Category Archives: Vancouver

BC Election 2013: A Week Today We’ll Know the Outcome

BC Politics, Decision BC 2013, Vancouver

Three Hundred Eight Election Prediction outcome, May 6 2013



The inevitability of change looms large on the horizon.
As much as the pollsters want to turn the 2013 British Columbia election into a race to the finish line, in fact that’s not what’s happening at all. The people across this vast province of ours continue to hanker for change, whether that be adding a couple of Green MLA’s to the ledge for the next term (Andrew Weaver and Adam Olsen), or a couple of Independents (Vicki Huntington and Arthur Hadland), plus a surfeit of NDP MLA’s — including ‘always a bridesmaid, never a bride’ NDP candidate for Maple Ridge – Mission, Mike Bocking — but make no mistake, change is on the way.
As can be seen in ThreeHundredEight’s graphic at the top of today’s post, the BC NDP are looking at somewhere in the range of 48 to 56 seats, while the Liberals continue to trail with 36 to 42 seats, not in majority range, and out of contention for government. Sure, there’s still six days to go in Decision BC 2013, but the writing is on the wall, Adrian Dix and the NDP have stepped up their game — finally deciding that it’s time to hold the BC Liberals’ feet to the fire — BC Conservative leader John Cummins has picked up his game in the waning days of the campaign, while BC Green Party leader Jane Sterk focuses on winning at least one seat in the legislature. Ms. Sterk knows that a portion of the Green vote will evaporate on election day, as many of her Green supporters will vote strategically, for the NDP.
Vancouver-Point Grey Becomes a Bellwether Riding in 2013
Vancouver’s Point Grey riding has been represented by a Liberal premier for more than a decade, but that nearly changed in 2011 when the NDP’s David Eby came within 564 votes of unseating Christy Clark in a by-election. Now, with Clark and the BC Liberals trailing in the polls, many believe the riding is Eby’s to lose, offering a hint at how the rest of the province votes, too.
“It’s a David and Goliath story of sorts, although I am much taller than Christy, so I am not sure the metaphor totally holds,” says Eby. “It’s challenging for me running against the premier. She’s in the news every day, she’s spent a huge amount of money on advertising. Our response has been—since we didn’t have that kind of budget—to knock on as many doors as possible and talk to as many people as possible in the riding.”
And so David Eby, the NDP candidate in Vancouver-Point Grey, and his legion of door-to-door canvassers who’ve knocked on every door in the riding in one mightily impressive example of the NDP’s superior “ground game” — and let’s not forget unprecedented mail-in ballot support from the many thousands of UBC students resident in the riding, as efficient and focused a campaign as VanRamblings has ever witnessed, with campaign manager Kate Van Meer-Mass in full control, with a first-rate voter contact phone bank co-ordinated by Sean Antrim that runs morning to night, and a volunteer organization by Gala Milne (not to mention, stalwarts Mary Tenny, John Yano and Indra Roodal, among many, many other volunteers working together in Vancouver’s western most riding) second-to-none in our current BC election campaign — making the race to win the hearts and minds of the people of Vancouver-Point Grey, one to watch election night.
BC Election 2013: News of the Day Heading Towards May 14th
The story of the day, so to speak, on the campaign trail on Sunday night and for much of Monday, was the cynical re-emergence of adulterer and political chameleon, Gordon Wilson, a one-time leader of the BC Liberals, one-time head of the Progressive Democratic Alliance, then an NDP cabinet minister in the government of Premier Glen Clark, and now—apparently—a born again BC Liberal. The head just swims. You can watch Wilson’s endorsement of Christy Clark (really?), at the end of the story in the link above, or better still you can hear BC NDP leader Adrian Dix’s take on Wilson, and more importantly, the critical issues in the 2013 British Columbia election, by clicking on the link below, for an interview conducted by Rick Cluff, with Dix, broadcast yesterday morning on CBC’s Early Edition.

