (and sexist, at the very least, we believe) to attack a women of character whose values, for the most part, he shares, and whose core values all progressively-minded voters would most assuredly share, support, champion and celebrate.
VanRamblings has been criticized in the past for being too quick to employ the word misogyny in circumstances such as the one we describe above — unsurprisingly, this castigation always coming from men, as if somehow misogyny and the ingrained prejudice against women long evident in our culture does not constitute a fact of life for all women, most particularly in western society as evidenced in the denigration of women who deign to challenge male dominance. One is left to wonder if an ingrained misogynistic attitude does not inform and lay at the centre of Tim’s article.
End of digression.

In a discussion with Ms. Sylvester (from here on in, our intention is to, mostly, refer to Ms. Sylvester as Shauna, as an acknowledgement of her innate humanity, and certainly not as any intended sign of inappropriate familiarity or disrespect) eight days ago, at the OneCity Vancouver Membership Meeting, we voiced to her that we would be “mean” to her in the column we would publish about her “independent” candidacy for Mayor of Vancouver. Her response: “Why?” Why, indeed? In the column we had written and intended to post today, we employed the sardonic, offhand style of commentary we are often wont to employ on VanRamblings.
We’ve scrapped that already written — and, we thought, “entertaining” and informative — column in favour of today’s, we hope more humane, ramble.
Not that we intend to forego reporting on concerns about Ms. Sylvester’s candidacy, concerns that are being widely expressed in the Vancouver political community. To fail to report out would be to do a disservice to VanRamblings readers, and the cause of journalism – which, as celebrated muckraking writer Finley Peter Dunne opined in the late 19th century is to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” And so we shall.

The photo you see above — published in a January 16th, 2018 CBC news online article, written by journalist Maryse Zeidler — sees Shauna Sylvester standing beside longtime Chief of Staff to Mayor Gregor Robertson, Mike Magee, the photo taken at this year’s Vision Vancouver Annual General Meeting, one week after Mr. Robertson announced that he would not seek a fourth term of office at Vancouver City Hall.
The photo is meant to suggest to voters, or remind them, that Shauna is a died-in-the-wool Visionista, a Gregor Robertson devotee and, as Tim Louis “points out” in his brief article published this past Saturday, a “trojan horse” and as Tim also writes, “anything but independent” and almost certainly “a placeholder” for a discredited civic party “certain” to lose power on the evening of Saturday, October 20th, British Columbia’s municipal election date. The photo above is also meant to “remind” voters that …

Shauna sat as a member of the Board of Directors of Vision Vancouver;
Shauna is a longtime friend — and acolyte — of Vision Vancouver founder Joel Solomon, who journalist Frances Bula characterized as The Unlikely Revolutionary in a June 1st 2009 feature article in Vancouver Magazine, Mr. Solomon a longtime target of Vivian Krause, and Canada’s right-wing forces (and, no, we’re not going to link to any of those attack articles), Joel Solomon as the “left wing” counterpart to the “right wing” longtime NPA President, Peter Armstrong;
Shauna is the “woo woo” candidate, as a member of the “cult forces” of Cortes Island’s pricey Hollyhock Spiritual Centre, about which journalist Shannon Rupp wrote in an article in The Georgia Straight, “I assume this artificial feeling of love and acceptance is what people are paying for, but I have to admit I find these get-togethers oppressive. Perhaps the most annoying aspect of Hollyhock is its culture of conformity — Goddess forbid anyone should question anything. After five days here, I’ve found Hollyhock is really two places: the site itself is delightful, but the half-baked spiritual and psychological concepts it peddles make me uneasy.” Note: Gregor Robertson owns a home on Cortes Island, and is a charter member of Hollyhock, as is current Vancouver City Manager, Sadhu Johnson (as well as other senior administrators at Vancouver City Hall);

And, finally, as the pièce de résistance …
Shauna chaired a Mayor’s task force establishing an “affordable housing rate” in Vancouver — and as was recently pointed out by Vancouver Kingsway NDP MP Don Davies, at an Affordable Housing Forum — at a ludicrous $1700 for a studio apartment, $2250 for a one-bedroom, and $2850 for a two-bedroom apartment, on Vancouver’s eastside!

