Category Archives: Politics

Hubris | A VanRamblings Apology to Vision Vancouver, Part 1

October 31, 2018#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

2014 Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, and Council Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, with Vancouver City Councillors circa 2015

Long, long overdue, today VanRamblings sets about to right a wrong that, over many years, VanRamblings committed against Vision Vancouver, in failing to properly acknowledge all the good the Vancouver-based political party achieved in their 10 years in power at Vancouver City Hall.
Was Vision Vancouver “perfect” while in power? No, they weren’t. But short of a flower blooming in spring, or the birth of a newborn child, one is not likely to find perfect anywhere on Earth. Vision Vancouver set about to make our city the Greenest City on Earth — towards that end, the members of the Vision Vancouver civic administration did an outstanding job!
Reconciliation with our indigenous peoples, the adoption of a Women’s Equity Strategy, ensuring that the 33 Advisory Committees to Council remained vibrant, the adoption and implementation of a groundbreaking gender variant policy that helped to make ours a fairer and more just city for all of us who reside in our paradise by the sea, constructing hundreds of social housing units, creating the legacy Community Land Trust that will continue in the next civic administration to play a key role in the development of affordable housing for a sometimes beleaguered Vancouver population, declaring Vancouver a sanctuary city, and fighting against racism, xenophobia and intolerance — all of these necessary initiatives barely scratch the surface of all the good that Vision Vancouver was able to accomplish in their 10 progressive years in power at Vancouver City Hall.
First, a bit of perspective on VanRamblings’ apology, where we once again bury the lede. As per usual, a story that we hope helps to provide context.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and federal Liberal party Finance Minister Paul Martin

After nine years in power, the federal Progressive Conservative Party administration of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was soundly defeated at the polls in Canada 35th general election on October 25th 1993, leaving the once dominant party with only two seats in the house. The incoming Jean Chrétien Liberal Party government garnered 177 seats and 41.24% of the popular vote, while inheriting a $42 billion annual deficit, and a bankrupting $780 billion long term debt that emerged as a key factor in the unpopularity and eventual defeat of the Mulroney government. It is often said that Liberal and NDP administrations couldn’t manage a popsicle stand, that Conservatives are the fiscally responsible political party — which is so much poppycock and nonsense, and the absolute reversal of the truth.
Incoming Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and the yet-to-be appointed Liberal party Finance Minister Paul Martin were hardly bosom buddies. Jean Chrétien, le p’tit gars de Shawinigan (“the Little Guy from Shawinigan”) raised in some degree of poverty in Québec in the 1930s and 1940s had little time for the wealthy Canada Steamships scion, raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. The bitter 1990 Liberal Party leadership convention left the political rivals bitter political enemies. Even so, in November 1993, once Paul Martin placed his family holdings in a blind trust, the newly re-elected Paul Martin was appointed to the cabinet and named Minister of Finance.
For Prime Minister Jean Chrétien appointing Paul Martin as Finance Minister was political payback — let Paul Martin garner the opprobrium of provincial governments across Canada, as well as public sector unions, the small business and corporate sector, and the people of Canada as he went about wrestling the $42 billion annual deficit to the ground, setting about to lower Canada’s economically unsustainable long term debt, as well.
Paul Martin did exactly that, but not without controversy. Martin implemented huge budget cuts that almost ground economic growth to a halt, scaling down government to 1951 levels, while cutting transfer payments to the provinces that had paid for social programnes, health care, and public infrastructure, including the construction of affordable housing.
By 1998, Martin introduced a balanced budget, an event that had occurred only twice in 36 years before 1997, while also ushering in a recession.
Even so, the budget was balanced, CPP overhauled, and Employment Insurance taxes were increased to a level that raised an “extra” $20 billion each year to pay down the long term debt — by 2002, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s restored Canada’s domestic and foreign currency debt ratings to AAA. When Jean Chrétien announced he would be stepping down as Prime Minister, Paul Martin was removed from his position as Finance Minister in order to concentrate on his to run for the Liberal leadership. On November 14, 2003, Martin succeeded Jean Chrétien as leader of the Liberal Party, becoming Prime Minister on December 12, 2003.
Was it necessary for Jean Chrétien to remove Paul Martin as Finance Minister? Nope. That decision by the Prime Minister was yet another arrow aimed at the heart and the political ambition of his longtime political rival.
Soon after Paul Martin became Prime Minister, the Globe and Mail published a story alleging financial wrongdoings by the Chrétien government involving tens of million of federal taxpayers dollars improperly paid to Quebec-based Liberal operatives to secure victory in the 2004 Canadian federal election.
Martin met with now former Prime Minister Chrétien to ask him about the improper expenditures, which improper payment Chrétien readily admitted to, while also advising Martin to “bury it”, and announce to the press that his government would conduct an internal investigation — an investigation that would never see the light of day. Chrétien told Martin he’d successfully buried controversies, repeatedly, as Prime Minister of Canada.
But Paul Martin was a boy scout — and he thought Chrétien a despicable, corrupt, self-serving politician. “We’ll get to the bottom of this burgeoning scandal,” Martin bellowed to the press. Soon after, Martin struck The Gomery Commission (formally the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Programme and Advertising Activities), the federal Canadian Royal Commission headed by Justice John Gomery for the purpose of investigating the the Québec-based sponsorship scandal, which involved allegations of corruption within the Canadian government.
Justice Gomery released a first report on the scandal on November 1, 2005, which brought down the Martin government. To add insult to injury, after boy scout Prime Minister Paul Martin lost the early 2006 federal election to Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper, in 2008, Federal Court of Canada Judge Max M. Teitelbaum set aside Gomery’s conclusion that Jean Chrétien and Jean Pelletier shared blame for the mismanagement of the programme to boost the federal government’s profile in Quebec, a decision that was appealed and upheld by the Federal Court of Appeal.
From the outset, Chrétien had advised Martin to “bury” the story; if he didn’t, it would bring down his government, and Paul Martin would become the Prime Minister of shortest tenure in Canadian history, all while embroiled in a “scandal” not of his own making. But Paul Martin didn’t listen — he didn’t want to bury the story, he wanted to bury his long time rival Jean Chrétien — but in the process, he destroyed his legacy.
Why did Martin set about on this destructive path? One word: hubris.
Hubris is often defined as “an extreme and unreasonable feeling of pride and confidence in oneself, an overweening presumption that leads a person to disregard the fixed limits on human action, that means to bring shame upon a rival, while asserting the piety of the accuser.”
Proverbs 16:1 reads as follows, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.”
Outside of the Biblical context, the proverb still has a ring of truth: overconfidence in oneself not only often leads to mistakes, it can lead to one’s downfall — while Paul Martin lost government, by 2008 his bitter rival, Jean Chrétien, had received absolution, leaving Martin as an unfortunate footnote is the politas of Canadian federal politics.

