#VanPoli | ABC Vancouver Popularity Plummets, OneCity + Greens Rise

#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Park Board, Politics, Vancouver, , , , ,

In the 2022 Vancouver municipal election, the upstart ABC Vancouver civic party — a creation of founder / financier Peter Armstrong — came out of nowhere to secure an overwhelming victory at the polls, securing 34.5% of the vote, with the Greens trailing at 11.24%, and OneCity Vancouver managing 9.79% in voter popularity.

How ABC Vancouver’s fortunes have changed only 15 turbulent months later.


Saturday, October 15, 2022 | ABC Vancouver wins the Mayor’s chair, electing eight City Councillors

Let us count the ways in which ABC Vancouver has lost popularity with the public.

  • ABC Vancouver’s first budget raised property taxes by a whopping, unprecedented 10.7% (triple that for small business), alienating huge portions of the public;
  • ABC Vancouver jettisoned the City’s Livable Wage Programme, which pays the employees of suppliers of goods and services to the city approximately $24-an-hour;
  • ABC Vancouver shuttered the City’s Rental Office, telling the public that the monies it took to run the Rental Office would be transferred to TRAC, the Tenant Resources and Advisory Centre, and would move TRAC into new offices on Howe Street downtown.

    Surprise    , surprise, TRAC has not moved into the new offices that had been promised, which three years on remains under construction, and in addition, has yet to receive one red cent from the City. You gotta love “conservatives”: they lie like we breathe;
  • On December 13, 2023,  Vancouver’s rookie Mayor, Ken Sim, announced that his ABC Vancouver City Council would abolish the cherished 135-year-old Vancouver Park Board,  with an application to the province to change the Vancouver Charter to facilitate an undemocratic, unmandated, appalling change in City governance.

In 2022, a paltry 36.3% of eligible voters turned out at the polls to elect a new Vancouver City Council, School Board and Park Board — which means that the vast majority of Vancouver voters … 63.7% … stayed home, and couldn’t be bothered to, either, inform themselves of the issues in the last Vancouver municipal election, or take an hour or less to attend at their local polling station to cast their ballot.


Global BC newscasters Chris Gailus and Sophie Liu host B.C.’s top-rated suppertime news programme

Numeris (formerly the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement) is Canada’s audience measurement organization, tracks our country’s highly fragmented and increasingly complex media landscape, as it attempts to bring clarity and an understanding of audience behaviours and insights to an evolving cross-media landscape.

According to Numeris, only 18% of British Columbians tune in to watch news programmes on Global BC, CTV Vancouver, CBC Vancouver and CityNews, and their local affiliates’ news programmes. Where, then, do British Columbians get their news, if 82% of B.C. adults don’t get their news from television news programmes?

Newspapers remain a popular deliverer of the news for people age 35 and older.

The findings of a study held in Canada between October 2022 and September 2023 revealed that 32% of Canadians only read print newspapers on a weekly basis, whereas 6% read newspapers via computer only. For those persons between the ages of 35 and 49 across all regions in Canada, only 23.89% of persons in that age bracket read, watch or listen to the news once a week or more.

A growing number of people selectively avoid news stories, such as the war between Israel and Gaza, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the cost-of-living issue.

Thirty-eight per cent of those surveyed actively avoid the news, up from 29% in 2021, according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Around 36% — particularly those under age 35 — say that the news lowers their mood.

“Large numbers of people see the media as subject to undue political influence, and only a small minority believe most news organizations put what’s best for society ahead of their own commercial interest,” writes Reuters Institute Director Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, in a Reuters report based on an online survey of 93,432 people, conducted in 46 markets across Canada.


Gen Z (1997-2012) and Millennials (1980-1996) acquire news, predominately, from their Tik Tok app

Younger audiences, those under 45, are increasingly accessing the news via platforms such as TikTok, or from their friends, and have a weak connection to online or conventional media. Forty percent of that age group uses TikTok daily, with 15% saying they use it to find, discuss or share news.

What is the context and meaning of the preceding information, and its impact on Vancouver politics, the current fight to preserve Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation, and the re-election chances of ABC Vancouver come 2026?

Where Vision Vancouver’s success in their ten years at the helm of politics in Vancouver was dependent on three groups who consistently turned out in droves to support the party at election time …

  • Unions. Vision Vancouver set the wage scale agenda during their time in power,  not just locally, but in municipalities across British Columbia and beyond, in the public sector where it moved the provincial government off its 1-1-1 agenda, and by extension in the private sector, the union vote in the City of Vancouver, loyal and consistently good for 45,000 votes at the polls in strong support for Vision Vancouver;
  • The active transportation lobby (think: Hub Cycling), who are committed to bike lanes and a healthy, environmentally friendly and livable city, with fit, cycling Millennials turning out in droves to re-elect Vision Vancouver at election time; and …
  • The 2SLGBTQIA community, whose support Vision Vancouver worked tirelessly to gain and maintain, and for whom it could depend on at least 20,000 votes at the polls — as was the case with the bike lobby — in the 2008, 2011 and 2014 civic elections.

ABC Vancouver has no natural constituency in our decidedly progressive, left-of-centre, NDP-voting city on the far shores of western Canada.

The 2022 Vancouver municipal election was a “kick the bums out” election, with dismayed, disgruntled and disquieted Vancouverites sick-and-tired of a lazy, do-nothing, whiny Kennedy Stewart administration, which had non-productive relations provincially with John Horgan’s NDP government, federally with Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada, and in 2022 with the Vancouver electorate.

