Although the video above was made for the purposes of last autumn’s City of Vancouver by-election, to fill a vacant seat on Vancouver City Council, the Green Party of Vancouver’s Pete Fry will once again be throwing his hat into the ring for the 2018 City of Vancouver civic election, his candidacy to be confirmed at a Special General Meeting of the party that will be held on Wednesday, June 27th, at 6:30pm, in the Heritage Hall, at 15th and Main. Pete Fry is a city builder; a longtime, effective community activist who has worked closely with the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods; a democrat; wildly intelligent and passionate about the city, and probably more knowledgeable about city issues than any other candidate putting their name forward in the 2018 City of Vancouver municipal election.
Wherever you stand across the political spectrum, know one thing: as a passionate advocate for our city, as someone who listens and then acts on your concerns, and in the best interests of those with whom he comes into contact, who has committed to answering every telephone call, responding to every e-mail and snail mail that comes across his desk, while meeting regularly with constituents in community meetings across the city, you must save a vote for Pete Fry when it comes time to cast your civic ballot, at the advance polls, or on election day, Saturday, October 20th. Pete Fry on the Issues
Here’s where Pete Fry stands on some issues of the day, of ongoing and long concern to Vancouver voters. You’ll want to click on the links below.
Pete Fry on the loophole in the BC NDP’s finance reform legislation;
Pete Fry on the development at 105 Keefer, in historic Chinatown;
Pete Fry on foreign investment in our real estate market; and renter tax credits;
Pete Fry on the viaducts removal, and Vancouver’s eastern expansion;
Pete Fry on Vancouver’s housing crisis as a failure of government;
Pete Fry on tackling the roots of Vancouver’s housing affordability crisis;
Pete Fry on his run for Vancouver City Council, and why to vote for him.
On Friday, June 8th, from 6pm til 9pm at the Performing Arts Lodge, located at 581 Cardero Street, just north of Georgia Street (and very easy to find), the Green Party of Vancouver will host a meet and greet with their 2018 candidates for office, where Mr. Fry will be present. You’ll want to attend: the food is always great, the company & camaraderie even better. Get involved. Meet the candidates. We look forward to seeing you there!
Remember, though: save a vote for Pete Fry in Vancouver’s 2018 municipal election for Vancouver City Council. You’ll be glad you did.
Vancouver Municipal Election | Transcendence & the Holy Trinity Part 2: The Way of Out of the Misery of Our Town’s 2018 Civic Election Political Porn
In 2008, at the end of a contentious, strike-and-lockout prone Mayor Sam Sullivan Vancouver Non-Partisan Association civic administration, where his own party rejected him, before voters got a chance to do so, running Councillor Peter Ladner instead as the NPA Mayoral candidate in 2008, so dispirited was the electorate that on election day only 30.79% of eligible voters came out to the polls to cast a ballot, while 69.21% yawned.
Three years later, in 2011, a whopping 34.57% of Vancouver’s voters made it to the polls, while 65.43% of Vancouver’s eligible just stayed at home or spent the day lollygagging around on voting day, effectively saying to the candidates “to hell with you.” No one ever said life in civic politics is easy.
Things were really looking up when it came time to head to the polls in 2014 to re-elect a majority Vision Vancouver municipal government, an easy-to-follow and hard-fought campaign, that pitted the bike-riding, Happy Planet drinking voters against those dastardly bike-lane hating degenerates (but not really) in the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association. Oh woe is us. All neat and tidy, good vs evil, making it incredibly easy for voters to cast their ballot. And they did, in record numbers: of the 411,741 registered Vancouver voters, there were a record 181,707 ballots cast, putting the voter turnout in 2014 at 44.13%! Hallelujah, and love a duck.
What do the voting figures above mean for the 2018 Vancouver civic election? In the era of Trump, it’s hard to know. The rightist backlash we wrote about yesterday … had our friend Dave Pasin weighing in, who posted the following on Twitter …
“You miss the point. It’s not about nimbyism or the fear of a hyperbolic hell hole. The real issue is that citizenry don’t feel they have a real say in how the city is evolving. They feel used, abused and taken advantage of by supposed morally superior leaders.”
And here we thought that’s what we were writing. Meanwhile, Dave Pasin isn’t done, adding the following Twitter comment …
“Raymond, as one who travels to the U.S. on a regular basis, the U.S. is far from the hell hole you portray. The reality of what’s actually happening is far and away from politics and hyperbolic cable shows. I have found the country to be in a good place economically, and even socially.”
