Category Archives: #VanPoli Civic Politics

#VanElxn2022 | Colleen Hardwick | Vancouver’s Must-Elect Next Mayor

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If we are to preserve our city for future generations, and not give it away wholesale to the greed of developers who would envelop Vancouver with massive 40, 50, 60 and 70 storey greenhouse gas-emitting, glass and steel, plynth and podium style towers, if we care for our neighbourhoods and all the residents who reside in those neighbourhoods, if we believe in democracy — as Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and all of the other sitting Vancouver City Councillors clearly do not, given their “we know all, we were elected to make decisions, we’re not interested in anything citizens might have to say, on any subject, at any time” ‘woke’, virtue signalling, elitist orientation to governing —  then come early October, there is only one Mayoral candidate, and only one political party, for whom you must cast your ballot: TEAM Mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick, and her outstanding and diverse team of community activists, who will return your city to you, the citizens of Vancouver.

Why is VanRamblings, so early in the Vancouver 2022 civic election cycle, endorsing Ms. Hardwick for Mayor of Vancouver post election day, Saturday, October 15th, as well as endorsing each of every one of her strikingly well-qualified and community-oriented candidates for Vancouver City Council?

The answer to that question is easy, because …

  • Colleen Hardwick is far and away the most qualified candidate seeking the Mayor’s office in the 2022 Vancouver municipal election. Having all but completed her work on a PhD / the granting of her doctorate pending, says Ms. Hardwick, the focus of her studies in urban development (applied innovation). To be perfectly precise, cuz she’s detail oriented and truth-telling, Ms. Hardwick wrote to us after publication, stating “My work at UBC has been in Applied Innovation from the ISGP (Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program). Patrick is one of the faculty on my PhD Committee, which includes professors from several different departments. The innovation that I created is PlaceSpeak, the “unique geo-verification technology that connects participants’ digital identity to their physical location, ensuring that data collected is relevant and defensible for evidence-based decision-making.” Don’t know that you want to go there, but Masters is the level of Urban Planning and that is from SCARP. Penny Gurstein is also on my Committee.” Ms. Hardwick continues her work with her mentor, the esteemed professor Patrick Condon (who’ll be endorsing her upon his return from Massachusetts) — the James Taylor chair in Landscape and Livable Environments at UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture . Quite simply there is no other Mayoral candidate in the 2022 Vancouver civic election who has a better grasp on urban planning, governance and community engagement than is very clearly the case with the creditable Colleen Hardwick.
  • Colleen Hardwick and TEAM have the only viable, realistic and achievable affordable housing programme, of all 10 of the parties running candidates in the 2022 Vancouver municipal election. We’ll write about the plan at length another time, but for some time now there’s been discussion within TEAM that a majority TEAM for a Livable Vancouver Council will work with senior levels of government to turn over — on a leasehold basis — up to 10 crown land properties located within the City of Vancouver each year, for the development of affordable housing co-operatives, to be developed through a revived relationship with the Community Land Trust, who would be the de facto project managers. In a TEAM-initiated plan, the city could both expedite the construction of ten 150-unit family housing co-ops each year — think the City Gate Housing Co-operative on Milross Avenue, the Roundhouse Housing Co-operative on Marinaside Crescent, in Yaletown, or the Railyard Housing Co-operative on Quebec Avenue at 1st, just east of the Olympic Village — all built at no expense to Vancouver citizens — while foregoing the 1 million dollars in development permit fees generally paid to the city for a building of such size, dating back to the time when Vision Vancouver signed an agreement back in 2022 with the Community Land Trust (this affordable housing plan is already city policy, that was allowed to lay dormant through lack of action by the current Vancouver City Council). Construction and materials cost: paid for through a combination of mandated developer Community Amenity Contributions and provincial and federal funds (both Prime Minister Trudeau and former B.C. Housing Minister, David Eby, have already signed off on all of the above). Cost to Vancouver citizens: zero. Cost of land: zero. Cost to Vancouver citizens for construction and materials: zero. A negotiation with the federal government would ensure that all subsidy monies for Co-op members would be paid for through the federal co-op housing subsidy fund. All monies paid by Co-op residents — after administrative, amenity payments and maintenance costs, as well as monies placed into a “replacement reserve fund” for major, future renovations — would be returned to the City to build supportive social housing, at no cost to citizens.
  • As part of TEAM’s public safety programme, there’s been discussion within the party about re-implementation of former Mayor Phillip Owen’s revolutionary, but simple Four Pillars Plan: prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement.
  • Mixed representation system. Ms. Hardwick and her TEAM are giving consideration to implementing a mixed representation system in the next Vancouver municipal election, a Mayor and five Councillors elected at large, with 5 other Councillors elected in five district neighbourhoods across the city.
  • Another key element of TEAM’s public safety programme could include the expansion of the VPD’s Car 87 programme — long a TEAM policy initiative, stolen by ABC’s Ken Sim recently — Car 87 teaming a Vancouver Police officer with a mental health professional, to help provide on-site assessments and intervention for people living with mental illness. Car 87 is the first programme of its kind anywhere in the world, each year saving dozens of the lives of citizens experiencing severe psychiatrist distress.

