Category Archives: Environment

#SaveOurParkBoard | Vancouver | Grassroots Democracy at Its Best

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Erin Shum | community centre advocate | One of Vancouver’s best ever Park Board Commissioners

In Mayor Ken Sim’s mad dash to eliminate the independent, elected and very much esteemed Vancouver Park Board,  over the past weeks there have been many issues that have been shunted to the side in the current debate surrounding the efficacy of an elected Park Board or, most egregiously, not considered at all.

As an overreaching, autocratic ABC Vancouver civic administration seeks to move inexorably forward in their shameful quest to eliminate an elected Park Board, Mayor Ken Sim seems intent on creating the conditions that will give an already overworked gaggle of Vancouver City Councillors even more work to do than is the already the case, respecting Vancouver City Council’s overstuffed civic agenda, such that no reasonable human being could possibly give the necessary consideration of the critically important issues that would come to the fore were our elected Vancouver City Councillors —  in addition to all of their other time consuming work — to take sole authority over Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation.

There simply ain’t enough hours in the day.

Today on VanRamblings, we will set about to elucidate one threat to civic democracy in Vancouver that has, to date, been overlooked by the media, and most certainly not considered nor addressed by a contumacious Vancouver City Council.


Vancouver’s Killarney Community Centre, with a community pool and ice rink available to members

One of the important responsibilities of an elected Vancouver Park Board Commissioner is to fulfill their elected duty to act as liaisons to various Community Centres across the city — as assigned by the Park Board Chair — to attend the monthly meetings of the community centre Board of Directors, listen to what the elected directors have to say, and once back at the Park Board table advocate for each of the community centres to which they have been assigned responsibility.


Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Erin Shum, re-election bid, 2018 Vancouver municipal election

In all the years of VanRamblings’ coverage of Vancouver Park Board we are aware of no finer, no harder working, no more well-respected liaison to the community centres to which she had been assigned than was the case with Park Board Commissioner Erin Shum, a shining star in Vancouver’s political firmament.

In our many conversations over the years, Ainslee Kwan, President of the Killarney Community Centre’s Board of Directors, had nothing but praise for the work ethic, the integrity for all that she did, and most especially for Erin Shum’s commitment to community engagement, as well as her steadfast advocacy for Vancouver citizens living in every neighbourhood across our city, to create an environmentally sustainable and more livable city in which all of us might live, where we might raise our children with adequate green space and vibrant community centres.

From its founding in 1887 through 1955, Vancouver’s elected parks advocacy board was called the Board of Park Commissioners, for that was what they were, Commissioners responsible only for oversight of Vancouver’s lush, verdant parks.

In 1955, the Vancouver Board of Park Commissioners became the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, which it remains to this day.

Prior to 1955, neighbourhood associations built and ran neighbourhood-owned and operated community centres, in most neighbourhoods across our city. From the early 1950s through 1955, the Board of Park Commissioners engaged in a negotiation with the neighbourhood associations across Vancouver to cede jurisdiction to what would become the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation.


The Kitsilano War Memorial Community Centre, a facility for all ages and abilities, offering childcare, special needs activities, a youth centre, seniors’ lounge, ice rink, fitness centre, and outdoor pool.

Central to the final negotiation which led to the creation of the new Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation was the commitment of the Park Board Commissioners to involve the community centre associations as partners in the decision-making that impacted their community centres. In addition, the new body would assume fiscal responsibility for the operation of community centres, committing as well to a greatly expanded number of community centres, such that every neighbourhood would be well-served with vigorous community centres.

Now, imagine if you will, each of the 10 Vancouver City Councillors pictured above taking on a liaison position with two or more of Vancouver’s 24 community centres, committing to attending the monthly meetings of the community centre boards of directors, and advocating for the community centres for which they have been assigned liaison responsibility. At present, community centre association boards have regular, direct, in-person liaison with elected Park Board Commissioners.

