Over this past weekend, the Vancouver & District Labour Council held a one day conference, open to members of the labour movement, and Boards of Directors and candidates running with Vancouver’s five progressive civic parties — the Greens, OneCity, TeamJean, COPE and Vision Vancouver — Saturday’s Crossroads Conference, a plenary session designed to put 100 Vancouver politicos, and labour activists, in a large conference room together, at the Croatian Cultural Centre, and introduce them to each other, many of the participants meeting one other for the very first time.
Ben Bolliger (pictured above), a candidate for nomination for Vancouver City Council in the current election cycle, running with OneCity Vancouver — the civic party VanRamblings believes will emerge as the powerhouse political force in the 2018 Vancouver civic election — attended the critically important Crossroads Conference on this Saturday past, and was kind enough to speak with VanRamblings about his experience. Listen to the audio above. See if you don’t come away impressed with the expressively optimistic & politically sophisticated Mr. Bolliger. Articulate? Ben’s picture may be found right next to the definition of the word in your dictionary (c’mon now, people still have those in their homes, don’t they?).
Ben is a Project Manager with the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA), having worked in public health now for four years, including having served as the Manager of the Project and Change Management office with Providence Health Care, where he worked extensively and in close contact with staff and the administration at metropolitan St. Paul’s Hospital.
Just a few of the very fine folks in OneCity Vancouver, who are working for you.
More, you want to know more about the affable and — ”Hey, I’m casting a ballot for Ben Bolliger at the advance Vancouver civic election polls in October, or on election day, Saturday, October 20th, aren’t you? You are? Good! — Ben Bolliger (the link, it’s Ben’s candidate website — really, honest, you should click on it, learn more about Ben, and then come right back here) is, as you may have gathered at this point, seeking a OneCity nomination for Vancouver City Council. Ben, a person of conscience.
Ben Bolliger, an avid cyclist and active transportation advocate
2018. Entering the political fray? Emerging as a difference maker? Nope, this isn’t Ben’s first visit to the farm. He’s been there as a graduate political science student focusing on First Nations history — in our nation’s capital, at the University of Ottawa — after which, Ben went on to work as a parliamentary assistant with late NDP leader, Jack Layton’s federal NDP.
In 2008, Ben moved to the west coast, settling in the West End. Ben, as may be seen in the rough and tumble photo above, is an avid cyclist, currently completing his second term as a member of the City of Vancouver’s essential Active Transportation Policy Council. Good for us. Ben’s issues, the ones he is focusing on? How about: working collegially with his colleagues on Vancouver City Council, one of whom will most assuredly be fellow One City candidate, Christine Boyle; tackling Vancouver’s current affordable housing crisis — which means, of course, the construction of thousands of housing co-op units on city-owned land, on a 66-year lease, with no cost to taxpayers, given that developers will build the housing co-ops as part of Vancouver’s much-vaunted Community Amenities Contribution programme — as well as working with the federal and provincial governments, and businesses in our city, to continue the diversification of Vancouver’s booming economy, although an economy that continues to leave some Vancouver citizens out. Ben aims to fix that.
Addressing the issue of accessibility is also a key concern for Ben Bolliger — Ben is right when he says, “Vancouver must be a city for everyone.”
Conscientious, accomplished, ready to get to work for you, an elected official who will answer all calls placed to his office at City Hall, will respond to each & every e-mail, who will listen to your concerns, and take action to remedy those concerns, working with others to ensure remediation occurs.
And, if you get out there to support Ben’s candidacy — as you must — Ben Bolliger will emerge as a soon-to-be-elected public official who will be on your side, each and every day. Voters simply can’t ask for more than that, in 2018 or in any other year, when traveling to the polls to cast their ballot.
In the age of Trump, a great chasm has opened on our political landscape, one that — despite the best of intentions — may not be able to be bridged.
On the one side, you have that portion of Vancouver’s population who reside in multi-million dollar homes located predominantly in Yaletown and southeast False Creek, West Point Grey, Dunbar, Kerrisdale and Shaughnessy, whose populations turn out in droves — up to 85% of residents in these neighbourhoods arriving at their local pollings station on election day to cast their ballot — to vote for the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association, the corporately-funded-and-backed municipal political party that has, for generations, protected their class and economic interests.