The Board of Variance at City Hall is the most powerful creature of city government. A quasi-judicial lay body, the Board of Variance possesses the authority to overturn decisions of both the Planning Department, and the City Council itself. In British Columbia, dating back to 1955, the provincial government has required local governments across British Columbia to establish a Board of Variance in their community to oversee all development decisions of the local government, in Vancouver involving not just development — inclusive of applications for property renovations by homeowners to the construction of massive towers, where a relaxation of the applicable zoning bylaw has been granted by either the Planning Department or City Council — but tree removal and signage.
Long story short, the COPE Council in 2005 appointed VanRamblings to Vancouver’s Board of Variance; in 2009, when a vacancy arose, the Vision Vancouver civic administration re-appointed VanRamblings to a new three year term of office — only to fire us two months after our appointment, as we sought to stand up for the central tenets of Board of Variance procedure: independence of Board appointees, and meetings that were open to the public, both of which necessary tenets we felt were breached by the appointed Board of Variance of the day.
We were devastated and bitter when fired by Vision Vancouver.
In response to the firing, VanRamblings made Vision Vancouver, and anyone associated with Vision Vancouver, our bitter enemy — which, as you might imagine, was not a very good look for us, although our bitterness and daily blogging on VanRamblings and thousands of social media posts taking Vision Vancouver to task, whether reasonably or unreasonably, bore fruit in the realpolitik of Vancouver.
As far as we were concerned, Vision Vancouver could do no good.
For years, VanRamblings continued to be bitter and pointed in our criticism of Vision Vancouver, which for the cynics in our community was satisfactory, indeed — human nature seems to take the greatest possible delight in “taking down” politicians. VanRamblings’ readership blossomed — the more bitter our denunciation of Vision Vancouver, the greater our readership.
VanRamblings was successful in creating destructive memes bitterly attacking Vision Vancouver, in the process creating an untoward narrative about Vision Vancouver that saw no good in anyone affiliated with Vision Vancouver, or anything Vision Vancouver did, no matter how laudatory was a Vision Vancouver accomplishment.
The result of all this bitterness? It almost killed us.
As I’ve written many times previously, in August 2016, VanRamblings was diagnosed with hilar cholangeocarcinoma, a deadly, rare form of inoperable cancer that steals the lives of all those who are diagnosed with this terminal form of cancer. In the near eight months we were bed-ridden following our diagnosis, we had a great deal of time to reflect on the meaning of our existence, and both all the good that we had achieved for others, and all the demeaning and destructive acts of hubris we had performed in the community, most directly in respect of Vision Vancouver.
For want of better phraseology, early on in our illness we had a ‘come to Jesus moment’ in respect of Vision Vancouver, and made ourselves a promise (one of several) that were we to survive this terminal and deadly cancer, we would dedicate a portion of our life to making up for the wrongs we had committed against Vision Vancouver.
Hubris. It’s a bitter and ugly thing that can kill you.
Now, we’re not so naïve as to believe that a few words on a screen can make up for the damage we’ve caused. There’s no saying , “please forgive me” for that which is unforgivable. All we can do in the coming weeks and months is present to you all of the successes of Vision Vancouver, while responding to the bitter criticisms of the Vision Vancouver administration that we — much to our shame and regret — helped to foment.
Note: the authors of both linked criticisms of Gregor Robertson’s the Vision Vancouver administration that may be found directly above are friends of VanRamblings — even so, we couldn’t disagree more with their bitter denunciations of, and the meanness of their criticism of the civic government that has held office at Vancouver City Hall these past 10 years.
Of course, the ironic consequence of all the above is, now that Vision Vancouver is out of office, remnants of that civic administration are setting about to destroy us, to take us down, and once and for all silence our voice.
As you might well imagine: we’re not going anywhere. Neither are we bitter towards or about Vision Vancouver — that’s a mug’s game, and we no longer play that game. To do so, we believe, would kill us, snuff out our life.
In 2018, we have a second chance at this thing called life — we’re going to use the opportunity we’ve been given not for ill, but for the common good.

