Category Archives: News

VanRamblings’ Annual Metro Vancouver Holiday Lights Tour

December 21, 2020Diversions, News, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

VanRamblings’ updated 2020 Holiday Lights Tour covers the entirety of the Metro Vancouver region, starting in Vancouver & the North Shore, but now including Burnaby, the Tri-Cities / Coquitlam, Surrey / North Delta, and Richmond. No one says that the Holiday Season Lights Tour must be a single-night event — if you wanted to, you could do a two, three or four night holiday lights tour, at a pace comfortable for you and your family.

You could also do a walking tour. The area around Gravely & Commercial Drive and out to 12th and Semlin would make for a good walking tour of holiday lights. According to Environment Canada, the weather on the three days before Christmas Day will be nippy, but clear, and perfect for a walking tour if you bundle up. In addition, the area around Main and Broadway has great holiday light displays within walking distance of one another.

The Holiday Lights Tour Guide will be updated over the holidays.

We’re going to begin our Holiday Lights Tour on Vancouver’s east side.

First stop …

Holiday Lights, 100 block Victoria Drive, Vancouver. Videographer: Ken Jason Dundas.

2702 Kitchener Street, at Slocan; from the 2400 block of Kitchener to the 2700 block there are a number of wonderful holiday light displays, such as this one …

2621 Kitchener Street

3163 East 16th Avenue

Next it’s up to the Killarney area …

3168 East 46th Avenue

Now, you’re going to have to decide whether you want to travel over to 6080 Ross Street, which is near 41st and Knight, a ways out of the way, 6080 Ross Street

And then it’s over to the Renfrew Collingwood neighourhood …

3540 / 3542 Price Street, near Rupert Street

3191 East 22nd Avenue , at Windermere

East 18th Avenue and Renfrew Street

East 16th and Kaslo Street

Kaslo Court and Kaslo Terrace, 2765 Co-operative Way, just off the Grandview Highway, nearby the Italian Cultural Centre

Lakewood and East 5th Avenue

2500 block Kitchener Street | a gentrified block, almost all new, maxed out to 2400 sq. ft. homes — a well-kept street, though.

1800 block Grant & Kitchener, surrounding Grandview Park, including on Salsbury Drive, just off Victoria Drive

Grant Street and Semlin Drive

2008 Victoria Drive, at 4th Avenue

Victoria Drive and East 7th Avenue

Victoria Street and East 8th Avenue

Commercial Drive and 6th Avenue

2002 East 12th Avenue, at Semlin Drive

3542 Ontario, at 17th and Ontario

2930 Ontario Street

Group of homes between 14th & 15th on Ontario, 2800 to 3000 block

And further afield, close to the Fraser River, in the southeastern part of the city, in the Marpole neighbourhood, there’s 2597 East Kent Avenue North.

351 W 22nd Avenue (near Cambie and 18th)

Now, we have some good news: the Canuck Place Children’s Hospice, celebrating its 25th anniversary, is open to the public, so that’s definitely on the 2020 Holiday Lights Tour.

Canuck Place is located at 1690 Matthews, which is about three blocks south of 16th Avenue and Granville — just turn right onto Matthews, drive a couple of blocks, and voilà, the spectacular, not-to-be-missed Canuck Place Children’s Hospice Christmas Lights Display!

Canuck Place Children’s Hospice Christmas Lights Display, 1690 Matthews Avenue.

After walking around Canuck Place we’ll stay on Vancouver’s west side, driving into the Arbutus Ridge area …

351 West 22nd Avenue (near Cambie and 18th)

King Edward and Valley Drive, near Arbutus Village

3708 West 27th Avenue

4690 Blenheim Street

The lights of Vancouver and the North Shore, as seen from Puget Drive, in Vancouver

2195 West 15th Avenue

Next, it’s to VanRamblings’ home neighbourhood …

2915 Waterloo Street, at 13th Avenue, on the southwest corner

West 12th Avenue and Blenheim Street, NE corner

West 12th Avenue and Blenheim Street, NW corner

2760 Waterloo Street, east side of the street, near West 12th Avenue

Near West 11th Avenue, on Waterloo Street, in Kitsilano.

