Category Archives: canadian politics

ABC Vancouver | Friends, Loyalty and High Regard Count for Something

#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, canadian politics, Park Board, Vancouver, , , , , , , ,


Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen, elected to office on the evening of Saturday, October 15, 2022

Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen is, and has been for a very long time, one of VanRamblings’ closest, and very best friends.

Not to get too maudlin, but Mike Klassen is an executor of VanRamblings’ will — the other two: current Vancouver School Board trustee, Christopher Richardson, and former Vancouver City Councillor, Colleen Hardwick. VanRamblings’ ashes will be thrown off the side of Peter Armstrong’s yacht, which will be temporarily ‘moored’ just off Locarno Beach. Colleen, Mike and Christopher will be on board.


Mike Klassen. On January 17, 2024 as Vancouver experienced a cold spell and a 20mm dump of snow

All of which is to say three things, if you’re wondering where we’re going …

  • VanRamblings has known and been close friends with Mike Klassen for 30+ years;
  • In the interest of full disclosure, VanRamblings’ readers should be apprised that you will never, ever, ever read material on this blog that in any, way, shape or form disparages Mike Klassen — although we reserve the right, from time to time, to be critical of a policy decision taken by the good and honourable Councillor;
  • As VanRamblings expressed to Mike Klassen during the course of the recent holiday season: “I will not allow a disagreement on the future of Park Board, or any other policy issue that may arise, to disrupt or in any way interfere with our friendship.”

In VanRamblings’ world, loyalty counts for something; for a great deal, actually.


Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, who topped the polls on election day, October 15, 2022

For many years now, Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung has been VanRamblings’ favourite political person in the province: a dedicated, exceptionally bright public servant, who works night and day for citizens (the hardest working pol we’ve ever experienced); and a politician who doesn’t always ‘play by rules’ — which we think, on occasion, is a good thing, a very good thing!

Sarah Kirby-Yung succeeded in having cetacreans — whales and dolphins — in captivity banned at the Vancouver Aquarium during her tenure as Vancouver Park Board Chairperson, despite the fact that the initiative was contrary to the policy of the political party she ran for office with in 2014.

Even in light of the current contretemps surrounding the Park Board ‘abolition’ issue that has caused VanRamblings much consternation, and about which we have been writing endlessly in recent days, our affection, regard and respect for Sarah Kirby-Yung has not lessened one iota — although, in the interest of transparency, we will write that Vancouver Kingsway MP Don Davies has (unknowingly) worked hard in recent days, weeks and months to displace Councillor Kirby-Yung from her august position as VanRamblings’ favourite political person in the province.

Of course, VanRamblings is hoping saner heads prevail at Vancouver City Council, that Councillors Kirby-Yung and Klassen will lead the charge to convince Mayor Ken Sim that the time has come to “pull a Doug Ford” — which is to say, reverse his shameful position on eliminating an independent, elected Vancouver Park Board.


Today, 9 a.m., Jan. 25, 2024 | Mayor Ken Sim announces transition team that will lead to abolition of an elected Park Board. Pictured: Mayor Sim, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Brian Montague, Lenny Zhou, Mike Klassen


ABC Councillors: Lisa Dominato, 2nd term on Council | Rebecca Bligh, 2nd term, Vancouver City Council

ABC Vancouver Councillors Lisa Dominato, initially Non-Partisan Association Councillors, who switched party affiliations to join the nascent ABC Vancouver civic party seeking office, are serving their second term at Vancouver City Hall.

VanRamblings has known the principled and accomplished Lisa Dominato dating back to the autumn of 2017, when she was elected to the Vancouver School Board as a Board of Education trustee in a by-election that year. A strategic leader with 20 years experience in government administration, public policy, communications and stakeholder relations, Ms. Dominato was responsible for the construction and implementation of British Columbia’s SOGI 123 programme, which provides guidance to educators across our province to help make schools more inclusive and safe for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities (SOGI).

Rebecca Bligh is a passionate supporter of families, education and the environment who championed Vancouver’s diverse and inclusive communities in her first term of office — as she continues to do today — dedicating herself to helping make Vancouver a more livable city, while serving to address the affordability crisis and issues around public safety and the poisoned drug crisis, working in concert with her colleague, Lisa Dominato. Both make an invaluable contribution to our city.

On balance, VanRamblings believes ABC Vancouver had a good first year in office.

The ABC Councillors also brought a welcome civility back to the Council chambers.