These are the folks — pictured above — who rallied last week at West Point Grey’s Trimble Park to oppose a move by the BC NDP government to impose a school surtax on homes worth more than $3 million, a newly-created tax that would see a westside homeowner who owns an $8-million home paying an extra $18,000 in property taxes, annually, to the province.
The mainly westside residents think it unfair, after decades of right-of-centre B.C. Liberal / Socred provincial governments, and the right-of-centre Vancouver Non-Partisan Association pulling the levers of civic government, that new wealth taxes be imposed on them so that government can better fund our public education system (from which the B.C. Liberal government cut $58.3 million in funding in Vancouver each year from 2002 to 2015), build affordable homes to house the 50% of seniors in our city living on less than $26,000 a year, the construction of affordable housing, and provision of funding for the one in five children in Vancouver who live in poverty.
In order words, these are the Darwinian “I’m all right, Jack, you make out of life what you put into it, I’m not responsible for you” folks. Nice.
On the other side of this great political chasm, you have folks like United Church Minister and current OneCity Vancouver candidate for Vancouver City Council, Christine Boyle — and her progressively-minded colleagues in OneCity, Vision Vancouver, COPE, the Greens and TeamJean, the latter of which group’s core organizing philosophy revolves around “building the city we need”, a fairer, more inclusive and more just city for all of us, whether we live in the sometimes blighted Downtown Eastside neighbourhood where residents have come together in solidarity to build a vibrant community of the caring and compassionate, or Strathcona, Hastings Sunrise, Riley Park, Grandview Woodland, and any one of Vancouver’s 23 diverse neighbourhoods where housing is acknowledged as a right, and where the elimination of poverty and wont is a central operating principle of the five progressive parties offering candidates in the upcoming civic election.
The latter grouping of political parties have reached out a hand to those in our community who have been deemed to be “wealthy”, by dint of income or housing status, have attempted to bridge the political divide, thus far to no good effect. All of this is not to say, either, that there are not many good persons of conscience resident in Yaletown, West Point Grey, Dunbar, Kerrisdale and Shaughnessy who are at present, and as has been the case for some while now, working with their neighbours & with civic parties like OneCity Vancouver in common cause to acknowledge that Vancouver is, indeed, one city, comprised of diverse peoples from every socio-economic strata and circumstance, who live together in the village that is Vancouver, where we are — each and every one of us — responsible for one another.
For as President-elect John Fitzgerald Kennedy stated in an address (abridged) to the Massachusetts legislature, on January 9th, 1961 …
For those to whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each of us — recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state — our success or failure, in whatever office we hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions:
First, were we courageous, possessed of the courage to stand up to our adversaries, to stand up when necessary, to resist public pressure, when such pressure does not serve the common good?
Secondly, were we possessed of good judgment — with perceptive judgment of the future as well as the past — of our mistakes as well as the mistakes of others — with enough wisdom to know what we did not know and enough candour to admit it?
Third, were we possessed of integrity, who never ran out on either the principles in which we believed or the public who believed in us — women and men whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust?
Finally, were we truly women and men of dedication — with an honour mortgaged to no single individual or group, and comprised of no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good? Courage — judgment — integrity — dedication — these are the historic qualities which must characterize the conduct of governance, in every city and in every region of our fair nation, in the four turbulent years that lie ahead.
And so it is. The divide in our city must be bridged, if at all possible, in the current civic election cycle, by the political figures who would seek to govern our city over the next four years, beginning in November of this year, each of whom must be governed by the notion of implementing legislation and policies based on what is best for all, and not one particular interest group — which for too long has been the overriding foundation of government in our province and, far too often, in our city.
We must together realize that, in principle and in fact, we are our brothers and sisters keepers, that collectively we have an obligation to one another, and that as has been stated: to whom much is given, much is expected.
In the coming election, let us all come together as one, let us bridge the chasm that would seem to divide us, let us work together to ensure that modular housing is built in neighbourhoods across our city (let’s make sure, too, that there is adequate, respectful, information-filled, and inclusive consultation with residents in neighbourhoods, as a pre-condition to the taking of decisions to construct that housing).
