Category Archives: Vancouver Votes 2018

Vancouver Votes 2018 | Hatred Invades The Election Process

September 24, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

The homophobic and anti-SOGI (Sexual Indentification and Gender Identity) forces of hatred have emerged as a malevolent and troubling force in the 2018 civic election process across British Columbia.
On Sunday afternoon, former Vancouver School Board Chairperson and current Georgia Straight education columnist, Patti Bacchus, attempted to attend a public meeting of the Parent’s Heart reactionary activist group.
According to their own website, this is what those persons who are members of Parent’s Heart are fighting against, a policy that mandates …

Schools must clearly define what are the appropriate criteria, words, actions and actions to prevent discrimination and nuisance. If there are any complaints based on sexual orientation or gender identity or gender, the school should ensure that policies and procedures are adopted. Strict, rapid and effective methods (must be implemented) to deal with incidences of discrimation. Negative behaviors, comments, manners, contacts, etc. are all classified as discrimination.
The school council (sic) must educate all campus members (including staff, students, parents, guardians) to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or gender expression; the school council must support schools and faculty members to place positive opinions (ed. note. materials?) in the library. The Bureau of Education (ed. note. huh?) should support the appropriate activities that promote the expression of all sexual orientations and sexual orientations, and supply resources in this regard.
The school council must support schools to join each subject with positive affirmative gender-diverse textbooks.
The school council should set up an advisory committee that includes adults and students representing the gay community to enable them to play a consulting role in effectively implementing SOGI policies, including long-term training of faculty and staff, with the aim of supporting different sexual orientations and gender identity within the school district. The community promotes anti-gay fear and heterosexualism.
School committees, management and staff must participate in on-the-job workshops on homosexuality, transgender people, lead by example, establish a relationship The respect and affirmation of the sex and transgender community.
School committees, management and staff must use words that affirm all sexual orientation, without contempt and derogatory remarks.
Schools, staff, and students must be challenged by parents, staff, or students who are biased in different sexual orientations and transgender communities.

In Vancouver, voters will have to confront the anti-SOGI forces not just of reactionary activist groups extant in Vancouver, but through the candidacy of former NPA School Board trustees, and current Coalition Party candidates for School Board, Ken Denike (a longtime Chairperson of the Vancouver School Board, and a retired UBC Professor Emeritus), and Sophia Woo.
In a phone interview with Straight reporter Carlito Pablo, community activist, former Vancouver False Creek provincial New Democratic Party candidate and current party vice-president, and a current independent candidate for Vancouver School Board, Morgane Oger, a transgender woman and parent of two school-age children, told The Straight …

“I’m mindful of the fact that Ken Denike and Sophia Woo, who both fought hard against SOGI policies are in the same party that … is led by mayoral candidate Wai Young, and Wai Young, when she was a member of the Conservative Party, she voted against extending explicit protection against discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression.

She voted against Bill C-279 in Parliament, so I’m a little bit horrified that in Vancouver in 2018, we have at least three candidates who actively … participated in an effort to oppress, like, me and my family and my friends, you know, people in my community.

It’s really offensive to me that people who have done this are running as candidates in 2018 in Vancouver. I think it’s shameful.”

As you can see and hear in the video recorded by Ms. Bacchus on Sunday afternoon at Burnaby’s Bonsor Recreation Complex, even given that the meeting was a public meeting held in a public community centre — which by its very nature should mean that the meeting is open to all members of the public — Parent’s Heart organizers were having none of it, blocking Ms. Bacchus’ view of the meeting’s proceedings at every opportunity.

Fairview Baptist Church, in Vancouver

Lest you think that it is only at secretive public meetings in Burnaby, or through the candidacy for School Board of anti-SOGI activists Ken Denike and Sophia Woo that anti-SOGI activists are active in our community, VanRamblings would advise that you to put that notion out of your head.
On Sunday, September 16th at the Fairview Baptist Church — the lifelong family church for current Vancouver Non-Partisan Association candidate for City Council, Colleen Hardwick, midway through the service, when the pastor asked members of the congregation if there was anyone members wished to pray for, a half dozen anti-SOGI activists at the back of the church — not church members, present in the church for the first time — spoke up to ask that a prayer be said “against the forces of SOGI.”
Vaguely aware what SOGI stood for and cognizant that it had something to do with education, the pastor prayed only for our education system.
After the service, VanRamblings proceeded to the back of the church to speak with the anti-SOGI activists, to query them as to why they would ask that a prayer be said against British Columbia’s SOGI curriculum. The collective response: “SOGI is against God’s will,” to which VanRamblings replied, “Who says it is against God’s will? That is not what is taught in any church, synagogue or mosque I’ve ever attended, hatred for those who find themselves on the gender variation spectrum, who may be subject to bullying. God is supposed to be about acceptance and love, not hate.”
The church’s choir master, Dr. Susan Porter, Dean and Vice-Provost of UBC Graduate and Post Doctoral Studies (who was more articulate than VanRamblings could ever hope to be, and absolutely and utterly indignant at the mid-service interference of the non church member SOGI group), spoke with the pastor about SOGI, what the acronym stood for — and a programme & curricula the two of us support and endorse unreservedly — and our disgust at the unwarranted intervention of the anti-SOGI activists.
Even in 2018 in Vancouver, prejudice, stigma and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons resident in our communities remains an every day reality in our too often & regrettably fear-based city.

