Category Archives: Politics

Colleen Hardwick | Vancouver City Councillor | Nobody’s Fool

May 20, 2019#VanPoli Civic Politics, News, Politics, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick looking askance at one of her fellow electeds Vancouver City Council. Councillor Colleen Hardwick looks askance at a Council colleague.

There’s a good reason why Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick (along with her Councillor colleague, Jean Swanson) are a lock to be re-elected in the autumn municipal election of 2022, while the rest of her Council colleagues will be scrambling to even make it into the top 30 of candidates running for office, once all the citizens’ votes are counted.

You’ll notice in the video above, Vancouver City Councillor Jean Swanson in solidarity with citizens protesting their eviction. “Woman of the people,” that’s Jean Swanson. Seems so with Councillor Hardwick, as well — both Councillors attending a Tenants Union rally last summer at English Bay, decrying the renoviction of long term tenants in a west end building due for demolition, to be re-developed as a high-end condominium tower.

For while her other nine colleagues, including Mayor Kennedy and fellow Councillors (excluding Councillor Swanson), are all namby-pamby on the affordable housing and transit files (“Oh, just you wait til the fall, when [Vision Vancouver] city staff report back to us,” her NP colleagues tell all who will listen, “… on just what needs to be done on the affordable housing file, and updating the Rental 100 programme … yessiree, Alice and Bob, dem city staff, they sure have citizens’ interests at heart, every galldarn pickin’ one of ’em, and we’re just the lowly electeds collecting our $100,000 a year plus salaries just so we can rubber stamp whatever they tell us to do”) — but not Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick, who calls a spade a spade, and lets city staff know just how she feels about being lied to when, oh let’s say City Manager, Sadhu Johnston, addresses Council with his usual, “Oh NO, you can’t do that. That just not the way things are done. Please, oh please, let me lead you novice city councillors down the garden path, it’s oh so pretty, really it is. C’mon now, just follow me.”
Vancouver Councillor Colleen Hardwick ain’t havin’ none of that hogwash.

NPA Coun. Colleen Hardwick to Jerry Dobrovolny as he explains why capital budget is being increased:

Nice. Last October, we seem to have elected a Council committed to nice.
After 10 years of the bitter reign of Vision Vancouver, who made opposition Councillors lives a hell on Earth, our new Council has turned a new leaf, where niceness and respect and not getting anything done of real benefit to the vast majority of the electorate would seem to be the order of the day.
VanRamblings appreciates, and lobbied for, collegiality on Vancouver City Council. So far, so good. No bitter recriminations, most votes passing unanimously, and everyone seems to be getting along quite well. Councillors Hardwick and Swanson are kind of frustrated with their fellow Councillors, but on a Council committed to nice, Hardwick and Swanson are viewed as “outliers”, and to be ignored, or even worse … called out.
Imagine. Three term Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr taking Councillor Colleen Hardwick to task for not being nice.

“Ah, gee shucks — Councillor Hardwick be nice, take your $115,000 Councillor’s salary, and just shut the hell up, will ya? If you don’t pipe down, we’re not gonna let you eat at our table, or play with our ball, or invite you to any of our parties. Nah, nah poopy face Hardwick …”

Yep, that Councillor Adriane Carr, she sure could teach a class on how to win friends and influence people aka curry favour with city staff.
It is to weep.
Little wonder that among the great unwashed (you know, the non-aligned, non-pedantic among the electorate — as in the vast majority of those Vancouver citizens who vote) have come to champion Hardwick & Swanson as, the “Women of The People” in these early days of this term of Council, emerging as the electorate’s favourites, the only two Councillors seemingly keeping their eye of the ball, remembering their commitments to the electorate (advocating for tenant’s rights and affordable housing — and in Councillor Hardwick’s case, financial accountability), while not engaging in flights of fancy that have nothing to do with why our current Council was elected to office, a great pastime for many of our other City Councillors.

