Category Archives: BC Politics

Decision 2014: Vision Vancouver Has NOT Earned Your Support

November 3, 2014BC Politics, Decision 2014, Politics, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Boko Haram kidnaps 200 Nigerian schoolgirls

We live in a complex, too often cruel world.
On the evening news, we listen to reports about the ongoing negotiations to free the 200 Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped six months ago by Boko Haram, followed by a report interviewing a young Kurdish father who, despite not being paid for six months by a corrupt Iraqi government continues his fight against the extremist ISIL forces in order that he might “protect my family from harm, my wife and my young daughters.”
We blink, our eyes water, we know we are powerless to do anything to change the cruelest of circumstances occurring across our globe.

Vision Vancouver’s cruel, utterly failed promise to end street homelessness in Vancouver

Where and when do we possess the agency to help make this a better, a kinder and more just world, where children will awake each morning and know that this will not be a day of hunger, where shelter will consist of more than a blanket and a mat within a bedbug-infested hostel, where the needs of our families will be prioritized over the pecuniary demands of developers dedicated to ensuring the re-election of a government whose sole grievous purpose is to line their own pockets at the public expense?
Charity, as you have heard throughout your life, begins at home.

Tomorrow, the advance polls in the 2014 Vancouver civic election open, giving us the opportunity to make a difference, to improve the lives of all those who live around us. Advance polls will be open 8 a.m. thru 8 p.m., Tuesday, November 4th thru Monday, November 10th, and again on Wednesday, November 12th, at any one of the following locations:

Vancouver City Hall, 453 West 12th Avenue, at Cambie
Kerrisdale Community Centre, 5851 West Boulevard
Killarney Community Centre, 6260 Killarney Street
Kitsilano Community Centre, 2690 Larch Street
Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews
Sunset Community Centre, 6810 Main Street
Thunderbird Community Centre, 2311 Cassiar Street
West End Community Centre, 870 Denman Street

Collectively, on election day, Saturday, November 15th, those of us who live in Vancouver have the opportunity to return democratic governance to City Hall and our Vancouver Park Board, where human-scale over highrise development once again becomes a priority for our elected officials, where our community centres will once again receive the funding and supports necessary to meet the needs of our community, and where our parks might once again be transformed into green oases rather than the increasingly desecrated, untended to lands that has become the case under our present shockingly unjust and self-serving Vision Vancouver civic administration.

There’s just no other way to say it: in Vancouver, we have a godawful, undemocratic, secretive, oppressive government at City Hall & Park Board, dedicated to meeting the needs of their developer funders over your needs. Vision Vancouver has not earned and does not deserve your vote.
Over the course of the past 6 years of Vision Vancouver’s term in power …

Our parks have become overrun with invasive species;
Highrise-driven “town centres” were approved in far too many of our neighbourhoods, and many, many more are on the way in every neighbourhood across our city, if Vision Vancouver is re-elected;
More homeless than ever sleep on our streets;
Children go to school hungry because our current Vision Vancouver civic administration refused to fund children’s breakfast programmes when a cruel provincial government withdrew funding;
A war on cars has driven the price of parking and fines (the latter now without benefit of appeal) into the stratosphere, in order to fund bike lanes through parks, along our foreshore & through our green spaces;
Gentrification takes place in our most livable neighbourhoods, where affordable, market-driven rental accommodation has been replaced by condominiums marketed to offshore buyers;
One community cinema after another has closed its doors (The Ridge, The Hollywood Theatre), while The Pantages Theatre, The Centre for the Performing Arts, and the Playhouse Theatre are no more.

Whether it’s the failure to protect the arts, rampant tower-driven densification in our neighbourhoods (you think it’s bad now, just elect a majority Vision Vancouver administration, and I promise you won’t recognize the city you love, nearing the end of their next term), children going to school hungry, clogged thoroughfares, pitiless bus service, underfunded community centres, Vision Vancouver has failed us, all of us.
The time has come to give Vancouver’s cruelest, most-serving of developer’s interests municipal administration the heave-ho, to send a clear message that the enough is enough.
When you head to the polls, no matter for whom you choose to cast your ballot, make sure of one thing: do not cast one vote for a Vision Vancouver City Councillor, and not one Vision Vancouver Park Board candidate deserves a checkmark beside her or his name. We must take our city back.
Do not vote Vision Vancouver.
Preserve what is good about our city, invest in our city and in Vancouver’s future as a city of livable neighbourhoods, and love the city we all call home. At the advance polls, or on election day, cast your ballot as you wish — but please, please, do not support Vision Vancouver at the polls.

