Category Archives: Environment

#SaveOurParkBoard | 80s Redux | Greed is Good

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Tom Campbell, Mayor of Vancouver, 1966 - 1972
Tom ‘Not So Terrific’ Campbell, controversial Vancouver mayor, in office from 1966 to 1972

In 1966, running as an independent, a brash Tom Campbell defeated sitting Non-Partisan Association Mayor Bill Rathie to become Vancouver’s 31st mayor.

From the outset, Campbell’s ascension to the Mayor’s office heralded a pro-development ethos that would make even our current ABC Vancouver-dominated City Council blush, with Campbell — and his now ‘on board’  NPA colleagues — advocating for a freeway that would cut through a swath of the Downtown Eastside, require the demolition of the historic Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings, and bring about the construction of a luxury hotel at the entrance to Stanley Park.

Vancouver's West End, 1960s, pre high-rise development
Vancouver’s West End neighbourhood, 1960, pre-high-rise construction. Photo, Fred Herzog.

In the West End, where Campbell owned substantial property — a wealthy, successful developer, Campbell was reputed to own one-third of the land located between (south to north) Davie and Georgia streets, and east to west, Denman Street and Stanley Park — the newly-elected Mayor all but ordered the demolition of almost the entirety of the well-populated West End residential neighbourhood — housing mostly senior citizens in their single detached homes — as he set about to make way for the rapid construction of more than 200 concrete high-rise towers.

In six short years, Mayor Tom Campbell and the Non-Partisan Association transformed a single family dwelling West End neighbourhood, irrevocably and forever.

That all of these “changes” augered controversy among large portions of the populace was a given, leading to regular, vocal and sometimes even violent protests throughout Campbell’s treacherous tenure as Mayor, finally lead to his overwhelming defeat at the polls in the November 1972 Vancouver “change” civic election.


Oct. 22, 2022 | Newly-formed civic party, ABC Vancouver, wins an overwhelming victory at the polls

Why raise ancient history now?

Not since the late 1960s / early 70s have Vancouver voters — seemingly, unknowingly — elected a more greed-inspired (this, on behalf of their financial backers), and wildly pro-development slate of lock step Vancouver City Councillors to office, at the heart of our city’s seat of municipal government at 12th and Cambie.

In early 2024, Vancouver sits on the wary edge of massive tower development, as promulgated by the “super majority” ABC Vancouver civic administration installed by Vancouverites at City Hall only 15 short months ago today. If Tom Campbell’s greed was able to destroy a single family-oriented West End neighbourhood 50+ years ago over six short years in power, imagine what the current ABC Vancouver-led municipal government can achieve over the course of the next 32 months?


Vancouver Park Board Commissioner at Vancouver City Hall, holding her new, month old baby

Click on this link to hear (former, and now independent) ABC Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Laura Christensen address the whole of Vancouver City Council on December 13, 2023 —  including her ABC Council running mates —  on the initiative of the political party she ran with to eliminate the elected Vancouver Park Board.

In her address to Council, Ms. Christensen pointed out to her now former ABC Vancouver City Council colleagues that there are 242 parks in the City of Vancouver, only 142 of which are designated as parks — leaving these latter non-designated “parks” open for development, including such beloved parks as Burrard Inlet’s Sunset Beach, Locarno Park, and Spanish Banks East and West.


Fans enjoy the Vancouver Canadians at Nat Bailey Stadium. Could the city-owned stadium be put up for sale? A report suggests sport & cultural venues should be shed by the city. Photo: Jason Payne /PNG

In an article published in the Vancouver Sun on Saturday, the Sun’s civic affairs reporter Dan Fumano writes that a …

“… budget task force assembled last year by ABC Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim delivered its report with 17 recommendations on how the city could improve its financial health while reducing pressure to increase on property taxes.

One recommendation suggests the city look at divesting some of its “non-core assets.”