Two final important points, the first related to sustainable neighbourhoods: Colleen Hardwick and her TEAM candidates for Council believe that the massive tower construction programme envisioned by the Planning Department in Vancouver — the so-called Vancouver Plan, and the Broadway Plan — that would extend from Boundary Road to Blanca, from Burrard Inlet to the Fraser River,  is an absolutely unnecessary intrusion into the neighbourhoods which provide the livability of our city, and constitute the city we call home, the city we love.

Another note. In the current term of office, this Council has approved 110,000 new units of housing, some already under construction, and some set to begin construction soon. All while the Planning Department tells our citizens that 100,000 units of housing must be built by 2050 to house the incoming population. Hell’s bells — Vancouver City Council has already approved more housing than the Planning Department says is necessary. Sort of negates the need for the massive construction of towers on every street, in every neighbourhood, don’t you think?

Gentle density, consultation with those who live in the neighbourhoods across our city, not NIMBY-ism, but democratic engagement with citizens to construct community plans that would ensure the building of schools and public recreation centres, and the inclusion of parks and green spaces with space for small businesses along our neighbourhood arterials, with gently increasing density in every neighbourhood — not massive towers — while ensuring that every neighbourhood would be home, as well, to those in need, in a city meant to house, and will house, everyone.

And let us not forget, either, that while the population of Vancouver grew by 7.2% between 2016 and 2022, when new building construction added 7.8% more units in that same time period (in this neck of the woods, we call that an overbuilt city, an oversupply of housing), much of that population moved into Vancouver in the period between 2016 and early 2020 — in the past two years, starting with the pandemic, Vancouver has experienced a net out-migration of 100,000 of our citizens, who simply cannot afford to live in the most expensive city on the planet.

And, we need these towers, why? And who are they being built for?

Certainly not you and me, in a city of towers as envisioned by our NPA, Green, ABC, OneCity, Progress Vancouver and Forward Together civic political parties —  but hell no, not by a TEAM for a Livable Vancouver majority Council, and a steadfast Mayor Colleen Hardwick, who would fight for you every day of her term in office.

Importantly, as well, a majority TEAM Council would conduct a core review of city staffing levels, and services, in its first year of office. During his brief time as City Manager, Sadhu Johnston hired 1100 new middle-management staff, with executive assistants paid at $75,000 and management staff paid at $165,000, and up, annually. Many believe — and this belief extends to those working inside Vancouver City Hall — that Vancouver has an overstaffed, inefficient bureaucracy that serves as a driver of our city’s unsustainable 5.8% annual property tax increases. TEAM believes it to be likely that the core review will reveal that Vancouver employs a bloated middle management staff, and far from enough union workers — you know, the folks who do the actual work, who don’t push pencils around all day.

Let us not forget, either, that it was Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick who successfully moved to appoint an independent Auditor General in the City of Vancouver, Vancouver’s new auditor Mike Macdonell set to save the city tens of millions of dollars in non-essential expenditures, annually. Good job, Councillor!

To read TEAM policies on issues ranging from democratic engagement with Vancouver citizens, and the establishment of democratic advisory neighbourhood councils to inform Council decision-making; restoration of funding for our beleaguered parks and recreation system; pursuing reconciliation with our Indigenous peoples; health and safety for all Vancouver’s citizens; supporting the creative community, and so very much more, just click here for enlightenment.

Remember: when it comes time to cast your ballot in October, if you care about our city at all — and we know you do — the one, the only Mayoralty candidate, Colleen Hardwick, and the only Vancouver civic party you can, in all good conscience, cast your ballot for is TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, for a spectacular Sean Nardi, Grace Quan, Stephen P Roberts, Param Nijjar, Cleta Brown and Bill Tieleman — who constitute the hardest working, best informed team of candidates for Vancouver City Council you’ll find on Vancouver’s voting ballot come October.

#VanElxn 2022 | Five Candidates Vie to Become Vancouver Mayor | Part 1

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In 2022, there are a record five serious-minded candidates intent on occupying the Mayor’s office following the October 15th Vancouver municipal election.