Next, it’s a drive down to Jericho Beach, to see the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club (above) all lit up. And then for a walk down Point Grey Road.

Hastings Mill Park, east of both the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club and Jericho Beach, next to Hastings Mill, and down from Alma Street

The photo below, Lululemon founder Chip Wilson’s home, along Point Grey Road between Alma and Macdonald streets where there are many holiday light homes to be discovered. Great for a walking tour.

</ br>The The photo directly above was taken by photographer Elvira Lount, who tells us there are great many more holiday lit homes along Point Grey Road, as may be seen in on her Facebook timeline.

And now doubling back a bit to return to Waterloo Street, at 5th Avenue …

West 5th Avenue & Waterloo Street, across the street from McBride Park

West 5th Avenue and Balaclava

In fact, the whole stretch of Stephens Street, from West 5th Avenue to Broadway — including the avenues along Stephens, on both sides — offers wondrous light displays.

West 5th Avenue and Stephens Street

Next, on the second leg of the 2020 Holiday Lights Tour (it breaks down into four parts), we drive down the hill to enjoy Granville Island’s Festive Lights Display, with a drive around the Island.

Entrance to Granville Island

And now a photo of the Burrard Street bridge and Beach Avenue, taken from Granville Island, a site not to be missed when visiting the Island …

After Granville Island’s Festive Lights Display, we’ll drive over the Burrard Street bridge, and head over to …

Bute and Nelson (and you’ll want to see St. Paul’s holiday lights, too)

Hotels: In the EVO car we’ll be renting this year, as we have in past years (we can’t wait until they start adding electric vehicles to their low emission fleet), we’ll park — for free, cuz that’s the deal EVO has cut with the city — somewhere near Sutton Place, kitty corner to the Scotiabank Cinema at Burrard and Smithe, and embark on our tour of the downtown hotels.

The Sutton Place Hotel (formerly Le Meridien), on Burrard Street

In years past, back in the 90s, when we were an arts and entertainment editor for various newspapers and magazines, we discovered that the downtown hotels go out of their way to put up first-class holiday displays in their lobbies … so, as we’ve done for the past quarter century, we’ll start off at the Sutton Place Hotel on Burrard, and then saunter down to the Hyatt Regency, at Burrard and Georgia where there’ll be trees but unfortunately, due to COVID-19 restrictions there’ll be no gingerbread displays made by students at public and private schools, and post secondary institutions, as in years past.

Gingerbread Lane at the Hyatt will return during the holiday season, in 2021

Next, it’s over to the Hotel Vancouver, and then up the street to the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, and then back to our EVO car.

We’ll then drive to the Pan Pacific / Fairmont Waterfront Hotel. As much as we love wandering through both those hotels, the real rationale in parking near those hotels comes with 2 engaging features: the walkway along the west side of Canada Place, and the annual Woodwards windows displays — which, sad to say, is not happening this year due to COVID-19 restrictions.

After we’ve enjoyed the nippy air along the Canada Place walkway, we’ll wander over to the Pan Pacific and Fairmont Waterfront, before heading out again. Ordinarily, we’d drive next to Poole Plaza for the Christmas Market, but it’s been postponed to 2021, so instead we’ll drive next to English Bay to see the lights city staff place on the trees along Pacific Avenue, after which we’ll drive along Denman Street towards Stanley Park, for a drive around the park. Ordinarily, we’d stop off at the Vancouver Fire Department’s Burn Fund Bright Nights Display (with a $10 bill ready to put into the pot) — but that’s not happening in 2020 due to COVID-19.

All and all, Bright Nights is very popular, and just jam-packed, so it seems that it’s fitting that it’s closed in 2020 … so a leisurely drive around Stanley Park (stopping for awhile at Brockton Point) it’ll be, moving onto the roadway just this side of Prospect Point to get onto the exit leading to the Lions Gate Bridge, after which we’ll take the enjoyable drive out to Horseshoe Bay, where we can see the lights of the Metro Vancouver region. In years past, at Megan’s insistence, we’d also enjoy the holiday light displays in the British Properties (little wonder, I sometimes think to myself, that Megan has turned into such a bougie woman, mother & wife at 43 years of age).