And, that new and truly affordable housing co-ops are constructed on city land, as homes for families across all of Vancouver’s 23 neighbourhoods; that Vancouver City Council work with the provincial government to ensure supportive social housing is built, opened and properly and humanely administered in the housing of those in need; that the tax structure at City Hall for small business, which is such a burden for small business operators, is moved to the multi-national companies in our town, who pay woefully less in business tax than is fair and proper — in the process, this transfer of tax responsibility to “big business” relieving the beleaguered home owner of the burden of annual titanic property tax increases; and that Vancouver continue to move forward as we’ve written previously, and will continue to write, to become a city defined by inclusion, social justice, and a city that truly serves the needs of all of Vancouver’s diverse citizenry.
Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical
Première of Teresa Alfeld’s new documentary film
17th annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival
Thursday, May 3rd, 2018, at 7pm Venue: The Vancouver Playhouse, 600 Hamilton Street, just off Dunsmuir
SOLD OUT DÉBUT SCREENING Tickets still available for the Tuesday, May 8th repeat screening
Cantankerous, opinionated, possessed of a pithy and often biting sense of humour — particularly around the Vancouver City Council table, where he sat, but more often stood on his feet, championing the interests of working people and the most vulnerable among us, the nemesis of veteran, ‘right-of-centre’ Vancouver Non-Partisan Association City Councillor George Puil (seeing the two of them go toe-to-toe in Council chambers was to witness transcendence and deliverance on Earth) who, if the whole truth be known, loved Harry Rankin as much as the rest of us (if not more), which is to say almost to distraction, for Harry Rankin was a charismatic figure who every Vancouver citizen loved — absolutely adored — as a great orator and champion of the public interest, whose often boisterous conduct at Council was tempered with a huge dollop of humility, and inveterate good cheer.
Harry, who died at the age of 82, on February 26th 2002 — his passing mourned by everyone who ever knew, or knew of, him — ran for civic office more than a dozen times before being elected to Vancouver City Council in 1966 as the sole independent “alderman”, as elected officials were called back then, sitting as the lone voice and soul champion of working people in Vancouver, on a City Council that was dominated by the corporate-minded, and ultra-conservative Non-Partisan Association.
In 1968, Harry was instrumental in co-founding — along with the Vancouver & District Labour Council — the Committee (now, Coalition) of Progressive Electors (COPE), who this year celebrate 50 years of championing the interests of working people, and the vulnerable among us, a legacy of caring among progressive political parties in Vancouver which has no equal. Teresa Alfeld’s new documentary on the legacy of Harry Rankin, offers a fitting tribute to a champion of the people, a political figure for whom most held great affection, others seeing him as “polarizing.”
In her interview with Ms. Alfeld, veteran PostMedia arts critic Dana Gee writes that “while the film outlines all Harry Rankin’s social causes and policies, the film doesn’t mythologize him to the point of revisionist history. There is no shying away from Rankin’s sexist views, views that had him once call fellow Councillor, a member of the NPA, Helen Boyce, “stupid.”
“As a feminist filmmaker of course I am disappointed, but I am not surprised. We work with it. We don’t shy away, and we don’t pretend things were different because we love Harry and we love his politics,” filmmaker Teresa Alfeld stated to Ms. Gee is the course of her interview.
So, yes, Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical is not hagiography, but as Ms. Alfeld avers …
“I think 2018 is the year to see this film and to understand as citizens we have a choice and a responsibility to get involved and to think about the kind of city that we want to live in.”
Although Thursday’s début screening of Ms. Alfeld’s film is sold out, there is one final DOXA screening of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical on Tuesday, tickets available by clicking the link at the top of today’s post.
Perhaps it is fitting that the final word on the making of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical should be given to the person who played a central role in getting the film made, retired Park Board Commissioner and Vancouver City Councillor Tim Louis, who raised the funds necessary for Teresa Alfeld to spend two years of her life in the making of a film, which — along with the invaluable contribution of Phil Rankin, whose Vancouver law practice is much in the tradition of his celebrated lawyer father, and who along with many others, including the work of Peter Smilksy, who gathered together clippings & memorabilia during Harry’s 1986 candidacy for Mayor, shooting 33 reels of 16mm film, with the intent of making a documentary in 1986 — along with the monetary contributions of good people, made the début of DOXA’s screening of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical possible.