One of these stalwart persons of character and intent who would lead is …

Edward Charles Kennedy Stewart (born November 8, 1966), who has sat as Vancouver’s Mayor since being elected to office in a close fought race in 2018.

Recently, Mayoral candidate rival and current sitting Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick, was asked to say something nice about Mr. Stewart, for an article to be published later this month. Ms. Hardwick’s response, “He once played bass in a band.”  Which, if you come right down to it, pretty much encapsulates Mayor Stewart’s contribution to the life and politics of his adopted (he was born in Halifax) home town of Vancouver, over the course of the past, almost, four years.

In recent days, VanRamblings has referred to Mr. Stewart as hapless. But a more accurate description of his time as Mayor would be the following word …

Indeed, for much of the past four years, Mr. Stewart has proved an in absentia Mayor, rarely if ever around, absent from the public eye for much of the pandemic — except when he was whining to the press about how “Vancouver needs more money, the federal and provincial governments have to help us” … with, all the while, OneCity Councillor Christine Boyle and Green Councillor, Adriane Carr having gone rogue, demanding a 15% property tax increase, because “the pandemic presents us with a golden opportunity to address our climate emergency” … with nary a contrary word of disagreement heard from Mr. Stewart.

Where other Canadian mayors —  think Don Iveson in Edmonton, Naheed Nenshi in Calgary, John Tory in Toronto — pulled their respective Councils together to forward the cause of the citizens they’d been elected to represent, Mayors who not only acted like but were true, red-blooded statesmen in a time of crisis, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart — lacking any evident leadership skills or abilties — allowed a fractious Vancouver City Council to go hither, thither and yon pursuing their own political agendas, far too often at the expense of the public interest.

Stewart: unavailable to the press — a lesson he seems to have learned from former Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper —  given over to near hourly meetings with various well-heeled developers (who would fund his re-election campaign), these greed merchants brought to the Mayor’s suite by former Vision Councillor Raymond Louie, who since the last Vancouver civic election has acted as an extremely well-paid lobbyist for Vancouver’s development industry.

The icing on the cake for Mr. Stewart’s tenuous (and we hope soon to end) era in the Mayor’s chair is the bastardized Burnaby by-law proposal wherein he’s promised the construction of affordable housing amidst the burgeoning greenhouse gas-emitting concrete-and-steel massive tower developments that will envelop the “Broadway Corridor” from Clark to Vine, from the Inlet to 16th Avenue …

In May 2019, Burnaby City Council adopted a ‘best in Canada’ tenant assistance policy that provides support for tenants displaced from rental buildings with 5-plus apartments, mandating developers cover tenants’ moving costs (up to $1,400), and pay the difference between a tenant’s current rent and the rent in the new building tenants move to while construction is underway, providing the …

Right of first refusal to displaced tenants to move into the replacement building once construction is complete, at the same rent as they paid before being displaced (subject only to the provincially mandated maximum annual increases), as well as mandating that developers will again have to cover moving costs when tenants move back into the new building.

Mr. Stewart’s affordable housing plan does not encompass the notion that developers would pay the difference between a tenant’s current rent and the rent in the new building tenants move to — where would tenants move to in their neighbourhood or in Vancouver, who’d been paying $1100 a month for their rent, where would they find such accommodation at a similar monthly rate … Spuzzum?

The other “flaw” in Mr. Stewart’s so-called “plan” is that tenants who would be displaced from their livable four or five storey buildings, where one-bedroom suites encompassed 700+ square feet, would upon completion of the new building return five years later to the  40-story purpose-built rental building where one-bedroom suites would encompass only a postage-stamp sized 395 square foot apartment.

Kennedy Stewart: the worst Vancouver Mayor since Jack Volrich’s greasily reductive, inauspicious, and best forgotten, late 1970s two-year term in office.

Last week, Mayor Kennedy Stewart held a press conference, to address the issue of the tent city along East Hastings, between Carrall Street and Main. There was in his demeanour a sense of frustration and melancholy, verging on defeat. For the first time in his 33-month tenure as Mayor, there was about him a humanity that, prior to that press conference, had not been previously witnessed by this reporter.

Here’s what Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart had to say …

“For more than 3 years, my administration has worked in concert with all of our elected Councillors, city staff, the provincial and federal governments, as well as a myriad of social agencies to find a resolution to our ongoing homelessness problem.

As Mayor, I’ve been down to Hastings Street and spoken with some of those who are  resident in the tents that we see strewn along East Hastings. I’ve spoken with homeless advocates Fiona York and Sarah Blyth, asked them what my administration can do to alleviate the human misery we are witness to each and every day.