When Fumano asked ABC Vancouver Councillor Brian Montague, one of two ABC Councillors who served on the task force’s advisory panel, if the “non-core assets” in the report would include include community centres, libraries, civic theatres, and sports facilities, Montague replied …

“I think it’s something we need to talk about, because there might be assets where divestment is the best approach.”

Former Vancouver Park Board Chairperson John Coupar clarified the matter on X:

Former Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick, and 2022 TEAM Mayoral candidate writes …

So, that’s it.

The reason for dismantling an elected Park Board?

A cynical and egregious land grab, a decision demanded by ABC Vancouver’s avaricious financial backers, who fancy adding billions of dollars more to their already ungainly wealth, all at the cost of: environmental devastation and climate change unchecked, a degraded quality of life in Vancouver for decades to come, reduced access to our public beaches — or, in some cases, no access at all to what were once but would no longer be “public beaches”— and long dark corridors of black towers lining the arterials and Vancouver’s beach fronts, all across the city.

Click / tap on the graphic above to sign  the Save Our Park Board Petition started by Sarah Blyth

#SaveOurParkBoard | Tender Moments of Change at Park Board, Pt 2

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In 2012, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson opined about the idea of scaling back Langara Golf Course and turning part of it into residential housing as part of the city’s broad new approach toward creating denser neighbourhoods.

“At this point it is debatable as to whether that is valuable green space,” the mayor said. “The public can’t access it, it is not biodiverse ,” as he went on to suggest that Langara is “underused”, that there may be “opportunities to transform that space, to maintain golf on that site, to increase public access, to increase public housing.”


Pictured: Park Board Commissioners Melissa De Genova, John Coupar, Aaron Jasper, Constance Barnes, Niki Sharma & Trevor Loke. Commissioner Sarah Blyth had stepped out for a moment, during a break.

On July 9, 2012, the Vancouver Park Board met to consider the instruction of Mayor Gregor Robertson to “hive off half of Langara Golf Course for the development of low cost condominiums.”

City Manager Penny Ballem and Mayor Robertson’s Chief of Staff Mike Magee had, previous to the meeting, called in Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Aaron Jasper to City Hall to demand he move a motion to redevelop the Langara Golf Course, in order that the Mayor’s wishes might be realized, that half of the golf course would be developed for housing.


Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioner, Aaron Jasper, set to carry out the wishes of the Mayor

Subsequent to Aaron Jasper’s meeting with Ballem and Magee, in an interview with the media, Jasper suggested that the course could be downsized from 18 holes to nine holes, which would free the land for public park space.

Alternatively, Jasper pointed out that the course could be eliminated altogether to develop a full park in its place. Golfers would be redirected to the city’s two other golf courses, McCleery and Fraserview.

One hundred and fifty irate, activist members of the community turned up at the contentious July 9th meeting of Park Board — spanning every age group, from young pre-adolescent children to seniors, with members of the cultural and ethnic mosaic of the Vancouver well-represented among those who had gathered to oppose Mayor Robertson’s “vision” for a redeveloped Langara Golf Course.

More than two dozen speakers slammed the Vancouver Park Board that cool, mid-summer Monday evening, fearing they said that the city-owned Langara golf course might be changed into a park or affordable housing.

Many speakers, as well as Commissioner John Coupar, said they feared the motion to ask staff to compile usage and revenue figures for the city’s golf courses might be the first step toward turning Langara into a park or residential development.

“The way this has been rolled out, I think is a little scary,” Coupar said of the motion, which came after Mayor Gregor Robertson publicly questioned whether Vancouverites are best served by a golf course in the area.

The first speakers to present to the Park Board Commissioners that evening were two 23-year-old women of Chinese descent, who said the following after introducing themselves …

“The two of us grew up in the area surrounding the Langara Golf Course. We grew up in some degree of poverty, living a kind of hand-to-mouth existence. Our parents each ran business, one a small corner store, the other a dry cleaning business. We were often left to our own devices, alone, without much to do. This was in an age prior to social media, when cell phones — which we couldn’t have afforded anyway — were not a feature of life.