Here, then, is political activist Tim Louis, on his friend Harry Rankin …
“Harry played a key role in my decision to go to law school – intervening on my behalf with the university, and supportive through all my years at UBC Law School, bringing me into his office as an articling law student near the end of my university days, and hiring me following my graduation from law school. Throughout the 20+ years I knew and worked with Harry, up until the time of his passing in 2002, and throughout the early years of his mentorship of me when I worked long hours with Harry in his law office just off Gastown, Harry politicized me — and in consequence, and I say this unabashedly, Harry is responsible for my political career.
In my time on Park Board, in the 1990s, and as a Vancouver City Councillor and Finance Committee Chair on the majority, progressive COPE 2002 – 2005 Vancouver City Council, I adhered to the advice Harry gave me early on in my political career …
“Don’t waffle. Get to the point. See past all the bafflegab.” Harry taught me to always treat the public with respect, because at the end of the day, it is the public, the working people of our city, who are the employers of the elected officials who sit at the Council table, in the Park Board meeting room, or in the large meeting room at the Vancouver School Board.”
Harry Rankin’s Political Legacy
“Harry’s legacy to the citizens of Vancouver remains to this day the acknowldegment that we, as citizens of Vancouver, have an obligation to care for one another, to care for all of our neighbours, every one of us resident in any one of the 23 neighbourhoods that make Vancouver the welcoming and diverse city that is has become.
Harry’s success as a political figure in the history of British Columbia, and Vancouver city governance, was due in no small part to the role he played in championing and giving voice to the interests of working families and children, and the vulnerable among us.”
If you don’t have a ticket for Thursday’s début screening of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical, VanRamblings urges you to attend DOXA’s second and final screening of the film, this upcoming Tuesday, May 8th at 6pm, at SFU Goldcorp Theatre, adjacent to the Woodward’s building downtown.
With the well-attended protest Tuesday evening by residents of West Point Grey, Dunbar, Kerrisdale and Shaughnessy — demanding of our provincial government that Finance Minister Carole James reverse the imposition of a newly-created school surtax that will see homeowners living in homes assessed at more than $3 million (you know, the wildly sympathetic 1%) paying up to an additional $26,000 per year in property tax, or as Georgia Straight editor, Charlie Smith, writes in an opinion piece published today …
“It’s disingenuously called a school tax, but the money goes into general revenue. The so-called “additional school tax on high-valued properties” imposes a 0.2 percent levy on residential portions assessed between $3 and $4 million, starting in 2019.
That adds up to $2,000 in extra property tax per year.
For the residential portion above $4 million, there will be a 0.4 percent tax rate applied. That adds an additional $4,000 in property tax per $1 million in assessed value. Anyone who owns an $8-million home, for example, would end up paying an extra $18,000 in property taxes to the province.
Last evening’s Trimble Park protest of the wealthy following a day of boisterous and demanding protest at Vancouver City Hall, with protesters demanding of our civic and provincial governments, the immediate commencement of construction of thousands of new, affordable homes to house not just the homeless, the working poor and seniors, but those first responders and wage earners raising their families in Vancouver, a city where the average “affordable” studio apartment rent starts at $1750 (and this, on the east side of the city!), with $2450 a starting point for a one-bedrooms, $2800 to $3450 the range for a two-bedrooms, with more than $4000 each month established as the market rate for a three-bedroom apartment, the imposition by the John Horgan BC NDP of the “school tax” necessary to fund affordable housing, and to help the tens of thousands of children enrolled in British Columbia’s public education system to be lifted out of poverty and wont, where children might attend the school in the neighbourhood, having slept in a home that provides safe haven and security for them, an important provincial government social justice initiative, long overdue and absolutely and utterly necessary.
Protests garner attention, be they organized by the weathy or our society’s disenfranchised, the media eager to provide coverage.
Sometimes — but not often — the protests result in a near immediate change to government policy. Old fogey and democrat that we are, and as many protests as we are wont to attend — and we do, because it is of critical importance that we stand with our neighbours, friends, our sisters and our brothers to demand that citizen voices be heard on a societal issues of concern — VanRamblings believes even more strongly in a thoughtful and empowering engagement with government, in multi-faceted campaigns designed to impact on the decision-making of government.