Who knows what’s going on at British Columbia’s newspaper of record, The Vancouver Sun? First up, one week to go to election day, and we have Vaughn Palmer reminding his 300,000+ readers about the HST, and the BC Liberals’ role in this boondoggle that brought down a Premier, quoting Martyn Brown, former Chief of Staff to Gordon Campbell …

“The last thing British Columbians expected from the Campbell government, which had made personal income tax relief — and household tax relief — so central to its vision, was a tax shift that would increase their tax burden, especially in the midst of a recession,” wrote the premier’s then chief of staff Martyn Brown in a devastating analysis-cum-mea-culpa self-published last summer.

“The HST was an issue of such broad public importance that it should never have been imposed without any prior consultation, let alone only weeks after an election, and in direct contradiction to the governing party’s stated position. It represented such a significant shift in the tax burden from businesses to individuals that it was not on a scale that would have ever been right to impose it as a done deal.”

“No mandate. A betrayal of the electorate …”

Next, The Sun’s Peter O’Neil suggests that …

Ideological differences notwithstanding, an Premier Adrian Dix-Stephen Harper relationship could be a productive one. Political insiders say there are many similarities between Harper and Dix that may help the two hit it off despite clashing ideologies. Both are bilingual and former Parliament Hill staffers who grew up during the same era in major multicultural urban areas. Dix, who turned 49 on April 20, is the son of a couple who ran an insurance business in Vancouver. Harper, who celebrated his 54th birthday on April 30, is a Toronto native and the son of an accountant.

Harper and Dix are knowledgeable sports fans with a deep understanding of Canadian political history. And while Dix is far less reserved than Harper, neither man could be mistaken for glad-handing extrovert politicians like their current principal rivals — Christy Clark and Justin Trudeau. And Harper, according to some of his former cabinet colleagues, respects straight-shooting politicians with clear and unwavering principles, and who approach relations in a business-like fashion. Dix has tried to telegraph to both B.C. businesses and his own party members that he’ll advocate a moderate agenda with no big surprises.

O’Neil then goes on to write that BC Liberal leader Christy Clark …

“has just as frequently frustrated the federal Conservatives, most recently on Sunday when she once again turned her nose up at two oilsands pipeline proposals to the B.C. coast that are considered by Ottawa to be in the national interest. If Clark manages a stunning come-from-behind victory on May 14, British Columbians can assume more of the same — continued federal-provincial tensions on the oilsands pipelines issue and occasional flare-ups like the Kitsilano Coast Guard closure dispute.”

And in the newspaper’s pièce-de-résistance for the day, The Sun quotes BC NDP leader Adrian Dix reminding British Columbians of the BC Liberals’ failure to help suffering children during their dozen years in office.

“Eight years leading the country in child poverty and the Liberal party is offering nothing except misleading comments and attacks,” Dix said of the province’s child-poverty rate … Here’s what I find offensive. I say Yes to LNG. I say yes to mining. I say Yes to forestry. I say Yes to film and television. I say Yes to tourism. But here’s what I say No to. I say No to doing nothing when children suffer.”

Hmmm. Do you think that the folks over at the Vancouver Sun know something we don’t? Like maybe, just maybe, Adrian Dix and the BC NDP are set to win a majority government next Tuesday, May 14th?
BC Election 2013: Where The Leaders Will Be Tuesday, May 7th
Christy Clark will spend the day campaigning in Fort Nelson and Kitimat, doing her level best to keep the North in the BC Liberal fold, while preventing the BC Conservatives from gaining party stature in the British Columbia legislature.

Adrian Dix has a morning rally in Sidney, over on Vancouver Island, as well as rallies in the afternoon (following lunch, of course), a roundtable, and in the evening, a bit of Round 1, Game 4 Vancouver Canucks vs the San Jose Sharks Stanley Cup playoff watching, first in Richmond, then in Vancouver, and finally in Delta. Guess we know what Dix will be doing between periods.