On the way back from Horseshoe Bay, we’ll take the lower road, to enjoy the closeness to the water. VanRamblings employs the royal “we”, but in fact for the first time in 50 years, “we” may consist solely of Raymond Neil Tomlin, given the exigencies of the COVID-19 pandemic, and our ever smaller bubble — which, sad to say, does not include my children. Alas.

Next up, it’s the Dundarave Festival of Lights, which as the good folks at The Daily Hive point out “offers BC’s biggest outdoor display of Christmas trees.” By this time, we’ll be famished, so it’ll be time for a bite to eat. Last year, on our Christmas Eve lights tour, a friend and I stopped off at the Park Royal Cactus Club Cafe, where we shared mini burgers, yam fries, with me enjoying a cup of clam chowder, and my friend a small Caesar salad.

By now, it’ll be about 8:30pm (we began our holiday lights tour trek just before 2:30pm, from our west side Kitsilano home), and we’re patting ourselves on the back for having completed legs two and three of our annual, of late, spectacular and revivifying four leg holiday lights tour.

Reporter Elisia Sleeber at the North Shore News has compiled a definitive of the 2020 holiday light displays in North Vancouver.

1279 Keith Road

1382 Wellington Drive, Lynn Valley

Henderson and Burrill Avenues, Lynn Valley

1512 Ross Road

423 East 10th Street

2308 Hoskins Road

3698 Sparrow Lane

2235 Badger Road

You can create your own multi-address route guide by clicking on this video to discover how, which is what we did with the addresses directly above.

The Trinity Street Light Festival and competition in East Vancouver stretches six blocks across the Hastings-Sunrise enclave of Burrardview, the often dazzling light displays strung up by neighbours has been a glowing holiday fixture since 2000. A must-not miss.

Now, it’s over the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge to Trinity Street, on Vancouver’s east side, near the waterfront — depending on how tuckered we are, we may walk the entire length, rather than drive along the street.

There are many, many more light displays throughout Burnaby, the Tri-Cities / Coquitlam, Surrey-North Delta and Richmond, some of which may be found not only in the links below, but covered on VanRamblings, as well.

News1130 | 2020 Christmas Lights and Virtual Events Spotter.

Vancouver Sun | Vancouver Sun’s annual holiday lights map

To Do Canada | Christmas Lights & Holiday Displays In & Around Vancouver

VanRamblings’ best to all of our readers during this most festive season. May you thrive this holiday season, and over the course of this most unusual pandemic holiday season find much love and solace in your life.

Now: Burnaby, Coquitlam, Surrey-North Delta, Langley + Richmond.

Continue reading VanRamblings’ Annual Metro Vancouver Holiday Lights Tour →

#BC Poli | BC Recovery Benefit Application Day | How to Apply

December 18, 2020BC Politics, News, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

The application for the BC Recovery Benefit that will be made available as a one-time direct deposit payment for eligible families, single parents or individuals opens today. You’ll want to take advantage of this benefit.
The key aspect to be aware of: You must apply to receive the benefit.
Now, the John Horgan could very easily have foregone what will turn out for many to be an arduous application process, if they’re even aware there is a benefit for which they are eligible, and could have held off payment until January 5th, 2021, when they very easily might have included the $500 for eligible individuals, and the $1000 for couples and single parents — as they did in April, when they combined the then Climate Action Credit of $330 — with the issuance of GST cheques to households across the province.
No fuss, no muss, no application process — just a tidy sum of money deposited in every eligible adult’s bank account on the first Tuesday of 2021 — not a bad way to start the new year, don’t you think?

But in a blunder of immense proportion, not to mention a disingenuous way to commence Mr. Horgan’s first real mandate, our B.C. New Democratic Party provincial government has decided that not only will eligible British Columbians have to jump through the hoops of an online application process, eligibility for the BC Recovery Benefit is dependent on what you earned in the 2019 calendar year — before COVID-19 was on anyone’s radar, before businesses shut down due to the pandemic, causing the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs across our province — disallowing the full $500 recovery benefit to individuals who in 2019 earned more than $62,500 (with a sliding scale up to a cutoff of $87,500), with households with lower than a $125,000 combined income eligible for the full $1000 recovery benefit, decreasing that amount up to a cutoff point of $175,000.
If you lost you job or your business in 2020, and your income has plunged into the abyss in this very troubling year, you’ll be out of luck when it comes applying for the BC Recovery Benefit.

