Category Archives: Vancouver

#VanPoli | Politics Comes to Park Board | Woe is Us

November 20, 2018#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Park Board, Politics, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Park Board Commissioners, l-r: John Irwin, John Coupar, Dave Demers, Gwen Giesbrecht and Tricia Barker (both obscured), Stuart Mackinnon, and Camil Dumont. On the far right (with a beard), the one, the magnificent Malcolm Bromley, Park Board GM.

VanRamblings has spent much of the month stating to anyone who would listen that there’ll be some politics at City Hall, and a whole bunch of politics at School Board, but the saving grace in municipal politics in Vancouver is our Park Board — where there’d be no politics, just good caring folks who have the best interests of Vancouver’s parks & recreation system at heart. Oh how wrong and naïve we were. Alas and alack.

The same sort of procedural wrangling that infected Council last week visited Park Board last evening.

Once again it was an amendment to amendment hellscape, this time around it was at the Park Board table, though, with a no-nonsense, takes no truck from anyone, by the book Gwen Giesbrecht in the Chair. Before we continue, note should be made we believe Ms. Giesbrecht can do no wrong — we’re so in her corner, we’ve moved in and set up permanent residence.

The first item on the agenda: setting up a VanSplash Advisory Committee, to advise Park Board on how to move forward on the VanSplash report.

VanRamblings happens to know that the eminence gris at Park Board (and one of the finest men we know), John Coupar (along with his colleague Tricia Barker) believes that the controversial VanSplash Aquatic Strategy has been talked and consulted to death, and that any reasonable person would know that Park Board should just get on with things, build much-needed community neighbourhood pools, preserve, renovate & update Templeton and Lord Byng pools, and jettison the neighbourhood-intrusive Olympic destination pool the authors of the VanSplash Aquatic Strategy threw their support behind — a plan vehemently opposed by community pool advocates, and the neighbourhood surrounding Connaught Park.

In an effort to play nice (realizing he and his colleague didn’t have the votes to quash the VanSplash Advisory Committee), Commissioner Coupar moved an amendment that would turn the attention of the Advisory Committee to preserving both the Lord Byng and Templeton pools (both recommended for closure in the original iteration of the VanSplash Report).

But Park Board Committee Chair Gwen Giesbrecht, no fool she, and one of the most well-experienced Board chairs in Park Board history, was having none of that palaver, no siree, Bob.

Not only would the amendment hamstring the new Advisory Committee, the mandate of the Committee had not yet been made clear — the amendment was ultra vires. On the advice of the clerk — with whom Commissioner and Park Board Committee Chair Giesbrecht consulted, and who advised the amendment was not an amendment, but a whole separate motion that would have to be put on notice for a future meeting — causing Ms. Giesbrecht to rule the amendment out of order. Bear with us — the amendment will live on to fight another day, in another form (and pass).

Lulled to sleep, yet? Okay, okay — we’ll leave VanSplash for now.

Topic 2: Where the (Ugly) Politics Comes in.

Chair Giesbrecht called for a 5-minute break after the contentious “debate” on the questionable VanSplash Advisory Committee. Fine & dandy with us!

Given that we’re a snoop, we listened in on a conversation Park Board Chairperson Stuart Mackinnon was having with former Park Board Chair, Anita Romaniuk, where he was exclaiming to her how he’d consulted with all of the Commissioners before assigning them to their Park Board liaison and other responsibilities.

Migawd, it’s been a long time since we’ve heard such codswallop.

Earlier in the day, we had been advised that Chairperson Mackinnon had not assigned John Coupar as the liaison to the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens — perhaps the meanest, most off-putting, partisan act by an elected official in this or any other term. Colour us mightily disgusted.

The Bloedel Conservatory, now inexorably linked to the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens, is entering its 50th year, which it will celebrate next December 9th. John Coupar’s claim to fame in Vancouver politics, as a former member of the Board of Director of the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens, was in convincing the Gardens Board to take over the Bloedel Conservatory at Queen Elizabeth Park, when the previous Vision Vancouver Park Board wanted to shut it down. John fought against the closure, found the funding to keep the Conservatory alive, such that the Conservatory thrives to this day. John Coupar loves the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens and the Conservatory atop Queen Elizabeth Park.

At their worst and their meanest, the Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioners would never have dreamed of denying John Coupar the job of liaison to the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens and the Queen Elizabeth Park Conservatory / Aboretum. But Stuart Mackinnon has done just that.