The answer is always the same: housing that will provide dignity. A home with a bedroom, a fully stocked kitchen, a living room with a sofa, a dining room, comfortable furniture, the amenities of life.

Having spoken with various senior administrators at B.C. Housing, I’ve been told that housing is on its way, but not until this autumn.

What to do now, though, in the midst of this housing crisis?

I am at my wit’s end as to how we, collectively as a society, how my administration, and the provincial and federal governments will resolve, once and for all, Vancouver’s homelessness crisis. I want to assure you that I, personally, my administration, our Vancouver City Councillors, city staff, and senior levels of government are working together to find resolution to the issue of the human misery to which we are witness each and every day.”

For the first time since he took office early in November 2018, Mayor Kennedy admitted that there was a homelessness crisis that he had previously not acknowledged, in as full and forthright and humane a manner as he did at his press conference last week. There was no whining, no “it’s not my fault, the federal government is not giving me the money I need”, no meaningless “woke” nostrums about how those who express a concern about tent cities are doing nothing more than engaging on an unwholesome and mean-spirited attack on the poor.

What there was, though: a display of humanity, how we’re all in this together, how resolving the issue of homelessness is a struggle we should all be engaged in.

A few more displays of humanity before the October 15th election, a fidelity in his speech, in his words and intent and, hell, Kennedy Stewart may well be re-elected to a second term of office, with realigned priorities and a new sense of purpose.

#VanElxn2022 | 10 Political Parties Running for Office in Vancouver in 2022

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Two months from today, late in the evening of Saturday, October 15th, Vancouver voters will have elected a new civic government to a term in office, extending through until 2026, in the most critically important civic election in fifty years.

In the 2018 Vancouver municipal election — which saw Vision Vancouver swept from office after 10 years in power at Vancouver City Hall — voters were asked to choose between seventy-one candidates vying for ten City Council seats, a record number of candidates in a  Vancouver civic election, and reportedly the largest — and certainly most confusing — voting ballot ever compiled in any Canadian city.

Come October, when advance polls open, the civic ballot may well be even larger.

Today on VanRamblings, in the first of 30 or so columns we’ll publish leading up to the October 15th municipal election, we’ll provide a brief introduction to the 10 political parties which have registered candidates for office in Vancouver in 2022.

Note: Mayor Kennedy Stewart and all 10 City Councillors are seeking re-election.

The deadline for nominations is September 9, so more candidates could be added.

Over the course of the next two weeks, VanRamblings will provide in-depth insight into each of the political parties, their policies, and what the selection of the candidates for each party would portend for the post October 15th four year period.

VanRamblings columns will be informational, but also — as per usual in our writing —  pointed and snarkily opinionated to, we hope you’ll find, an entertaining degree. With a couple of exceptions, we’re not going to go after candidates — given that we have much respect for those who come forward to offer themselves up for public service — but will provide our usual idiosyncratic, dare we say caustic take on the 10 political parties serving up candidates for your appreciative delectation.

Suffice to say, what you’ll read on VanRamblings, you’ll find nowhere else.

VanRamblings will also provide insight into each of the five Mayoral candidates — yes, there are once again five Mayoral candidates seeking office in Vancouver’s 2022 civic election, with the NPA choosing Fred Harding as their new standard bearer, after longtime Park Board Commissioner John Coupar stepped down 9 days ago — and what their election to the Mayor’s chair would portend for the woebegotten, too often beleaguered and much put upon citizens of Vancouver.

The 10 Vancouver Civic Parties Offering Candidates in 2022

Forward Together (Mayor + 3 candidates): The name of the new party led by Mayor Kennedy Stewart, who is seeking re-election. Software engineer Russil Wvong; Harvard and MIT graduate Dulcy Anderson (someone whom we really like, having worked with her often in her capacity as Vancouver Point Grey MLA David Eby’s senior constituency assistant); and educator and accessibility advocate, Hilary Brown, are their Council candidates, with more potentially to be added.

ABC Vancouver (Mayor + 7 candidates): Sitting Vancouver City Councillors, elected in 2018 as NPA (Non Partisan Association) candidates, Vancouver East’s Rebecca Bligh, who sits on the Selection Committee at CIty Hall vetting candidates for the 33 advisory committees at City Hall; former School Board trustee and in her time working in the Ministry of Education in Victoria worked to create the SOGI programme, the inimitable Lisa Dominato; and long one of VanRamblings’ favourite electeds, the quite spectacular Sarah Kirby-Yung (you can thank her for the business-saving restaurant patios we all enjoy), are seeking re-election under the ABC banner in 2022, and are joined on the ballot by VanRamblings’ very good friend (and webmaster), Mike Klassen; former online news producer and reporter with Global B.C., Peter Meiszner; former VPD spokesperson, Brian Montague;Manager of Operations Engineering,  at B.C. Children’s Hospital, Lenny Zhou.