What’s Going on Between You and Christine Boyle?

October 30, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Published the first time I met Christine Boyle, back on March 11th of this year, at a COPE coalition exploratory meeting. I was inspired by her then, I am inspired by her still

And the corollary to the question in the headline, asked after publishing my critical of Christine Boyle October 21st column on VanRamblings, “What’s happened between you and Christine Boyle?”
In both cases the answer is, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
A Personal, Not a Political, Journal
Today on VanRamblings I am going to set about to answer in some detail and at some length the questions posed above, asked of me hundreds of times over the past six months. In the process, I will write about how I came to know about the existence of Christine, from whence my support of her nascent political candidacy arose, and why I thought it important to champion Christine Boyle’s candidacy for Vancouver City Council.
I want to set the record straight. Contrary to the allegations that have been leveled at me for almost six months now, I am neither “obsessed” nor “infatuated” with Councillor-elect Boyle — notions I find to be contemptuous and demeaning, both of me and Ms. Boyle’s six month’s long candidacy for office. I categorically reject any notion that my writing of Ms. Boyle candidacy as having arisen from anything other than a heartfelt belief, based on 55+ years in the political fray, that Christine Boyle — as I have written many, many times, represents anything other than the finest candidate for office of which I have become aware in my lifetime. Full stop.

HISTORY
As is the case with many of you, and as was the case with the vast majority of voters, and members of Vancouver’s fourth estate, eight months ago, I was completely unaware of the existence of Christine Boyle. I consider myself quite plugged into the realpolitik of Vancouver — even so, Christine Boyle was nowhere on my radar.
The first time I became aware of Christine Boyle was in early March 2018.
It would seem I had “friended” her on Facebook, although I have no conscious memory of doing so — because, I mean, who was Christine Boyle? Best I can figure is that I confused Ms. Boyle with Christine Ackerman, a former West End Residents Association community activist. You know, “Christine’s” – they’re all alike, and meld into one another.
So, there I am heading home on the #9 bus one early Sunday afternoon, after church and dim sum brunch with Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick and her husband, Garry (and after visiting Bed, Bath & Beyond, a regular Sunday afternoon haunt of mine), looking at my Facebook timeline, when what do I see: Christine Boyle announcing her candidacy for a nomination for Council with OneCity Vancouver. Big deal, right? Except …
No sooner does this Christine Boyle person announce her candidacy for nomination for Vancouver City Council than 40 Facebook friends respond in a flood of congratulations and well wishes — forty persons whom I know and have worked with, from across the political spectrum, each “friend” more excited about Ms. Boyle’s candidacy than the previous commenter, the flood of supportive commentary turning from flood into a deluge.
Interesting, I thought. Twenty minutes later, this Christine Boyle person publishes a follow-up Facebook post, announcing her Christine Boyle for City Council Facebook group. Twenty minutes after that this Christine Boyle, a complete unknown to me, published another Facebook post, a link to her brand spanking new candidate website page. “Now there’s a professional roll out of a campaign for office,” I thought to myself. Very interesting. After which I promptly forgot about Christine Boyle — I had invited a friend for dinner, and had preparations to make.

The next time I became aware of Christine Boyle was one week later, at COPE’s March 11th AGM, at the Russian Hall. The COPE Executive had requested that OneCity Vancouver and the Green Party of Vancouver each send a representative to COPE’s AGM to address COPE members on the potential for a coalition of left-of-centre parties (Vision Vancouver was not invited to participate in the coalition discussion).
Christine Boyle arrived as the OneCity rep, and a little late as the Greens were holding their own AGM that afternoon, a breathless Pete Fry arrived.
If you’ve ever attended a COPE meeting, you know that they’re boisterous, out-of-control affairs, with competing (often loud) voices vying for attention, with little in the way of focused discussion.

Christine Boyle’s time soon arose to speak to those gathered downstairs in The Russian Hall, and the strangest thing happened. As soon as Ms. Boyle began to speak, the room went silent. In 40 years of attending COPE meetings, I’ve never seen anything like it. Christine Boyle held the meeting in thrall — unprecedented at COPE meetings, particularly AGMs.
Christine Boyle spoke for three minutes, and then announced she had to leave to “relieve the child care worker looking after my son.”
Because I knew that I’d be writing about the upcoming Vancouver civic election, I decided to approach Ms. Boyle as she was leaving the room.

I approached Ms. Boyle just outside of the door well leading into the hallway outside of the meeting room, and asked if I might speak with her. Ms. Boyle, as calm and centred as anyone could be, simply said, “Yes.” I introduced myself, and told her I’d be writing about the election, and would appreciate the opportunity to speak with her at some point down the road when she was not quite so busy as today. Ms. Boyle agreed to that meeting. For the record, that proposed meeting never took place.
Take a look at the picture above. Keep it in your mind.