Next month, when you go to the polls, vote for the School Board trustee candidates who support diversity in our city, who not only support but have committed to working to ensure a public education system where every student is welcome and where every student will be made to feel safe.
Vote for OneCity Vancouver School Board candidates Carrie Bercic, Erica Jaaf and Jennifer Reddy, COPE’s Diana Day and Barb Parrot, the Green Party of Vancouver’s Janet Fraser, Estrellita Gonzalez & Lois Chan-Pedley, the Non-Partisan Association’s Christopher Richardson, and Vision Vancouver’s Aaron Leung, Erin Arnold and the extraordinary Allan Wong.

Vancouver Votes 2018 | COPE Fundraiser Today at The Rio Theatre

September 22, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

This afternoon at 2pm, COPE: The Coalition of Progressive Electors present a special screening of the widely-acclaimed, award-winning documentary by Teresa Alfeld, Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical, as least in part as former City Councillor Tim Louis wrote in a Facebook post yesterday to …

” … celebrate the progressive socialist history of Vancouver City Hall, as championed by Harry Rankin, the most popular civic politician in Vancouver history, the most outspoken political figure in our city’s history, a man who inspired a whole new generation of socialists and activists, including the candidates running with COPE in the 2018 Vancouver civic election.”

Prior to the matinée screening of Harry Rankin: Legacy of a Radical, after the doors of the Rio Theatre open at 1pm, you’ll have an opportunity to interact with COPE’s 2018 candidates for civic office …

City Council candidates, Order of Canada recipient and respected anti-poverty activist Jean Swanson (one of the warmest, friendliest people you’d ever want to meet — and you do want to meet Jean, and speak with her, as one of our city’s great listeners and community activists); beloved former COPE School Board trustee and Vancouver City Councillor, Anne Roberts, who will emerge as the ‘can do, get things done’ social conscience of our next City Council; and Derrick O’Keefe, our very own Kshama Sawant, Ben Isitt, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and John Sewell, all wrapped up into the soon-to-be City Councillor, who will become the most beloved political figure in our city and our province when he is elected to Vancouver City Council on Saturday, October 20th;
School Board trustee candidates Diana Day and Barb Parrott, who don’t view themselves as caretakers of a public education system in Vancouver that, for years, has suffered and continues to suffer economic distress, the two activist School Board candidates in this civic election who will be on the side of children enrolled in our city’s school system, and who will fight for more and better in Vancouver, including the restoration of the band & strings programme, who will fight for better educational outcomes for our indigenous students, more English as Second Language & French Immersion teachers, and more speech pathologists & support staff to meet the needs of Vancouver’s special needs students;
Park Board candidates, Gwen Giesbrecht and Dr. John Irwin, two of the finest people you’d ever want to meet, longtime advocates for Vancouver’s beleaguered, and woefully underfunded, parks and recreation system, who will fight against a 12-foot-wide asphalt bike path through Kitsilano Beach, and the construction of a destination Olympic pool and hockey rink that would take over the entirety of Kitsilano’s Connaught Park, while shutting down the existing Kitsilano Community Centre and hockey rink, who recognize maintenance, growth and proper funding of our parks and recreation system represents a class issue for many, many families for whom our parks are their back yard, and for whom our community centres are a second home.

Following the screening of the film, a panel discussion will be held from 3:30pm til til 4pm, with panelists and attendees provided with a second opportunity from 4pm til 4:45pm to formally (and informally) meet, interact and question COPE’s candidates for office, and where candidates want to hear what your priorities issues are in the 2018 Vancouver civic election.
The Rio Theatre, southwest corner of Commercial Drive and East Broadway, doors open at 1pm, screening at 2pm, a chance to get out of the rain, and where a good time is guaranteed for all amidst some of the finest people our city has ever produced. Tickets are $10 in advance, or $12 at the door.