  • 8:05am: Sidney – Campaign announcement with candidates Lana Popham, Rob Fleming, Carole James, Maurine Karagianis, Gary Holman, Jessica Van der Veen & John Horgan, Tulista Park (5 St .& Ocean Ave.)
  • 11:40am: Richmond – Campaign event with candidates Frank Huang, Gian Sihota, Scott Stewart, Richmond campaign office (8980 No. 3 Rd)
  • 12:45pm: Vancouver – Chinese community luncheon with candidates Jenny Kwan, Gabriel Yiu, George Chow, Frank Huang at Yue Shan Society Headquarters (37 E. Pender St.)
  • 5pm: Surrey – South Asian media round table with candidates Bruce Ralston, Jagrup Brar, Harry Bains, Sue Hammell, Amrik Mahil, Avtar Bains, Gabriel Yiu, Sylvia Bishop, Nic Slater, Raj Chouhan at Grand Taj Banquet Hall-Queen Hall (8388 128 St.)
  • 6:45pm: Delta – Canucks Game with supporters and candidate Sylvia Bishop at one20 Pub & Grill (8037 120 St.)

BC Conservative leader John Cummins will campaign in the Okanagan.

  • 10am: Penticton – Announcement of support for region’s health care facilities, with candidate Sean Upshaw, at Carmi Coffee House Salon and Spa (595 Carmi Ave.)

Green Party of BC leader, Jane Sterk, will continue her door-to-door canvass in her home riding of Victoria-Beacon Hill, as well as …

  • 7:45am: Victoria – Rush hour wave, Cook and Pandora
  • 11:30am: Victoria – Nurses Appreciation Party, Royal Jubilee Hospital
  • 2pm: Victoria – Mainstreeting, Cook Street Village
  • 6:15pm: Victoria – Social Service all-candidates meeting at First Metropolitan United Church



Full VanRamblings election coverage available by clicking Decision BC 2013.

Sandra Thomas Reports on the Kits Community Centre AGM Fiasco

Vancouver, VanRamblings

Kitsilano Community Centre AGM, Sandra Thomas in the Vancouver Courier

Vancouver Courier journalist Sandra Thomas’ article on the Kitsilano Community Centre AGM

Award-winning Vancouver Courier journalist Sandra Thomas has composed, as is indicated on VanRamblings’ Facebook post above, a particularly well-conceived and researched article on last Thursday, April 18th’s Kitsilano Community Centre Annual General Meeting.
In a town that is sometimes given to lazy journalism, that Thomas chose to interview (and quote) a broad cross-section of the ‘players’ in last week’s delirious KitsCC passion play, that in a very short time (deadline looming) Thomas found her way clear to crafting a piece of writing not only seamless in its presentation of argument, but peerless in its command of the issues, emerges as an accomplishment worth noting and commenting on.
The original VanRamblings article to which Ms. Thomas refers, near the end of her piece, was published under the title, Besieged at the Kits Community Centre Annual General Meeting, and may be found here.