With the Langara Golf course nearby, and given that it was the only green space in the neighbourhood, we took to walking around the trails that surround the golf course. Soon, we were running around the golf course, and over the years, from age six through our teens, we continued to run around the trails surrounding Langara. Over time, our running skills were strengthened, we joined the track team at our high school, and not long soon after we were recommended by our PhysEd teachers to the Canada Olympic Committee.

Long story short, the both of us became Olympic gold medal winning runners at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Later this month, we will both be competing again at the London Summer Olympics.

Were it not for the opportunity we were afforded to, over many, many years, to run around the track surrounding the Langara Golf Course, we most certainly would not have become Olympic gold medal winners. Langara is a critical resource to families like ours, a welcoming green space like no other. We do not want to see the Langara Golf Course developed into condominiums.

With all due respect to the Mayor, we are present here tonight to speak against the initiative moved by Commissioner Jasper, on behalf of Mayor Gregor Robertson.”

At the conclusion of the address of the two accomplished young women, applause broke out. Observers, and Park Board staff and Commissioners, could well see that the 150 members of the community who had arrived at the Park Board offices to oppose the initiative of the Mayor to develop the Langara Golf Course were heartened and moved by what they’d heard. A new feeling of hope permeated the room.

The next speakers up were two UBC climate scientists who spoke about climate change, making the case for the preservation of the Langara Golf Course …

“In its present form, as the ‘lungs of our city’, as a health resource for citizens not simply because of the recreational resource it provides, but for the vital role Langara plays in addressing the role of climate change in our city, preservation of the Langara Golf Course must be seen as a paramount consideration.”

The scientists were followed by a groups of baby boomer, Gen X and millennial age women who spoke about the safety that they were afforded in their daily walks on the trails surrounding Langara. “There are always eyes on us. We feel safe. Langara in its present form is an invaluable resource for us. Please do not develop the site.”

Next up: groups of young boys and girls, and seniors, who spoke about their love for golf, about how they could never afford the hundreds and thousands of dollars that would be required to join a private golf course, but that for as little as seven dollars they could afford several hours of play on the Langara Golf Course.

“Better that we should be outside and in the environment,” they averred, “than at home watching TV, or playing video games.”

And with that, the speakers / intervenors / community input portion of the Park Board Committee meeting drew to a close.


Aaron Jasper, Chairperson, Vancouver Park Board, 2012

During the course of the evening, several speakers who had presented to the Commissioners made mention of the fact that the Langara Golf Course was usable only six months of the year. Given the poor / virtually non-existent drainage on the course, users could not play the course when the autumn rainy season began, through the end of March, and sometimes April.

Without asking for remedy to such, Aaron Jasper had the following to say …

“I would like to make a motion asking staff to report back to the Board this upcoming early autumn, with recommendations and costing of installing a proper drainage system within the Langara golf course, such that the course might be used year-round. I would ask for the unanimous support from the Board for the motion I will put on the table.”

Aaron Jasper’s motion passed unanimously.


Sarah Blyth, multi-term Commissioner on the Vancouver Park Board

In a conversation VanRamblings had with former, multi-term Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Sarah Blyth earlier this week, she told us the following …

“From time to time, my Vision Park Board colleagues and I found ourselves in conflict with the Mayor, with city staff and our Vision colleagues on Council. Never once, though, were we bullied by the City Manager or the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, and most certainly not by our elected Vision colleagues on City Council.

The Mayor and the Vision Councillors realized that we had been elected by voters to fulfill a mandate to preserve, protect and enhance Vancouver’s parks and recreation system, and to work on behalf of all the citizens of our city to maintain the best parks and recreation system on the continent.”

Did Aaron Jasper, and his Vision Vancouver colleagues on the Park Board, follow the “instruction” of Penny Ballem and Mike Magee to pass a motion that would lead to the halving, at best, of green space on the Langara golf course? No, no, they did not. Instead, as it turned out, in the autumn of that year, the Board unanimously approved a motion from Mr. Jasper to have installed a new drainage system — at a cost of $4 million — on the Langara golf course property, allowing golfers to use the course year-round, more than doubling the revenue derived from Langara, easily “repaying” the initial $4 million restoration expenditure.