Vancouver Votes 2018 | Must-Elect Council Candidates Emerge

September 21, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

On Thursday evening, September 20th, the Kerrisdale Community Centre hosted an all-candidates meeting for 20 of the City Council candidates who are seeking office & tenure at City Hall in the 2018 Vancouver civic election.
Unlike the Council all-candidates forum hosted by the Residents for Community Control — where almost all members of the audience were associated with candidates speaking at the front of the hall — the audience for the Kerrisdale Community Centre forum was 80% local residents, who arrived at 7pm on a dark and inclement Thursday evening not to get out of the rain, but to listen to candidates with whom they were unfamiliar, their community attendance an information seeking venture.
One similarity between the two Council all-candidate events: there were no panelists present from the governing Vision Vancouver party, nor for the second night in a row were there any panelists from Hector Bremner’s nascent and seemingly invisible Yes Vancouver civic party.
On this surprisingly vibrant and engaging Thursday evening, there were no panelists from the Coalition Party, either, although Coalition Party Mayoral candidate Wai Young and her Council candidate colleague, Glen Chernen were present, and standing at the back of the auditorium — both of whom who told this reporter that contact had been made by their civic party with the Kerrisdale Community Centre forum organizers requesting participation in the night’s event. But to no good effect, it would appear.

For the second night in a row, the two most effective and well-received candidate speakers of the evening were the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association‘s generational candidate, Sarah Kirby-Yung, and the Green Party’s phenomenally lucid Pete Fry, although OneCity Vancouver City Council candidate Christine Boyle gave them both a run for their money, and in the humanity and connection sweepstakes had all other speakers beat hands down — which is what you might reasonably expect of a once-in-a-lifetime civic political candidate, destined to become the most beloved political figure in Vancouver’s long, gloried and celebrated civic history.
Vancouver Non-Partisan Association Council candidate Melissa De Genova was her regular charmingly feisty self, while her NPA colleague Colleen Hardwick got better as the evening went on — but please, if there’s a god in the heavens, make her stop talking about her family’s history in civic politics and focus on what she would bring to the Council table — which she finally managed to achieve by meeting’s end. So there is a god, after all.
The Green Party’s Michael Wiebe — who we’re now moving into the must-elect column — emerged as the most dynamic speaker of the evening, his command of & his focused ability to speak to the issues both unparalleled on this particular evening and in the election generally — his current Park Board Commissioner colleague, Sarah Kirby Yung, has done a fine job of mentoring Mr. Wiebe, the two getting along like a house on fire, Michael Wiebe’s respect for Ms. Kirby-Yung palpable and endearing, she providing the voice of reason and experience to Mr. Wiebe’s focused youthful vitality.
In a Vancouver civic election where 71 candidates have come forward seeking office as a City Councillor, Thursday evening was more a look-see evening than an event designed to address the issues of the day — because, let’s face it, there’s only one issue in this election: affordable housing and co-and-co-op housing within the rubric of neighbourhood consultation, with the recognition that we’re in the midst of a housing crisis in Vancouver, and we don’t want more study (consultation, yes; study, no), we want action, and we want action now, not in some distant future.

Five candidates — each of whom you can see and hear speaking in the video at the top of today’s column — emerged on this electoral evening as the candidates capable of getting things done, and getting ’em done now …

OneCity Vancouver’s transcendently lovely and transformationally inspiring Christine Boyle (just wait til she’s elected … your socks are going to be impressed right off, we’ve never seen anyone like her in Vancouver municipal politics, and that’s all to the good for us);
Pete Fry, the city builder extraordinaire in this election, the must, must, must-elect in 2018, and a man possessed of much wisdom, knowledge, and unending kindness, the candidate you can count on every day;
Anne Roberts, the voice of reason and the voice of experience, who’s been elected to civic office before, which means that she knows how to get things done for us, much sooner, and the Councillor who will emerge as the quietly effective social conscience of the next Council;
Independent City City Council candidate, and the democrat in the Council group, Erin Shum — which means not only that Erin Shum will be the Councillor who will listen to you, but act on your concerns, who will never back down; don’t be fooled by her youth, Erin Shum is an old soul;
and right-out-of-left field …
Michael Wiebe — a current Park Board Commissioner, who has served well and with distinction for four years now — who, when you watch the video above (you can see and hear Michael Wiebe at the 11:20 mark in the video) you’ll find yourself saying out loud, “I want this young Kennedy-esque man on Vancouver’s next City Council, and I’ll be telling all my neighbours, friends and colleagues about him, too. Now where do I go about donating money and volunteer hours to his campaign?”

