Vancouver Votes 2018 | Rob McDowell, City Council candidate

October 1, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Rob McDowell is VanRamblings’ favourite of the independent candidates seeking a seat on Vancouver City Council in the 2018 municipal election.
VanRamblings heartily endorses MCDOWELL, Robert — 17th from the bottom of the randomized Councillor ballot list, which makes it relatively easy for you to find his name, and cast a vote for a man who we believe and know to be brilliant, a true democrat, and one of the most qualified candidates to seek elected office in recent Vancouver political history.
A careful and judicious listening to the audio of the video above will only serve to confirm for you our assessment of the accomplished Robert McDowell — who is a must-vote when you go to the polls this month (advance polls, October 10 – 17; Election Day, Saturday, October 20th).
VanRamblings recalls the joy in Rob’s voice when he called us late in the morning of Tuesday, January 15, 2015, when Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan issued his reasons for judgement in a groundbreaking ruling that killed a Yaletown development after a flawed land swap process, that reignited election criticisms over transparency and fairness at Vancouver City Hall. Rob excitedly read this passage of the ruling to VanRamblings …

“I have concluded in this case that the public hearing and the development permit processes were flawed in that the City has taken an unduly restrictive view of the discussion that should have been permitted to address the true nature and overall cost/benefit of the 508/1099 project to the City and its residents,” McEwan wrote.

“A public hearing is not just an occasion for the public to blow off steam: it is a chance for perspectives to be heard that have not been heard as the City’s focus has narrowed during the project negotiations. Those perspectives, in turn, must be fairly and scrupulously considered and evaluated by council before making its final decision.”

Revolutionary, Rob called the ruling …

“It means, going forward, that City Hall and City Council must not only hear from the public,” Rob told VanRamblings, “they must ensure that the hearing process is fair, open and transparent, that all and any member of the public who is concerned about a decision Council will rule on must be heard, but what’s more, the ruling stipulates that City Hall and Council must do more than simply listen to the public, City Hall’s Planning and all other city departments must incorporate the ideas heard from the public when presenting a finalized plan to City Council for adjudication.”

For the past five years, VanRamblings & the accomplished Robert McDowell have met once a month at Trees Organic on Homer Street to talk politics — but not just talk politics, rather to influence the decision-making that goes on both at Council and Park Board. More often than not, our respective and collective endeavours have proven successful in achieving a decision at Council and Park Board that best serves the public interest.

You won’t be surprised to read that Vision Vancouver challenged the ruling of the Honourable Supreme Court Justice, the ruling overruled in the always conservative Court of Appeals. For awhile, though, it looked good for us.

Rob McDowell, a must-elect candidate for Vancouver City Council

VanRamblings knows Rob McDowell. We know him to be a democrat, to not have missed a meeting of Vancouver City Council in seven years (sometimes, when he’s working in some far flung place across the globe, Rob will watch Council meetings through the video feed), to be eminently qualified to sit as a democratic and engaged member of Vancouver City Council, and to be your advocate at City Hall, the diplomatic and mediating force (working in concert with OneCity Vancouver candidate for Vancouver City Council, the estimable Christine Boyle) representing your dreams, your hopes and desires for a better, fairer, more diverse, friendlier and more welcoming Vancouver, breaking down the barriers of isolation that separate us, in the process building community, and a sense of place and of home.
VanRamblings asks that you save a vote for MCDOWELL, Robert when you go to the polls this month — you’ll be glad you did!