And what was the political fallout for Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioners Aaron Jasper, Trevor Loke, Sarah Blyth, Niki Sharma and Sarah Blyth?

Nada, zero, zilch.

The Vision Vancouver Commissioners on Park Board continued on representing the best interests of the citizens of Vancouver, unscathed and much admired.

At the conclusion of the 2014 Vancouver civic election, as the incumbent Vision Vancouver Commissioners chose not to seek another term, Vision Park Board candidate Catherine Evans topped the polls, on a newly reconstituted Vancouver Park Board that saw Michael Wiebe and Stuart Mackinnon elected as Greens on the Board,  with Non-Partisan Association candidate John Coupar re-elected to a further term in office, joined by NPA colleagues Sarah Kirby-Yung, Casey Crawford and Erin Shum, the four emerging as the new majority on the Vancouver Park Board.

What is being left unsaid in this column? Yes, you’re right.


Vancouver Mayor / autocrat “play ball with me, and my office, or consequences will be severe” Ken Sim

Unlike the autocratic “if you step out of line, we’ll end you” ABC Vancouver administration of Mayor Ken Sim, the Vision Vancouver and the Non-Partisan Association Park Boards were left alone by the Boards of Directors of each long serving Vancouver political party, as well as their respective party’s colleagues / elected representatives on Vancouver City Council — free to do their jobs as they best saw fit, the jobs they had been elected to perform, unbidden and unscathed.

For part 1 of this series, click on the following link …

#SaveOurParkBoard | Tender Moments of Change at Park Board, Pt 1

Click / tap on the graphic above to sign  the Save Our Park Board Petition started by Sarah Blyth

#SaveOurParkBoard | Tender Moments of Change at Park Board, Pt 1

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The mandate of the elected Vancouver Park Board: building a bridge to a better tomorrow

As the last bastion for civic democracy in our city, the Vancouver Park Board has played a vital role in serving the best environmental, recreational and family interests of the community for more than 133 years, since its founding in 1889.

For many years, members of the community who attended Park Board meetings to address an issue or a “cause” sat at the same table as the elected Park Board Commissioners while addressing their concern, and were successful in having a direct impact on the livability and humanity of our beloved home by the ocean.

Today on VanRamblings, the first of two “stories” revolving around humanity at the Park Board table, specifically involving past Park Board Chairperson John Coupar, as well as Park Board Commissioners Trevor Loke and Constance Barnes, who sat on the 2014  Vancouver Park Board with Commissioners Sarah Blyth, Melissa De Genova and current British Columbia Attorney General, Niki Sharma.

Vancouver Park Board Adopts an Inclusive Trans & Gender-Variant Policy


Trevor Loke, Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioner

At the  May 12, 2013 meeting of Park Board, Commissioner Trevor Loke moved a motion to establish a trans and gender-variant working group, aimed at creating more inclusive spaces for members of the trans and gender-variant communities.

The Park Board Commissioners unanimously supported the motion, drawing a standing ovation from the dozens of supporters of the motion, present in the Park Board meeting room that night, many of the attendees sharing trenchant stories with the Commissioners about their experiences of feeling unwelcome in city facilities, such as recreation centres, swimming pools, and washrooms.

“There are days when with the best intents I’m off to the gym or off to the pool, and I turn around and I go back,” said Drew Dennis, a member of the City of Vancouver’s LGBTQ advisory committee.

One year later, on Monday, April 28, 2014, the Vancouver Park Board’s Trans* and Gender-Variant Inclusion Working Group reported back to the seven Park Board Commissioners gathered at the table, on their engagement findings and priority recommendations, aimed at enhancing service quality and access to facilities.

On that warm, early spring evening, 150 members of the trans and gender-variant community were present in the Park Board meeting room to address the recommendations of the working group, a good number of whom who would come to sit at the Park Board table while speaking to the Commissioners: incredibly articulate physicians employed by Vancouver Coastal who identified themselves as gender-variant persons on the spectrum, who spoke movingly and with spirit.