Hyperbole, thy name is VanRamblings. And it will be forever thus. Since recovering from cancer, we’ve given up a lot of things — fear, anger, hubris, being mean, not appreciating Vision Vancouver — but hyperbole? Nope, we’re wed to hyperbole, like we’re kinda wed to writing in the third person (keeps an ironic distance, don’tcha know) … well, mostly, anyway.
In 2018, then, we’ve got a spitting angry electorate, or as Bill says, a voting public who “feel used, abused and taken advantage of by supposed morally superior leaders” — you know, as we wrote yesterday, the types that have helped to make Vancouver a city that has focused on …
Reconciliation with our indigenous peoples, promoting the interests of women in the workplace, making Vancouver a racism-free zone, a nuclear-free zone, a city focused on the interests of our LGBTQ and gender variant communities, which has created Vancouver as a non-gendered bathroom zone, a city concerned with the interests of vulnerable citizens, a city that — working with our federal and provincial governments — is committed to building 6,000 units of co-op housing; 4000 truly affordable rental housing units; 2,000 social housing units; while supporting the construction of 2,000 co-housing units, all over the next ten years …
Where the used and abused part that Dave writes about arises, is from a lack of consultation with residents in all 23 of Vancouver’s neighbourhoods when it comes to the decision-making by Vancouver City Council, which riles up folks like the Grandview-Woodland residents who came out to express their opposition to a new detox and treatment centre, or the 680 units of transitional modular housing, where Marpole residents came out in droves to protest the construction of transitional modular housing units in their neighbourhood, which neighbours feared would introduce vulnerable drug dependent citizens into their neighborhood, creating a safety concern.
Over the course of the past 10 years, the majority Vision Vancouver civic administration has focused its governance on social issues, and making Vancouver an environmentally forward city (which Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith, in a Twitter response to yesterday’s VanRamblings column, identified as a critical issue to our city and our planet’s future).
For the record, be it environmental initiatives or the bike lane construction programme undertaken by our Vision Vancouver civic government, the focus on active transportation, the construction of 680 transitional modular housing units, and all and more of the social justice initiatives that Vision has championed while in power at City Hall: we think they’re important social justice and environmental initiatives — and just like 65,844,954, or 48.2% of the American population, voted for Hillary Clinton to continue along the path Barack Obama had embarked on, while only 62,979,879, or 46.1% of the American population voted for Donald Trump — call them the deplorables, as Hillary Clinton did in a fit of pique (or candour), or the “I love the under-and-uneducated voters”, as Trump referred to his barely literate followers (who wore Trump’s words like a badge of honour). Still.
No matter what Dave Pasin has written above, life has not gotten better for African American men and women, nor for any segment of the immigrant or refugee communities, nor the Dreamers, the farmers, children in under-financed schools, nor the poor, the opioid drug-addicted & the vulnerable.
In the era of Trump, license has been given to mouth and give vent to the worst inclinations and intolerant beliefs of huge segments of our population, in the U.S. and in Canada, those who feel disenfranchised and locked out, and who are bereft of hope — the battle is on, then, for the hearts and minds of this portion of the electorate, who need hope, and a sense that there is justice for them, that they’re being heard, that they’re loved
1961. Vancouver aldermen A.E. Sprott, Dr. W.B. McKechnie, F. Fredrickson, H.D. Wilson, Angus Maclnnis & former Vancouver aldermen, at a dogwood tree planting ceremony.
As progressives, as the literate and well-educated in our population, if we’re not very careful, in 2018 — for all of our good intentions — the ground that the 2018 election could be fought on is one of intolerance, hatred of the other, preservation of self-interest, and a return to a meaner time, when our majority population … well, old white men, anyway, ruled the day, and if you were a person of colour, an indigenous person, an immigrant or a refugee escaping misery, or a barely tolerated, vulnerable member of our population, you were locked out of the decision-making.