And in its 50th anniversary year.

Whose father was the founding curator of the Bloedel Conservatory? Gosh, could it be John Coupar’s father? Hmmm, yep, it was.

And who was present at the opening of the Bloedel Conservatory / Arboretum on December 9th, 1969, standing next to the father he loved, and who passed on to him his love of parks? Gosh, could that boy standing next to his dad at the opening of the Conservatory on that chilly Tuesday morning, December 9, 1969 be John Coupar? Yer darn tootin’ it was …

John Coupar had asked Mr. Mackinnon to be re-appointed as the liaison to the Conservatory in its 50th year, so he might help prepare for the anniversary. But Stuart Mackinnon?

He all but told John Coupar to go to hell.

VanRamblings being VanRamblings, we queried Stuart Mackinnon on his decision to strip John Coupar of his liaison responsibilities to the Conservatory, particularly in its anniversary year, and the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens. His voice dripping with a haughty and indifferent mix of derision and condescension, he simply looked down on us and said, “Thank you for the input, Ray,” and walked away, nose held high in the air.

In Vancouver folks, this is what we call petty politics of the worst kind.

Update: Park Board Chair Sober Second Thought. John Coupar Appointed as Liaison to Van Dusen + Conservatory for 2019

Consistent with everything VanRamblings knows about Park Board Chairperson Stuart Mackinnon — whom we have long known to be a heart-filled person of conscience, and one of the finest men it has been our privilege to come to know — Chairperson Mackinnon, engaging in sober second thought, re-thought his original assignment of responsibility to the Bloedel Conservatory and the Van Dusen Botanical Garden, and less than 18 hours after the publication of today’s VanRamblings column, appointed Commissioner John Coupar as Park Board liaison to the Bloedel Conservatory + Van Dusen Botanical Garden for the 2019 calendar year.

VanRamblings would like to thank community members Dave Pasin and Elvira Lount for helping bring the above matter to resolution.

And don’t think that it was Mr. Coupar alone who was made subject to Stuart Mackinnon’s non-consultative decision-making. John Coupar’s good-hearted NPA colleague Tricia Barker had asked Stuart Mackinnon if she might be the liaison to the Seniors Advisory Committee at City Hall — given that Ms. Barker is a certified personal trainer who works with seniors in building a healthier, more productive life, while facing the challenging aspects of aging. Chairperson Mackinnon assigned Ms. Barker as the liaison to City Hall’s Youth Committee instead.
Commissioner Barker asked Stuart Mackinnon if she might be assigned as liaison to the Dunbar and Kerrisdale Community Centres, where she knew and had worked with staff. Instead, Stuart Mackinnon assigned Ms. Barker as the liaison to the Champlain Heights and Killarney Community Centres.

Note. Revised Park Board Liaison appointments by Park Board Chair Stuart Mackinnon have been made, that correspondence to Commissioners dated November 20th, the appointments effective January 1, 2019, or sooner.

Lest you be left with the impression the Park Board Committee meeting room is Dysfunction Junction, let us assure you that is not wholly the case.

Whatever Mr. Mackinnon’s faults — after all, whom among us does not have faults? — he cares desperately about Vancouver’s parks and recreation system, and long has been a staunch advocate for our parks system. The same is true for each of the other electeds at Park Board: truth-teller Camil Dumont, take no guff Gwen Giesbrecht, heart-filled Dave Demers, passionate John Coupar, parks advocate extraordinaire Tricia Barker, the mighty, velvet-gloved and oh-so-bright John Irwin, and just about our favourite person on Earth, Park Board General Manager Malcolm Bromley.

Parks and recreation is in great shape with the above-named persons.

On to the second to last item in today’s VanRamblings column, as our beloved and persons of conscience Park Board Commissioners unanimously approved a $35,000 grant to the Queer Arts Festival, the motion moved by Commissioner John Coupar, seconded by Tricia Barker, and amended by Gwen Giesbrecht to raise the sum to $35,000 — which motion and amendment passed with, as we say above, unanimous consent.

In 2019, the Vancouver Park Board will meet 21 times, with a month break in August, and only one meeting in each of March (spring break), October and December. Chances are the Board will meet more often than that, tho.

For instance, although the Park Board Commissioners meet in open session, next, on Monday, December 3rd, Chairperson Mackinnon announced to his fellow Commissioners on Monday night that there’ll be a Budget Committee meeting on the evening of Wednesday, December 5th — chances are, there’ll be more than one budget committee meeting, as there will also likely be community consultative meetings throughout the year.