Decision 2014: Election Debates, Where To Be Sunday and Monday

November 1, 2014BC Politics, Decision 2014, Politics, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Last Candidate Standing | Sunday, Nov. 2nd | 149 W. Hastings, SFU GoldCorp Centre | 2 til 5pm

In 2011, in a Vancouver municipal election campaign event organized by the Vancouver Public Space Network and UBC’s School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture, featuring live indie music between rounds, and an unusual round-robin-meets-applause-meter debate style — hosted by Steve Burgess, the panel of judges including CBC’s Theresa Lalonde, VPSN chair Alissa Sadler, UBC professor Matthew Soules, and The Tyee’s David Beers — independent candidate for Council and Occupy Vancouver’s Lauren Gill won the “sweaty, irreverent” and often raucous event. Said Gill …

“My power and your power lies in the streets, and it lies in holding the politicians accountable and attending City Council hearings. We are the people who hold the power in this city. You see that at Occupy Vancouver — they haven’t moved in yet. Why? Because we hold more power than they do.”

Well, here we are in 2014, and the Last Candidate Standing debate is upon us, once again. This is going to be one of the standout events of the current election season, and Sunday afternoon, from 2pm til 5pm, at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre (in the Woodward’s building, 149 West Hastings, at Abbott), will be the place to be. Come one, come all. See ya there Sunday!

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Certain to be the 2014 Park Board all-party candidates debate, all you have to do is take a gander at VanRamblings’ Save Kits Beach coverage (read on down), and you’ll know what Vision Vancouver is in for Monday evening.
It ain’t gonna be pretty.
In preparation for Monday evening’s debate, on Saturday afternoon some scalliwags (or should that read community activists of conscience) laid a tarp through Kitsilano Beach, as a reminder of the horrendously wrong-headed decision Vision Vancouver initially took to run a 12-foot-wide asphalt bike freeway through Hadden and Kitsilano Beach parks.
You think the residents of Kits, or residents anywhere across the city for that matter, have forgotten what Vision almost foisted upon us within one of Vancouver’s most beloved parks? Not on your life.
C’mon along to the Billy Bishop Legion on Monday evening.
The beer is cheap, the community space is cozy yet surprisingly spacious, and VanRamblings can all but guarantee that Monday’s Park Board debate will be one of the highlights of Campaign 2014. If Vision shows up.

Photos of Saturday afternoon’s Kitsilano Beach Tarp Event available here.

Decision 2014: Vision Vancouver in a Breach of Its Fiduciary Duty?

October 31, 2014BC Politics, Decision 2014, Politics, Vancouver, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Wednesday evening, former Vancouver City Councillor and respected civic affairs barrister Jonathan Baker wrote to VanRamblings to apprise us of Schlenker v. Torgrimson, a BC Court of Appeals case heard in 2013, which ruled that Salt Spring Island Councillors were in a conflict of interest arising from a direct or indirect pecuniary interest, in respect of having voted to award two service contracts to societies of which they were directors (see Reason for Judgment in the Schlenker v. Torgrimson link above).
In the written reasons for Judgment in the BC Court of Appeals, the Honourable Mr. Justice Donald — concurred in by The Honourable Madam Justice Newbury, and The Honourable Mr. Justice Hinkson — wrote …

[1] Elected officials must avoid conflicts of interest. The question on appeal is whether the respondents were in a conflict when they voted to award two service contracts to societies of which they were directors. In the words of s. 101(1) of the Community Charter, S.B.C. 2003, c. 26, did they have “a direct or indirect pecuniary interest in the matter[s]”?

[5] The penalty for conflict is disqualification until the next election.

[6] I would allow the appeal and declare that the respondents violated the Community Charter.

CityHallWatch has published a backgrounder on the case, with a link to a Fulton and Company LLP three-page summary of Schlenker v. Torgrimson.