In 2016, 65,844,954 good-hearted Americans didn’t want to see a return to the days of intolerance, hatred and fear — but it didn’t quite work out for them, who now find themselves living in the intolerant world of Trump. The Holy Trinity of Vancouver Civic Politics. Christine Boyle: Saviour
Vancouver’s civic election Holy Trinity | Sarah Kirby-Yung, Christine Boyle, Anne Roberts
The palliative in the coming civic election campaign, quite literally our non-hectoring saviour, and a charismatic voice of reason — although, at the moment, she doesn’t think she is and probably finds the notion and the writing of such to be an engagement in just a bit of hyperbole, being the humble person she is, but whether or not Ms. Boyle is ready for it, by the time late summer rolls around, it will become abundantly clear that 2018’s Vancouver civic election will become the Christine Boyle election, whether she is yet able to acknowledge it early on in her campaign for a seat on City Council, as a OneCity Vancouvercandidate for office, or not.
Christine Boyle’s campaign for office offers a message of hope that speaks to the best of us, much in the same way as Barack Obama in 2008.
One of the traits we most admire in Christine Boyle — an inherent feature of her personality and how she brings herself to the world, and a trait that will serve her well on the campaign trail, in the months to come — is her humility, because hers is a voice not just of sympathy, but of empathy for every one of us, a spiritual empathy that voters will feel deep within them, and which will inform the 2018 Vancouver municipal election.
Humility, empathy in civic politics in the city of Vancouver. Unusual that. But also good, as well as engaging and transformative traits for a budding civic politician, traits that will serve her (and us) well — because it means that for even the angriest voter, for those who feel disenfranchised, abused and used, as Bill McCreery writes above, across every neighbourhood in our city, who feel unheard, have come to feel ignored and disrespected, in Christine Boyle — a United Church minister of heartening and consoling countenance — she will come to represent what can be for all of us …
Christine Boyle not only does not represent a threat to anyone, as a figure of humility, grace and compassion, she is also the embodiment of hope, her voice one of sympathy and generosity, and a preternatural wisdom.
Christine Boyle’s candidacy and the acknowledgment of the transformational role she will play in the 2018 Vancouver civic election — well, it’s a little ways off yet, for her, for the voters of Vancouver, and for her political opponents, as well. Maybe recognition will come as late as the third or fourth all-candidates meeting she attends in September, when it will become clear to Ms. Boyle, as it will to the rest of us, that she is the leader we need, hers a candidacy for office that seeks to appeal and speaks to the best of us, for all of us, Christine Boyle as the hope of our future.
Looking back at the 2015 federal election, in the early part of the federal campaign, Justin Trudeau struggled, he did not find his voice, did not say what people most needed him to say — that he was his father’s son, whose legacy for which, as he stated, he was “incredibly proud,” on that September 26th Monk debate night when Justin Trudeau first knew that he would become Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister; soon after, and within days, so did everyone else, as in the final three weeks of the 2015 federal election campaign, Justin Trudeau & the Liberal Party of Canada’s fortunes catapulted into the stratosphere, rising from 27% in the polls in the days prior to the Monk Debate, to an astounding 39.47% on election day. Soon, very soon, Christine Boyle will find herself on that same trajectory.
For Christine Boyle is the leader we need, hers the voice of generosity of the human spirit, circumspect wisdom and prudent understanding, a candidacy for office which appeals to the best in us — a distaff and soon-to-be-beloved Tommy Douglas for the 21st century, hers a once in a lifetime candidacy that is certain to emerge in this currently nettlesome civic election season, as the hope of our future, the person who speaks for and to the rage-filled, reactive and fear-filled neighbours we see on our TV screens at night — whose concerns she will address, whose voices she will hear, and most important, on whose wishes she will act, to make ours a city for everyone, whether you live in Dunbar, the Downtown Eastside, Kitsilano or Shaughnessy, Hastings Sunrise, Grandview Woodland or the West End, Fraserview, Riley Park, Killarney, along Cambie, or in Mount Pleasant, False Creek, Marpole or West Point Grey, in any neighbourhood in our city.