So there you have it: the 2018 Vancouver civic election is coming into clearer focus, with City Council candidates emerging from the primordial muck to carry us to the Promised Land, and a better, fairer, more just and transformative future, where the needs of everyone can and will be met.

The next awe-inspiring all-candidates event: S.U.C.C.E.S.S and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Sunday afternoon, September 23rd Vancouver Mayoral debate, which will take place in Chinatown, at 28 West Pender.

Vancouver Votes 2018 | A Reflection on City Council & Mayor

September 20, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

On Wednesday evening, the Residents for Community Control held the first City Council all-candidates forum of the 2018 Vancouver civic election.
Two hundred hardy souls came in out of the rain to listen to and question City Council candidates from most of Vancouver’s civic parties.
We write most, because two of Vancouver’s mainstream municipal parties were unrepresented at Wednesday night’s forum: the Vision Vancouver ruling party, despite a half dozen pleading contacts with representatives of Vancouver’s governing party — who failed to respond to any of the organizer’s entreaties, for any one of their half dozen Council candidates — and OneCity Vancouver, who apologized to organizers (and attendees) for their non-attendance, as OneCity Vancouver candidates Christine Boyle and Brandon Yan — two of the must-elects in the current civic election — found themselves at the well-attended SFU Harbour Centre Broadbent Institute-sponsored Bringing Racial Justice to Local Democracy forum.
The Green Party of Vancouver was well-represented, with three of their serious-minded candidates for Council in attendance: incumbent Adriane Carr, Michael Wiebe and must-elect Pete Fry. The Vancouver Non-Partisan Association’s Colleen Hardwick and must-elect Sarah Kirby-Yung did their party proud, as did must-elect COPE Council candidate, Anne Roberts.
Otherwise, the also-ran right-wing parties were in attendance: Jesse Johl for Vancouver First; Raza Mirza for Pro Vancouver; James Lin for Coalition Vancouver — but, as it happened, no Council rep from Yes Vancouver.
The questions that you might expect to come up were featured front and centre: affordable housing, those damnable bike lanes (alas), development and which parties were in the developers’ pockets, parks and recreation and adequate funding for public facilities, the Downtown Eastside (but not homelessness), reining in City Hall’s budget or at least prioritizing expenditures differently than has been the case with Vision Vancouver, and the need for a new city plan for each of Vancouver’s 23 neighbourhoods.
In 2014, the Mount Pleasant Council all-candidates forum, held at Heritage Hall at 15th and Main, was the most raucous and engaged all-candidate debate of the entire 2014 Vancouver election season. In stark contrast, Wednesday night’s well-attended City Council all-candidates forum was muted in comparison: too many representatives from too many civic parties, with too many utterly unknown Council candidates participating, with only one City Council incumbent in attendance — the Green Party’s beloved communicator and City Councillor extraordinaire, Adriane Carr.
By forum’s end four things were clear: forum attendees possessed a universal visceral hatred for Vision Vancouver; the Green Party in all its humility, good cheer, humanity and intelligence is absolutely and utterly beloved, at least by those in attendance and more probably by a broad spectrum of potential Vancouver votes; the Green Party’s Pete Fry and the NPA’s Sarah Kirby-Yung — two of the must-elects in this election — were by far the best speakers of the evening, the best informed with a broad grasp of the issues, and the most well-received of all the candidates at the front of the room (the Greens’ Adriane Carr & Michael Wiebe arrived a bit late — important civic business, given that both are current electeds in civic governance — and chose to remain as a part of the audience); and voters are hankering for change, and not more of the same old, same old.

Looking like the cat that ate the canary, independent Mayoral aspirant Kennedy Stewart on Wednesday morning — despite VanRamblings formally endorsing independent Shauna Sylvester for Mayor — was formally endorsed by the members and the Board of OneCity Vancouver as their ‘certain-to-be-elected‘ (they feel), and ‘someone they want to work with and have confidence in’, Mayoral candidate of choice.
For the record, OneCity Vancouver is, by far, VanRamblings’ favourite feminist, woman-driven civic party, the only party with a consistent & well-thought-out political analysis in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election. Now, we’re not saying that we don’t think Shauna Sylvester wouldn’t make a first-rate Mayor for Vancouver — we believe that with all our heart, and to the depth of our being — rather, we’re saying that Alison Atkinson, Anna Chudnovksy, Cara Ng, Kyla Epstein, Mia Edbrooke, Marcy Toms, Adi Pick, Claudia Ferris, Helesia Luke, Abby Leung, Joey Hartman, Sharon Yandle, Thea Dowler, Jennifer Reddy, Carrie Bercic, Erica Jaaf, Christine Boyle and a host of other change-making, action-oriented, difference-maker women of conscience may, just may mind you (and, most likely do), know more than that VanRamblings fella who writes these posts on this blog, and that in choosing Kennedy Stewart as OneCity Vancouver’s Mayoralty candidate of choice, these fine women are smart political cookies, and probably (okay, certainly) much smarter than the writer of this blog.
And wouldn’t you know, no sooner do the good folks involved with OneCity Vancouver formally endorse Kennedy Stewart as their Mayoralty candidate of choice, than the Vancouver Sun publishes a story that reads …