What is that you’re saying? “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?”
For those who are unfamiliar with VanRamblings’ modus operandi, well … even with Hanukkah ending yesterday, we nonetheless just love to kvetch.
Okay, enough of this foofaraw, let’s get on with acquiring tax free moolah.

First off, you going to have to click on this link to be taken to the British Columbia government’s BC Recovery Benefit application website.
Next, you’re going to have to get all your ducks in a row, and make sure you have the following information and documentation available in order to complete the application process …

Note should be made: persons who are in receipt of the provincial Persons with Disabilities benefits are eligible to apply. The benefit will not be clawed back from existing benefits, as the recovery benefit is non-taxable.

On Tuesday, December 8th, the BC government introduced legislation to secure funding for the BC Recovery Benefit, projected to help around 3.7 million British Columbians.

Charlotte Aiden, a writer for The Ubyssey has written this story on student eligibility for the BC Recovery Benefit.

Students who are at least 19 years old and reside in British Columbia on December 18, filed a valid 2019 Canadian personal income tax return and have a social insurance, individual tax or temporary tax number are eligible to apply.

Unlike the Canada Emergency Student Benefit, international students are included in this benefit, given they meet the eligibility requirements.

You’ll need four things to apply on the government website: your net income from your 2019 tax return; your social insurance, individual tax or temporary tax number; your driver’s licence number if you have a BC driver’s licence (but this isn’t necessary); and your direct deposit information.

Unlike past benefits, this benefit will only be issued through direct deposit, so those who apply must have an account with a Canadian financial institution.

Toll free telephone support is available by phone starting Monday, December 21st, 2020.

Call 1-833-882-0020 (within North America);
Monday to Friday, 7:30 am to 5:00 pm, excluding statutory holidays;
You have until June 30, 2021 to apply.

The COVID-19 BC Recovery Benefit will cost as much as $1.7 billion, up from an estimate of $1.4 billion announced during the election.

#COVID19 | The Default Mask for Consumers to Buy | Safety First

December 15, 2020Food & Health, NewsRaymond Tomlin

Wearing a mask is critical to reducing the spread of COVID-19, but rigorous tests conducted on behalf of CBC’s Marketplace found that while some work very well, others offer little protection from the particles that transmit the novel coronavirus. One type of mask even spread those particles to others.

Today on VanRamblings, for those who missed the November 13, 2020 episode of Marketplace, please find below the video of the results of the laboratory tests that were conducted on more than 20 different face masks on the market, revealing the safest, most effective mask for you to wear.

Marketplace put the masks through the rigorous National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) standard test, conducted at a lower air-flow regimen to reflect normal breathing. The test is usually reserved for N95s and personal protective equipment (PPE) intended for health-care workers. A standard NIOSH test measures filtration efficiency, meaning the particles the mask filters out as the wearer breathes in.

One of the poorest performing masks, not only offering you minimal if any protection but serving to possibly infect others if you are an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier is the valve mask pictured above — a mask, it should be noted in passing, VanRamblings purchased last spring, and (in retrospect now, stupidly) recommended to friends and acquaintances.

In fact, of the more than 20 masks tested, only the valve mask was designated as a Do Not Use mask by scientists, as the mask risks spreading particles to others.
So, if the valve mask is the worst mask to purchase, what’s the best mask for you to buy? The answer: a 3-layer mask with an inner layer of melt-blown non-woven polypropylene — the only mask you should be wearing.

The best consumer mask Marketplace tested had an inner layer of melt-blown, non-woven polypropylene fabric and outer layers of high quality, 600 – 800 thread count cotton, with filtration efficiency rates as high as an N95. James Scott, a professor from the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, who specialiazes in bioaerosols, ran the lab where Marketplace’s tests were run. Scott reported the combination of multiple materials contributed to the strong result for the masks pictured above.