Ken Sim, who came in a close second in 2018, is ABC’s candidate for mayor.

Note should be made that VanRamblings will endorse ABC candidate Christopher Richardson — the finest man we know — for School Board. We’ll also be writing a feature piece, between now and election day, on the estimable Mr. Richardson.

TEAM for a Livable Vancouver (Mayor + 6 candidates): TEAM (The Electors’ Action Movement)  candidates for Vancouver City Council include former Vancouver Green Party Council candidate Cleta Brown, a former director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, and a lawyer and investigator for British Columbia’s Ombudperson’s office; next, one of VanRamblings’ favourite candidates for a City Council seat in 2022, a director of the Fairview/South Granville Action Committee, recent Simon Fraser University MBA graduate, a bright, sharp as a pin advocate for neighbourhood community involvement in decision-making at Vancouver City Hall (in this neck of the woods we say: a social democrat), personable, possessed of humility (a political prerequisite for office, we believe), and as welcoming an individual as you’d ever want to meet, who would make — let’s face it — a great Vancouver City Councillor, the quite spectacular and must-elect Vancouver City Council candidate, the spectacularly talented Sean Nardi; in addition to Cleta and Sean, there’s a housing industry entrepreneur, par excellence, who has an abiding interest in green issues and fighting climate change, and will focus his campaign for office on housing affordability, business innovation, community wellness, and the underfunded and too often under supported arts community … Param Nijjar.

And let us not forget the no-nonsense Grace Quan, President and CEO at Hydrogen In Motion(H2M), and well … just read her LinkedIn profile to gain insight into why Ms. Quan is a must-elect for Vancouver City Council in 2022; Stephen P Roberts, who as Chief Operating Officer of a regional division in global investment banking managed multi-million dollar budgets and hundreds of staff, while heading up legal and compliance oversight, a longtime oenophile (i.e. a lover and connoisseur of wine), and ready to get to work post October 15th working on your behalf as a neighbourhood, community and dedicated environmental advocate; and last, but certainly not least, VanRamblings’ “next door neighbour” (he lives in the strata next door and to the west of VanRamblings’ housing co-op), longtime community advocate and just a general, all around fine human being, Bill Tieleman — another must, must, must elect to Vancouver City Council — the Director of Communications at the B.C. Federation of Labour in the 1980s, Director of Communications in the Glen Clark NDP government of the late 1990s, baseball fan (it’s a given that if you’re a social democrat, you must love baseball), and oenophile, as well, who has his own wine connoisseur website, WineBarbarian.ca

Sitting Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick is TEAM’s must, must elect candidate for Vancouver Mayor (about which we will go into detail another time).

Progress Vancouver (Mayor + 2 candidates): The name of one of the many (and fairly anonymous) new Vancouver civic parties — we’ll see if they register with voters in 2022 — this seeming passionate / vanity political project was created and is led by longtime federal Liberal political apparatchik, the handsome and gregarious, Mark Marissen who, after creating the YES Vancouver civic party in 2018 (Hector Bremner was their Mayoral candidate, the party barely registering at the polls that election year), decided to run for Mayor under the Progress Vancouver banner in 2022. So far, the party has announced two Council candidates, Mauro Francis, who defected from the NPA when John Coupar stepped down / was pushed out by the Board as the NPA’s Mayoral candidate, and standard bearer; and 2017 NDP candidate in Vancouver False Creek (who up until the last poll came in seemed certain to defeat former Vancouver Mayor, Sam Sullivan),  Morgane Oger, a human rights advocate, former Chair of the Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council, who sits on the City of Vancouver’s LGBTQ2+ Advisory Committee. VanRamblings likes, respects and admires Ms. Oger, who’ll definitely be on our recommended list come voting day.

Non-Partisan Association (Mayor + 5 candidates): The poor, poor NPA. Seemingly a lost cause in 2022, despite their 45 years in power at Vancouver City Hall, dating back to the party’s conception in 1937. Incumbent Vancouver City Councillor, Melissa De Genova is seeking re-election and in 2022 is joined on the ballot by Elaine Allan, Cinnamon Bhayani, Ken Charko, and Arezo Zarrabian, all of whom we kind of like, if truth be told. John Coupar was the NPA’s Mayoral candidate, but no more. Fred Harding, Vancouver First’s Mayoral candidate in 2018 (he barely registered on voting day), will be announced today as the NPA’s replacement Mayoral candidate.