Arts Friday | Are Things Getting Better For Women In Hollywood?

May 17, 2019A & E, Arts Friday, Cinema, Essay, Politics, Pop CultureRaymond Tomlin

From the earliest days of Hollywood, women were stage managed and manipulated by older men in powerful positions. And it remains clear that, although Harvey Weinstein, Les Moonves, John Lasseter, Luc Besson, among a host of other male predatory Hollywood executives who have been outed, little good has been achieved still for women in the film industry.
In the Hollywood dream factory, trauma surfaces as light entertainment.
In 2013, introducing the list of best supporting actress nominees during the Oscar ceremony, actor and comedian Seth MacFarlane quipped: “Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.” What was chilling was that no one got the joke. The idea that female stars and aspiring, often young, female stars are required to accept the attentions, at the very least, of older male studio executives, producers and prominent male stars, is as old as the Hollywood hills.
Given the profile that the #MeToo movement has brought to sex discrimination, why does sexism continue to prevail in Hollywood?

According to San Diego State’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, women made up only 7 per cent of directors on the top 250 films of 2018, which was actually a 2 per cent decline from 2017. The same study found that while women made up higher percentages of other fields in the industry — 24% of producers, or 17 per cent of editors, for example — they only accounted for 17 per cent of the workforce of all the jobs surveyed. And that too, was a 2 per cent decline from the year before.
The University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab (SAIL) revealed how sexism is embodied by characters on the silver screen. If female characters are taken out of the plot, it often makes no difference to the story the study found.
Analyzing 1000 scripts, the study found that there were seven times more male than female writers & twelve times more male directors than women.
The biggest impact in counteracting the gender imbalance was if female writers were present at script meetings. If this was the case, female characters on screen was around 50% greater.
Inherent in these observations of the film industry are powerful messages about what it means to be female.
In our “post-feminist” era, where we are frequently told the problems of girls are yesterday’s news — that girls are awash in the largesse of civil rights, and it is boys who really require our attention — it is worthwhile to consider the conduct of male Hollywood writers and executives.

Actress Geena Davis, founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

The problem is so glaring that in 2005, the actress Geena Davis, who would go on to start her own gender institute, commissioned Stacy Smith, a researcher at the University of Southern California, to study the issue and help push the studios beyond the staid male-centred film industry.
From 2007 through 2017, according to Smith’s research, women made up only 30.2% of speaking or named characters in the 100 top-grossing fictional films.

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media reports that films featuring women are financially profitable. “Guess what, Hollywood? Female-led films consistently make more money, year over year,” Madeline Di Nonno, the Institutes chief executive has reported to the heads of Hollywood studios.
Hollywood actor Charlize Theron has criticized the movie industry for gender bias. Promoting her film Atomic Blonde, she told feminist Bustle magazine: “Fifteen, ten years ago, it was almost impossible to produce female-driven films, in any genre, just because nobody wanted to make it.”

A quiz that was designed to find out how sexist a film might be was developed by Alison Bechdel and Liz Wallace in 1985. To pass, the film needed three positive answers to these questions: Does it have more than two named female characters? Do those two talk to each other? Is that conversation about something other than a man?
The Hollywood Reporter applied the Bechdel-Wallace test to the top-selling movies of 2018, finding that only around half of the films passed the test.

Actress-writer-director Lena Dunham, creator of the HBO series, "Girls"

Female directors are in what “Girls” creator Lena Dunham calls “a dark loop.” If they don’t have experience, they can’t get hired, and if they can’t get hired, they can’t get experience. “Without Googling it,” Dunham asked a recent Sundance panel, “Ask anybody to name more than five female filmmakers who’ve made more than three films. It’s shockingly hard.”

The sheer scale of rampant Hollywood sexism is daunting, the stories of what actresses have to put up with disturbing, the tales of pay inequity and pushing for more female-led stories are instructive.