Compensation for all their hard work? The Park Board Chair receives $21,346 per year in compensation, whereas our Park Board Commissioners are paid $17,077 for each year of their tenure — for what generally works out to be a 35 – 40 hour week, although most Commissioners put in more hours than that, in their liaison work, and in work in the community.

Little known fact: the Park Board meeting schedule mirrors that of Vancouver City Council, with Park Board meeting on Monday evenings, and Council meeting all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Stories of a Life | CFUN & CKLG | The Hits Just Keep on Comin’

November 17, 2018A & E, Radio, Stories of a Life, Vancouver, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

In the autumn of 1966, C-FUN — long the A.M. rock’n roll radio giant of Vancouver — put out a call to listeners requesting applications to take on the task of organizing fan clubs for rock groups getting airplay on the radio. All you had to do was turn up one Saturday morning at 10am, meet with C-FUN’s Program Director Red Robinson — who would assign you a group to organize a fan club for, and once the fan club had been established, you’d turn up on subsequent Saturdays for an hour to secure memberships.

With Douglas Miller, recently arrived from Kelowna, working the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift, I arrived each Saturday morning just before 11 a.m. to take phone calls in the studio next to the main control room. Doug Miller would give out the phone number, Doug Pearson — a friend of mine — and I would take calls for an hour, and after each call-in session, we’d take a break for an hour, before heading out to a local venue — more often than not a local department store — to listen to the group play a few songs, and sign up new fan club members. The group I was assigned to: The Chessmen, consisting of Terry Jacks, Susan Pesklevits, and Craig McCaw.

I know, and am friends with, Craig McCaw, to this very day.

A couple of weeks into this volunteer gig, after the call-in session, Red Robinson called me into his office and said, “You’re a good lookin’ kid. I bet you’d do well in radio.” I remember thinking to myself, “But this is radio — listeners can’t see you.” Nonetheless, each Saturday from noon til 12:30pm, Red Robinson proceeded to teach me everything he knew about radio, most particularly how to read copy for a commercial.

In addition, he signed me up for voice lessons with a woman voice coach who lived in the West End, who had trained every voice on radio in Vancouver. Within a year, I sounded like a radio announcer. I had also, much to my surprise, developed a deep bass, mellifluous voice. I’d play back tapes of me on the radio, and say to myself, “Who is that guy?”

Weekend, midday, radio aircheck of Daryl B. (Burlingham) on 14 C-FUN

During that period I became friends with John Tanner, Fred Latremouille, Al Jordan, Tom Peacock, Neil Soper, Daryl B., and Roff Johannsen, among other radio luminaries. Although I worked the occasional relief overnight weekend shift, my main job was to produce the six hours of foreground programming each Sunday evening, that was required by the CRTC. All of this work was done for free — but I was given ready access to the radio station, could “practice” being a radio announcer in the production studio, attend concerts at no charge, meet all of the traveling rock ‘n roll groups that stopped off in Vancouver as part of a North American tour of gigs to support the group’s latest hit release. All and all, I had a blast.

The Boss Radio, ‘Drake format’, upbeat radio package exported out of Los Angeles

But radio was changing in 1966, particularly when classical music Lion’s Gate radio, CKLG Vancouver, adopted the hit Drake format that had catapulted KHJ Los Angeles from a last place radio station in the market to #1 in a matter of months: CKLG adopted the Drake format, the jingles, the 17-song-an-hour ‘hot clock’, talking over the intro, upbeat radio format, by early 1967 stealing away C-FUN’s listenership, and catapulting CKLG to #2 in the Vancouver radio market, just behind powerhouse Top Dog radio, CKNW 98. One announcer after another left C-FUN for CKLG.

In early 1967, in a last ditch effort to save C-FUN (which to that point had refused to play The Rolling Stones, and any Motown music — which CKLG just thrived on) — Red Robinson hired a deejay out of Regina by the name of Terry David Mulligan, giving him the 7pm to midnight show. I sat with Terry, and his wife, CarolAnn (who everyone called Angel, and with whom I fell head over heels in love) in the studio on his first night on 1410 C-FUN. But it was too late. Within three months, Terry moved over to do noon to three on CKLG, CFUN folding to become CKVN, The Voice of News.