The Vancouver Green Party candidates for Vancouver City Council, School Board and Park Board

Green Party (5 candidates): A couple of weeks back, incumbent Vancouver City Councillor Pete Fry (who we believe will be re-elected to Council in a walk) introduced us to new VanGreen City Council candidate, Stephanie Smith (no, not that one … she’s pictured on the left above), a longtime labour and social justice activist who lives in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and is currently President of the Lore Krill Housing Co-op. We’re going to write a feature piece on Ms. Smith next month, but suffice to say for now that the entirely spectacular must-elect to Council Stephanie Smith is our favourite candidate for City Council in 2022.

Stephanie Smith is joined by incumbent City Councillors Adrianne Carr, Pete Fry (see above) and Michael Wiebe, as well as the outstanding Devyani Singh, all of whom we’ll be dedicating a grab bag column to at some point next month.

COPE (4 candidates): Incumbent Vancouver City Councillor Jean Swanson — who VanRamblings will be endorsing for Council come October — is seeking re-election. In 2022,  she is joined on the ballot by Breen Ouellette, Nancy Trigueros and Tanya Webking, all of whom we look forward to seeing on the campaign trail.

OneCity Vancouver (4 candidates):  One of the two Vancouver civic parties you must not vote for in 2022, run, run, run as fast as you can and far, far away from the Cult of Christine Boyle (she’s a current Vancouver City Councillor who you must not re-elect in 2022; we’ll explain why another time).  Joining Ms. Boyle on the ballot in 2022 are more must not elect newcomers to civic politics: the ever “woke” crew of  the reality-denying Iona Bonamis, Ian Cromwell and Matthew Norris.

OneCity Vancouver aka The Cult of Christine Boyle is not running a Mayoral candidate in 2022, but will support Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s re-election.

Note, in passing: VanRamblings will enthusiastically support the re-election of Jennifer Reddy as a OneCity Board of Education trustee, and her outstanding colleague, Kyla Epstein, who we will champion (even if, as it appears, she doesn’t want us to … alas). We may endorse more OneCity School Board candidates.

Vision Vancouver (4 candidates): Hey, you thought they were dead? Naughty, naughty. Nope, Vision Vancouver is back with a vengeance in 2022, despite being unceremoniously ejected from civic office in 2018, this time out offering the Council candidacies of physician Honieh Barzegari (“hey, Canadian and B.C. governments: make it possible for Ms. Barzegari to continue in her profession as a family doctor, in Canada”); the don’t mess with her, longtime Vision Vancouver supporter, and outstanding communications specialist (and sort of impressive, we think) Lesli Boldt; current Park Board Chair and lifelong Green, Stuart Mackinnon (one of the two candidates running for office in 2022 you must not vote for under any circumstance); and Kits resident, parent of two teens, former CEO of the BC Non-Profit Housing Association and Chair of the BC Rental Housing Coalition, Kishone Roy. As is the case with OneCity Vancouver, a re-constituted Vision Vancouver is not running a Mayoral candidate in the current Vancouver municipal election, but instead will support the re-election of a hapless Mayor Stewart.

Note should be made that VanRamblings will enthusiastically support, and endorse, three Vision Vancouver School Board candidates: Aaron Leung, Steve Cardwell and Allan Wong, about whom we will write at some greater length during this civic election cycle.

Vote Socialist (1 candidate): New political party without a mayoral candidate.

Some days, there is no greater joy to be derived than reading Sean Orr’s long running column, Tea and Two Slices in Scout Magazine, founded by the late Andrew Morrison some two decades ago. Tea and Two Slices, and its author, Sean Orr, offer an anarchic but utterly humane (and often riotously funny) take on the issues of the day. In 2022, Sean has made a decision to transfer his words in print onto the political stage, as a truth teller ( an angry truth teller, but still …).

Unfortunately, and sad to say, Sean Orr is no Kshama Sawant, a Seattle City Councillor who ran for office in 2013 on a simple, achievable $15-an-hour minimum wage plan, ensuring a livable base wage rate for low paid workers. At the time, everyone thought she was mad, as she eked out a victory at the polls, defeating a longtime right-of-centre incumbent. In 2015, a $15-an-hour wage plan was passed by Seattle City Council, and implemented, Sawant’s “idea” proceeding to spread like wild fire across the United States, and across Canada. In 2022, a minimum wage of $15 and hour (or more; in B.C. , it’s $15.65, and due for a raise next June) was implemented in 2017, when the B.C. NDP formed government.

Sean Orr is Vote Socialist’s sole Council candidate for Vancouver City Council.