“Even fairly low-efficiency masks are actually quite effective at catching much larger particles. But, it takes a really good mask to catch the small ones as well. And we know that the virus will travel not only on the big ones but the small ones as well,” said Scott.

You can find more information on all the masks tested by Marketplace in the video above, and on the CBC website, in this story.

After watching the COVID-19 face mask episode of Marketplace, VanRamblings purchased our melt-blown, non-woven polypropylene filtered cotton mask from the folks at The People’s Mask, for only $19.99, purchasing a 30-pack of filters (which we change weekly) for $29.99, plus applicable taxes and shipping, both of which products arrived within days.

When we’re out and about now — not a regular occurrence these days, except to go for a walk, a bike ride or shopping for food — we feel safer than previously, and feel good about not possibly infecting others.

Following the research conducted by CBC’s Marketplace, adding a third layer to cotton face masks is now recommended for preventing the spread of COVID-19. Non-woven polypropylene fabric is the material of choice for this third layer. This report out of McMaster University provides detail on what to do, and what not to do if you’re considering making the polypropylene mask at home. Amazon.ca sells a polypropylene filter mask, but delivery of the mask would not be due til late January or early February, so you may want to look elsewhere this particular filtered mask.

Edmonton-based The People’s Mask and Toronto’s Sydney’s both sell three-layer options. If you’re into fashion, there are designs by Amanda Lee Kew and Mayana Geneviere that have a pocket to easily pop a filter into.

The People’s Mask seems like the best, and least expensive, three layer polypropylene filter mask to buy. If you’re making face masks at home you can buy the filters through them, as well.

Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah | Holiday Lights Tour 2020

December 10, 2020Diversions, News, Stories of a Life, Vancouver, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

2020 represents the 50th anniversary of VanRamblings’ annual “Christmas” (holiday) lights tour — a seasonally appropriate and joy-filled tour we’ve conducted with our spouse, children, family and friends dating back to 1970, an utterly free, quietening, joyous and much-look-forwarded to event on the Tomlin household calendar lo these many joyous holiday seasons.

DuPlessis Family Christmas Display, 8222 Burnlake Drive, in Burnaby | nightly from 4:30pm til midnight, through until January 10th, 2021

In the 1980s with my two children, Jude and Megan, we’d begin our holiday lights tour in Burnaby, and wend our way back to Vancouver hitting all the spots you’ll find listed on the holiday light display tour, and before heading into Stanley Park for Bright Nights and a ride on the Christmas train, we’d stop in at the (now closed) White Spot on Georgia Street — after which we would continue our tour, alighting at each stop to admire the light display, the children placing monies into the various donation boxes along the way.

During our annual holiday lights tour, in most instances we would forego paid displays — such as the annual Van Dusen Festival of Lights (currently postponed), to which we would dedicate a whole night out at some point during the holiday season — and stick to home-style family light displays.

By the time Megan hit 9 years of age, being the decided personality she is (read: Megan must always get her way … everyone who knows her accepts that as a fact of life), Megan decided that while our annual Christmas Lights Tour would begin in Burnaby, and after completing our tour of Dundarave, West and North Vancouver, and Trinity Street, we would next head out to Coquitlam, and then out to Surrey — which meant that the holiday lights tour wouldn’t end until somewhere around 3 a.m. Then it was home.

Three of the city’s most popular seasonal events — the VanDusen Botanical Garden’s Festival of Lights, the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park’s Canyon Lights, and Stanley Park’s Bright Nights, and the Christmas Train — have all been cancelled this COVID year.

For the purposes of this year’s Holiday Lights Tour column, we are going to limit ourselves to writing about holiday light displays and attractions in Vancouver, and West and North Vancouver — offering you the opportunity to enjoy a socially safe distanced tour that is filled with much light, and even more joy — while linking to posts made by other media that go farther afield. In the main, in 2020, we have relied on the good folks at News1130, and their holiday lights tour guide — although, we organized our tour in a logical manner as if your are driving in a vehicle, and making your way around the Metro Vancouver region.

Now onto the 2020 Holiday Lights Tour …

Continue reading Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah | Holiday Lights Tour 2020 →