As you might imagine, though, Christine Boyle will not achieve for us that which needs to be done, the affordable housing that must be built, the property taxes that need lowering, the child care centers that need to open, the children in our city who must no longer go to school hungry, the homeless and the indigent who through no fault of their own live in poverty and wont, the hollowing out of our neighbourhoods that have made some once thriving parts of our city virtual ghost communities — no, Christine Boyle is going to need help, she is going to need a comrade in arms, another transformative political figure in our city, a planner …
Sarah Kirby-Yung. A person of conscience, an idea person who knows how to think outside the box, a generational candidate, political figure and comrade, who possesses a way of speaking to the people, while not as practiced and charismatic as Ms. Boyle’s, nonetheless speaks to the heart — and much to her credit, and the good fortune of those who live in Vancouver — and to the mind, who in her tenure at Park Board achieved the near impossible in having cetaceans in captivity banned in Stanley Park — in the process thwarting Non-Partisan Association policy, and reversing a key plank in the 2014 civic election Vancouver Non-Partisan Association platform, who is wily and smart and knows how to get things done, and who will become best friends with Christine — and, no, at this point they have not met one another — and even though, supposedly, they are on the opposite sides of the political spectrum, Sarah Kirby-Yung set to become British Columbia’s Premier in the next mid-decade, while her friend-yet-still-to-be resides as Mayor in Vancouver, as one of the most beloved political figures to ever emerge in the history of Vancouver civic politics.
Anne Roberts. And then there is the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) candidate for City Council, past head of the journalism programme at Langara College — where she transformed the life of one of the people I most love in this world, a social justice warrior from the first time we met when she was just nine years of age, Justine Davidson (who just yesterday, gave me a hug — which oughta keep me going for some time now) — a former and most beloved Vancouver City Councillor, making a difference for the better in all our lives during her 2002 – 2005 tenure on Council, the parliamentarian in Vancouver civic politics’ holy trinity, who will get along with Sarah Kirby-Yung, and who Sarah will come to love, each moment Sarah and Anne spend together meant to be cherished, and who together will get things done, get those things accomplished that Christine Boyle has promised on the campaign trail, who will mentor Christine in the ways of civic governance and accomplishment, these three women about to become best friends, soon, and long, long, long into the future.
In 2018, we like NPA Mayoral nominee John Coupar just fine, and we’re pretty sure that Vision Vancouver mayoral candidates Ian Campbell and Taleeb Noormohamed are pretty good guys, and we’re downright impressed with Ben Bolliger, Brandon Yan and R.J. Aquino, candidates for Council all with OneCity Vancouver. Pretty much across the board, we’re grateful when candidates come forward to offer themselves for service in the public weal.
Fierce, accomplished women possessed of wisdom and grit will lead us into the future
But in 2018, a new era has dawned, an era where it is time for tough, psychologically healthy, exceptionally bright, capable and principled women to lead us, women who know how to work with others, know how to bring about change, and bring people — all people — along with them.
But, y’know what — just in case you haven’t been reading the news, or haven’t been following the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements as closely as you oughta have been, or maybe you were one of three or four folks across the North American continent who didn’t see that it was Patti Jenkins who made the zillion dollar grossing Wonder Woman last year. You did, you’re aware, you follow the news, you’re informed? Then tell you what, let us remind you of something you already know, in your heart & in your mind …
2018 is the year of the woman, in Hollywood at the box office, and at the voting booth in the U.S. — where at last count, 43 women of conscience defeated troglodyte white men in American by-elections over the course of the past eight months, and in our home in Vancouver in 2018, women rule, and women will rule, and come Saturday, October 20th, Vancouver’s holy trinity of women city councillors will assume control at Vancouver City Hall.
The Grounds the 2018 Vancouver Civic Election May be Fought OnPart 1, Backlash: Rightist Vancouver Residents Rise Up to Fight City Hall
The 2018 Vancouver civic election is less than five months away, with election results available late in the evening of Saturday, October 20th.
As the six main Vancouver political parties ramp up their election strategy, the issues emerging are affordable & social housing, transit, property taxes, street cleanliness and service to the public, renewal of our community centre system, and civic government expenditure. But are these the issues, the ground that 2018’s Vancouver civic election will actually be fought on?
VanRamblings would suggest to you the core issue for some residents in the coming Vancouver civic election only tangentially relate to the platform issues on which Vancouver’s six civic parties will run their 2018 campaigns.
Rather, VanRamblings would present to you that the core issue of the coming civic election is … heart, or the lack thereof, and the willingness of Vancouver voters to place self-interest second to that of poverty reduction, and the construction of transitional, social and affordable housing in neighbourhoods across our city, over the course of the next four years.