Some years ago, I was returning from lunch with my daughter who, at the time, lived in Richmond. A bit past one o’clock on an early spring afternoon, I was secluded inside my tinpot American made car, waiting for the light at 57th and Oak to change, as I headed back to work. In front of me in her car, a young mother, her two young children securely fastened in their car seats in the back seat of the car. In front of the young family directly in front of me, a middle-aged man in a suit waiting for the red light to change.
I had the radio on, all seemed well with the world, and being a driver of integrity, as one is supposed to do every eight seconds, I checked the rear view mirror — and what do I see? A huge boat of a mid-1980s Oldsmobile roaring up Oak Street, the driver of the vehicle looking off in the distance, completely unaware that less than 50 yards in front of him were three stopped vehicles waiting for the light to change.
I leaned on the horn, alerting the woman in front of me, who looked back to see what all the commotion was about — she saw what I saw. My car was about to be rear-ended at high speed by a monster of a car; she secured herself to the drivers wheel, you could almost hear her saying to her children, “Hold on, everything will be fine.”
The horn blaring into the midday surroundings, approximately 10 yards away from my car, the driver of the Oldsmobile finally took notice of my vehicle, at which point a look of horror swept over his face. About five yards away from hitting my vehicle, the man in the Oldsmobile slammed on his brakes, the sound of his car tires screeching.
But it was too late.
Now, you often hear that in accidents, like the one about to occur, time slows down for the accident victim. Prior to this day, I didn’t deny the possibility that happens sometimes, as a means of the human mind dealing with trauma — but I didn’t have any reference point for such an event.
From the moment of impact, time slowed down. The first thing that happened was I was thrust forward, and as I was thrust forward so was my vehicle, which plowed into the car in front of me, as her car made contact with the vehicle in front of hers. All that happened over the next 60 seconds occurred in silence.
As I was thrust forward, my seat belt stopped me from catapulting through the front windshield of my car. I felt the seat belt fasten itself onto my chest, my ribs cracking — although I could neither feel nor hear it, I just knew it was happening. I felt no pain.
I was present in the situation, there was no “out of body” experience — I was smack dab in the middle of this trauma, as the seat belt catapulted me backwards onto my driver’s side car seat. My body was like a pinball, thrust forward, thrust back, thrust forward, thrust back, until I lay prone on the car seat, which was now completely horizontal.
I felt no pain. I felt present. I felt glad to be alive.
Several ambulances arrived only a couple of minutes later. I was carefully extracted from my vehicle, and placed in an ambulance and taken to UBC Hospital. I saw the woman who had been in the car in front of me; she was crying. I saw her children in the arms of two paramedics; the children were fine. I saw the driver who had plowed into us — he looked traumatized, his face ashen. And then to the sound of ambulance and fire engine sirens screaming through the air, I was taken from the scene of the accident.
Why am I telling you this story? What relevance could it possibly have to the “saga” of Christine Boyle, and VanRamblings? I want you to recall what I wrote above of “time slowing down”, of the silence that attended the accident, and of being “present” for all that occurred.
I also want you to hold in your mind, the picture of the beach, and the ocean and the sun, in the photo above. I want you to hold out the possibility that all does not occur as we expect it might, that sometimes the unexpected occurs, and we find ourselves transported.
End of digression

The person on the far left in the navy blue sweater? That’d be me, Raymond Neil Tomlin.

Now, again, I want you to think back to the photo above of the beach, the ocean, and the sun. And I want you to recall, as well, what I’ve written above about time, and silence.
Back at the meeting. I now found myself standing in the door well, my back leaning against the rough door enclosure. I looked at Christine Boyle.
I did not see Christine Boyle.
Instead, what I saw and what I experienced was the beach and the ocean and the sun, which is all I could see. I heard Christine Boyle’s voice, calm and melodic, cheerful and unhurried. Occasionally, I heard my own voice.
If you’ve ever attended a COPE AGM, you know they’re loud, noisy affairs.
As the waves rolled onto the shore, and the sun shone into the light of the day, all sound except Christine Boyle’s voice receded into the background, all I could hear was her voice. I don’t recall anything of what she said. I simply felt safe, my heart beating slowly in my chest.
Ninety seconds after our conversation began, Ms. Boyle took her leave.
I returned to my seat to compose the Facebook post that appears at the top of today’s column.

The single most inspiring presence to emerge on Vancouver’s political scene in recent years. OneCity Vancouver’s Christine Boyle for City Council, about whom and from whom you will be hearing a great deal more in the months to come. #VoteChristineBoyle #aCityforALL

The next time I wrote about Christine Boyle was on April 20th on VanRamblings, six months out from the 2018 Vancouver civic election. The next time I saw Christine Boyle was at David Eby’s TownHall, where Ms. Boyle spoke. I made only a brief, in passing acknowledgment of her presence at the TownHall, where I was a volunteer co-ordinator that day.

David Eby, Housing Townhall, Hellenic Centre, June 6, 2018 | Photos credit, Elvira Lount

From April 20th until October 18th, when I formally endorsed Christine Boyle for Vancouver City Council, I wrote about her every single day, more often than not with only a passing reference — in all those months, there was not a day when Christine Boyle’s candidacy was not mentioned on VanRamblings, or in my social media feeds.
Why?
Because, as I’ve written many, many times, I know — it’s not that I just think, or believe, or kinda wish — that Christine Boyle is the single most important candidate to be elected to Vancouver City Council, not just in my lifetime, but (and I know this, as well) in the entire 132-year history of the political governance in the city of Vancouver. I believe that. I know that.
Poppycock! Is that what I hear you say? “You’re infatuated with that woman.” Is that what you, and so many others, are telling me? “Stop, Raymond — you’re being naïve, you’re being foolish. You’re compromising yourself. Your conduct is unseemly. Stop it. Stop it now!”
Allow me to respond to the infatuation charge. I am a 68-year-old man with two adult children. A serious, and my public persona to the contrary, and a quiet man. I do not, and have not ever, believed in the notion of infatuation. I’ll tell you why.
In the early years of my marriage, I suppose I may have been seen to be infatuated with my wife, Cathy.