Besieged at the Kits Community Centre Annual General Meeting

Politics, Vancouver

Kitsilano Community Centre AGM

The Kitsilano Community Centre held its annual general meeting this past Thursday evening, April 18th, a gathering of the members of the community which can only be described as high farce.
A group of longtime Kitsilano residents, concerned about the tenor of negotiations between the City and the community centre associations respecting a renewed joint operating agreement, had come together in recent weeks with the objective of placing their names on the ballot for one of the 21 Board of Director positions to be decided at the Kits CC AGM.
This group of concerned Kitsilano residents had chosen to identify themselves as the Independent slate, which is to say independent of Vision Vancouver, the municipal party that slate members believe is intent on imposing an onerous, and potentially destructive, joint operating agreement on Vancouver’s volunteer run, non-profit community centres.
As members of the Independent slate arrived at the Kitsilano Community Centre Thursday afternoon the scene was set almost immediately for a troublesome night of democratic engagement and electoral politics.
Soon after his arrival, Lewis Pierce, who led the Independent slate, and who has lived in Kitsilano his entire life, found himself approached first by the senior Recreation supervisor at the Kits Community Centre, Doug Taylor, who informed him that he would have to leave the premises if he wished to distribute information on the AGM. Taylor’s approach was followed by the intervention of the chair of the Kits Community Centre Seniors Committee, who instructed Mr. Pierce and another member of his slate that “you should leave the building, you don’t belong here, we don’t want you, we don’t want your ‘coup’, there’s the door, get out!” Pierce exited the building, distributing literature he had in his possession off premises.
Thus the stage was set for the Kitsilano Community Centre AGM, and what soon became clear was a campaign of fear that was being waged against the otherwise well-intentioned members of the Independent slate.
As meeting time approached, members of the Independent slate, and their supporters, heard reports that …

  • Staff had been told that ‘independent slate’ members were intent on converting the Kitsilano community centre into a fully volunteer-operated facility, which meant the firing of all union staff.
  • Seniors present at the AGM reported that the Kits Community Centre President, Robert Haines, had told them in the days leading up to the AGM that a group of ‘radicals’ were going to conduct a ‘coup’, and were intent on shuttering all seniors programmes in favour of their ‘radical endeavours’, Mr. Haines instructing the seniors to get all their friends out to vote if they wanted to preserve seniors programming.
  • Vision Vancouver supporters present, of which there appeared to be many, had circulated reports that the Independent slate consisted of the “same crew” of COPE Independents who had triumphed at the recent April 7th COPE AGM, with nefarious intentions to convert the Kitsilano Community Centre into a ‘beachhead’ for their radical politics.

That none of the untoward allegations about the 15 individuals running as members of the Independent slate was true was of little concern for the majority of those in attendance at the Kits Community Centre annual general meeting. They knew what they knew, and that’s all there was to it.
By the time the meeting started, shortly after 7pm, most of those present were in a state of high dudgeon, with allegations of “coup” and “malcontents” hurled at the members of the Independent slate. Thursday evening would prove to be as concerning an example of untoward democratic engagement as may have been witnessed in Vancouver in recent years, and certainly at the community centre level.
As voting got underway, Independent slate members and their supporters publically expressed a number of concerns respecting the process for the election of officers and members-at-large: 1. Doug Taylor, a senior Kits Community Centre staff, would be conducting the election. 2. Staff would be counting the ballots, unsupervised, as no scrutineers would be allowed in the ballot counting room. 3. There were two entrances to the room where the AGM was taking place, with little or no concern for whether those present in the meeting room were Kitsilano Community Centre members, as ballots were distributed to every person present. 4. Staff were seen by many who were present to be casting ballots, a direct conflict of interest.
This was a meeting out of control, anti-democratic and belligerent, with two goals in mind: resist the hordes of ‘radicals’ intent on upsetting the club-
like atmosphere of the Kitsilano Community Centre Board of Directors, while ensuring that a Board of Directors acquiescent to the Vision Vancouver initiated re-negotiation of the joint operating agreement remained in place.
Perhaps most concerning, given that the Independent slate members all resided in Kitsilano, was the fact that seven Presidents, or recent past Presidents, of Vancouver community centre associations from other neighbourhoods in Vancouver, had taken out memberships (in recent days) with the Kitsilano Community Centre, a few of whom — including David Sexton, past President and current member of the Renfrew CCA BoD (whose wife, Hazel Hollingdale, sits as the association’s President), and Alan Baycroft, President of the West End CCA — had come forward to put their names in contention for a member-at-large position on the Kitsilano Community Centre Board of Directors, in an unprecedented interference in the directorial affairs of a community centre association not their own.
When giving their speeches to the meeting, neither Sexton nor Baycroft referenced their Executive positions elsewhere. When their ‘conflict of interest’ came to light, during the voting process, shouts arose from the room that Baycroft and Sexton must withdraw from the contest. Neither did, with Sexton securing the final member-at-large position on the Board.