Soon enough, I was over at CKLG, as well — working on the FM side (CKLG-FM), six to noon Sundays on both CKLG-FM & A.M., as well as operating throughout the week in the evenings, for Bill Reiter and his Groovin’ Blue program 6pm to 8pm, as well as operating for Tim Burge. Occasionally — because absolutely no one listened to FM in those days, CKLG-FM Program Director John Runge would give me a midday shift, requiring me to skip school — my voice all hushed baritone, playing whole album sides during any given shift. I was in radio heaven — working daily with radio legends Roy Hennessey, Daryl B., J.B. Shayne, Stevie Wonder, Michael Morgan, Don Richards, John Tanner, Bob Ness, Rick Honey, Stirling Faux, Terry David Mulligan, and a raft of others. I had found my family.

Aircheck, J.B. Shayne, overnight, 1am til 2am on 73 CKLG Vancouver, April 11, 1968

Working in radio, going to concerts, being on air, hosting various public events for CKLG, hanging out with J.B., Fred, John, Terry, Rick, Stirling, Jim Hault, Daryl B., John Runge, Bill Reiter and more was the gift of a lifetime, a gift I will cherish forever, a gift which keeps me young to this day.

There are a great many stories to tell, all of which I’ll leave for another day.

Arts Friday | Oscar Contenders Already Playing in Theatres

November 16, 2018A & E, Cinema, Vancouver, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

It’s that most wonderful time of the year: the season when blockbuster holiday movies and Oscar contenders collide.
Do you like to take yourself too seriously and lecture people on the pitfalls of British period pieces? No worries: VanRamblings has your back.
No matter what you’re looking for, November probably has it in store for you. Today on VanRamblings, the best movies — Oscar contenders, and just plain, flat out good fun inside a darkened movie theatre, plus a probable Best Picture Oscar winner opening next month that is a must-see — but mostly, films currently playing at your local multiplex (and at the Vancouver International Film Festival’s Vancity Theatre) that you should keep an eye out for during the early part of the 2018 holiday season.
Holiday Movies & Oscar Contenders Currently Playing in Vancouver

A Star is Born
Whaddya mean you haven’t seen Bradley Cooper’s smashing directorial début? This multiple Oscar contender, since it’s October 5th opening weekend, has (as of Wednesday) already grossed a record $330,259,035 on a puny $36 million production budget. You don’t care about that stuff? Fine. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see the single most entertaining film on offer this holiday season, worth every penny you’ll pay at the box office.

Transit. Opens today. Vancity Theatre.
Christian Petzold’s masterful new film, Transit, opens today at the Vancity Theatre for a limited, seven screening run. A refugee portrait that lands at a place of piercing emotional acuity, Petzold’s adaptation of Anna Seghers’ 1942 novel takes a brazen, bounding risk right off the bat by stripping its story — about a German concentration camp survivor seeking passage to North America in Nazi-occupied France — of any external period trappings, relocating it to a kind of liminal, sunburned present day. As Variety critic Guy Lodge writes, “there’s a method to the madness of Petzold’s modern-dress Holocaust drama: Transit invites viewers to trace their own speculative connections between Seghers’ narrative and the contemporary rise in neo-Nazism and anti-refugee sentiment, all while its principal story remains achingly moving.” Startling and gut-wrenching. Recommended.

Say it with me, “Melissa McCarthy. Best Actress Oscar winner.” I knew you could. Currently screening exclusively at Vancouver’s Fifth Avenue Cinema.

77,000 women and men are currently being held in conversion therapy across North America. Arising from a motion moved by retired Vancouver City Councillor Tim Stevenson, gay conversion therapy is now banned in the city of Vancouver. Boy Erased oughta provide some insight into why that is.

The most compelling reason to see A Private War is Rosamund Pike’s stunning, sure-to-be Oscar nominated performance as Marie Colvin, the American war correspondent who died in a bombardment while covering the Syrian government’s 2012 siege of Homs. Absorbing & transformative.

Academy Award winner Damien Chazelle’s First Man has emerged as the most compelling, Oscar contending movie of the holiday season, a film that demands to be seen, a lock Best Supporting Actress contender in Claire Foy, with a raft of other Oscar nominations sure to follow. A must-see film.