Lemme tell ya: it ain’t gonna happen. The more likely circumstance …

Vancouver City Council’s autocratic, anti-democratic ABC Vancouver majority Council contingent, should they succeed in their quest to eliminate Vancouver’s cherished, 133 -year-old elected Park Board, will also more than likely dissolve the Boards of Directors of  each of Vancouver’s 24 community centres, making it all the easier to sell off Vancouver’s community centres to private developer interests, which developers will then seek to build unaffordable condominium or rental housing on the lush green space adjacent to our existing community centres.

Bad enough that ABC Vancouver wants to destroy the Vancouver Park Board, Metro Vancouver’s last bastion of grassroots civic democracy — even worse, perhaps, that ABC Vancouver will, in all probability, remove the voices of neighbourhood residents entirely in the decisions that impact not only on the recreational needs of those living in each of Vancouver’s 23 neighbourhoods, but from the decision-making that impacts on the livability of the neighbourhood they call their home.

These are sad, desperate days for the citizens of Vancouver, all across our city.

Advance registration to attend the Town Hall is required.

Click on this link to register.

#SaveOurParkBoard | Forces Opposing Board Elimination Respond

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Movements are afoot to respond to Mayor Ken Sim’s shameful initiative to dissolve the 133-year-old independent, elected Park Board.

VanRamblings received the following Green Party of Vancouver press release.

MEDIA RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – JANUARY 29, 2024

Green Commissioner Seeks Legal Advice to Preserve Elected Park Board

VANCOUVER, B.C. – Today, Green Park Board Commissioner Tom Digby announced he is bringing a motion to the February 5th Board meeting entitled “Independent Legal Advice for Judicial Review of Mayor’s Motion”. The motion is to authorize the Board to retain a leading municipal law firm to advise on steps available to preserve Vancouver’s elected Park Board.

“The elected Park Board is preparing to respond to the Mayor’s surprise attack,” said Digby.

Vancouver’s world famous parks and beaches, including the iconic Stanley Park, have been built with direct citizen input via the elected Park Board since it was first established in 1890. Hundreds of supporters of the elected Park Board have sent messages to Commissioners, to the Mayor and City Council, and to Premier David Eby and his cabinet demanding that every effort be made to oppose the Mayor’s December 13, 2023 motion to abolish the elected Park Board.

“I share Commissioner Digby’s concern” said Brennan Bastyovanszky, Chair of the Park Board, and one of three independent Commissioners who were formerly members of the Mayor’s ABC party. “This issue was not on the Mayor’s election platform, and Council has no democratic mandate to abolish another elected body,” continued Bastyovanszky.

One remarkable outcome of the Mayor’s anti-democratic motion is the coming together of 30 former Park Board Commissioners spanning 1972-2022 under the multi-partisan banner #SaveOurParkBoard to defend the value and mission of the elected Park Board.

In related news, City Councillors Adriane Carr, Christine Boyle and Pete Fry have announced a Town Hall meeting to hear from the public on the future of the Vancouver Park Board.

Town Hall | Opposition to ABC Vancouver’s Initiative to Dissolve the Vancouver Park Board

Advance registration to attend the Town Hall is required.

Click on this link to register.

Mike Howell’s Town Hall report may be found here.


David Carrigg’s article in the Vancouver Sun may be found here.

Tom Digby’s motion (see below) will be put to a vote at the February 5th meeting of the Park Board.

#SaveOurParkBoard | The Saga of the Abolition of Vancouver’s Elected Park Board Continues

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Despair reigns across our land, as the inexorable move towards the dissolution of an independent, elected Park Board proceeds relentlessly, calamitously forward.

In today’s VanRamblings post, we’ll attempt to reason why Mayor Ken Sim and his super majority ABC Vancouver team of City Councillors arrived at the decision to eliminate the 133-year-old Vancouver Park Board, the role the administration of the David Eby government will play, why the provincial government supports the seemingly arbitrary initiative of the Mayor, and why we believe that it is inevitable that in months, Vancouver’s beloved, elected Park Board will fade into history.

On an episode of the Air Quotes Media podcast, Hotel Pacifico, that aired just before Christmas, former Vancouver City Councillor / Chief of Staff to Premier John Horgan , Geoff Meggs, posited that the move to abolish the Vancouver Park Board was part of a dastardly plot by B.C. United Party leader Kevin Falcon.