The above “talking points”, then, are what have been making the rounds among the left cognoscenti in Vancouver, are denying Ms. Sylvester agency in her campaign to become Vancouver’s next Mayor, and have caused COPE and Team Jean to refuse to even consider an accommodation with Vision Vancouver in the upcoming civic election.
Among the ideological left, it was always thus.

All of which begs the question: What kind of Mayor would Shauna Sylvester become, should she emerge victorious late in the evening of October 20th?
Well, first of all, Shauna is a woman, and in Vancouver we are one of the few jurisdictions on the planet who have never elected a woman to become Mayor of their city, which is a stain on the reputation of a city that purports to be and widely extols itself as a “progressive city”. Vancouver can hardly call itself “progressive” when we’ve never elected a woman as our Mayor.
All of the social justice issues that Vision Vancouver has promoted during their term in office as the majority party at City Hall are central to Shauna’s vision of the world, and as such she would be a staunch defender of the progressive values that Vancouverites are known the world over for celebrating within the cultural mosaic that is early 21st century Vancouver.
Vancouver would remain a sanctuary city, where police would not ask for I.D. or otherwise seem to harass citizens who are persons of colour, and where no one is illegal; Vancouver would continue to champion LGBTQ2+ issues; would remain a nuclear free zone; would continue to implement the 10-year Women’s Equity Strategy, to make Vancouver a “fair, safe and inclusive city” for all women; would continue to implement the benefits of our city’s ongoing active transportation initiatives (and, yes, for those of you who are not paying attention, that means more bike lanes — about which initiative VanRamblings continues to be, and will always be supportive); and would work with senior levels of government to ensure the construction of truly affordable housing (defined as one-third of a person’s income), while continuing the city’s work with the Community Land Trust to ensure the construction of co-operative housing, such as the recently-opened 135-unit family friendly Railyard Housing Co-op at Quebec and 1st.
Mayor Shauna Sylvester would work to continue the important environmental initiatives that are critical to the future of our children and our families; would work with provincial Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Judy Darcy, and provincial Minister of Justice, David Eby, to work towards the elimination of the scourge that is the fentanyl crisis, most evident on Vancouver’s downtown eastside but also evident across our city, while supporting the good work of Sarah Blyth, Constance Barnes and others who work with the Overdose Prevention Society; would be a fair and judicious chair of Vancouver City Council meetings, providing all elected City Councillors a voice in the decision-making that affects the quality of life in Vancouver, and as such would be a mediator and an agent for change to bring Vancouver City Council together to enact programmes and legislation that would enhance the lives of all Vancouver citizens.
To be honest, and let’s be damn sure about this, Shauna Sylvester would make a first-rate Mayor for the City of Vancouver were voters to cast their ballot for her in sufficient numbers come this October, such that Shauna Sylvester would become our first ever, compassionate woman Mayor, in a four year term that would begin this November, not a fire-breathing radical Mayor, but a neighbourhood-championing Mayor who would put the interests of Vancouver families, families of every description in all of our communities, first on her political & social agenda, and make us all proud.