Around the time the picture of Cathy and I was taken in the summer of 1972, one morning I awoke, and as usual I looked over at her, still asleep. I kept looking at her, and thought to myself, “I don’t know who this woman is. I know almost nothing about her. For two years, it has been us and only us. We have spent so much time making love that we have never taken the time to get to know one another.” And that was true.
The next few years of our lives were spent with Cathy and I getting to know one another. And the more we knew about one another, the more we came to not like the other very much. Oh sure, we were a couple. We travelled together, lived our lives together — but over time, we came to see that our respective values differed. Cathy was a child of privilege, her mother a Southam — her politics conservative, class-based and dominated by wealth and white privilege. Me, I was a working class boy who grew up in poverty, who had somehow found his way into university, and two undergraduate degrees, and a post-graduate degree. I was then, and I am today, a socialist. Cathy remains a woman of privilege. I remain a proud member of the working class, who believes, “Each according to her need.”
Infatuation? That’s a mug’s game. That’s you creating the person in front of you as the person you wish them to be, not the person they are. Infatuation is a lie, and a disservice to honesty and integrity of person.
Infatuation? Obsession? To me, both smack of, and are forms, of a mental illness. Let me be very clear: I see the world clearly, and I despair. I am respectful in my relations with all the people in my life, and with everyone who comes into my orbit.
In an election just past that was the ugliest election I have ever covered or participated in. In an election that was, more than anything else, a #MeToo Backlash woman-hating election, the notion that I would somehow engage in conduct that would compromise the integrity of anyone, never mind a woman of conscience and probity, who is happily married with two children, who is years younger than my daughter Megan — a woman with whom I have found myself in the same room only four times in seven months, speaking with her only twice, for those who attribute ill motive to me in my political support of Christine Boyle, all I can ask is: really?

Do you see the Facebook post above. It represents the least worst thing I saw written about Christine Boyle during the course of Vancouver’s civic election. The Facebook post appeared 36 hours after the October 3rd Last Candidate Standing event at The Imperial on Main Street. As I did throughout the election period, dating back months, I immediately intervened with the woman who had posted derogatory comments about a candidate in the election with whom her party had formed an alliance.
I was told I was a white man of privilege, and had no right to criticize a woman of colour (a woman, if truth be told, a feminist, and a very fine writer — usually). If you think I was going to leave it at that, you don’t know me. I spent the next 24 hours making behind the scenes arrangements to have that post taken down, and have the party that championed that post reined in and stopped in the latter two weeks of the campaign from engaging in such destructive nonsense.

Graphic posted by me on Twitter to stop an ongoing visceral attack on Christine Boyle.

There was a group of prominent, privileged white men who spent almost their every waking moment attempting to take Christine Boyle down.
I was having none of it. Between coming to the defense of City Councillor Melissa De Genova — who was the subject of one of the most vicious take down campaigns I have ever witnessed, a campaign of destruction that lasted months — and the daily online social media evisceration of Christine Boyle, I dedicated as much time in coming to the defense of each of these women of accomplishment and integrity, and finding ways to shut down the vicious online commentary, as I did composing posts on VanRamblings.
So now you see the fatal flaw in my personal make-up, don’t you? My defense of both Ms. De Genova and Ms. Boyle arose from a paternalistic concern for each. And that is a terrible thing to admit, particularly in relation to two of the strongest women of my acquaintance, who hardly need intervention from a 68-year-old man who is very much their inferior. But paternalistic concern or no, I’d be damned if I was going to allow an attempt to destroy these two women, and their campaign for office.
Concerning and unseemly as my regular writing about Christine Boyle may have been to some, I was successful in my goal of presenting Christine Boyle to the general public.
Eight months ago, no one knew who Christine Boyle was, outside of her family, and perhaps three or four hundred of her acquaintances and friends. Over the course of six months, I did all in my power — including the near 23,000 unique hits to VanRamblings on the Thursday before the election — to present Christine Boyle to the public.
Because I knew that once they’d heard her voice, once they had met her, heard her speak, read what she writes, and once the 45,455 Vancouver citizens who came to know her, who would come to hold Christine Boyle in high regard, would vote for a woman about whom they knew nothing only months prior, in order that our city would be transformed.