Through the composition of and posting of pointed, poignant, thoughtful, well-researched and well-argued hand-delivered letters to the offices of our elected officials and government administrators; along with reams and stacks of hand-delivered, signed petitions containing hundreds and thousands of signatures, arguing to our electeds that citizen voices must be heard on issues respecting the livability of our city and province, we can make a difference.
Or, when a specific issue of concern to you and your neighbours has been placed on — as will be explored below, in this instance on — a City Council’s agenda, VanRamblings believes strongly in a thoughtful and empowering engagement with government, a respectful engagement that encourages reasoned and thoughtful input into the final decision-making that will take place around the Council room table, towards making ours a more just city, region and province.
New Westminster, British Columbia, City Council Chambers
Monday evening, an activist friend of VanRamblings presented to New Westminster City Council, having already forwarded to the members of Council an expression of concern regarding issues of ingress and egress from her multi-family dwelling condominium complex respecting a proposed condominium complex that is to be built adjacent to my friend’s existing multi-family building, being presented to Council on Monday evening, with a recommendation for approval by senior staff employed within New Westminster’s Planning and Development Services Department.
In addition to concerns respecting ingress & egress, in her hand-delivered letter to the Mayor and each Councillor, my friend expressed concerns as to privacy respecting the overheight, glass-fronted balcony, bay window facing “wall of clear glass” building that would have her new neighbours looking directly into my friend’s home, and that of her neighbours.
In respect of the proposed condominium complex presented Monday evening to Council for approval, not to put too fine a point on the matter, in its currently-proposed configuration, my friend argued, the new building was utterly unacceptable to her, her husband and her neighbours.
If changes were not made to the configuration of the proposed new condominium, my friend and her neighbours would suffer grievous harm.
The proposed new complex is to be constructed within the well-consulted-upon, neighbourbood-negotiated-and-approved RS2-CD77 zoned neighbourhood, and given that the complex in order for it to be built in its currently proposed configuration would require of Council their approval of several relaxations of the zoning bylaw, relaxations that would confer a much ‘healthier’ economic benefit to the developer bringing the proposal forward, to the detriment of the interests of my friend and her neighbours, my friend would argue, “relaxations” respecting height, density, frontage to the street, and overshadowing would result in a condominium complex that would work a hardship on her and her aggrieved neighbours.
My friend would argue to New Westminster City Council, that Mayor and Council must not approve the development at their Monday evening meeting, that Council must send the plans for the new condominium complex back to the Planning Department, not for further consultation — because no consultation had ever taken place with her, her husband or her neighbours, resident in the building that would be most greatly impacted by the proposed new condominium complex — and if Council were to do such, my friend would argue, it is entirely likely that the commencement of a respectful consultation process with she and her neighbours would result in the development of an in-character to the neighbourhood building, reconfigured to reflect the addressing of the concerns she and her neighbours had raised in their letters and presentations to Council. Presenting to Council. Daunting that.
In the days prior to presenting to Council, VanRamblings was asked, “Do you have advice for me before I address Council on Monday evening, any pearly words of wisdom that will help make this most difficult situation I face in addressing Council somewhat easier for me, because speaking before members of an elected body is not something that is usual for me, and if I am to tell you the truth, hardly constitutes for me a comforting and welcoming diversion from the protean concerns of my daily life.”
Here is what VanRamblings wrote to my friend, advice that pertains to you should you ever present to Council, which VanRamblings believes you should do often, an aspect of your civic responsibility you should not — and must not — forego, if you are to feel the life of the city deep within you, your participation in civic affairs the lifeblood of our city.
1. Don’t be nervous. Sometimes, it’s okay to be nervous — but you don’t have to be. Focus on the information you’re imparting. When you set about to relay to Council the issues of importance to you, any
nervousness will fade into the background, because your presentation is not about you — it’s about imparting information of value to help the Councillors you’ll meet on Monday evening make the proper, the humane, the necessary and the right decision, for you, for them, and for New Westminster, a decision that will serve not only to represent you and your husband’s interests, but that of your neighbours, as well as all the citizens of New Westminster, and perhaps, most importantly, the interests of the City Councillors who you’ll be addressing Monday night — because you have to know that they want to do the right thing, they really do. Let them know that you believe they want to do the right thing.