Jonathan Baker advising Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr on a matter of the law

Arising from an at-length conversation VanRamblings had with the learned Mr. Baker, a determination was made that it may very well be that Schlenker v. Torgrimson could be the determining case law that, upon adjudication and a ruling on the matter before a Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, could result in an order of the Court that would prevent Vision Vancouver City Councillors who are elected in the next term from seeking a further term of elected office, in 2018.
Mr. Baker offers this précis of Schlenker v. Torgrimson …

The Court of Appeal said direct or indirect pecuniary interest doesn’t just refer to money, that a politician has a fiduciary duty to the Council on which they sit as a member, without built-in bias.

The bias that arises from a member of Council serving two masters is, in Schlenker v. Torgrimson, one, perfectly benign in relation to the environmental group of which he is a member, and his duty to his taxpayers, which loyalties are divided and in conflict.

The Justices held that it was important the Court come down with a decision. Paragraph 34 of the Judgment reads, “to prevent elected officials from having divided loyalties” in deciding how to spend the public’s money, one’s own financial advantage can be such a powerful motive, that putting the public interest second leads to a conflict. The Court must then rule that the Council member could not run for a succeeding term of office.

The benefit — or direct or indirect pecuniary interest — potentially derived by Mr. Meggs, and Vision Vancouver City Councillors, would be the monies received in compensation for duties performed as an elected official.
A direct conflict link, and a decided conflict of interest by Vision Vancouver, might be made — involving the receipt of monies from CUPE 1004 in exchange for favours or benefit, the commitment made to CUPE 1004 by Geoff Meggs on behalf of Vision Vancouver that there would “no contracting out”, this commitment to members of CUPE 1004 made in advance of the bargaining of the upcoming December 2015 collective agreement, and payment in the form of monies paid by taxpayers to elected officials, in this case the Vision Vancouver members of Vancouver City Council.
As per Bob Mackin’s article in the Vancouver Courier, the CUPE 1004 local donated $102,000 to the Vision Vancouver re-election campaign, as was made explicit, in exchange for a commitment by Vision Vancouver not to contract out the jobs of city workers.
The Criminal Code of Canada, Section 123, reads …

Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years who directly or indirectly gives, offers or agrees to give or offer to a municipal official or to anyone for the benefit of a municipal official — or, being a municipal official, directly or indirectly demands, accepts or offers or agrees to accept from any person for themselves or another person — a loan, reward, advantage or benefit of any kind as consideration for the official.”

Mr. Baker suggested to VanRamblings that in the case of CUPE 1004’s commitment to the payment of monies to Vision Vancouver — the details of which are explicated in an October 16, 2014 Bob Mackin article in the Vancouver Courier — the circumstance is worse, as in …

“We’re going to give you money. There are strings attached. And they respond, ‘Yeah, we know.’ So, it looks like you have a contract, which is a horrible breach of their fiduciary duty to those citizens who elected them to office, and the populace of the city, in general.”

Section 38 of Schlenker v. Torgrimson was, in part, based on the Ontario Divisional Court ruling in Re Moll and Fisher, which reads …

This enactment, like all conflict-of-interest rules, is based on the moral principle, long embodied in our jurisprudence, that no man can serve two masters. It recognizes the fact that the judgment of even the most well-meaning men and women may be impaired when their personal financial interests are affected. Public office is a trust conferred by public authority for public purpose. And the Act … enjoins holders of public offices … from any participation in matters in which their economic self-interest may be in conflict with their public duty. The public’s confidence in its elected representatives demands no less.

Given all of the above, VanRamblings has now come to believe that Kirk LaPointe was right when he wrote in his opinion piece in The Province …

Vision Coun. Geoff Meggs, speaking for Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, recently told a meeting of CUPE Local 1004 that the mayor was committing to not contract out any other city jobs. In turn, Vision was given financial and political support. No wonder Vancouverites don’t trust city hall under Vision. Corruption corrodes confidence and this commitment smacks of political backroom deals of yesteryear.

It puts Vision’s interests ahead of the city’s and taxpayers.

Being clearly beholden to the city’s workers right now is an irresponsible service to the city. The union is approaching contract discussions, and any early definition of the city’s bargaining position is a breach of fiduciary duty.