Funded by the province and being built in the City of Vancouver, by this time next year 680 transitional modular housing units will have opened on ten or more supervised sites across the city, located in as many Vancouver neighbourhoods, the modular housing meant to house Vancouver’s most vulnerable population. The experience of the City following an announcement of modular housing construction has found that each and every time a new modular housing project site is announced, be it at …
Little Mountain, at 37th and Main;
650 West 67th Avenue, at Heather Street;
595 and 599 West 2nd Avenue, near the Vancouver Police Department headquarters, and nearby the Olympic Village Canada Line station;
4480 Kaslo Street, just south of the 29th Avenue Skytrain station;
1131 Franklin Street, over by the B.C. Sugar Refinery, just off Powell Street; and
525 Powell Street, at Jackson Street.
Fearful, socially regressive neighbours driven by self-interest, safety and the potential for lower property values come out in droves, well-organized and sometimes numbering in the hundreds, carrying signs and yelling at passersby, while vehemently protesting modular housing construction in their neighbourhood, each time the City announces a new construction site.
Vancouver Coastal Health has proposed an affordable housing facility and detox treatment centre on East 1st Avenue at Clark Drive, the project a divisive one for some Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood residents. One group of locals, though, worries such divisive behaviour will teach their children to be afraid of those who most need assistance and empathy, this latter group coming out in favour of the project.
OneCity Vancouver candidate for City Council, Christine Boyle, had an unhappy experience at a May 2nd Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood — the neighbourhood where her family and friends live — information session on a proposed affordable housing facility and treatment centre to be located on East 1st Avenue at Clark Drive, with the treatment centre controversially, for some residents, taking over the duties for the current, smaller detox centre located on East 2nd Avenue, near Main.
Ms. Boyle said such opposition to the treatment centre was disappointing.
“I don’t want my kids to learn that they should be fearful of people who are homeless or struggling,” Boyle told StarMetro Vancouver reporter, Perrin Grauer. “I worry that’s the lesson coming out of this.”
And there you have it: NIMBY residents opposing modular housing construction in their neighbourhood, or construction of an under lock and key detox and treatment centre — and even the provision of affordable housing in their neighbourhood, that might lower their property values.
Heart, social conscience, empathy for our most vulnerable citizens vs naked, socially maladroit, near-heartless self-interest. That my friends, is the battle ground on which 2018’s Vancouver civic election may be fought.
The 2018 Vancouver civic election is a “throw the bums out” election, and by that many Vancouver residents mean — we’ll see how many, come the evening of Saturday, October 20th — that they’re “sick-and-tired” of the social engineering that has gone on at City Hall”, the focus on reconciliation with our indigenous peoples, promoting the interests of women in the workplace, making our city a racism-free zone, a nuclear-free zone, catering to the interests of our LGBTQ and gender variant communities, Vancouver as a non-gendered bathroom zone, a catering to the interests of vulnerable citizens zone — all at the expense of “tax paying” NIMBY citizens — a city where progressivism has been the order of the day, all much to the chagrin of Vancouver’s meaner, more socially regressive “hey, it’s all about me, my interests, maintaining the value of my property” citizens.
In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, progressives were convinced that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had a presidential win and four years in the White House in the bag, that under no circumstance would a sexist and misogynist, barely literate and totally uninformed man-child buffoon go on to win the White House. Well, you know how that one turned out.
In the 2018 Vancouver election, a lowest common denominator Mayoral candidate, and candidates for Council will emerge — the Wai Young Coalition Party and Hector Bremner campaigns — will emerge from the primordial muck quite soon, well-financed and hungry for power, and ready to turn the clock back to a meaner time, a “people’s movement” that could snatch victory from both the progressive party coalition, and the socially progressive, nominally right-of-centre Vancouver Non-Partisan Association.
There exists in our city, governance serving the public interest that sets the standard for democratic engagement — the likes of which VanRamblings does not recall ever previously having witnessed in the public realm.
We are, of course, speaking of the work of Chairperson of the Vancouver School Board, Janet Fraser, who meeting in, meeting out conducts a Master Class on how one must conduct a meeting, efficiently and well, in the public interest, respectful meetings of democratic engagement, where the Board of Education trustees are encouraged to work as a team — and woebetide the person who does not accede to Dr. Fraser’s unspoken ordinance.