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with hilar cholangeocarcinoma, a deadly, rare form of inoperable cancer that steals the lives of all those who are diagnosed with this terminal form of cancer.
At the time I was diagnosed, I wrote about it on Facebook (only sporadically, because I was very ill), and at the request of the publisher of a magazine I’ve had my work published in for almost 23 years now, in this magazine. It was through the recording of my cancer journey in this journal that I met a woman with my diagnosis. While I am here today, she was gone in four painfully excruciating months.
A few years back, my daughter’s best friend, someone I’d known since she was a young girl, quite the kindest and most brilliant young woman you’d ever want to meet, accomplished and lovely, someone who when we spent time together I cherished every minute. At age 29, this young woman had completed her medical degree, and had opened her own office with a group of other doctors. The previous year she had been married, to a man who loved her with all his heart. And soon after that she was with child.
A life full of promise and love, and the most beautiful of soul young woman you could ever hope to meet and have her in your life. Not too long after she became pregnant, she was diagnosed with breast cancer — she chose not to take treatment, lest it compromise the young person to be she carried within her.
Miraculously, her cancer went into remission, her child was born healthy and hearty, her home now filled with the cooing sounds of a happy and content newborn baby.
Six weeks after the birth of her baby, this young woman of my long acquaintance was once again diagnosed with breast cancer, stage four breast cancer this time — within weeks she was gone. To this day, her mother has not recovered from the loss of her beloved daughter.
In 1990, I was asked to help parent a boy of 10, with whom I had a better and more palpable connection and fundamental understanding of than his parents, his teachers or any other person. Dan’s parents saw that, and asked if I might intervene. I asked for the permission of my children to add Dan to our family — and they readily agreed.
Dan was a precocious young man, wise beyond his years, and loved by everyone around him — although he was an idiosyncratic, unconventional & demanding young man, but still a lovely guy. Dan was like another son to me. And that was fine with my son, Jude, because he loved Dan, too.
Dan spent much of his twenties traveling, taking employment in Hollywood or teaching in Taiwan to help fund his adventures exploring the globe. Dan came home to Vancouver every summer, though — it was a blast to spend time with Daniel, for me, for my children, for his family and for his friends.
In early July of 2008, when Daniel was 28 years of age, he arrived home from Taiwan, his mother picking him up at the airport — she took one look at Dan, and rushed him to Vancouver General Hospital. Within hours of arriving at VGH, Dan was diagnosed with terminal acute myeloid leukemia. He died the next year. There’s not a day goes by I don’t think of Daniel.

On December 27th, 2016, in a meeting with Mayo Clinic surgeon, Dr. Shawn Mackenzie, I was told I conceivably had only a few hours to live, that the cancer had spread into not just my liver, but into my kidneys, gallbadder, pancreas and throughout the biliary tract. Arrangements for hospice care were made, I was told that one or more of my organs could collapse at any moment, and I should immediately make arrangements with my family involving preparation for my passing.
As you can tell, I am still here to today. Next year, I will write about my cancer journey, and all that occurred from August 2016 through March 2017. I remain under doctor’s care, have an appointment for a CT scan and MRI in December and January at the B.C. Cancer Agency — but for all intents and purposes I’m fine, although the cancer remains, and my lymph nodes are as inflamed as they were at the worst point of my diagnosis.
In the weeks and months since my miraculous recovery — when all fear and despondency has lifted, making each day a joy for me — I have asked myself, why me? Why was I spared? I have a pretty darn good idea about why I lived through those eight arduous months — for that, I have many people to thank, each of whom I will write about in the months to come.
Still, in the year after the remission of my cancer, I continued to ask the “Why me?” question. And then the answer became crystal clear to me.

Newly-elected Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle out riding a bike with her son

I hope you will forgive me for what I am about to write, and I hope she will forgive me, too. Since March 4th of this year, only reconfirmed on March 11th, and every day since, the answer to why my health remains vibrant, my spirit strong, my energies boundless are as clear to me as the sun that shines in the sky.
As difficult as it is for you to read, I believe that I was spared — and I don’t know for how much longer — to present one candidate for Vancouver City Council to the wider world, and to dedicate all of my waking energies these past 7½ months towards ensuring her election to office. Of course, that is done now — and for that, my heart is filled with joy.
But it is not just this person about whom I know in my heart means so very much good for us, it is for all of those who voters elected to office on Saturday, October 20, 2018.
For as long as I have left on this Earth, I will dedicate my waking moments to doing what I am able to support and assist in any way I can those persons of conscience you have placed your faith in — and all those persons of whom I am aware who I know mean well for our city, and who seek — to transform our city into the city we need, a city for all of us.

Vancouver Votes 2018 | A Dystopian Nightmare Averted

October 29, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Election night, Saturday, October 20th, Councillor-elect Christine Boyle addressed her OneCity Vancouver supporters, girding them for the “fight ahead” against the forces of regression, calling on them to work with her and the progressive forces across our city in order that, together, we might build the city we need. Christine Boyle’s call was an inspiring & clarion one.
The following day, VanRamblings published a column taking Councillor-elect Boyle to task for seeming to sew the seeds of division on a Council that, we thought and we continue to believe, is far from divided, her comment on election night unworthy of what we know and believe about the candidate we relentlessly championed daily in the six month lead-up to election night.
VanRamblings has, over the course of the past week championed the notion of “post partisan councils and boards of reconciliation” — a call by VanRamblings for elected members to work across the aisle with those electeds and members of the public with whom they have differing political philosophies and perspectives, all in aid of persons of conscience coming together so as to benefit every citizen who resides in the city of Vancouver.

But for 957 votes on election night, October 20th 2018 (and the election of Ken Sim as Vancouver’s next Mayor), Councillor-elect Christine Boyle’s election night address rallying her supporters of conscience might rather have garnered the opprobrium of VanRamblings for understating the dire consequential impact of a Mayor Ken Sim, and a majority Vancouver Non-Partisan Association contingent of electeds to Vancouver City Council.