VIFF 2018 | The ALT Short Films Programme | Must-Attend

September 30, 2018Cinema, Vancouver, VIFF 2018Raymond Tomlin

An often overlooked aspect of the Vancouver International Film Festival is the must-see Short Films series, programmed by the estimable Sandy Gow.
In 2018, as per usual, there are five programmes within the ALT Short Film series, curated by Sandy Gow, with input and assistance from a volunteer screening team consisting of Andree Faucher, Josh Hamm, Ray Lai, and Lori Strong, who throughout the year screen up to 750 films, before Sandy makes the final cut, creating five programmes of six to nine films …

Close Quarters. Eight True North Short Films ranging in length from six to thirty-four minutes, featuring creative ‘young’ Canadian filmmakers, exploring subject matter, including: an adult with autism spectrum disorder, an increasingly isolated city woman who takes refuge in her apartment, to a surreal, romantic tragicomedy about a man who merges with his war plane and can no longer connect with his wife, each punch in the gut short film spanning the depth and breadth of human experience;
The Curtain Calls. Seven more astounding, must-see True North Short Films that will leave you breathless, from Québec-based directors Emilie Mannering and Carmine Pierre-Dufour’s, Mahalia Melts in the Rain (12 minutes), the story of a a timid nine-year-old black girl (middle right, in the graphic above), to Encore (13 minutes), the story of a young piano player (see picture below) who tries to help his mother cope with the death of her husband the only way he knows how — through music.
Escape Routes. Québec and B.C.-based new directors, exploring “getting away from it all”, in whatever form that takes, freight train or bus travel, or taking a much-needed break from the prosaic demands of one’s life;
Matters of Grave Importance. Sandy comes up with the names of each short films programme, so from the series name you can pretty much guess the subject matter of the eight films in this shorts programme: confronting the consequences of an irreversible decision, keeping quiet about a friend’s indiscretion, a young girl attempting to save a grievously wounded rabbit, and coming to terms with Mother Nature.
Various Positions. Reflections on life would appear to be the theme of this nine short films programme (we’d meant to talk with Sandy before writing today’s column, but just as he predicted, we didn’t get around to it), with subject matter ranging from three young women searching for ways to kill time as they await the arrival of a church organ player, a young woman’s summer cycle through Toronto, to a mesmerizing look at the tranquil countryside found on the Isle of Coll, Scotland.

Thirty-eight all Canadian films in total in the ALT series five short film programmes, each film life-changing, each film transporting and transcendently lovely and meaningful, and each film very much worthy of your time.
Note. Short Films series programmer Sandy Gow wishes to emphasize that all of the films curated in the Short Films series this year are Canadian! Below, we write about the Reel Youth Film Festival; Sandy Gow and his team are not involved in programming VIFF’S annual youth film festival.

There is one more series in the short film programme, to which school districts find the funds each year to transport students to Cineplex International Village Cinema, to take in the 22-film Reel Youth Film Festival.
The most compelling collection of short films from across the globe, all made by youth, and chosen by a youth selection panel from over 1500 submissions, this cogent, powerful, gripping, enthralling, captivating and irresistible collection of short films allows those in attendance at the upcoming screenings — on Tuesday, October 2nd at 11:15am, and Wednesday, October 10th at 6:30pm — to catch a spellbinding glimpse of the world through the eyes of an emerging group of gifted filmmakers.

VIFF 2018 | Vacationing in New York at the Vancouver Film Festival

September 29, 2018Cinema, Vancouver, VIFF 2018Raymond Tomlin

Each year for most of the history of the Vancouver International Film Festival, the prestigious, heavily juried and much smaller New York Film Festival kicks off on the same date as VIFF, creating something of a logistical problem for the print traffic folks at Vancouver’s film festival (and New York’s, as well), arising from the fact that the respective film festivals generally share 15+ films (out of a total of 30) — as is the case again this year — and the logistics of transporting the one-and-only “print” of the film back and forth can be, and has often proved to be, something of a terrible, pull-your-hair-out nightmare for the print traffic folks at both film festivals.
Still and all, somehow both VIFF and the good folks at the NYFF each year manage to “exchange” films without a glitch.
As above, this year there are a record number of films screening at both VIFF 2018 and NYFF56, 21 in total, far more than in any previous year.
In 2018, the films VIFF 2018 and the NYFF56 will exchange (all of these films will screen at both the New York & the Vancouver film festivals) …