Vancouver Municipal Election 2018 | A Dog’s Breakfast

April 20, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

The critical 2018 Vancouver municipal election is only 6 short months away.
Today, as you’re probably aware is 4-20, the annual “stoner’s day” celebration. Voters in 2018’s Vancouver civic election may need to be as high as the participants at Sunset Beach today if they’re going to make any sense out of the miasma that is this year’s Vancouver municipal election.
Take a look at the graphic above. There are 12 — count ’em, 12 — candidates who are currently vying for a Vancouver Mayoral nomination, and at the end of this year’s sure-to-be-bumpy and decidedly and overtly partisan electoral contest, on October 20th the grand prize as Mayor of Vancouver will determine Vancouver’s future early in the 21st century.
Looming large on the Vancouver political landscape, the four candidates for the right-of-centre Non-Partisan Association (NPA), the largely male-dominated Vancouver civic party that held power from 1937 through 1972, 1976 through 2002, and from mid-autumn 2005 until the fall of 2008. Four men. Take a look at their faces. Clearly, for the antediluvian NPA, the #MeToo & #TimesUp movements have had little impact on the world view of the corporate-funded-and-backed civic party they’ve chosen to run with.
Is this 2018, or is this 1938? One wonders, when considering the ‘he-men‘ of the NPA. Sad, and more’s the pity, because 2018 is a year of change.
Left-to-right top row, we have John “I don’t suffer fools gladly” Coupar, a homegrown boy, a decent man, recent Chairperson of the Vancouver Park Board, and current Commissioner on our illustrious Park Board.
To John’s right (and we do mean “to his right”, in every sense of the word), current Vancouver City Councillor Hector Bremner, the Mr. Supply, Supply, Supply candidate in the current civic election, Tom “Terrifying” Campbell for the 21st century, the development candidate on methamphetamine famous for saying, “The people of Kitsilano have had it way too easy for way too long. At the end of my first four year term, I will have turned Kitsilano into the new West End. I’ll be coming for your neighbourhood next. I love towers.” In 2018, it would seem that what is old is new again. Alas.
And to Hector’s right, the indefatigable 2014 Cedar Party Mayoral aspirant, Glen Chernen, the “they’re corrupt, they’re all corrupt, there’s a new sheriff in town, and I’m gonna clean this town up, yesirree Bob & Mabel, you can count on it”, a 2018 Non-Partisan Association Mayoral aspirant, don’tcha know. If nothing else, Glen will keep the contest interesting (sort of like the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”). Alas deux.
And, finally and to the far right (is he, or is he not?), 47-year-young entrepreneur “I’ve never even given a passing thought to running for elected office before, but I figure Mayor is as good a place as any to start” Ken Sim, the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association corporate candidate, who announced his intention to seek the NPA Mayoral nomination this past Monday. No website for his candidacy, though. No Ken Sim for Mayor Facebook page, either. Tch, tch. Maybe the affable Mr. Sim is not a nomination candidate for Vancouver Mayor. Could be. Enquiring minds want to know — or at least see a galldarn web page for his putative mayoral bid.