The following is what would have transpired had Ken Sim become Vancouver’s next Mayor, along with the five current NPA Councillors-elect …

Mayor’s Advisory Board. An advisory Board to the Mayor would be struck, not unlike the advisory Board that drafted policy for Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. This NPA Board of Advisors would focus mainly on drafting policy on development, an influential and determinative, proto in-house real estate Board, if you will, as was the case with the Mayor Robertson administration. The Mayor would have input into the decisions taken the Board, but just that and no more;
Empty Homes Tax. The Empty Homes Tax that Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart proposes be tripled (an initiative that will find support among the “progressive” Councillor elects), under an NPA administration would be repealed, as one of the first items of business of the new Council. The Advisory Board would determine that the Empty Homes Tax was a counter-productive measure that had depressed investment in the real estate market by offshore investors in the Vancouver market. Consequent to the cancellation of the Empty Homes Tax, the initiative extant of the Advisory Board, investment in Vancouver’s real estate market would once again boom, creating tens of thousands of ‘man years’ of employment for builders and the building trades, while making hundreds of millions of dollars for developers, not to mention members of the Advisory Board. In other words, Vision Vancouver on speed;
NPA Mayor & Council as de facto opposition to the NDP government. Mayor Ken Sim and the NPA members of Council would call out the NDP’s speculation tax (first initiated by Christy Clark’s Liberal government) for the inherent racism of the policy, which commentary Mayor Ken Sim would broadcast to the world as discriminatory, given that the tax is aimed specifically at Chinese investors he would suggest, and to a lesser extent person of colour “immigrants” from across the globe;
An NPA administration at Vancouver City Hall would also DEMAND the revocation of the provincial government’s speculation tax as a top priority, a drum they would beat until their demands had been met. An NPA administration would also call out the provincial NDP government’s so-called “school surtax” (a particular bug-a-boo for NPA Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick), the rallies that had been held in the spring and summer opposing the provincial NDP government’s “school surtax” to look like a convivial picnic, as compared to the rallies that would be fomented by the NPA administration in office at Vancouver City Hall;
Affordable housing. Under an NPA administration at Vancouver City Hall, citizens could forget about an NPA Mayor and Council doing anything whatsoever on the affordable housing file — it’s just not an NPA bailiwick, and an issue an NPA administration would give two hoots about. Of course, Councillors Jean Swanson, Christine Boyle and Pete Fry would rally their troops (which is to say, all persons of conscience resident in the city of Vancouver) to hold a Ken Sim-led civic administration to account — but let’s face it, if there are ideologues on the left, there are ideologues on the right. The protests of progressive elected Councillors and Vancouver citizens of conscience demanding the construction of affordable housing built on city land would fall on deaf ears among the elected NPA majority on Vancouver City Council.

All of the above only scratches the surface of the havoc that would be wreaked by a right-leaning NPA administration, which catering to their “base” would not give two hoots for the majority of Vancouver citizens.
Fanciful conjecture above? Not on your life.
Fortunately for all of us, Ken Sim was not elected Mayor on Saturday night, October 20th. The nightmare scenario above is one that the conscience-less Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick (who possesses many good qualities, a social conscience and a commitment to equity not being among them) would have readily signed onto. Opposition to the imposition of the dictates of the NPA Advisory Board would have been led by Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, who would have been brow-beaten (as was Kim Capri, in the Sam Sullivan administration — one of the ugliest misuses of power by a Mayor directed at a party stalwart and elected Councillor, VanRamblings has ever witnessed), as would the four other NPA Councillors. We may have a “weak Mayor” system — but as was the case with Larry Campbell and Sam Sullivan, and to a somewhat lesser degree, Gregor Robertson, the Mayor has the bully pulpit from which to exclaim, and an outsized influence over Councillors. Quite simply, that is the reality of Vancouver realpolitik.
A four year Vancouver civic political nightmare was averted on election night. Now Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart and all members of Vancouver City Council will be afforded an opportunity to work together towards the realization of VanRamblings’ much-ballyhooed “post partisan Council of reconciliation”, working for and on behalf of all the citizens of Vancouver.

As an addendum to today’s VanRamblings column …
The past few days has proved particularly challenging for VanRamblings. For the first time in the 14½ year history of VanRamblings, senior members of one political party demanded we take down a post — a positive post in support of this party, strangely enough. Further, the writer of this blog was instructed, under penalty, to NEVER again write about two of the Councillor-elects — again, both of whom we have written positively on, as we presume will continue to be the case. Perhaps, the persons who are issuing these demands are unfamiliar with the notion of “freedom of expression.”
Although VanRamblings plans to continue our penchant for a degree of (what we hope is becoming and entertainingly engaging) hyperbole in our writing, and because we believe deeply in freedom of expression but not license, we will continue to publish positively about realpolitik in Vancouver, and write what we will about the electeds — while never deigning to publish libelous statements or pejorative commentary about our elected officials.
Detractors and those political operatives who choose to intimidate as a modus operandi, who choose monetary gain in service over integrity: yell and threaten all you want. At VanRamblings — post our battle with cancer — we’re on a mission to make a difference. Threats and intimidation, name-calling and rebuke from on high will not deter us from that which we have set about to do on VanRamblings as we post each day, as we work towards making ours a fairer and more just city and province for all of us.

Vancouver Votes 2018 | Colleen Hardwick About to Rise Above

October 25, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

This past Monday, two days after being elected Mayor of Vancouver, Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart suggested he would be inclined to support Surrey Mayor-elect Doug McCallum’s bid to convert the 10 years in the making, approved & funded 40-year light rail plan for Surrey to the orphan SkyTrain technology, as he told The Vancouver Sun reporter Jennifer Saltman …

“I just have to wait and hear what the details of (mayor-elect) McCallum’s plan are and see what other support he’s been able to build, and also to make sure that he’s familiar with my push to get the Broadway subway built all the way to UBC,” Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart said.