Vancouver Votes 2018 | A Potpurri of Civic Electoral Items

September 28, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Hastings Community Centre all candidates meeting, featuring must-elect Vancouver City Council candidates, David Wong (Green Party) & Brandon Yan (OneCity), and must-elect Park Board candidates, Gwen Giesbrecht (COPE) and Shamin Shivji (Vision Vancouver)

Vancouver voters go to the polls three weeks from tomorrow, although for those so inclined, Vancouver civic election advance polls open on Wednesday, October 10th and run through October 17th — whatever the case, whenever it is you decide to cast your ballot for Mayor, City Council (10), Park Board (7) and School Board (9), please, please please keep yourself informed, and please vote for the progressive candidates running for office in this year’s critical-to-our-future Vancouver municipal election.
Advance voting locations, October 10 – 17, 8am til 8pm …

Vancouver City Hall, 453 W 12th Avenue
Roundhouse Arts & Rec Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews
Britannia Community Services Centre, 1661 Napier Street
Hastings Community Centre, 3096 East Hastings Street
Renfrew Park Community Centre, 2929 East 22nd Avenue
Killarney Community Centre, 6260 Killarney Street
Trout Lake Community Centre, 3360 Victoria Drive
Sunset Community Centre, 6810 Main Street
Marpole | Oakridge Community Centre, 990 West 59th Avenue
Kerrisdale Community Centre, 5851 West Boulevard
Kitsilano War Memorial Community Centre, 2690 Larch Street
West End Community Centre, 870 Denman Street

Next week, VanRamblings will publish a feature interview with our friend Rob McDowell, who is seeking a seat on Vancouver City Council, running as an independent in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election. Rob is a must-vote, one of the most brilliant men we’ve ever met, with broad support across our community, an individual who hasn’t missed a meeting of Council in seven years, and a future member of Council who will hit the ground running when he’s elected to office on Saturday, October 20th, to make life better for you (not to mention: the other Council candidates we’ll be endorsing, Christine Boyle, Derrick O’Keefe & Sarah Kirby-Yung, to name just three, who will find themselves over-the-moon at the opportunity afforded them to work with the accomplished & adroit Robert McDowell!).

There is no question Charlie Smith, the well-respected veteran editor of The Georgia Straight, is the most beloved journalist in our town — as has long been the case — loved not only by his peers, but the many thousands of his readers, and followers of all things civic, provincial and federal politics.

Now, we here at VanRamblings aren’t quite sure how Mr. Smith managed to acquire the transcript of the conversations the Devil recently had with many of the current and more serious (?) candidates for Mayor in the City of Vancouver, but he did — and for our amusement and edification, he published those conversations. We’re glad, and we bet you’re glad, he did.

Somehow, in these busy days, VanRamblings managed to overlook the independent candidacy for Vancouver City Council of Abubakar Khan, even though Charlie Smith identified Mr. Khan as one of the noteworthy independent candidates running for civic office in the current Vancouver municipal election. VanRamblings thanks our friend (and, as it happens, saviour — we’ll write about it someday), author Maureen Bayless, for bringing Mr. Khan’s recommendable candidacy to our attention.

As Mr. Khan wrote in a recently published article in The Straight …

My name is Abubakar Khan, and I’m running for Vancouver City Council to break down the pervasive isolation in our community, to help all of those of us who live in Vancouver to feel less alone and better cared for, to connect them to a government that cares, and neighbours with the time to know their names.

And that means doing two things.

First, it means dealing with the affordability crisis in an innovative way. It means supporting traditional policies — like creating high-density zones and using municipal funds to build affordable housing — while also partnering with the tech industry to solve local problems.

Second, it means tying people together, directly. It means securing full provincial coverage for psychotherapy, so we can have support when we really need it. It means more citywide events — food festivals, block parties, art projects — and cheaper community centre fees. It means building our shared memories together.