Category Archives: Decision 2014

Vision Vancouver and Vision Critical: Manufacturing Consent

June 25, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Vision Critical

Word on the street is that, contrary to multiple published reports in the media, former Vision Critical CEO, longtime respected pollster Dr. Angus Reid, was escorted from the premises of the market research company that, as the company’s website states, “builds engaged, secure communities of customers … for ongoing, real-time feedback and insight.”
According to our sources, both company management and staff had lost faith in Vision Critical to perform to expectation on the community consultation front — manipulation of community engagement data was never a core economic component that contributed to Vision Critical’s bottom line, and the cloud-based community forum software developed by Angus Reid was, at best, an adjunct function for the company, whose main business is designed to conduct closed market research for multi-national companies, to build product/company loyalty among members of the public.
Vision Critical was co-founded by Angus Reid, with his son Andrew, in 2000. The Reid family remain the company’s largest shareholder.
In August 2012, Vision Critical received a $20 million investment from OMERS Ventures, an arm of the Ontario municipal employees’ pension fund.
At the time of this writing, there remains widespread speculation in the investment community that Vision Critical is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO), or stock launch, where shares of stock in the company will be sold to the general public — we have been told that many in Vision Critical feel the company’s largely unsuccessful, and far from lucrative, foray into the political, local-based community consultation realm was hurting the prospects for a successful IPO, necessary to raise expansion capital to consolidate the company’s future as a global marketing player.

What does all of the above have to do with Vancouver municipal politics?
In their most recent term of office, in particular, the Vision Vancouver-led majority Vancouver City Council has consistently taken hits from neighbourhood activists for their sham community consultation process.
In order to shore up the optics on the community engagement front, the Vision-led Council awarded an untendered contract to Vision Critical, to launch Talk Vancouver.com, a cloud-based community consultation forum.
Quoting from Bob Mackin’s January 2nd story in the Vancouver Courier …

Vision Critical, PlaceSpeak.com, Gravit-e Technologies, Mustel Research and Sentis Market Research were among 22 companies pre-qualified in 2012 for city hall communications and research projects. When it pondered a citizen engagement website in early 2013, city staff considered only Vision Critical.

An open, public call normally happens for city contracts worth $75,000 and up. The price for the two-year Vision Critical contract is $152,080.

By comparison, the City of Toronto published a Dec. 13 (2013) notice seeking quotations from companies for “provision of an online consultation tool” for the City Manager’s office. The bid deadline is Jan. 8, 2014 for a one-year contract with a one-year option.

Note: subsequent to the letting of the consultation tool request for proposal (RFP), the City of Toronto cancelled its call for the development of an online consultation tool, stating privacy concerns, as well as a lack of confidence that cloud-based engagement software could meet the City’s mandate for “open, fair, and transparent municipal consultation processes.”
From the outset, many in the public have expressed concern that the Vision Critical developed Talk Vancouver cloud-based community consultation software was little more than a taxpayer-funded, underhanded attempt by Vision Vancouver to data mine information about, and manufacturer the consent of, the Vancouver electorate, in the lead up to the November 15, 2014 civic election — Talk Vancouver, then, as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and a data-mining community consultation masquerade.
Dr. Angus Reid has “retired” from an active role in Vision Critical, a company he co-founded. An untendered contract was awarded to the company’s former CEO. Does Dr. Reid remain, as stated in the Mackin story, Mayor Gregor Robertson’s “dollar-a-year technology and citizen engagement adviser?” Will the company fulfill the terms of its contract, or was it ever even intended to do so? And, what happens to the “intelligence” that is gathered through Talk Vancouver, where’s the transparency in the reporting out, and what role has the cloud-based software played, if any role at all, in determining policy development in the City of Vancouver?