VanRamblings’ money is on one of the four women Mayoral aspirants pictured above. As we will do for all candidates, next week and the week after we’ll write at some greater length about all 12 of the Vancouver Mayoral aspirants — taking a glancing blow at each individual’s candidacy, which none of them will like, but we can guarantee that we’ll be kinder than what all 12 have in store for them over the next six months.
First up, there’s Shauna Sylvester — to the far left (which she is, compared to any of the NPA mayoral aspirants) — a thoroughly decent person, someone VanRamblings likes and very much admires — and someone who doesn’t have a hope in hell of becoming Vancouver’s next Mayor. Not that VanRamblings won’t give you myriad reasons to support Ms. Sylvester’s “independent” bid for Mayor — we will, and will sing Ms. Sylvester’s glory to the rafters (but as we warned her, we’re gonna be “mean” first, but not a tenth as mean as she’ll find herself subject to in the coming months). In 2018, Ms. Sylvester is the “woo woo” candidate. Alas and alack.
To Ms. Sylvester’s right, above, we have the gregarious, principled and top vote-getter in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election, two-term Green Party of Vancouver probable Mayoral candidate Adriane Carr — or, as we like to say, the “Harry Rankin Mayoral candidate” in this year’s Vancouver civic election. Why the “Harry Rankin Mayoral candidate”? The exceedingly cantankerous, but ever-so-bright and on your side, Harry topped the polls each election during his 20 year tenure as an alderman (as they called City Councillors then) on Vancouver City Council, but when Harry ran for Mayor in 1986, against a young upstart by the name of Gordon Campbell, the NPA entered a new electoral Valhalla when Campbell didn’t just top the polls, he slammed a disconsolate Rankin by a greater than 20,000 vote margin.
To Ms. Carr’s right (but not politically), 2017 Vancouver-False Creek NDP candidate and current Vice-President on the Executive Council of the beloved and activist British Columbia New Democratic Party, a political party that is actually on your side, the one, the only Morgane Oger, who VanRamblings believes is the unity candidate in the 2018 civic election, the only Mayoral candidate that all five political parties could & would support.
In 2018, the Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC) is in the throes of an attempt to broker a deal that would “unite” the “progressive” parties — Vision Vancouver, One City, the Greens, COPE and Team Jean — against the dark forces of the dastardly Vancouver Non-Partisan Association. If none of this makes any sense to you, VanRamblings will take a glancing blow at each of the civic parties offering candidates for office in the coming civic election, although truth to tell we’re pretty smitten with OneCity Vancouver. And, please, don’t get us started on the Council candidacy of Christine Boyle — we’re so over-the-moon about Ms. Boyle’s candidacy, we may change the name of our VanRamblings website to VoteForChristineBoyle.
And, finally, on the far right above (but not politically), the incredibly wonderful Meena Wong, who was the principled COPE candidate for Mayor in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election, and may — we did say may — make another bid for the Mayor’s chair if the VDLC is unable to broker a deal for a “unity candidate” for the five progressive parties to get behind.

And last, and most probably least, the final four candidates for Mayor, Colleen “my taxes are just too damn high” Hardwick — who will give VanRamblings hell if we don’t point out that she has not, finally and once-and-for-all, made up her mind as to whether she’ll enter the race with, probably, A Better City (a party she and others formed years ago); Dr. Patrick “working with the citizens, together we could build a livable Vancouver for all of us, and in 2018 I am the Naheed Nenshi candidate (and let us hope for all our sakes that turns out to be the case)” Condon; current Vancouver City Councillor, Finance Chair and recent President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Raymond Louie; and last and least, Wai “whack-a-doodle” Young, whose putative candidacy for Mayor is dead on arrival, as she sets about on her bid for Mayor with the so-called Coalition Party, which appellation is accurate if you consider the meaning of her party’s name to mean, The Coalition of the Damned.
VanRamblings imagines that Ms. Young’s campaign manager, Peter Labrie (who last November ran for the NPA Board, and lost miserably) and Dunbar Theatre owner, Ken Charko, a federal Conservative Party member (and seeming Trump supporter) will be far from pleased with our construction of Ms. Young’s Mayoral candidacy. Alas.
Just chalk it up to VanRamblings being a miserable old cuss. It is to weep.

Today’s VanRamblings column represents the first in what will probably emerge as more than 100 columns, over the course of the next six months, on the upcoming civic election, for Council, School Board and Park Board. As you have no doubt detected, VanRamblings remains a devotee of hyperbole, and where some might say we’re being “mean”, we see it simply as truth-telling. We will attempt to be fair, though, and will afford each candidate an opportunity to have their unadulterated thoughts on their bid for electoral office recorded on VanRamblings, without benefit of snarky or untoward comment from VanRamblings.
Over the course of the next six months, we will attempt to make some sense of all that is about to unfold on Vancouver’s civic scene. At this point, we have a pretty good idea of who we like and who we’ll be supporting — but the list of those persons VanRamblings will be supporting come early October, when the advance polls open, and on Vancouver Election Day, Saturday, October 20th, is by no means complete.