Actress-writer-producer Zoe Kazan, star of the Oscar-nominated film Big Sick, and writer and executive producer of the films, Ruby Sparks and Wildlife (the latter now on Netflix)

Actress Zoe Kazan (The Big Sick) told IndieWire reporter, Kate Erbland, “There’s so much sexual harassment on set. And there’s no HR department, right? We don’t have a redress. We have our union, but no one ever resorts to that, because you don’t want to get a reputation for being difficult.”
The Oscar winner and star of The Favourite, Rachel Weisz, told Out Magazine that a number of her male co-stars have taken lower salaries in order to match her own. “In my career so far, I’ve needed my male co-stars to take a pay cut so that I may have parity with them,” she said.
Actress Emmy Rossum sounded off during a recent Hollywood Reporter roundtable about her experience with overt sexism in the industry.

“I’ve never been in a situation where somebody asked me to do something really obviously physical in exchange for a job, but even as recently as a year ago, my agent called me and was like, ‘I’m so embarrassed to make this call, but there’s a big movie and they’re going to offer it to you. They really love your work on Shameless. But the director wants you to come into his office in a bikini. There’s no audition. That’s all you have to do.'”

If the dynamic of older men and younger, submissive women greases the wheels of Hollywood production offices repeats itself on screen, it is not an accident, but the desires of the producers and directors who create these films played out on the biggest stage of all: Hollywood cinema, the world’s most effective propaganda machine. Who is Hollywood trying to kid?

#VanPoli Civic Politics | Faith Groups + Affordable Housing | Part 3

May 15, 2019#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Essay, News, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Audrey Anne Guay, powerbroker, Simon Fraser University Masters student in Urban Studies, Chairperson of the Metro Vancouver Alliance Affordable Housing Action Team, community activist, organizer, an inspiration to all who know her & hope of our future.

THE ROLE OF THE METRO VANCOUVER ALLIANCE IN WORKING WITH FAITH GROUPS TOWARDS THE PROVISION OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING ACROSS THE METRO VANCOUVER REGION

Audrey Anne Guay, 26, arising from a research grant bestowed by Simon Fraser University for the past eight months to spearhead the Metro Vancouver Alliance’s (MVA) Affordable Housing Action Team has, this past year, emerged as one of the key figures in the continuing discussion on the provision of affordable, low cost housing in the Metro Vancouver region.

The Metro Vancouver Alliance (MVA) is a broad-based alliance of 75 civil society institutions who work together for the common good, comprised of members of 60 faith groups across our region, and representatives from 15 labour unions, including the British Columbia Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU), and the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

In fact, democratic, activist grassroots MVA members (and sponsoring) organizations together represent more than 200,000 citizens across the Metro Vancouver region, and over 700,000 citizens across our province.

Here is the erudite, socially conscious and, often, emotionally trenchant Ms. Guay, in her own words, on her work with MVA and faith groups across our region who, together, are creating the conditions that will lead to the construction of affordable housing across our region …

“There’s a great deal of energy in the faith-led sector to develop land owned by places of worship across the Metro Vancouver region, for the provision of low cost, affordable housing. The research conducted by MVA has provided insight into both the motivations of the faith groups, and the challenges they face.

A secondary, but still important, focus of MVA’s Housing Team revolves around the role of Community Land Trusts, arising from the successes of MVA’s sister organization in London where as just one small but significant component of the work they’ve successfully completed, involved the construction of 23 affordable homes in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in London. The Land Trust model, going strong in Vancouver (1500 affordable homes are now under construction in Vancouver!), is of particular interest to MVA, in that it involves community leadership in developing affordable housing solutions.”

Much of Audrey Guay’s work has involved speaking with faith leaders, who may or may not be members of the Metro Vancouver Alliance, who have indicated an interest and begun a discussion on making their sites available for the building of much needed low cost housing.