Vancouver City Councillor Brian Montague | Lenny Zhou | and Vancouver City Councillor Peter Meiszner

All 10 Councillors and the Mayor worked as a team over their 12 months in office, arising from the expressed desire of Mayor Ken Sim to work collaboratively with “opposition” Councillors, One City Vancouver’s Christine Boyle —  who is having herself some kind of (great) second term —  and Greens Adriane Carr and Pete Fry.

There’s a tendency to dehumanize our elected officials — as if they’re not members of our larger family — to criticize the individual rather than the policy, to engage in the politics of character assassination over reasoned, thoughtful debate.

Was VanRamblings happy when the ABC Vancouver Councillors collectively decided to undo our City’s Livable Wage Programme, mandating that suppliers of goods and services to the City pay a living wage to their employees, currently in the $24-an-hour range? Absolutely not. We thought it was an abomination.

Which is to say, when you have a City Council where the average annual Councillor salary tops well over $100,000, it’s not just bad optics but borders on the inhumane, when you —  as a majority ABC Vancouver Council — set about to cut the wages of working people struggllng to get by in Canada’s most expensive city.

VanRamblings realizes that the 36.3% of the Vancouver electorate who bothered to turn out at the polls in October 2022 to elect a new Vancouver City Council, did not cast their ballot the way they did to please VanRamblings as their priority for a new Council. ABC Vancouver won fair and square (unlike Donald Trump, we’re not given to saying things are ‘rigged’ when events don’t unfold as we might wish).

Dan Fumano, Postmedia: ABC Vancouver returns $116,000 in prohibited donations from 2022 election

VanRamblings will continue to be critical of our city’s majority ABC Vancouver City Council, involving their collective decision to attempt to eliminate a cherished 133-year-old environmental institution, the Vancouver Park Board. At no point, though, will we publish rhetoric that dehumanizes our ABC Vancouver elected officials.

#SaveOurParkBoard | The Genesis of the ‘Movement’ to Abolish Park Board

#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, canadian politics, Environment, News, Park Board, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2022, , , , ,


Vision Vancouver celebrates their overwhelming victory at the polls on November 19, 2011

Developers have long run the City of Vancouver, with various of the elected City Councils over the years acting as their all-too-willing handmaidens.


Joel Solomon, Vision Vancouver founder, standing outside, near his home in Railtown

The godfather and founder of the Vision Vancouver municipal party in 2004 was financier / philanthropist / real estate developer, and heir to a capitalist fortune, Tennessee émigré Joel Solomon, a political organizer who cut his teeth working on Jimmy Carter’s successful U.S. presidential campaign in the mid-1970s.

In the early 1990s, Solomon found his way to British Columbia, as he sought refuge on Cortes Island, while recovering from a serious health issue. In 1993, Solomon  met a young organic farmer named Gregor Robertson. Their views aligned, especially on the urgent need to address climate change. The two became fast friends.

In 2002 Solomon made a decision to form a Vancouver civic party, which in time came to be called Vision Vancouver.

Recruiting Mike Magee from Stratcom —  a strategic communications company dedicated to progressive causes — working with Magee, Solomon promised the then Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) Councillors Raymond Louie, Tim Stevenson and Jim Green their political futures lay with his newly-formed Vision Vancouver civic party, committing to them that he would dedicate substantial financial resources to their re-election in 2005’s Vancouver municipal election.

Long story short — following the untimely death of Jim Green, who was Vision Vancouver’s Mayoral candidate in the 2005 civic election — in 2006, Joel Solomon recruited his friend Gregor Robertson to seek the nomination to become the Mayoral candidate for Vision Vancouver in our city’s 2008 municipal election.

The rest is history: Vision Vancouver became government, from 2008 through 2018.


Gregor Robertson, Mayor in the City of Vancouver, from November 15, 2008 through October 20, 2018

Upon assuming government at Vancouver City Hall in 2008, Joel Solomon was quick to establish a secretive, behind-the-scenes “Mayoral advisory Board” — most members of which were not only longtime friends of Solomon’s dating back to his days in Tennessee, but were, as well, extremely successful real estate developers.


During their time in government, 12 development-related lawsuits were filed against Vision Vancouver

Over the course of their years in power, there were a number of development-related lawsuits that were filed against Vision Vancouver.