Sparkling OneCity Vancouver Council candidate Christine Boyle (centre), with friends

If you’re wondering what values we support, you need look no further than Christine Boyle’s essay, It Matters How We Do Politics, a more expansive recording of what the principled Ms. Boyle stands for than was published recently on The Georgia Straight website — which is to say, she stands for us — the single most hopeful, skilled, humane and utterly transformative candidate for office VanRamblings has ever witnessed emerging on the political scene, anywhere, anytime (and we know some darn fine folks, political people we just love, and so admire that sometimes it is difficult for us to contain ourselves — and, yes, Patti Bacchus, David Eby, Carrie Bercic, Spencer Chandra Herbert, Allan Wong & Adi Pick, we’re talking about you).
VanRamblings will publish every day going forward.
On the weekend, we’ll take a break from writing about politics (but we will write a column each day this weekend), and will return to writing about the upcoming civic election on Monday. Steel yourself, Ms. Sylvester, and mayoral compatriots. One final thing: VanRamblings will soon publish an apology to Vision Vancouver, for our horrid past coverage of a civic party that has done much good (not that they get a lot of credit for it — we’ll attempt to change that egregious circumstance by recording all that is good that has been accomplished by Vision Vancouver this past 10 years).

Vision Vancouver | Rumours of Demise Greatly Exaggerated

November 1, 2017BC Politics, Politics, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Bike lanes are a big vote-getter for Vision Vancouver with their cyclist coalition

Following a fifth place showing for Vision Vancouver by-election Council candidate Diego Cardona — not to mention a by-election loss of one seat (now down to 3 trustees) at School Board, with Vision finding themselves all-but-wiped-out at Park Board in the 2014 municipal, hanging on to only one seat — much has been written about the pending demise of the now 12-year-old municipal party that has held power at City Hall since 2008.
Veteran reporter and longtime Vancouver Courier municipal affairs columnist, Allen Garr, has even speculated about a possible, informal left-of-centre alliance involving OneCity Vancouver, the Greens and COPE …

… with a Vision Vancouver 2018 Council ballot that would give room to the other parties. And that would likely mean at least one slot for OneCity, Judy Graves, for example; possibly Jean Swanson with COPE’s blessing; and two slots for the Greens, including incumbent Carr. As well, Vision has apparently (in early negotiations) already promised a slot for their by-election sacrificial lamb, Diego Cardona.

Yawn. As if OneCity has any intention of forming an alliance with a “developer party like Vision,” with much the same refrain commonly heard from most members of COPE and the Vancouver Greens. Could happen, but at this point in time such a left-of-centre alliance seems highly unlikely.

Even with the recently-announced provincial imposition of new municipal electoral finance reform limiting donations to $1200 per person, Vision Vancouver still maintains a distinct advantage as we head into next year’s municipal election — by a wide margin, VanRamblings would suggest.
Why? Coalition and identity politics, the latter defined as “voters going to the polls in their own self-interest, based on issues such as Union membership, gender identity and LGBTQ+ issues, and generational issues” — think bike lanes, loved by the young, and the health conscious.

Unions. The new provincial legislation will not prevent Unions from across Metro Vancouver from operating dozens of phone rooms to get the vote out for Vision, with literature provided to the 45,000 Union members who reside in Vancouver reminding them that the last NPA administration locked workers out at City Hall for three months, as the Sam Sullivan administration attempted to gut CUPE’s contract.
Union members will be reminded that for the past decade Vision Vancouver has signed a series of Union contracts at 4% a year (including benefits), setting the standard for municipal bargaining across the province, and during the years of the Campbell-Clark Con-Liberal provincial government that had set a zero-zero-zero mandate, had moved the government off of that so-called mandate, the provincial government eventually signing Union contracts at 2% annual wage increases (plus increased benefits), all of which had a salutary effect on the non-unionized sector of the population, as well.