For Dr. Janet Fraser, outward appearance to the contrary, is a tough as nails, brooks no nonsense, respectful, engaged, informed, demands the best from those sitting around the VSB Board of Education table, who absolutely and utterly does not ever allow untoward commentary to stand — the finest and most democratic public official, and Chairperson of any civic body we have ever had the privilege of witnessing. A story. Early in her term as Vancouver School Board Chairperson, Janet Fraser allowed One City Vancouver trustee Carrie Bercic to move a motion that would see the newly-elected trustees working with staff to ensure the timely hiring of teachers and other educators, so as to meet the conditions of the November 2015 ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Ms. Bercic, even as early as the beginning of her term as school board trustee, was making it clear to anyone with ears to listen that she would be the new conscience of the Vancouver School Board ‘Board of Education’, as has proven to be the case throughout the course of 2018.
Veteran trustee Allan Wong, in support of trustee Bercic, seconded her motion, the motion now open for discussion, recently-elected Chairperson Fraser presiding at the head of the Board of Education table. Early reception for trustee Bercic’s motion was not salutary, with both Vancouver Non-Partisan Association trustees Fraser Ballantyne and Lisa Dominato, as might well be expected, speaking against “interference” by trustees in the work of administrative staff. Trustee Wong spoke in support of trustee Bercic’s motion, as did his Vision Vancouver colleague, Joy Alexander, while their colleague Ken Clement chose not to weigh in on the matter.
Trustee Estrellita Gonzalez, a novice in political life, looked on, attempting to weigh what she heard. And what trustee Gonzalez heard next, from her Green Party of Vancouver colleague, Dr. Judy Zaichowski rocked the meeting, sounding the death knell for trustee Bercic’s motion …
“Never have I heard such a poorly worded motion” trustee Zaichkowski proclaimed. “Trustee Bercic seems not to know what it is she is attempting to move, injudiciously unclear in her intent — quite honestly, I cannot make head nor tail of what trustee Bercic is attempting to accomplish. From what I’ve read, looking at her motion — a motion which she did not discuss with me, nor to the best of my knowledge, with other of the trustees around this table — I would suggest that, perhaps, “she” might benefit from one of the courses on ‘Clear Communication’ I teach at Simon Fraser University in the Beedie School of Business. I will not be supporting Ms. Bercic’s motion, and stand adamantly against it.”
A hush fell over the room. Trustee Gonzalez seeming to weigh no longer on how she would vote — she would cast her vote in the negative.
Meanwhile, trustees Dominato and Ballantyne seemed thunderstruck — it is usual business at the school board table that Fraser Ballantyne is the one who acts out. Meanwhile, Joy Alexander — always calm, had a look of alarm in her eyes, while you could almost hear trustee Wong’s thoughts on the matter (“Never in my 19 years as a trustee on school board, have I ever witnessed …”), while trustee Clement looked on, disbelieving of what he’d just heard — for this group of trustees, perhaps with one notable exception, are persons of conscience, as humane and caring of the public process that leads to the decisions that affect the lives of thousands as may be found on any publicly-elected body. All the while, even though it was but mere seconds, Chairperson Fraser sat at the head of the table, her face inscrutable, her thoughts unreadable. And then Dr. Fraser spoke …
“Around this school board table, trustees speak to and about one another with respect. Trustee Zaichkowski (ed. note, one of the two Green Party trustees elected last October, along with Dr. Fraser), despite your statement and suggestion to the contrary, I feel quite assured that you know exactly what trustee Bercic’s motion intends. How could you not? The content and activism of trustee Bercic’s motion is as clear as day to me, as I am sure is the case with all of my other trustee colleagues sitting around this table this evening — clearly with the exception of yourself, if I am to believe what you said earlier … and I do not.
I will be supporting trustee Bercic’s motion, as I hope would be the case with my trustee colleagues, on whom I am depending for support of trustee Bercic’s motion, a motion the intent of which I clearly understand, and without reservation support. Could I now have a trustee Call the Question, so that we might vote?”
All tension in the air evaporated, you could hear the audible sighs of relief around the school board table, trustee Gonzalez was smiling for she now knew for certain how she would vote, with trustee Ballantyne speaking out of order to say, “I am fully in favour of trustee Bercic’s motion.”
Chairperson Janet Fraser asked for a show of hands, “All those in favour of trustee Bercic’s motion raise your hands.” Seven hands shot up: trustees Bercic, Wong, Alexander, Ballantyne, Clement, Dominato and Gonzalez. Chairperson Fraser next asked for a show of hand(s) for those opposed. Nothing. Trustee Zaichkowski had abstained on the motion that only minutes earlier she had spoken so vehemently against.