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Once again, as happens on occasion, VanRamblings finds itself in the position of having to offer a mea culpa to an aggrieved party, in this case Non-Partisan Association candidate for Mayor, Mr. Kirk LaPointe.

We apologize, unreservedly, to you Mr. LaPointe. You were right, you are right. In fact, VanRamblings has now come to believe that the actions of Councillor Meggs represent, as you write, “an irresponsible service to the city”, and that the verbal contract agreed to by Councillor Meggs, on behalf of the Vision Vancouver municipal political party of which he is a member, may and perhaps does, in fact, represent a breach of his fiduciary duty to the electorate, such matter yet to be officially determined in a court of law.

Decision 2014: Politics and Class Warfare in Vancouver, Part 2

October 30, 2014BC Politics, Decision 2014, Politics, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Allow VanRamblings to remind readers of a fact: there are 11 provincial ridings in the City of Vancouver. Do you know how many of those ridings were won by Liberal party candidates in the 2013 provincial election? Four. That’s right, four out of eleven. 37% of the Vancouver electorate voted for the “right wing” party, 63% voted for the left-wing party. As VanRamblings is sure you’re aware, all Canadian urban centres tend to vote left-of-centre.
Kirk LaPointe and the Non-Partisan Association’s main job in 2014 is to convince 10,000 more voters than voted for the NPA in 2011 to vote for them in 2014. Where’s that vote going to come from? The 63% of Vancouver voters who voted for the NDP in 2013’s provincial election.

2013 Vancouver provincial election vote distribution across the 11 ridings in the city

At the start of Kirk LaPointe’s New Progressive Association campaign to become Vancouver’s next mayor, the always affable and thoughtful Mr. LaPointe presented himself to the voting electorate of Vancouver as the fiscally responsible, socially progressive candidate with a heart, who also possessed a very fine mind and a well-developed sense of ethics.

Over the course of the past couple of years, current Non-Partisan Association Council candidate Rob McDowell performed something akin to a feat of magic: he re-branded the Non-Partisan Association as the New Progressive Association (or, as Kirk LaPointe would prefer, the Naturally Progressive Association — which is pretty much what we’ve as heard as the campaign narrative from the day Kirk LaPointe announced his candidacy for Mayor, in mid-July through until mid-September), as the party of the Purple Revolution, a new and renewed party of progressives well able to put city government back into the hands of the people, where it rightfully belongs.
Of late, though, LaPointe appears to have stepped into the muck of seeming anti-union, even if in fact and in reality that is not — as he assures VanRamblings is the case (and we believe him) — his intention. Kirk LaPointe has told VanRamblings that he is committed to negotiating a fair contract with city workers, when next the city sits down with CUPE at the bargaining table, that there are no plans to contract out city worker jobs, and that a Kirk LaPointe-led civic administration remains committed to the re-engendering of a fair, just and respectful relationship with city workers.
As we’re all aware, Campaign 2014 is a campaign of optics. Kirk LaPointe as the leader of a renewed Naturally Progressive Association of humble servants of the public interest works as a strong and abiding narrative — and accurately reflects his intention of working towards a much-improved working relationship with Vancouver city workers — a narrative and a commitment to workers that has much appeal to the citizens of Vancouver.

The green areas on the map is where the NPA will need to make significant in-roads in 2014

In the final 16 days of the Vancouver municipal campaign, voters will have to hear a great deal more of that humble servant refrain from the Non-Partisan Association if the renewed party of the Purple Revolution is going to proceed to victory late in the evening of Saturday, November 15th.
What Did Vision’s CUPE Deal Mean for Workers Across the Province?