Widows. Opens today. Cineplex International Village + more.
Tour-de-force filmmaking from Academy Award-winning director Steve McQueen & the breakout surprise of the holiday season that has catapulted Viola Davis into the Best Actress Oscar race, Widows is gracefully written, soulful, smart and darkly exhilarating, weaving statements on race, gender, crime and grief into a tick-tock heist plot, a sinewy treat of a film that seamlessly intertwines close-up character studies & big picture politics into a mournful, brilliantly tense and strikingly relevant entertainment that will have you gripping your seat throughout its taut 140-minute running time.

Alfonso Cuarón’s Golden Lion winner (that’s Best Film to the uninitiated) at this year’s Venice Film Festival will win the Best Picture Oscar at the 91st Academy Awards on Sunday, February 24th, 2019. You read it here first.
And we don’t mean Best Foreign Language Film — we mean, the Academy Award for Best Picture. Period. Funded by Netflix, and due to début on the streaming service in mid-December, Roma demands to be seen on the big screen. But where? Yep, Vancity Theatre programmer Tom Charity has managed to secure the exclusive rights to screen Alfonso Cuarón’s new film next month, as the film is meant to be seen: in a darkened theatre, in comfy seats, in the respectful, hushed confines of the Vancity Theatre.
From Friday, December 14th at 3pm (when I’ll see the film), through Thursday, December 20th at 8:20pm, this year’s certain Best Picture Academy Award winner will screen an unprecedented three times a day (except for Sunday, December 16th, when Roma will screen only twice).
Update: Due to demand, more screenings of Roma have been added, daily through December 31st (not Christmas Day). See Roma as you are able.
Think of it as a very special post-Chanukah / early Christmas present from the good and fine and tremendous folks at the Vancouver International Film Festival, and the esteemed and erudite (and cinema-loving) Tom Charity — the best darned gift any cinema lover could wish for this holiday season.
Click here to book your screening of Cuarón’s Golden Lion winner, and treat yourself to great cinema. You’ll be mighty glad you did — we promise.

#VanPoli | East, West | North, South | Vancouver | A Divided City

November 14, 2018#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

In an article published in the Vancouver Sun on Monday, reporter Dan Fumano quotes urban geographer Aaron Licker as saying …

“We’re adding people in these areas (Fairview & Mount Pleasant) that vote for parties that want more density,” said Licker, whose company Licker Geospatial Consulting does work for clients including civic governments and real estate companies. “The NPA can play to the single-family homeowners (on the west side of the city) forever, but they’re declining in terms of population. Forty years ago, most of Vancouver lived in single-family areas, but now most of Vancouver lives in multi-family zones.”

Licker’s thesis: the old east side / west side divide that dictated electoral outcomes in Vancouver is no longer as relevant as the north-south divide.
To that end, Licker publishes the following graphic …

While VanRamblings doesn’t dispute Licker’s thesis outright, we’re not so sure that his hypothesis — despite the graphic you see above — that it is the north-south divide, rather than the traditional east-west divide that is the determining factor in which neighbourhoods vote for which parties, and which Mayoral candidates.
According to the data we publish below — taken directly from the vancouver.ca website (take a look at the drop down menus to see how your neighbourhood voted, not just for Mayor but, if you scroll down, for Council, Park and School Board) — we’re not so sure that the east side-west side divide is quite as irrelevant as Mr. Licker would have us believe.

You’ll note, almost universally, voters on Vancouver’s east side voted overwhelmingly for the progressive, VDLC-endorsed candidate for Mayor, Kennedy Stewart.

For the most part, the west side continues to vote in their class and monied interests, while the east side votes in their working class voter interests.

You’ll note, almost universally, voters on Vancouver’s west side voted overwhelmingly for the right-of-centre business candidate for Mayor, Ken Sim.

Single family dwelling west side voters tend to want to pay less property tax, while east side voters want government to provide neighbourhood amenities, inject a bit of humanity into the decision-making at city hall, and acknowledge the diverse cultural & ethnic make-up of our neighbourhoods.
Never the twain shall meet?
The new Vancouver City Council has a palpable opportunity to break down class and economic barriers, and govern for the whole city, be prudent fiscal managers, while providing services to the community. Vancouverites have never voted for as diverse a Vancouver City Council, with an independent Mayor who is dedicated to broaching the divide, and a Council with elected members from five different political — when has that ever happened in our city previous to the October 20th election?

The answer: never. All of which means, it’s time for change in Vancouver politics. No more of this left-right, east-west, north-south divide — we see what that’s done to our neighbours to the south. Is that what we want in Vancouver, in Canada? Perhaps I’m naïve, but I think the answer is no.