Pocketbook politics. What are the chances that any Union member voting in Vancouver will cast their ballot for a return to the hoary old days of the NPA, particularly when there’s a far-right-of-centre movement afoot to take over the NPA (as if the party wasn’t right wing enough), with an eye to trashing workers rights on every possible level?
Cyclists. If the Union vote for Vision Vancouver is a lock, you know for certain that the 20,000+ strong cyclists’ coalition will make their way to the polls in droves to support the only civic party in Vancouver in favour of active transportation, and bikes and bike lanes in particular.
The more the right-of-centre folks whine about the “imposition” of bike lanes, or start thoughtlessly stupid anti-bike lane petitions, the more gregarious the voting cyclist population in Vancouver becomes, as they work to ensure their families get to the polls to cast a ballot for Vision Vancouver. Good on the NPA supporters for coming out against bike lanes — you may consider every whiny social media post against bike lanes as another sure vote for Vision Vancouver come October 20, 2018.
LGBTQ+ community. In the 2014 Vancouver municipal election the West End vote for Vision Vancouver was 73%. If Unions are working overtime to ensure their members cast a ballot for Vision Vancouver, and the cyclist coalition in our city are doing the same thing, neither of the groups can hold a candle to the power of the LGBTQ+ community to get the vote out for Vision Vancouver — who will turn out in droves for their favoured civic party, in each and every neighbourhood across the city.

The 2017 Vancouver by-election — for the most part — was an outlier vote, and in the greater scheme of things Vancouver-municipal-vote-wise means absolutely nothing as any kind of vote predictor for the next civic election.
Vision Vancouver — and the Union, cyclist and LGBTQ+ coalition — all-but-sat-out the 2017 Vancouver by-election, realizing there’s a fair bit of voter hubris for the reigning municipal party, as is generally true in by-election voting when it comes to a political party that’s been in power for 10 years.

The Trudeau government, John Horgan’s provincial government and Vision Vancouver will announce thousands of new housing co-op homes under construction in 2018

And let us not forget, either, that with three progressive governments in power at the federal, provincial and municipal levels — for the first time in 45 years — Vision Vancouver finds itself in the catbird seat in the lead-up to the next civic election.

Housing? You can bet with recent Vision Vancouver City Councillor Geoff Meggs in place as Premier John Horgan’s Chief of Staff, and Vision Vancouver supporter / Vancouver-Point Grey MLA David Eby sitting as a key member of the NDP government’s Housing Cabinet Committee that a big time housing announcement involving the construction of thousands of genuinely affordable (mostly housing co-operative) homes will be announced either late next spring, or in early September — that pending announcement, at least in part, meant to bolster Vision’s chances for re-election. The Trudeau government will also want to get into the housing announcement as a major funder, in order that by the time the 2019 federal election is underway, Mr. Trudeau can point to thousands of homes under construction thanks to funding from his government.
Transportation / Broadway Corridor. As much as VanRamblings would like to see light rail down the Broadway corridor, all three levels of government are wedded to the idea of a high-speed subway down the Broadway corridor, with all the preparatory work now complete. You can bet dollars to donuts that Prime Minister Trudeau, Premier John Horgan and Mayor Gregor Robertson will make a joint announcement in the lead-up to the October 20th, 2018 election confirming that funding is in place, and construction of the Broadway corridor high-speed, underground transportation line / subway will be underway by mid-year 2018.

Hallelujah, and save the day. Thousands of new affordable homes under construction in Vancouver, and a rapid transit line down Broadway also under construction — all due to the fine negotiating skills, don’tcha know, of our perspicacious and once-and-forever Mayor, Gregor Robertson!

The October 20th, 2018 Vancouver municipal election will be a whole other kettle of fish: Vision will put all the resources at their command into getting out the vote, their bike lane and cyclist supporter coalition will get out to the polls in droves, and Unions will be working overtime to ensure that the 45,000 Vision Vancouver Union-vote remains rock solid. And since attack politics worked so well for the BC NDP in the May 19th provincial election, you can bet that Vision Vancouver will pull out all the stops to ensure their progressive voter coalition sweeps them back into power a year from now.