Kitsilano Community Centre AGM fallout, Elvira Lount's Twitter dialogue with David Sexton

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One of the strange aspects of the KitsCC AGM was that, contrary to the information that those opposing the Independent slate had been given, it was the members of the Independent slate who had been lifelong, or longtime, residents of Kitsilano, or who long had made frequent use of the KitsCC facilities, while the forces for stasis were by-and-large comprised of a group of people who had taken out KitsCC memberships simply to oppose the so-called radical malcontents’ coup, and were not residents of Kitsilano or regular users of the KitsCC facility. There was a pervasive sense of delirium infesting almost every aspect of Thursday evening’s KitsCC AGM.
If the Park Board / City of Vancouver does not dismiss the Kitsilano Community Centre Board of Directors come July 1st (the day after the dead date set by the City for coming to an agreement on a joint operating procedure for the Park Board and the CCAs), what measures will be taken by the newly-elected KitsCC Board of Directors to ensure that the irregularities that defined the 2013 KitsCC AGM will not occur next year?
Robert Haines, once and forever President of the KitsCC attempted to move a motion to adopt a Special Resolution at Thursday’s KitsCC AGM that candidates wishing to run for the KitsCC BoD in 2014 must submit their names to the Board, and the position for which they intend to run, 30 days in advance of the 2014 AGM. The Special Resolution was referred to the Board for approval, and will in all likelihood be in effect for next year.
What measures will the KitsCC BoD take to ensure Kitsilano residents are given sufficient notice of 2014’s upcoming annual general meeting, in order that KitsCC members / residents will be given sufficient time to consider their prospective candidacy for a position on the 2014 KitsCC BoD?

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At present, Mr. Pierce tells VanRamblings that he is weighing his options respecting a challenge to the ultra vires conduct of the Kitsilano Community Centre Board of Directors, including a referral to the provincial government’s Corporate Registry office, respecting possible breaches of the Society Act and the Kitsilano Community Centre Constitution and Bylaws.
Thursday, April 18, 2013’s Kitsilano Community Centre AGM ended shortly after 10pm, with much rancor in the air, and bitter feelings about foul process expressed by supporters of the Independent slate, and others.
None of the 15 Independent slate members were elected to the Board.

Must-Attend: Third Annual Vancouver South African Film Festival

Cinema, Politics, Vancouver

Vancouver South African Film Festival

The third annual Vancouver South African Film Festival will get underway on Saturday, April 13th at the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, located within the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts at SFU Woodwards, 149 West Hastings, at Abbott, in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. All proceeds from VSAFF go to support the important educational development work Education with Borders has been doing in South Africa since 2002.
As founding co-director of VSAFF, David Chudnovsky, told the Georgia Straight’s Travis Lupick in an online interview published on Thursday …

“South Africa is a very complex society with an amazing abundance of cultures and a tremendously inspiring history and fascinating politics. That is my motivation for the Festival: to try and help explain some of that complexity and diversity.”

Unofficially, VSAFF got underway Thursday evening with a sold-out performance by acclaimed South African comedian Nik Rabinowitz, who will be seen on screen Saturday in VSAFF’s gala film, Material, which Variety critic Guy Lodge describes as …

“a Johannesburg-set study of a young Muslim store assistant caught between his conservative family and a calling in standup comedy, (as well as) a warm-hearted, sturdily crafted film.”