In December 2012, Vision Vancouver settled a 3-year contract with CUPE for 6.87%, and a much-increased and lauded pension and benefits package.
Now, as it happens, and as was the intention of CUPE (and, one would think, lifelong union activist and two-term Vision Vancouver City Councillor, Geoff Meggs), the 3-year contract with CUPE for 6.87% became the template for every other Metro Vancouver municipality, as CUPE whip-sawed Councils across the region into adopting Vancouver’s union contract template. What’s more, the Vision Vancouver contract with CUPE became the template for settlement in every other municipality across the province.
The Vision Vancouver / CUPE contract also caused / forced the provincial government to move off their much-despised ‘0-0-0‘ mandate with the public sector, and even went so far as to achieve an impact on wages across the private sector, with many private sector workers seeing the first rise in their take home pay in years.
So, the $1.5 million spent by CUPE on getting Vision Vancouver re-elected in 2011 certainly paid off handsomely for CUPE, and for all working people across the province. Of course, CUPE coffers were filled with the increased pay 2.75% – 3.25% portion of union members’ paycheque deduction.
CUPE’s narrative to its members across British Columbia: Vision Vancouver as a friend to CUPE, and to all working people across the province. No doubt that is why CUPE purchased two $250-a-person tables at Thursday night’s Vision fundraiser at the Westin Bayshore, and soon-to-retire BC Federation of Labour head honcho, Jim Sinclair, could be seen prancing around the hall where the dinner / fundraiser was being held.

Photo courtesy of Vancouver Courier, and freelance, journalist Bob Mackin

In the Non-Partisan Association candidate stump speeches, as was the case with current NPA City Councillor George Affleck at the RAMP Council all-candidates debate last week, NPA candidates have repeatedly referenced the low morale of City of Vancouver employees, talked about the cutbacks in staffing levels, about the mistreatment & politicization of city staff, about the lack of transparency at City Hall, and the utter lack of respect for the independence of the public service in the employ of the City of Vancouver.
And, of late, Non-Partisan Association candidates have even commenced to point out to CUPE workers employed by the city, and to the voting electorate of Vancouver, that — in fact — Vision Vancouver’s / Geoff Meggs’ much-ballyhooed commitment to not contract out the jobs of city workers is nothing other than another Vision Vancouver lie. The fact is that with a Vision Vancouver administration in charge at City Hall, the waste removal and recycling contract for businesses was awarded to various haulers in the private sector in Vision Vancouver’s most recent term of office.
So much for Vision’s commitment to not contract out CUPE jobs!
Given the reported upon fact that city workers are dissatisfied with Vision Vancouver as their employer, and given the fact that Vision Vancouver is, contrary to their commitment to city workers, contracting out jobs formerly performed by city staff, it would seem to make sense that the Non-Partisan Association would want to do all in their power to reassure the city’s public service that with the election of a majority NPA administration at City Hall, a return to actual and palpable respect for city workers would become a central feature of city governance for the much-beleaguered members of CUPE 15 inside workers, and CUPE 1004 outside workers.
And that the Non-Partisan Association, while not cutting any side deals with the Union — which many in the community believe to be “influence peddling and corruption pure and simple, and one hopes that once the legalities are sorted out that someone will be properly charged and face a judge” — will settle a fair and responsible contract with City workers.
All of the above constitutes a great, and important narrative in Campaign 2014 that will take the voting electorate of Vancouver through the next week, when the advance polls open, til election day, November 15th.
And, finally, awhile back, in an informal, off-the-cuff conversation, CUPE BC Secretary-Treasurer Paul Faoro told VanRamblings that CUPE BC will spend $2 million in 2014 to secure a victory for Vision Vancouver at the polls.

Editorial cartoon by Geoff Olson, in the Oct. 28, 2014 edition of the Vancouver Courier

The Non-Partisan Association, the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), the Vancouver Cedar Party, and the Green Party of Vancouver have their work cut out for them in the next 16 days — theirs are under-funded campaigns (including that of the NPA, contrary to what you may have heard), at least compared to the $6-million developer-funded campaign of Vision Vancouver, with fewer dollars and fewer resources to get their clarion message of change into the hearts and minds of Vancouver’s voting public.
Vancouver voters will soon see, at least, who the contributors to the NPA campaign are, given that on Thursday afternoon the Non-Partisan Association promised to reveal NPA donors before election day, an announcement that was soon followed up on by the Vision Vancouver campaign team. As a mid-afternoon headline in a story by editor Charlie Smith in The Straight reads, “campaign disclosures mean nothing without dollar figures attached.” Those figures will be published early in 2015.

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The link to Part I of Politics and Class Warfare may be found here.