Young persons, high school students, members of the business community, teachers, lawyers, construction workers, actors and entertainers, seniors, a broad and representative spectrum of members of the cultural and ethnic mosaic communities that comprise and have long defined the Vancouver we know and love.


Constance Barnes, elected Chairperson of the Vancouver Park Board, on December 5, 2011

When it came time for the Commissioners to vote to adopt and establish a 2SLGBTQIA+ policy, the first Commissioner to speak was Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Constance Barnes, who spoke with eloquence in her support of each of the members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ who were present in the room, down the long hallway outside the meeting room, and who had been standing outside the office listening to the speakers, now ready to hear Ms. Barnes’ words.

Constance Barnes’ address to the community gathered in the room, and to her fellow Commissioners, was heartbreakingly poignant, as she spoke of “righting an historical wrong”, of how — as a member of a minority community — she had often found herself excluded and even demeaned, and of how important it was to her that the Board unanimously adopt the motion to establish a 2SLGBTQIA+ policy that, among other initiatives, would construct all new change rooms, including three separate change rooms: Universal (U), Women (W) and Men (M).


John Coupar, long-serving Non-Partisan Association Vancouver Park Board Commissioner

Next to speak: Non-Partisan Association Park Board Commissioner, John Coupar.

“Sitting at the Park Board table this quite wondrous evening, as was clearly the case with my fellow Commissioners, I was heartened and stirred by all that I heard, of the grace and vivid evocation of spirit of all the speakers, your pointed, poignant and potent argumentation for necessary change to establish a fairer and more inclusive society, and the role that the Vancouver Park Board has to play in realizing a more inclusive community for all.

Listening to the speakers who sat at the Park Board table this evening, I was moved. I am changed, forever. For me, the best part of being a Park Board Commissioner is how I am afforded the opportunity to learn about aspects of life about which I was not fully aware. I want to thank you for helping to make me a better, a more whole person, and for working with us to help create a fairer and more inclusive city for all.

2014 is an election year. If I should be so fortunate to  be re-elected to Park Board this autumn, and should I become the Chairperson of the Board, I commit to you tonight, that my first priority will include the construction of the new change rooms that Commissioner Barnes spoke about, but more: I will establish, as was requested this evening, a gender variant swim at the Templeton and Lord Byng pools, and during my next term in office, I will work with the 2SLGBTQIA+ community to create a welcoming environment in our community and aquatic centres, to work with you towards the creation of a fairer community for all.”

Indeed, John Coupar was re-elected as a Park Board Commissioner on Saturday, November 15, 2014, and was soon after inaugurated as Chairperson of the Board at a ceremony held at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens, on December 1, 2014.

Park Board Chairperson John Coupar’s first priority?

Establish a gender-variant swim at each of the Templeton and Lord Byng pools.

Next, Chairperson Coupar instructed Park Board General Manager Malcolm Bromley to begin work on the construction of inclusive change rooms and washroom facilities for members of the trans and gender variant communities.

In the 50+ years VanRamblings has covered the work that takes place at the Vancouver Park Board table, never have we been more moved than was the case this hallowed evening of change for the better, never before or since have we experienced as moving and eloquent a speaker than was the case with Constance Barnes on that particular late evening of April, 2014, and never, ever have we been more proud of an elected official than was the case that halcyon evening, and since, in the person of John Coupar, a true hero in our fair city by the sea.

Click / tap on the graphic above to sign  the Save Our Park Board Petition started by Sarah Blyth

#SaveOurParkBoard | Park Board History & Mandate

BC Politics, BC Votes 2024, Environment, News, Park Board, Politics, Vancouver Votes 2022

Vancouver Park Board History + Commissioners’ Mandate & Compensation

Established by an 1889 amendment to the Vancouver Incorporation Act, 1886 (later the Vancouver Charter). The Vancouver Park Board is unique not just across Canada, but across North America, as well (and the globe, for that matter), as the sole elected body of its kind, and as British Columbia’s Attorney General, Niki Sharma — herself, a former celebrated Vancouver Park Board Commissioner — recently told VanRamblings, “the Vancouver Park Board is a cherished institution.”