Civic Politics: NPA Announcement on Hold, + an indie Jamie Lee

June 24, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Presumed NPA mayoralty candidate Kirk LaPointe apparently vetting NPA team members

Word out of the Non-Partisan Association camp (not official, of course) suggests that Vancouver’s natural governing party finds itself still two to three weeks away from announcing their slate of conscientious candidates who will seek elected office in the upcoming November 15th Vancouver civic election, on Vancouver City Council, Park Board and the Board of Education.
Although the selected few who will receive the endorsement of the party is still hush-hush, VanRamblings has learned the names of seven of the eight purple revolution members of the probable New Progressive Association slate: incumbents Elizabeth Ball and George Affleck; former Park Board chair Ian Robertson; current Park Board Commissioners Melissa DeGenova and John Coupar; longtime NPA Board member Rob McDowell (one of our town’s good guys); entrepreneur Greg Baker (founder of PC Galore, and son of former City Councillor / municipal affairs lawyer, Jonathan); as well as a yet unrevealed high profile member of Vancouver’s Chinese community.
The hold up in the Non-Partisan Association candidate reveal?
Apparently, following a thorough and exhaustive vetting process by the NPA’s Board of Directors (which did not include party President, Peter Armstrong) — the vetting process also engaging a handful of longtime party stalwarts — putative New Progressive Association mayoralty candidate Kirk LaPointe informed the party that he wished to be given the opportunity (since granted) to vet the members of the NPA candidate team he’ll be running with this fall, in order to gain an assurance that all members of the NPA slate will be rowing together in the same direction towards (a much-needed, for beleaguered Vancouver voters) victory this autumn.

Jamie Lee Hamilton Withdraws From COPE Park Board Race
Respected community activist, and longtime Park Board watchdog, Jamie Lee Hamilton has withdrawn her name for consideration as a potential COPE Park Board candidate, in the upcoming 2014 Vancouver civic election — allowing her, as an independent candidate, to speak freely on the myriad parks and recreation issues she has valiantly championed over the years.
In 2014, the principled Ms. Hamilton will run under the IDEA banner, as she did in the 2011 Vancouver civic election, when she held Vision Vancouver, NPA and COPE candidates feet to the fire on parks and recreation issues, garnering a substantial 19,496 votes — the top independent candidate vote getter, in 2011, seeking a seat at the Vancouver Park Board table.
Since making her announcement of her intention to run as an independent candidate for Park Board this autumn, Ms. Hamilton has spoken out on two issues of concern to her …

I’m very unhappy to learn that Vision Vancouver placed a bike lane right through the children’s playground at Ceperly Park in Stanley Park.

The children play there on the fire truck and their playground is across from the fire truck. Cyclists are at high speed coming down the hill to access the bike underpass. Very tragic today (June 22) that three little children were knocked to the ground by the cyclists.

What the hell is Park Board thinking? Three Park Commissioners have small children and they should be speaking out!

Ms. Hamilton also weighed in on the Vision Park Board nominations …

What this commentary (on Frances Bula’s blog) misses is that the new young slate was put together by the waspy backroom of Vision.

These new faces were also willing participants to the deal-making of the backroom. This tells me that these new faces are willing to go along with being directed by the backroom. This is no different than the current Vision Commissioners who always and still do as they are told. This new younger crop may be the new faces of Vision but sadly for voters it is still the same old Vision.

And the only outcome of moving forward with Vision will be the complete dismantling of an independent Park Board!

VanRamblings’ recommendation: if you’re not following Jamie Lee Hamilton on Facebook, you oughta. Make a point, as well, of reading Ms. Hamilton’s frequent commentaries in The Straight, as well as on other online sites.

Vision Vancouver: Purveyor of Municipal Machine Politics

June 23, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Mayor Roberston’s statement above represents the big lie of Vision politics.
The contest for a Vision Vancouver Park Board nomination proved just as dishonest and lacking in transparency as every policy-oriented decision taken on by the cynical, near imperialist power, Vision political machine, a hard-driving, arrogant, crude, conniving, ruthless, intolerant, and devious municipal administration dedicated to the maintenance of power at all costs.

VanRamblings would also like to believe triumphant New Voices, One Vision campaign organizer Stefan Avlijas, when he wrote to us last week, stating:

I wanted to let you know that in your most recent piece, the trusted source you quote is wrong on several assumptions — from the (New Voices, One Vision) team’s individual strengths and credentials, to a perception of a “fix”. While I’m honoured that my design skills have been mistaken for the polish of an establishment slate, I have to point out factual errors. I guess there is such a thing as being too organized!