Apparently, Mr. Falcon had convinced the Mayor and his ABC Vancouver Councillors — all of whom are members and supporters of B.C. United — that a move to eliminate the elected Park Board would create discord within David Eby’s New Democratic Party caucus, heading into this year’s October 19th provincial election.



Vancouver’s 9 duly-elected New Democrat Party Members of the Legislature in Victoria

Given the likelihood many in the NDP caucus would be opposed to the Mayor’s initiative to have the provincial government amend the Vancouver Charter to allow the dissolution of an elected Park Board — a move that could jeopardize the re-election chances of many of the New Democratic Party government’s Vancouver-based members of the legislature — working hand in hand, Kevin Falcon and Ken Sim devised a plan to turn the tables on the re-election chances of Vancouver’s NDP MLA’s, which very much includes Premier David Eby himself, who is in his 11th year as the elected representative in the riding of Vancouver Point Grey.


Geoff Meggs, Vancouver City Councillor 2008 – 2017 | Chief of Staff to Premier John Horgan, 2017 – 2022

Alas. As much as VanRamblings enjoys a good conspiracy theory, in point of fact, privately, Mr. Meggs was telling his intimates that he had proposed the Kevin Falcon “theory” arising from his concern that, given the polling that has the NDP riding high in the polls and seemingly undefeatable, he is concerned that NDP supporters very well may not volunteer at their MLA’s campaign offices once the writ is dropped this upcoming September, and further that New Democratic Party voters will stay home, and not vote at the advance polls or cast a ballot on election day.

Every vote counts. New Democratic Party supporters will have to work as hard as ever in the lead up to, and during the course of British Columbia’s 43rd provincial election, if we wish to ensure the re-election of the David Eby NDP government.


Mayor Ken Sim announces Park Board transition working group

The story of the decision of the Ken Sim-led majority ABC Vancouver administration to eliminate Vancouver’s independent, elected Park Board goes back to March of last year, when Premier David Eby made a proposal to Vancouver’s Mayor to move B.C. Place from its current home adjacent to Rogers Arena to Hastings Park.

While it is true that David Eby has stated that it is probable his government will spend between $300 and $400 million dollars on a renovation of B.C. Place to meet the requirements of the bodies bringing the Invictus Games to British Columbia in 2025, and the FIFA World Cup to Vancouver in 2026, in fact reliable sources have told VanRamblings that the long term plans for B.C. Place involves moving the aging stadium to Hastings Park, over which the City of Vancouver has jurisdiction.

As you might well expect, development and growth — and an expansion of our transit system — is at the heart of the decision by the Premier.

In addition, in eliminating the independent, elected Park Board, ABC Vancouver’s financial backers’ fondest wishes will be realized, as whole tracts of previous park / open green space will be available for development, to build, build, build …

And, of course, the mega-developer Aquilini family is very much involved, as well.

Here’s the plan: a David Eby government would work closely with the members of Vancouver City Council, and the Aquilini development corporation, to redevelop the B.C. Place site where, conceivably, the 7 hectare / 17-acre site would become home to three or more 70-to-95 storey towers in a newly designated “downtown village”, providing more than 3,000 residential condominium units in what will soon become, as planned, the heart of the downtown core of Vancouver.

The monies derived from the sale of the 3,000 luxury condominium units — in which the government would co-develop the B.C. Place site with the Aqualini family, where the completed condominium units would sell for up to $125 million on the top floors, many of the condominium units sold offshore, with the provincial government realizing billions of dollars in profit — would not only pay for the construction of a new stadium on the race track grounds at Hastings Park — a covenant prevents the construction of housing at Hastings Park, but not a sports facility — but for a new light rail system, as well, from Vancouver’s city core, along Hastings, down Renfrew to McGill / Hastings Park,  and over to the North Shore.

ABC Vancouver Mayoral candidate Ken Sim pledged support for a North Shore rapid transit line less than two weeks before the 2022 Vancouver civic election.