2. Introduce yourself, tell them a little about yourself and your husband, humanize yourself for them, let them know where you live — describing your neighbourhood in near-poetic terms. That’ll take 45 seconds of your allotted five minutes, but it’s a good, humanizing and important to do.
3. Stay calm, stay focused, don’t raise your voice, but do speak firmly, clearly and with authority, and with that good ol’ fashioned wit and charm for which you are so well known.
4. Be respectful.
5. Do not refer to the developer — or any good that the development might do (the developer can speak for herself quite well enough).
6. Decide on three (four, at the most) key points you want to make: the exhaust from the cars coming to and from the parkade of the newly-proposed building, exhaust that will filter directly into the apartments in your building, exhaust fumes that will be a hazard and will impinge on the quality of life for the resident owners in your condominium; the overview / privacy concerns; the necessity of sober second thought on the development proposal and the absolute necessity of Council sending it back to Planning for further consultation. DO NOT use the word disingenuous when speaking with the members of Council, do not call out the process — that will be off-putting for them, and for the members of the Planning Department who will be present Monday night — and who, if all works out well for you, you’ll be working with to come up with a new, livable and much more appropriate development for the neighbourhood.
And in closing, I reminded her, “You’ve got five minutes. Stay calm, focused, be of good cheer, but dead serious, be respectful, and be appreciative that Council is affording you an opportunity to speak to them.”
Alas. In the wee hours of yesterday morning, I learned from my friend — a person of salty countenance — that she had “slipped up” … twice.
During my friend’s address to Council, forgetting herself for a moment, she used the word “shitty”. Mayor and Council were aghast, my friend reports, as the electeds she was addressing experienced an onset of the vapours not seen since Gone With the Wind’s Scarlett O’Hara’s feinting (the correct spelling) spells, my friend ever-so-gently chastised by the Mayor.
My friend could live with that. What she couldn’t live with is that midway through her address to Mayor and Council … she cried, her voice still one of authority, but catching, she finding herself perhaps in need of oxygen.
My friend wrote to me …
When they told me I could go on in a second round, I said no. I told them this was hard enough, I would finish then would just go outside and have a good old cry. Then, I stood at the back of the room and was seen wiping a tear from my eye. Then, I left the chamber, came back loaded for bear. Not an insincere act in that performance. I DID cry. That was my response. I just refuse to apologize for it.
I am so sorry for men (and the women who emulate them), who think there is something wrong with crying. I find it one of the most liberating of the physical autonomic responses.
VanRamblings responded as follows …
In my time sitting as a member of Vancouver’s Board of Variance, when each of the 30 appellant individuals or groups Board Chair Terry Martin, and my fellow Board members Quincey Kirschner, Jan Pierce and Bruce Chown on whose presentations of appeal we adjudicated — on issues of critical, life-changing import — not once, in hundreds of appeals, no matter how stoic the presenters, not once did an appellant get through their five-minute presentation without crying, wholly unexpectedly to them, but not for those of us who sat on the Board.
Thirty seconds or a minute in, you could see and feel the presenter’s demeanour change, an utter surprise to them, their voice catching, a look of roiling pain on their face, and then the first tear, and before they even realized it, they were crying, sometimes inconsolably, at times the meeting drawing to a halt, a recess necessary before proceedings could continue. Humanity and life, human existence laid bare in a large committee room with a long polished oak table, five members of the Board of Variance, the male members in suits and ties, resplendent in our freshly laundered and ironed white shirts, the women dressed in casual but elegant business attire, but these were not your regular and expected meetings of an august, quasi-judicial body of civic governance … this was spiritual transcendence writ large on the human tableaux we call life. Crying, you say. Good for you. Serves only to prove that you are human … but you knew that already.
Update: My friend writes to say that New Westminster Mayor and Council rejected the development application as proposed.
And so, today’s column draws to a close.
Later today, VanRamblings will publish our interview with former Vancouver City Councillor Tim Louis, on the Thursday evening première of The Rankin File: Legacy of a Radical — a world début for Teresa Alfred’s warts and all biography of Harry Rankin, one of the most impactful men ever in the governance of our city, a champion always for the working man and woman, the wage labourers whose concerns had so long been ignored by generations of right-of-centre civic government in Vancouver, dominated for generations by the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association.
Just a few of the very fine folks in OneCity Vancouver, who are working for you.