Independent candidate Kennedy Stewart is pulling ahead in the race for Vancouver’s top job after Ian Campbell’s departure, according to the latest poll.

The Research Co. found that 36 per cent of respondents say they will vote for Stewart in next month’s election, up 11 points since the company’s last poll in July. The poll shows Stewart with an 11-point lead over the NPA’s Ken Sim, who is in second place at 25 per cent.

Among female voters, Stewart holds a 23-point lead over Sim, while Sim is slightly ahead of Stewart (32 per cent to 29 per cent) among decided male voters. Sim is followed by independent candidate Shauna Sylvester with 17 per cent, Hector Bremner of Yes Vancouver at seven per cent, and David Chen of ProVancouver with four per cent support.

Word on the street is that Kennedy Stewart was unwilling to give up his cushy $168,000-a-year job as a Member of Parliament, unless he could secure both the support of labour, and the provincial NDP.
And since OneCity Vancouver is pretty much the civic farm team for the provincial NDP — again, for the record, as a life long member of the New Democratic Party, VanRamblings loves the provincial NDP, and just about every galldarn, cotton pickin’ one of the party’s provincial and federal members — so OneCity Vancouver‘s affiliation, affection and support for the New Democratic Party is just darn fine by us.
We’re sure that the terrifically intelligent folks in OneCity Vancouver are well-aware that every Union local in Vancouver, and every one of the 50,000+ Union members who reside in the city of Vancouver and call our paradise by the sea home, are working their buns off volunteering for Kennedy Stewart, and the candidates endorsed by the Vancouver & District Labour Council (hey, we’re also a life long Union member and an anarcho-syndicalist, so the support of labour for political candidates of conscience, that’s just fine — more than fine, if we’re being truthful — by us, too).
And we’re pretty darn sure that folks associated with every one of the New Democratic Party Vancouver constituencies are working overtime volunteering — on their own time, on their own dime — for Kennedy Stewart (well, at least the ones that are not over-the-moon for Shauna Sylvester, among which number VanRamblings must count ourself) and all the VDLC-endorsed candidates for OneCity Vancouver, the Green Party of Vancouver and the Coalition of Progressive Electors, and a few of the Vision Vancouver candidates, too. It’s a party — a party of the socially conscious.
If the OneCity Vancouver must-elect candidates, each one of whom VanRamblings is head-over-heels in love with — Brandon Yan and Christine Boyle for City Council, and Carrie Bercic, Erica Jaaf and and the downright spectacular Jennifer Reddy for School Board — can ride into office on Kennedy Stewart’s coattails, well that seems like a pretty darn good thing.
Just wait til Christine, Brandon, Erica, Carrie and Jennifer are all elected to office come the evening of Saturday, October 20th — you’ll become as smitten with each one of them as everyone who knows them has, and is.
Imagine. Being in love with the people you’ve elected.
Elect OneCity Vancouver’s Christine Boyle, Brandon Yan, Erica Jaaf, Carrie Bercic & Jennifer Reddy, and that’s exactly what’s gonna happen to you!

And, finally, for today’s VanRamblings post, first this … for the folks who are anxious to get to the advance polls to cast their progressively-minded Council ballot of conscience for the transcendently lovely Christine Boyle, Brandon Yan, Anne Roberts, Jean Swanson, Derrick O’Keefe, Pete Fry, Michael Wiebe, Adriane Carr, Catherine Evans and Heather Deal, and their School Board ballot of conscience for Erica Jaaf, Carrie Bercic, Jennifer Reddy, Erin Arnold, Aaron Leung, the extraordinary Allan Wong, Diana Day and Barb Parrot and Janet Fraser, and their all-important Park Board ballot of conscience for Stuart Mackinnon, Gwen Giesbrecht, John Irwin, Camil Dumont, Dave Demers, Shamin Shivji and Cameron Zubko …

And then this, where VanRamblings hopes to see you tonight (we’re going to try to remember to bring along our tripod, which’ll make for less shaky video … and yes, we’ll be the annoying guy “filming”) …