With the above described interaction of trustees now history, Dr. Fraser proved herself to be … how do we say it? … someone not to be fucked with. A tone was set. Dr. Janet Fraser was in charge. Going forward, members of the Vancouver School Board would work together in the best interests of children enrolled in the Vancouver school system.
Meanwhile, Dianne Turner (for whom I possess some great affection, and who is owed an apology from me … nothing too egregious, just some casual thoughtlessness on my part, if casual thoughtlessness can ever be juxtaposed with use of the word “just” … surely, a contradiction in terms) — the Official Trustee appointed by B.C. Liberal Education Minister, Mike Bernier, on behalf of the Christy Clark government, and kept on as a Special Advisor to current B.C. Education Minister, Rob Fleming, her term as Special Advisor expiring earlier this spring — looked around the room, at the gallery, at the trustees, and at Dr. Fraser. With a subtle, yet warm and reassuring smile, Ms. Turner limned the moment of reason and humanity that she had just witnessed around the school board table. You could almost hear her say, “I think they’re going to be just fine. Soon, I’ll be speaking with Minister Fleming, when I will seek to assure him that the Vancouver School Board is in good hands, and that he need not worry.”
Dr. Janet Fraser. Master Class in Meeting Conduct. Every Chairperson of every body, be it housing co-op, arts organization, elected body, or in any other forum where people come together to promote good governance and democratic decision-making would do themselves well to arrive at the offices of the Vancouver School Board this upcoming Monday evening.
Broadview Housing Co-operative, located in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood
An Invitation to the Members of the Broadview Housing Co-operative, and to all Vancouver citizens
For anyone who is familiar with VanRamblings’ activist work in the community, you would know that we are a lifelong democrat, that we believe in respectful and informed democratic engagement, where although within a group or on an issue of contention on occasion we might disagree, we believe in humanity and what constitutes the best of us, as persons of conscience, as social activists, as engaged citizens striving always for more and better, not for ourselves — because we recognize that we are persons of privilege — but for others, for whom it is our obligation to use our privilege to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we come into contact daily, and for those whom we have not yet met, the vulnerable members of our community, for whom we harbour a deep and abiding caring, and for whom we will do our best to make theirs a better life, and in doing so give our own lives a sense of meaning and a deeper purpose.
Working together, striving to improve the lives of others, the creation of community, and a sense of social obligation defines life in housing co-ops, as it defines life in the public realm, at Council, Park and School Board.
Why is VanRamblings inviting the members of our housing co-op, and you as citizens of Vancouver, to next Monday’s, May 28th public meeting of Vancouver School Board trustees, set to start at 7pm, at 1580 West Broadway, in the Board room at the Vancouver School Board’s head office?
In part, it’s because Broadview is a mere 19 blocks from the Vancouver School Board offices, an enjoyable walk, bike or bus ride away. And why not? Aren’t housing co-ops all about respectful, democratic engagement, and is it not important for the well-functioning not only of the Broadview Housing Co-op at our various general, finance, membership and maintenance committee meetings — but for all of us in the public weal — to strive always for better in the conduct of our lives, and in meeting engagement where decisions that have profound effect are rendered?
At next Monday’s Board of Education trustees meeting, you will see …
VSB Chairperson Janet Fraser working to increase engagement and teamwork among the trustees, in a meeting of passion and commitment;
Dr. Fraser creating an environment in the Board room where all the trustees contribute to the decision-making around the school board table, creating personal ownership of issues;
Chairperson Fraser setting standards for the meeting, by encouraging behaviors of respect needed for the meeting to be successful;
Dr. Fraser providing a sense of purpose, energy and optimism, and a sense of vision, mission and aspirational values that give meaning to the meeting, resulting in productive and demonstrably effective outcomes.
What you won’t see at meetings chaired by Dr. Fraser …
Cross-talk, verboten in proper and democratically-run meetings. Cross-talk occurs when someone has the floor, and others in the meeting are engaged in separate conversations, being disrespectful of the person who has the floor, and to others members present at the meeting;
A disrespect for Robert’s of Order, through which intimate knowledge ensures respectful, democratic decision-making by which all meeting governance must abide.