Perhaps the most egregious — and many thought, corrupt — development-related failing by Vision Vancouver involved a legal petition filed with the BC Supreme Court on May 6, 2014, by the Community Association of New Yaletown, to prevent a mega-tower development on the city block containing Emery Barnes Park.

The legal petition alleged the City, in approving development of the 36-storey tower at 508 Helmcken St. and a related building across the street at 1099 Richards Street violated the Downtown Official Development Plan (DODP) bylaws in in numerous and significant ways, while thwarting the long-planned expansion of Emery Barnes Park “to help reduce the City’s significant shortfall in meeting its own green space targets in the area.”


Emery Barnes Park, in the heart of New Yaletown, adjacent to Davie and Seymour streets

That Vision Vancouver had not consulted with the community, nor even made any mention of their plans to build yet another mega-tower in the New Yaletown neighbourhood — a “favour” to the Tennessee-based developer, Brenhill Development, who just happened to be friends with Joel Solomon, and members of the Mayoral Advisory Board — exacerbated not only the ire of residents of New Yaletown, but esteemed British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan, who ruled in favour of the New Yaletown residents, “killing the New Yaletown development”, even though it was already under construction.

Read the Vancouver Sun article on Brenhill Development’s “sweet deal” here.

Some months later, the City of Vancouver prevailed at the B.C. Court of Appeals.


Peter Armstrong, owner of the Rocky Mountaineer, and founder / financier of ABC Vancouver

Now Peter Armstrong — who we know and very much like, who has pulled our behind out of the fire on more than one occasion, and who refers to us as his “favourite socialist” — will not be happy that we’re writing about him (reasonably, we can expect an irate call from Peter at some point today, as in “Why didn’t you call me to confirm with me what you’re writing about today?”).

But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do (also, we hate to risk being lied to).


Founder Peter Armstrong’s Rocky Mountaineer offers unsurpassed luxury travel to discerning travelers

Now, Peter Armstrong — a pulled himself up by his bootstraps east end kid made good (we share a history as ‘east end kids’) — for many years was president of Vancouver’s oldest and most successful civic party, the Non-Partisan Association.

That is, until some dastardly folks staged a coup, taking over Peter’s beloved Non-Partisan Association in his absence, as he sailed his yacht to visit his good friend, Lululemon founder Chip Wilson, at his luxurious, well-appointed villa in Italy.

The consequence of the coup? Four of five NPA electeds resigned from the party.

And what became of the now former Non-Partisan Association Board members, who succeeded in killing the NPA, which party secured only, a paltry, unimaginably small 2.3% of the vote, when voters went to the polls in October 2022?


“Raymond, do you really think I’ll win re-election in Point Grey when we go to the polls in October?”

Premier David Eby will be heartened to know that these same far-right-of-centre nimrods are currently running the show with the nascent B.C. Conservative Party.

VanRamblings readers won’t be surprised to learn that ABC Vancouver founder, financier and Ken Sim backer, Peter Armstrong — as was the case with Joel Solomon, Vision Vancouver, and Mayor Gregor Robertson — has also created a secretive, behind-the-scenes Mayoral Advisory Committee, said committee comprised of developers, but mostly Peter and his very good friend, Chip Wilson.

A narrative, related to us recently by a very reliable VanRamblings source …

“Ken Sim ‘disappeared’ for a week this past autumn.

No one, save his family, knew where he was. In fact, Ken Sim was on board Peter Armstrong’s yacht, sailing up the west coast of British Columbia.

When Sim arrived back in town, returning to the Mayor’s office, he consulted with his Chief of Staff, Trevor Ford, after which the Mayor called in the ABC Park Board electeds to inform them of his decision to abolish the independent, elected Vancouver Park Board, leaving his now former ABC Park Board Commissioners in the room with Mr. Ford and David Grewal to explain details, and what would happen going forward.

Soon after, now former ABC Vancouver Park Board Commissioners Scott Jensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky and Laura Christensen made the decision to sit on Park Board as independents.

Subsequently, Sim called a press conference to announce his intention to eliminate the 133-year-old elected body, the much cherished, independent, and beloved Vancouver Park Board.”

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Whether it’s developer Mayor Tom Campbell in the late 60s, or Joel Solomon and Gregor Robertson for a 10-year period when Vision Vancouver was at the seat of power at Vancouver City Hall, or in these latter days, with an avuncular — but dare we say, avaricious — Peter Armstrong and Chip Wilson, we who call Vancouver home are reminded yet again, and much to our consternation, this is not our city, for Vancouver is owned lock, stock and barrel by the developer class.