In addition, over the past year, Ms. Guay has met and had in-depth discussions with city planning staffs in municipalities across the region, City Councillors, affordable housing development staff at the Pacific regional office of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, various non-profit associations across the region, and community-oriented developers like Robert Brown’s Catalyst Community Developments Society, and Stuart Thomas, Simon Davie and Jim O’Dea, among other development staff, at Terra Housing.

Audrey Anne Guay is a name you will hear for years and years to come — a critical and necessary voice of change in a society in flux, and a splendidly energized and energizing difference maker, an undeniable presence in all of our lives, whether you are aware of her or not (and you should be!).

Want to gain an understanding of what’s going on in the faith-based and non-profit affordable housing development front? Well, then, your attendance at tonight’s Metro Vancouver Alliance Housing Forum is absolutely mandatory (and, it will be fun and informative!). Organized by MVA Executive Director Tracey Maynard and MVA Housing Leadership team leader, Audrey Anne Guay, information on the where and when of tonight’s critically important housing event may be found in the poster below.

#VanPoli Civic Politics | Faith Groups + Affordable Housing | Part 1

May 13, 2019#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, News, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

The Oakridge Lutheran Church affordable housing development | 5688 Ash Street, west of Cambie on 41st | a 6-storey, mixed-use building, retail at street level, a new church and community space on the 2nd floor, and four levels of affordable rental housing above the church | Occupancy, Autumn 2019 | Catalyst Community Developments Society

Working with the B.C. Assessment Authority, the Community Services Division within Vancouver City Hall’s Planning Department have identified 364 places of worship in the City of Vancouver that — with the assistance and co-operation of Vancouver City Council, and the provincial and the federal governments — could become prime development sites for the provision of seniors and affordable rental housing, and a plethora of community service spaces, including child care centres and seniors centres.

On Tuesday of this past week, representatives from almost every department at Vancouver City Hall met at CityLab, on the northwest corner of Cambie and West Broadway, with representatives from across Vancouver’s religious landscape, including Baptists, Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Buddists and Mennonites, as well as a representative cross-section of members of the Jewish, Islamic, Sikh, Salvation Army, Lutheran & United Churches across our city to continue a dialogue with Vancouver’s faith groups on the redevelopment potential of their places of worship.

Located on the Burrard Peninsula, with water surrounding two-thirds of our city’s urban landscape, development potential for affordable housing and community spaces is limited by the dearth of developable land on which to provide below market housing, and community services. Since the 1960s, the development ethos in our city has been “build up”, such that skyscrapers not only dot the landscape, in areas such as the West End and northeast False Creek almost smother Vancouver, all in service of densification, long our city’s informing planning & development buzzword.

With the growing shortage of community spaces on which to provide needed community services, such as child care centres — largely due to increasingly out-of-control development pressures, leading to skyrocketing land costs and increasing income inequality — the city is turning to faith groups across Vancouver to partner with the three levels of government to help alleviate economic disparity and our city’s unaffordable housing crisis.

The City, in partnering with the faith community, is looking not only to build low-cost and below market housing on lands owned by the places of worship, but partner with faith groups, as well, in providing community gardens and food programmes, community clinics (tax, ESL), addiction workshops and support services, job training, performance spaces, active living programmes & child care centres, in the hope of fostering community.

In Tuesday’s VanRamblings we’ll discuss the issues of declining membership in our city’s places of worship, the dilemma of aging infrastructure and the dearth of funds available for physical maintenance, and the attendant and inherent consequences places of worship face in attempting to fulfil their mandate of service not just to their membership, but to the community.

In Wednesday’s instalment of this week’s faith group / affordable housing / community services series, VanRamblings will explore the role of the Metro Vancouver Alliance, which has partnered with city staff and faith groups across our region — as well as with members of Metro Vancouver’s development community — towards the provision of affordable housing.

In addition, VanRamblings will seek to provide insight into why Vancouver’s underutilized places of worship may very well emerge as a critical component in our city’s plan to build community, to address income inequality and the attendant issues of access & succour encompassing the vast majority of our city’s socially and economically beleaguered residents.