For the record, while I eschew identity politics that paints people into corners, I wanted to point out that Coree has been extremely active in the LGBTQ community as a Board member of Out In Sports, and has robust environmental credentials as a biologist with a specific interest in ecological restoration.”

VanRamblings is particularly querulous about Stefan’s Facebook post last evening, when he wrote, “I’m excited to unplug and take some time off after several months on the campaign trail, but I’m feeling exceptionally grateful for the opportunity to show how much campaigns matter.”
VanRamblings would ask how a several month campaign organizing involvement squares with the notion that the “fix” wasn’t in; that doesn’t quite, somehow, jibe with our notion of a fair process for the contest to win a nomination for the party of one’s choice — all of which begs the question, as well, of “Who funded Stefan Avlijas’ involvement in the successful Park Board nomination race for the New Voices, One Vision campaign?”

And how was it that VanRamblings was able to predict in our first tweet on the matter, on June 12th — a full ten days before the Vision nominating meeting — who the eventual winners of the Vision Vancouver Park Board nomination race would be, if in fact the fix wasn’t in, as we wrote subsequently on VanRamblings, and Vision Vancouver hadn’t predetermined that a young diversity | LGBTQ+ | ethnic community friendly slate was necessary to secure the Vision vote this November?

For the record, VanRamblings is not calling into question Stefan Avlijas’ integrity; we both like and respect Stefan, the campaign organizer who, in 2013, was hired by the David Eby Vancouver-Point Grey NDP campaign to get out the student vote (which he did), and who played an integral role — along with COPE’s Sean Antrim, current Eby constituency assistant Gala Milne, defeated Vision Park Board candidate Catherine Evans, community activist Mary Tenny, and David Eby campaign manager, the quite spectacular, ever-wonderful Kate Van Meer-Mass, and a host of volunteers, one of whom was (in the interests of full disclosure) VanRamblings — in securing a David Eby win in the 2013 campaign for provincial elected office.
VanRamblings will publish further background and necessary insight into the (we believe, essentially corrupt) process that led to the overwhelming New Voices, One Vision victory on Sunday evening, and what the New Voices slate win means for Vision Vancouver, and for the electorate, heading into the heart of the 2014 Vancouver civic election campaign.

COPE: Politics In The Sun | Vision: Politics in the Dark

June 22, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

The COPE Summer Solstice BBQ (and fundraiser) proved to be a great success on Saturday afternoon, raising many thousands of dollars in funds for the upcoming civic election campaign, also providing a comfortable and inviting forum for those COPE members present to discuss COPE Council, Parks and Board of Education policy, as well as the mechanics of an electoral campaign for civic office that all present pledged to devote their entire energies to through until voting day, Saturday, November 15th.
Breaking News: Vision Vancouver Park Board Nominations
The Fix Was In | Vision Vancouver Not An Open Party

Just as VanRamblings predicted last week, the New Voices, One Vision slate trounced those candidates running to secure a spot on the Vision Vancouver Park Board slate — who had not been identified by the party as supplicants to party interests, over the interests of Vancouver citizens who actually give a damn about parks and recreation in our city — to be certain, that would be most of us, although Vision surely doesn’t give a damn.

Vision Vancouver Park Board winners Naveen Girn, Coree Tull, Trish Kelly, Sammie Jo Rumbaua

Trish Kelly was the big winner, securing the most votes at 1,162. Naveen Girn won 1,125, followed by Sammie Jo Rumbaua at 1,029 and Coree Tull at 894. The New Voices, One Vision slate doubled and tripled their closest competitors in the race to secure a nomination for Park Board this autumn.
On Monday, VanRamblings will provide analysis of the Vision Vancouver machine — as we’ve written previously, this nasty crew of backroom fixers and Hollyhock cult followers makes Stephen Harper’s Tories look like Sunday school teachers — and the pre-determining factors that secured a victory, and a hardly fair fight win, for a Vision Park Board candidacy.