Vancouver Park Board has seven elected commissioners who are charged with determining the policy direction of the institution. The Board’s mandate: “provide, preserve and advocate for Vancouver’s parks and recreation system … to the benefit of the citizens of Vancouver, the many neighbourhoods that comprise our beloved home, the City of Vancouver, and to advocate for the environment, as our parks represent the lungs of our city, contributing to the health of the community.”

Commissioners are elected at large every four years, with a chair and vice-chair elected by the Commissioners each December, their term to begin at the first meeting of Park Board Commissioners, in January, following the holiday break. At present the Vancouver Park Board Chairperson is Brennan Bastyovanszky, the Vice-Chairperson Scott Jensen, Park Board Committee Chairperson (the body which hears public presentations, and where all the “real” work of the Commissioners takes place), Laura Christensen, with Scott Jensen Vice-Chair.


Vancouver Park Board Commissioners | L-R: Jas Virdi (ABC), Marie-Claire Howard (ABC), Tom Digby (Green), Angela Haer (ABC), Independents: Scott Jensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky, Laura Christensen

Park Board Commissioners served without remuneration until a 1972 amendment to the Vancouver Charter allowed them an annual honorarium of $1000. At present, for a not unusual 45-hour work week (this apart from the Commissioners’ regular employment in their professions), the Park Board Chairperson earns $23,428.65 per annum, with Commissioners earning $18,743.38 annually, or about 12.5% of the compensation afforded the average City Councillor at Vancouver City Hall.

The Vancouver Park Board oversees 242 parks and gardens, including major park “attractions” such as  the 1,000 acre / 406 hectare Stanley Park, the VanDusen Botanical Garden on Oak Street, and the Bloedel Conservatory atop Queen Elizabeth, 24 active community centres located in each neighbourhood across the city, the Park Board also responsible for Vancouver’s pools and water park system, and well-maintained skating rinks and playing fields, as well as three non-profit, well-used-and-enjoyed public golf courses, Langara, McCleery and Fraserview.

Today and tomorrow, we’re taking a break from the politics of Vancouver City Councillors making the horrendous, anti-democratic decision to eliminate the elected 133-year-old Vancouver Park Board, the last bastion of civic democracy in Metro Vancouver, where members of the public are listened to and respected, and have a direct impact on the setting of public parks and recreation policy.

On Wednesday, we’ll write about tender moments around the Park Board table — involving past Park Board Chairpersons John Coupar and Aaron Jasper, once on opposite sides of the political spectrum and avowed “enemies”, but who thanks to the shocking decision of the ABC Vancouver Councillors at Vancouver City Hall to attempt to abolish Vancouver’s elected Park Board have, in common cause, become new best friends, with John Coupar saying to VanRamblings recently ..

“I can’t believe how skilled Aaron is at organizing. Each and every time we get together I am more and more impressed with his intelligence, his dedication, and his love and commitment to Vancouver’s parks and recreation system, and the preservation of Vancouver’s elected Park Board. Working with Aaron is a joy!”

As you can see from the commentary above, some good is coming out of the Ken Sim-led fiasco to eliminate Vancouver’s elected Park Board. In addition to John Coupar and Aaron Jasper’s newfound friendship, former Vancouver Park Board Commissioners Sarah Blyth (a city hero, and founder of the Overdose Prevention Society) and Melissa De Genova, a two-term Vancouver City Councillor, have also now become new best friends, working together in common cause to ensure going forward, and long into the future, Vancouver will enjoy an elected Park Board.

Click / tap on the graphic above to sign  the Save Our Park Board Petition started by Sarah Blyth

Save Our Park Board GoFundMe Display Campaign
Click / tap on the graphic above to donate to the Save Our Park Board GoFundMe display campaign