If Kennedy Stewart were to vote in favour of exploring building SkyTrain in Surrey, McCallum would need only 10 more votes on the Mayor’s Council to make his dream of a Surrey to Langley Skytrain line a reality.
Of course, there’s the issue that costs for a Surrey Skytrain line would double the $1.65 billion in monies already allocated for the approved light rail plan for Surrey-Langley, Surrey-Guildford & Surrey-Newton-White Rock, the latter two lines that would be sacrificed in favour of the former.
As UBC urban geography professor Patrick Condon was saying to VanRamblings earlier in the week, “This is Kennedy Stewart’s first huge mistake. Why he would throw his support to McCallum beggars belief.”
No sooner had former Vancouver Mayoral candidate Patrick Condon uttered those prophetic words than Vancouver Mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart was walking back his support for Skytrain in Surrey.
From an Ian Bailey story in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail …

In the aftermath of last weekend’s municipal elections in British Columbia, (Kennedy) Stewart has said he backs the transit upgrade efforts of Doug McCallum, elected in Surrey, which is B.C.’s fastest-growing city. But Mr. McCallum’s position threatens to undo years of painstaking compromises to come up with a 10-year plan for the region because other mayors are worried that if Surrey takes a more expensive route, it will cost all of them more money.

After voicing hearty support for Mr. McCallum’s position on Monday, Mr. Stewart added a caveat Tuesday: “At the same time, we cannot put in jeopardy any infrastructure dollars that have already been committed, including funds earmarked for the Broadway Subway line,” he said in a statement released to the press … “Replacing the approved light rail with an extension of an existing SkyTrain rail line, mostly elevated above ground, would double the cost from the planned $1.65-billion for light rail. Some leaders re-elected or elected last weekend are saying they are wary about supporting more money for Mr. McCallum’s transit agenda.”

In fact, one of the few returning mayors in Metro Vancouver, re-elected to a fourth term in office this past Saturday, has some advice for Surrey’s mayor-elect, Doug McCallum: Switching from light rail transit to SkyTrain would be throwing away money and time already spent, while delaying expanded rail transit by years …

“The plan is approved, implemented, money has been spent on it,” Richard Stewart, re-elected mayor of Coquitlam told The Globe and Mail. “We’re well down the path.”

The Mayors’ Council, established by the B.C. Liberal government and then Minister of Transportation Kevin Falcon in 2007, is comprised of 21 municipalities, the electoral area that includes UBC’s Endowment Lands, and Tsawwassen First Nation. It’s the governance body that assembled the current transportation plan in conjunction with the communities affected.
The Mayor’s Council approved Vancouver & Surrey rail expansion (SkyTrain on Broadway in Vancouver, light rail transit in Surrey) along with bus and other expansions. About $50 million has already been spent on LRT, according to Translink. Surrey has spent $20 million in pre-construction.

“I don’t think it’s a case of just switching technologies, from light rail to SkyTrain in Surrey,” Mayor Richard Stewart told the Vancouver Sun. “It will be interesting to see the argument put forward. I worry, though, that if someone succeeds in getting the current work cancelled, it could result in another decade of work to get SkyTrain for Surrey. It took a decade to get the current plan.”

Without a doubt the most informed and dedicated member on Vancouver’s newly-elected City Council when it comes to issues of planning, urban development and transportation is Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick.

Vancouver Councillor-elect Hardwick, currently completing work on her PhD in urban studies at the University of British Columbia, studying with founding Chair and professor at the Urban Design programme at UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Patrick Condon, is the one current elected official in our region who is the most passionate, well-informed and well-studied proponent of light rail across our region.
Many the hour VanRamblings has engaged in lengthy discussion and debate with Councillor-elect Colleen Hardwick, who does not exactly hide her bright light under a bushel — nor should she — our region’s most fervent proponent of slow-growth, human-scale, community and neighbourhood consulted urban development, a key component of which is a low-cost, environmentally-sound, readily accessible, easily expandable, respectful of neighbourhoods region-wide light rail infrastructure programme.
Something else about Councillor-elect Hardwick? Ms. Hardwick also demands the best from those around her. During the course of the 2014 Vancouver civic election, at 4:30pm one rainy summer’s afternoon in July, VanRamblings received an irate call from our friend and supporter …

“What is this crap you’re publishing every day on VanRamblings? Your blog has devolved into little more than a scurrilous gossip rag. I know you. I know you can do better. Given your wide readership and your outsized influence in the political sphere, do yourself and the voters of the city a favour, and get serious. Do better. When I wake up tomorrow morning, I want to read something you’ve written where I can say, “That’s my friend Raymond Tomlin. He done good. Now get started!”

Who were we to refuse Colleen Hardwick (note. for the record, no one refuses Colleen Hardwick, a force of nature if there ever was one)?
VanRamblings immediately got to work on At Issue: Form of Development, and the Livability of Vancouver, which we published at 6:30am the next morning, probably the best piece we published during the 2014 Vancouver civic election cycle. At 7am, we received a text from Ms. Hardwick …

“Good. Better. Now get to bed!”

When the newly-elected Vancouver City Council takes office next month, know this: Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick is going to come at Mayor Kennedy Stewart like a freight train for his ill-considered faux pas on the transit file, with a reasoned and thoughtful evisceration of our new Mayor. Kennedy Stewart? He won’t know what in the blue blazes hit him.