#CDNPoli | Canada’s New Dental Care Programme

#CdnPoli | Canadian Politics, BC Politics, canadian politics, Food & Health, News, Politics, Vancouver, , , , , ,


Don Davies, NDP member of Parliament for Vancouver Kingsway, since 2015.
Father of Canada’s new Dental Health Care Programme, and Dental Care for Canadians.

On Monday, December 11, 2023, the Canadian government announced a new Dental Care Programme that will cover the 9 million Canadians who do not, at present, have dental coverage.

“Far too many people have avoided getting the care that they need simply because it was too expensive, and that’s why the Dental Care Programme is essential to the health of Canadians,” federal Health Minister Mark Holland told the news conference held in early December 2023, introducing the new programme.

The Canadian Dental Care Programme when fully implemented will provide dental care to families whose annual net income is less than $90,000, and who don’t have access to private insurance. Full coverage, with no co-pay will be available to families whose annual net income falls below $70,000, while Canadian families with an income between $70,000 and $90,000 will pay a co-pay fee, as per the chart above.

Canada’s federal Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, set aside and has budgeted $13 billion over a five-year period, commencing in early 2024, to pay for Canada’s new Dental Care Programme, introduced in her most recent budget, on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, or $2.6 billion per year drawn from Canada’s current annual federal budget of $497 billion dollars, which is to say, 0.523139 per cent of our annual federal budget, just a tad over half a per cent to fully cover the 9 million Canadians across our land who currently suffer without any dental coverage.

The introduction of Canada’s new Dental Care Programme occurs as a consequence of the Supply and Confidence Agreement struck on March 22, 2022 between the governing Liberals and the opposition New Democrats, that since its implementation has affected legislation introduced by Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal party, ranging from legislation that bans the use of replacement workers (scabs) in federally regulated workplaces during a strike or lockout; Bill C-58 preventing employers from hiring “scabs” to do the work of unionized employees on strike or locked out, to the implementation of a groundbreaking dental care programme that will cover 9 million Canadians currently without dental care coverage.

Negotiation for an inclusive Canada-wide dental care programme began shortly after the signing of the Supply and Confidence Agreement, the negotiation involving then federal Liberal Health Minister Jean Yves-Duclos, and the New Democratic Party’s well-respected Health Care critic, Vancouver-Kingsway MP, Don Davies.

For much of the past two and a half years, the negotiation for an expansive and inclusive, publicly-funded Canadian dental care plan was an uphill battle for NDP Health Care critic Don Davies, as Jean Yves-Duclos and Mr. Davies parried back and forth, the process of realizing the new programme an at times arduous, unresponsive and unforgiving one. All that changed for the better, though, in recent months.

Don Davies is, indeed, Canada’s dental health care warrior, and the father of publicly-funded dental health care in Canada, as Tommy Douglas was the father of Medicare. For Don Davies, patience and persistence has paid off for all Canadians.

Final negotiation for the introduction and implementation of Canada’s new Dental Care Plan began in earnest when Don Davies’ good friend, former Liberal House Leader Mark Holland was appointed as Canada’s Health Minister, in September.

Mark Holland and Don Davies are known on Parliament Hill as Batman and Robin, are very good friends, and on the same page when it comes to social legislation. When making the announcement of Canada’s new dental care programme last month, very much together on the same stage, at the same podium, you could see their obvious affection for one another, as well as pride and joy at a job well done.

Canada’s new Dental Care Plan will be phased in over the course of the next year.

Now: the details of the phase in strategy, how and how much dentists will be paid, and what the new Dental Care Plan will cover, as told to VanRamblings by Don Davies at a Town Hall conducted in his riding, in November, just prior to the federal government’s announcement of the implementation of one of the largest, most inclusive pan-Canadian social programmes legislated into being in the past 50 years.

Mr. Davies told those assembled at the Town Hall that in 2022 – 2023 an exhaustive search took place to identify an insurance corporation that could efficiently and effectively administer Canada’s proposed new Dental Care Programme.

In June 2023, Mr. Duclos and Mr. Davies made the decision to turn over the administration of Canada’s proposed new Dental Care Plan to Sun Life Canada, one of our country’s largest public companies, and at present one of the world’s largest multi-national life and health insurance, and asset management companies.