Although, Sean Orr’s prospects may not be good, the same cannot be said of Andrea Pinochet-Escudero, who VanRamblings will be endorsing as a Park Board Commissioner, to hold office over the next four years, should she win her bid for office, on October 15, 2022.

Note: In 2018, 26 Independents ran for office, while 16 candidates ran for Mayor.

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If you’ve found any of what has been published today on VanRamblings confusing, the issues raised in this initial, comeback Vancouver civic affairs column and opinion piece will come into greater relief, and more orderly focus over the course of the next two months. We hope to see you here often over the next 62 days.

Tomorrow, VanRamblings will publish the first column in a four-part series introducing you to the five serious-minded Mayoral candidates seeking office in Vancouver, where — in order to help you keep your sanity — we’ll attempt to keep columns at under 1000 words (as requested by Straight editor, Charlie Smith).

Next week, VanRamblings will begin a series on why the current Vancouver civic election is the most crucial election held in our city since 1972, and how critically important it is you apprise yourself of the issues, and vote for the future you want.

#VanPoli | Code of Conduct | Elected Office | Trust, Grace, Duty & Deportment

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A Code of Conduct is a set of rules around behaviour and comportment that serves to define, in the instance today, the political arena of municipal governance and the culture of the institution, that seeks to clarify the core values and principles on display at City Hall, the Code of Conduct setting out to define the expected conduct of elected officials, staff, and all those citizens who present to City Council.

Having a Code of Conduct provides elected officials, city staff, and citizens a structure to follow, reducing the potential for untoward conduct when issues of contention arise, in order that there should be no ambiguity when it comes to Code of Conduct expectations, should lines of conduct be blurred, or rules broken.

As such, a municipal Code of Conduct sets the benchmarks for behaviour at City Hall — and in Vancouver’s case, Park Board — for all those who are involved in civic governance, elected officials, staff, and citizens, a guideline set for all to live up to.

During the final term of governance for the Vision Vancouver administration at City Hall, public demonstrations became a common feature, with — on several occasions, increasing frequency and deliberate intent — members of the rightfully aggrieved public taking over Council Chambers at Vancouver City Hall, ejecting the Mayor and City Councillors, and senior members of city staff from the Chambers.

Meanwhile, over at Vancouver Park Board — the only one of its kind on the continent —  avid follower of all things Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, the late Eleanor Hadley, who attended each and every meeting of Park Board, was calling out the Park Board Commissioners, and on this particular late autumn evening in 2015, the Vision Vancouver Park Board Committee Chairperson, Sarah Blyth.

Whether it was the late Jamie Lee Hamilton — the self-styled Queen of the Parks — or Ms. Hadley, repeatedly and often throughout the conduct of Park Board meetings, both would call out the Commissioners, the stewards of Vancouver’s parks and recreation system, while they were conducting Park Board business.

At Vancouver City Hall, Park Board General Manager Malcolm Bromley met with Vancouver City Manager Sadhu Johnston, with the two senior staff deciding that the drafting of a Code of Conduct was in order. In late 2016, the Park Board was the first civic body to adopt an official — and strictly enforced —  Code of Conduct.

Mr. Johnston spoke with the then Vision Vancouver Mayor, Gregor Robertson, about Council adopting their own Code of Conduct, but the idea was put off. Only when a new Council was elected in late 2018, did City Manager Sadhu Johnston once again raise the spectre of the adoption of a Code of Conduct at Vancouver City Hall, an idea newly-elected Mayor Kennedy Stewart went on to champion.

Here’s a bit of background on the adoption of a Code of Conduct at City Hall.

“In response to a Council resolution in late 2019 that asked City staff to review and update the City’s code of conduct, staff undertook an analysis of the current code.

Based on this review, staff identified shortcomings in the current Code of Conduct and recommended that a new code of conduct be drafted for Council and Advisory Committees, separate from the code of conduct that applies to City staff.

In response to legislation enacted in the Provinces, municipalities across Canada have recently enacted or revised their Codes of Conduct and retained independent ethics advisors. British Columbia does not have any requirements for a municipal Code of Conduct, or the implementation of an Integrity Commissioner.”

Arising from the fact that Vancouverites elected an almost wholly novice Council, who took a long while to get their feet underneath them, and arising from a packed Vancouver City Council agenda that invariably proved contentious and was frought with hours long amendments to amendments to amendments, and the subsequent onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, it took two full years for Vancouver City Council to adopt a new and much revised Code of Conduct.

On January 21, 2021, Council adopted a new and revised Conduct of Conduct.