All meetings, whether at the Broadview Housing Co-operative, at City Council, School Board or Park Board must observe the rules of proper and respectful meeting conduct, and all chairpersons — whatever the body — must take their obligation as chairperson, as seriously and with as much import as does Dr. Fraser, who is as serious as death about ensuring democratic engagement will carry the day at school board, as should all persons engaged elsewhere who are charged with the responsibility of conducting respectful, fulsome and democratically-run meetings.
Victoria’s Cameo housing co-op has adopted rules of order to ensure their meetings abide by a central tenet on which Canada’s housing co-op movement was founded in the 1970s …
“The empowerment of housing co-op members, through the establishment of respectful, democratically-run meetings, occurs in order that members will feel empowered, not just around the co-op meeting table, but in the society at large, and in the public realm, so that the housing co-op movement might serve to fight against anomie, alienation, cynicism and disengagement from the decision-making that affects their lives in the municipal, provincial and federal political realm, for when a meeting is well run, when members are intimately familiar with Robert’s Rules of Order, when Co-op members are energized and engaged they might come to work with others to change the conditions of their lives, and the lives of others, so as to better serve the common good.”
Of course, in British Columbia, members of the Co-operative Housing Federation of British Columbia can avail themselves of the three-hour Good Governance and Principled Leadership workshop, where a CHF-BC staff person travels to housing co-ops to teach a simplified version of Robert’s Rules of Order, how to capably chair a meeting, how to manage difficult situations, how to make meaningful decisions in a timely and respectful manner, and how to conduct a productive meeting.
Or, as CHF-BC is wont to say …
“In a well-run co-op, meetings run smoothly. They’re a place where things get done instead of done to you. Good meetings produce sound decisions and are a positive experience for members. Bad meetings don’t get the work done and undermine morale.”
Members of Broadview are always open to ensuring that our meetings run better, are more efficient and respectful of members’ time, that decisions are arrived at thoughtfully and in a timely manner, that humanity and a respect for others around the meeting table is of prime importance for the well-functioning of not only a co-op meeting but for the interests of our housing co-operative, and the housing co-op movement, as a whole.
For we in Vancouver, and in British Columbia, are at a crossroads in the history of the provision of affordable housing. The conduct of the affairs of any of the housing co-ops in Metro Vancouver and across the province, must reflect the best values of the housing co-op movement, as respectful, member-owned-and-run affordable social housing projects — for soon, very soon, we are about to witness our municipal, provincial and federal governments embark on a housing co-op construction programme, the likes of which we have not witnessed in 40 years.
VanRamblings would then ask of Broadview members, and of you …
When such a resource as Dr. Fraser is so nearby, so readily available, the meetings she has been charged by the public to conduct, as close to beauty in the public realm as one is likely to encounter in the course of our prosaic daily lives, why would one — and members of Broadview Housing Co-op, in particular — not wish to avail themselves of nonpareil beauty extant?
And as Broadview’s Laurie and Kevin, Libbi and Yvon, Alex, Goran, Josh, Laurette and Yoshi, Judi and Max, Tatiana, Kyle, Charlotte and Richard, Tina and Shane, Joe, Jette, Heather and Jason, Natasha and Meaghan will be present this next Monday evening for the well-conducted one and a half hour, critical to the future of children enrolled in the Vancouver school system, movingly profound meeting of our Board of Education trustees …
One City’s ‘move you to tears’ social justice warrior, Carrie Bercic; Beedie School of Business professor, Dr. Judy Zaichowkski, and her quiet, yet passionately engaged Green Party colleague, Estrellita Gonzalez; retired school principal, Fraser Ballantyne, and the utterly tremendous Lisa Dominato, mom to a daughter enrolled in Grade One, and up until recently, the Director of Integrated Services and Safe Schools in B.C.’s Ministry of Education; the calming, informed, reasoned — and we think, sometimes mischievous — Joy Alexander, and her Vision Vancouver colleagues, the entirely tremendous Allan Wong, a father of daughters, and a 19-year veteran School Board trustee; and Ken Clement of the Ktunaxa First Nation, long a voice for social justice, health and housing for our indigenous peoples, and at School Board, an activist for better educational outcomes for Aboriginal students …
VanRamblings believes that you, too, must be present to witness, to avail yourselves of the opportunity to be a participant school board meeting observer, in what we assure you — and what we assure Broadview Housing Co-op members — will prove to be a transformative experience in your life, in their lives, in service to what is the best of us, democracy, respectful democratic engagement, and needed and necessary change for the better.