Late last year, on October 4, 2023, Vancouver City Council endorsed making a formal request to TransLink’s Mayors’ Council to perform a rapid transit study of Hastings Street between downtown Vancouver and Hastings Park /PNE. Following up on his pre-election pledge to support rapid transit to the North Shore, newly-elected Mayor Ken Sim met with North Shore Mayors last February to re-state and reinforce the pledge he had made during his 2022 campaign to support a long-sought-after rapid transit line to the North Shore.


Park Board transition working group: Catherine Evans, Gregor Young, Jordan Nijjar, Shauna Wilton, Jennifer Wood

The person on the left in the photo above is Catherine Evans, former Library Board Chair, Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioner, most recently the senior constituency assistant in federal MP Joyce Murray’s Vancouver Quadra office, and although Ms. Evans is a card carrying member of the federal Liberal Party,  provincially she is a staunch supporter of David Eby, and his NDP administration in Victoria.

In the past, Catherine Evans has worked on David’s Eby’s campaigns for office and, in fact, on E-Day, while working in Mr. Eby’s campaign office, has been VanRamblings’ no nonsense Get Out The Vote “boss”.

A story — a digression and and an aside — to help explain why Catherine Evans has joined Mayor Ken Sim’s Park Board Transition Working Group.


George Puil, 14 years as a Park Board Commissioner, then for 26 years, a Vancouver City Councillor

In 2001, B.C. Liberal leader Gordon Campbell won an overwhelming victory at the polls, securing 77 of 79 seats in the Legislature, leaving the NDP with two seats: Joy McPhail in Vancouver Hastings, and Jenny Kwan in Vancouver Mount Pleasant.

As is always the case with a change of government, there are 5,000 or more positions to be filled by the winning party’s supporters, with positions on college and university boards, regulatory authorities, as well as Crown agencies and commissions, and much more. Having retired from his job as an educator at Kitsilano Secondary School, and after 40 years in elected office, Mr. Puil — a man of experience, and a mentor to Gordon Campbell — following his ignominious defeat at the polls in the 2002 Vancouver municipal election, found himself at loose ends.

Within six months of taking office, Premier Gordon Campbell appointed his good friend George Puil to three regulatory bodies in his government, not requiring too much from Mr. Puil in respect of time, certainly much less time than had long been the case when Mr. Puil  sat as a Vancouver City Councillor. Annual compensation for these “out of the public eye” regulatory bodies came in at $250,000, a pretty penny that came in addition to Mr. Puil’s healthy teachers’ pension.

Catherine Evans, one of the loveliest persons of VanRamblings’ acquaintance

As Ms. Evans lives in VanRamblings neighbourhood, we run across one another frequently, and chat volubly and at length about the state of the world, and more often than not federal politics (as it happens, VanRamblings is a Justin Trudeau fan).

If you know David Eby, you know that he likes to have “his people” in place — thus, Ms. Evans’ placement on Mayor Sim’s Park Board transition working group. David Eby wants a close eye kept on the machinations of that contentious Park Board working group.

In our various conversations, Ms. Evans has made it clear — arising from a tragic personal circumstance — that she wants out of politics, has no interest in seeking political office, and would find solace and peace travelling with her husband to various locales across the globe, far away from the political maelstrom.

Why has Catherine Evans joined Mayor Ken Sim’s Park Board transition working group? Quite simply, because her good friend David Eby asked her to.

To know Catherine Evans — who is exceptionally bright, one of the strongest, most principled and hardest working women we know — is to know that her role as a low key change maker for the better is how she brings herself to the world.

Enter David Eby, who should he be re-elected to government in October, will set as a priority the appointment of his confidante Catherine Evans to the provincial bodies of her choice, where she can make a difference, out of the public eye, compensated fairly for her contribution, and for her many many gifts.

The word VanRamblings is hearing out of Victoria is that David Eby will not move forward this spring on the request of ABC Vancouver to amend the Vancouver Charter, to eliminate an independent, elected Vancouver Park Board.

Which means that those of us who love the Vancouver Park Board, live Park Board deep in our soul, and cherish Park Board, although we have our work cut out for us this next year, we may have an outside chance of moving the David Eby government away from making the fatal decision to dissolve the Vancouver Park Board.

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

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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.