Vancouver City Hall and That Damnable Code of Conduct

When on October 30, 2017, Green Party of Vancouver Board of Education trustee Janet Fraser was elected by her fellow trustees as Vancouver School Board Chairperson, Dr. Fraser set out as her …

“First priority is to build the culture of respect and then we must address the teacher recruitment and retention challenges that we’re seeing here in Vancouver. There are challenges across the province, but I think they’re particularly acute in Vancouver as we have additional challenges with affordability and teachers leaving, choosing to leave to work in other districts.”

VanRamblings celebrated Dr. Fraser’s tenure as Board of Education Chair.

The next year, following the 2018 Vancouver municipal election, when Dr. Fraser’s Green Party colleague Adriane Carr was re-elected to a third term in office, and was appointed by Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart as Chairperson of Council’s powerful Committee on Policy and Strategic Priorities, Ms. Carr decided to take a page from Dr. Fraser’s ‘book’ on how to run a reasonable and respectful civic meeting.

In her newfound role as Chairperson of Council’s Committee on Policy and Strategic Priorities, here’s how Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr set about to interpret Vancouver’s old, and then new, Vancouver City Hall Code of Conduct …

      • Vancouver City Councillors will treat each other with the utmost respect. A Vancouver City Councillor may not impugn, or be seen or heard to impugn, the integrity of a fellow Councillor, nor employ clever use of language, nor tone of voice, nor any other untoward mechanism of engagement that might be seen to bring disfavour to a member of Council. At all times in the Council Chambers, Councillors must interact with their fellow Councillors in an always respectful manner.
      • Failure to interact with one’s fellow Councillors in a manner consistent with ‘accepted norms’ of good governance, will see the imposition of sanctions on such member or members, ranging from the issuance of an order of an immediate apology to the aggrieved Councillor, to an ordered withdrawal from Chambers, and / or the laying of a formal Code of Conduct complaint against the offending Councillor.
      • No Councillor will ask a question of a staff person presenting to Council that would seem to hold the staff person in disrepute. Councillors must not, and will not, ever question staff information or data presented to Council. Should a Councillor present information and data contrary to the information and data presented by staff, that Councillor will be sanctioned by the Chair, have their microphone shut off, and be chastised by the Chair for engaging in untoward and unparliamentary conduct, or be ordered to withdraw forthwith from Council Chambers.
      • Citizens presenting to Council must observe the Code of Conduct as laid out for Councillors, and must not ever present information contrary to the information and data presented by staff. Citizen conduct must be respectful, whether addressing the City’s professional staff, or elected members of Council. Citizen failure to adhere to the Code of Conduct will result in the citizen’s address to Council being terminated, their microphone shut off, and their removal from the Council Chambers.
      • Note. Only the Mayor will be saved harmless from the above provisions of  Vancouver City Hall’s Code of Conduct.

      Thus this term of Vancouver City Council, none of the past entertainingly raucous engagements of Councillors with one another — Melissa De Genova or Andrea Reimer’s in-Council ‘attacks’ on one another that defined Vision Vancouver’s final term in office, nor COPE Councillor Harry Rankin’s cleverly infamous attacks on his Non-Partisan Association counterpart, George Puil, which was good-natured theatre of the first order, allowing both Councillors to make their respective points to maximum effect for public consumption and erudition — was countenanced.

      Instead at Vancouver City Council this term Vancouverites seem to have elected a mealy-mouthed, ‘go along to get along’ contingent of City Councillors who appear, for all the world, to be deep in the pockets of staff, who themselves — in some good measure — seem to be ‘in the pocket of’ or at least beholden to the developers who contribute hundreds of millions of dollars in Community Amenity Contributions to City Hall that, in effect, pays the salaries of senior City Hall staff.

      A couple of weeks ago, VanRamblings commented on Vancouver City Councillor Melissa De Genova, in a headlined column titled #VanPoli | Melissa De Genova | Fighting for You on Vancouver City Council, where we wrote …

      During the current term of office Councillor De Genova has transformed from a fighter into a pussy cat, a ‘can barely stand on her legs’ kitten.

      These past three years, what has happened to Vancouver resident champion and fighter for all that is right and good, challenger of her opposition colleagues, and ruthless yet still humane Council combatant, a woman who takes no truck nor holds any prisoners, the Melissa De Genova who calls out dissembling, self-righteous virtue signaling nonsense when one opposition Councillor or other makes a statement so ludicrous and offside that it all but demands a response from Vancouver’s warrior City Councillor.

      The answer, obviously, is quite clear: Councillor Adriane Carr’s and Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s anti-democratic interpretation of Vancouver’s damnable Code of Conduct, that serves at all times to limit debate at Council, the questioning of staff, and squelch many of the community voices who regularly present to City Council.