The following is the mandate of Sun Life, the task they have been charged with by the federal government that will lead to the realization of Canada’s new Dental Care Plan, covering the 9 million Canadians currently without dental insurance …

  • Sign up 90% of Canadian dentists to the country’s new Dental Care Plan. Dentists will be paid 85% of their province’s Dental Fee Schedule. Sun Life is to reimburse dentists within 48 hours of dentists submitting their claim to Sun Life Financial;
  • In December 2023, Sun Life began signing up all eligible Canadians aged 87 and older, with eligible seniors set to be contacted and signed up in March 2024. Dental coverage for the former group is set to begin as early as May 2024;
  • Effective June 2024, Sun Life will begin to sign up all eligible Canadian children, birth to 18 years of age, dental coverage for this cohort to begin this late summer;
  • All remaining eligible Canadians will be registered for Canada’s new Dental Care Programme effective this autumn, with implementation of coverage for this cohort to start at the beginning of, or early in 2025.

Thus far, the roll-out of Canada’s new Dental Care Programme moves on apace, with the sign-up of Canadian dentists moving ahead as projected, with the sign-up of Canadians also moving ahead as projected, the Dental Care Programme set to be fully realized by the end of 2024, covering the 9 million eligible Canadians.

Applications will open in phases, starting with seniors aged 87, which began in December 2023, followed by other age groups as per the chart above.

Coverage under the Canada’s new Dental Care Plan will commence as early as May 2024, with seniors being the first group eligible. The actual start date for accessing oral health care will depend on the specific group you belong to, the timing of your application, and when your enrolment is processed.

Now for the part you’ve been waiting for: what dental procedures will be covered ?

  • Oral surgery services, including tooth extractions;
  • Restorative services, including fillings for cavities, cracks, and broken teeth;
  • Crowns, but as Mr. Davies told VanRamblings last week, “only if medically necessary.” As an example, if you have a crown, but the gums beneath the crown become infected and in order to resolve the infection, the existing crown must be removed, and replaced, such would be considered “medically necessary”, and the expense involved in the dental work, taking an impression of the crown/tooth, and the manufacture and subsequent Crown placement in your mouth would be fully covered;
  • Repairing a chipped tooth, bonding the most likely repair route your dentist will likely recommend;
  • Root canals (endodontic therapy), the dental treatment for infections in tooth pulp, the innermost layer of your teeth;
  • A full and in-depth teeth cleaning, including scaling, sealants, a flouride treatment (if so desired) and polishing;
  • Dental X-rays, to evaluate your dental health;
  • General anesthesia, also known as deep sedation dentistry, if required;
  • Partial and complete dentures;
  • Orthodontic services, including braces and retainers, and much more;
  • Periodontal care, the branch of dentistry that focuses on the health of your gums and jawbone — the tissues that support your teeth. A periodontist is a gum specialist.

At present, the only dental procedures that will not be covered — unless they are considered medically necessary — are veneers and tooth implants, which are considered to be cosmetic dentistry, rather than a medically necessary procedure.

In somewhat related good news, federal Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre, who last spring in Parliament, and in front of crowds at the Trump-like rallies he holds, was adamant that the first two “fiscally prudent” measures he would take upon becoming Prime Minister would be to cancel $1.3 billion in annual funding for the CBC, cutting as well the annual $2.6 billion funding for public dental care, has for the latter — according to Lisa Raitt, former Minister of Transport / Labour / Natural Resources during the 10-year term of the Stephen Harper government — in a recent discussion on CTV News Channel’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos, told Ms. Kapelos that Mr. Poilievre, recognizing that by the time the next federal election rolls around in the fall of 2025 that Canada’s new Dental Care Programme will be fully implemented and popular with Canadians across the land, and because becoming Prime Minister is of paramount importance to him, has reversed himself on his commitment to cancel the Dental Care Programme …

” … as Erin O’Toole did in 2019, when initially he told Canadians that a key plank in his platform would be to cancel the wildly popular Canada Child Benefit, reversing himself on the matter before the 2021 federal election, lest it become an issue that would cause his defeat. Canada’s new Dental Care Plan is here to stay,” Ms. Raitt told Ms. Kapelos, and her fellow panel members.

Once enrolled, Canadian residents who qualify will be sent a welcome package by Sun Life, with a member card and a starting date for when their oral health care services will be covered. Those Canadians who are eligible for enrolment in the new Dental Care Plan will be able to start experiencing oral health-care as early as May 2024, as above, commencing with coverage for Canada’s seniors population.