Photos of Rabinowitz’s Thursday night show may be found on VSAFF’s Facebook page, along with a wealth of other info concerning the Festival.
Here’s the schedule of films that VSAFF will present on Saturday, April 13th and Sunday, April 14th, commencing at 11 a.m. Saturday with …

  • 11 a.m. Me, You, Mankosi. In this remarkable film, three ordinary but very different individuals from the microcosmic Transkeian community of Mankosi share their views on what it means to be sitting on the brink of the modern world. With one foot in a simpler kind of life, and the other striding firmly towards participation in the global economy, this village constitutes an unlikely nexus of big issues around what it means to exist on the margins of the Western world. Linda Hughes’ poignant, insightful and intimate documentary examines the deeply pragmatic kind of multiculturalism that is unique to places where very different kinds of people depend on each other for survival.
  • 1 p.m. Not Cricket 2. This sequel to the award-winning Not Cricket: The Basil D’Oliveira Conspiracy completes a two-part 60-year history of South African politics by the telling of the extraordinary tragedy of Hansie Cronje, the iconic hero of South African transformation who, by taking bribes to fix international cricket matches, betrayed Mandela’s ideal. Not Cricket 2 will be followed by a screening of Paul Yule’s White Lies – Secret History.

  • 3 p.m. Reconciliation: Mandela’s Miracle Mandela’s Miracle. As someone in Michael Henry Wilson’s award-winning documentary says, “soft vengeance is the triumph of a moral vision of the world.” Marty Mapes writes, “If you were intrigued by South Africa and Nelson Mandela after watching Clint Eastwood’s Invictus, then Reconciliation: Mandela’s Miracle was made for you.”

Saturday’s VSAFF events conclude with a gala 7pm screening of Material, about which we wrote at the outset of this article.
At this writing, there are only 21 Festival passes (cost: $60) remaining, so you’d better hop on it if it’s your intention to catch all 10 of the films on view at VSAFF 2013. Individual tickets are $12 (or $10, student), and may be acquired online.
Sunday, April 14th’s VSAFF screenings include …

  • 11 a.m. White Boy, Black Nanny. The white boy is Mark Rossiter, the black nanny the woman who was the family maid when he lived in South Africa until the age of 10. Now Mark wants to find the person who was like a surrogate mother to him, and to find out what it was like working for a white family during apartheid. But as he visits his old neighbourhood, he begins to wonder how much has changed – the black “domestics” are still there looking after the white children – and what difference the end of apartheid has really made. White Boy, Black Nanny is followed by a screening of Journey to Nyae Nyae, director Daniel Riesenfeld’s documentary follow-up to The Gods Must Be Crazy, the most successful African film ever made.
  • 1 p.m. Hopeville. The story of a man – Amos Manyoni (Themba Ndaba), a recovering alcoholic – who wants to restore a broken relationship with his son, Amos tries to gain his son Themba’s (Junior Singo) trust after disappointing him time after time, moving with his son to a small town called Hopeville to start over and begin a new life. Determined to mend his relationship with his son, he sets about restoring the town’s dilapidated communal pool, in spite of the opposition of municipal officials. A heartfelt and inspiring story of transformation, there is humour in the film, serving to relieve the intense emotion that plays out through much of the film. One to catch at this year’s VSAFF.
  • 3 p.m. Tracks Across Sand. Sponsored by the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, Tracks Across Sand explores the history of the dispossession of the peoples of the southern Kalahari. The screening of Hugh Brody’s film will be followed by a panel discussion on South African and First Nations land claims.

  • 7 p.m. Little One. The closing VSAFF film, South Africa’s 2012 entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, tells the story of a 6-year-old rape victim who is left for dead in a township near Johannesburg and rescued by a middle-aged woman. After rushing the girl to the hospital, the woman becomes entangled in her life, ultimately launching her own investigation into the girl’s attack. A powerful tale of hope and redemption, director Darrell Roodt has called Little One “a film for the new South Africa,” where an estimated one in three girls is raped by the time they turn 21. In praising the film, the Oscar selection committee described it as “a universal story made local,” calling it “a poignant, moving and minimalist narrative which is unapologetically South African.”

A great many people have come together to present the Third Annual Vancouver South African Film Festival. One of those “once in a lifetime” events, you’ll want to make a point of attending one or more – or perhaps all – of the VSAFF films on view this inclement mid-April weekend.