As we say, ABC has no natural constituency in the voting Vancouver electorate, their election to civic government in 2022 a blip on the political radar, and consequent from a dissatisfaction among the electorate with the previous administration, a well-run campaign by master electoral tactician and motivator, Kareem Mahmoud Abbas Allam, and bucketfuls of money from Rocky Mountaineer tourism founder Peter Armstrong, and Lululemon lifestyle founding promoter, Chip Wilson.

Well, Mr. Allam is gone now — having pulled away from ABC Vancouver one year ago —  the powers that be at The Vancouver Club and Terminal City out for blood and set to do all in their power to oppose the re-election of Ken Sim and company, not to mention a significant and engaged majority of the 36.3% of Vancouver voters who turned up at the polls in 2022 also out for blood, alienated beyond all measure with the autocratic, anti-democratic administration of Ken Sim and his crew of “we’ll go along to get along, and do whatever” ABC Vancouver lickspittles.

The Sword of Damocles hangs ominously and precariously over the heads of the “certain to be one term” ABC Vancouver administration at Vancouver City Hall, the arbitrary and unilateral move to eliminate Vancouver’s cherished Park Board — which over the past 135 years has given the citizens of our province a world class parks and recreation system — the final straw, as engaged Vancouverites in high dudgeon, certain to work towards not the elimination of the Vancouver Park Board, but the elimination of the “they know the cost of everything, and the value of nothing” ABC Vancouver civic party from the political landscape of our city.

#SaveOurParkBoard | A Passionate, Reasoned, Well-Attended Town Hall

#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Environment, Food & Health, News, Park Board, Politics, , , , , ,

This past Thursday afternoon, Green Party of Vancouver City Councillors Pete Fry and Adriane Carr, and One City Vancouver Councillor Christine Boyle organized a spirited Town Hall — with more than 200 passionate, reasoned citizens in attendance, who oppose the elimination of an independent, elected Park Board — the event taking place in the Joe Wai Room, on the main floor of Vancouver City Hall.


Vancouver City Councillors, l-r:  the Green Party’s Pete Fry and Adriane Carr + OneCity Vancouver’s Christine Boyle

One of the most compelling speakers of the afternoon was Terri Clark, Vancouver Park Board’s Public Affairs Communications Manager from 1973 through 2008.

“In all my years at Park Board, our General Managers worked productively with Vancouver City Managers Fritz Bowers (1977-1990), Ken Dobell (1990-1998) and Judy Rogers (1999-2008). Ours was a relationship of mutual respect and co-operation.

Necessary funds were always provided by the City for the upkeep and maintenance of Vancouver’s parks, pools and community centres, in order to best serve the public interest.

               Photo credit: Elvira Lount
First row, above: l-r, Park Board Commissioner Tom Digby | John Coupar, former Park Board Chair | Tricia Barker, Commissioner, last term | Laura Christensen, current independent Commissioner; Bottom row, l-r. Michael Wiebe, former Commissioner, former City Councillor | Sarah Blyth, former two term Commissioner | Brennan Bastyovanszky, current independent Park Board Chair.

Recent maintenance problems at the Aquatic Centre or Kits Pool would never have been allowed to happen in Mr. Bowers’,  Dobell’s and Judy Rogers time as City Manager at Vancouver City Hall.

In September 2009, before Susan Mundick, Park Board’s General Manager (1998-2009), announced her “retirement“, City Manager Penny Ballem had stripped Ms. Mundick of all her duties, stating she would “help park board choose Ms. Mundick’s replacement”, a selection process City Hall had never previously been involved in.

If our pools and community centres are in disrepair today, as Mayor Sim has pointed out, such a circumstance arises from City Hall’s decision to cut Park Board out of any and all maintenance decisions, ceding those responsibilities to the City, which over the past dozen years has largely ignored the needs of what was once a world class parks and recreation system of which we were proud.”

Several past and current Park Board Commissioners addressed those who had gathered at City Hall last Thursday, including: Michael Wiebe, who spoke about the role of Park Board Commissioners in preserving the natural environment; past Park Board Chair, John Coupar, who addressed the role of Park Board in creating a livable city;  both Sarah Blyth and Tricia Barker reminded those present that “Ken Sim and his ABC Council were not given a mandate to abolish the Vancouver Park Board”; while formerly ABC Vancouver but now independent Park Board Commissioners Brennan Bastyovanszky, Scott Jensen and Laura Christensen committed to continuing their work in the community to preserve the invaluable 135-year legacy of an independent, elected Vancouver Park Board that serves the interests of all British Columbians and “those who visit our beautiful city”.

Several speakers referenced an article in The Vancouver Sun, written by Canadian gardening legend Brian Minter, who writes …

“The Vancouver Park Board maintains 242 parks that comprises 11% cent of Vancouver land. In addition, Park Board maintains 22 kilometres of seawall at Stanley Park, and walkways along False Creek. Park Board’s mandate includes 10 ocean beaches and a freshwater lake beach. Not only are they responsible for the city’s recreation programmes, services and community centres and facilities, park infrastructure comes under their jurisdiction.

In a time of significant climate change with the huge challenges of heat and drought, and the drive to expand green spaces, a high priority must be placed on the viability of parks. The importance of green spaces, the many proven benefits to both our health and wellness are well-documented, as our needs continue to grow.

The Vancouver Park Board is one of our region’s most important public assets and needs dedicated people and citizen engagement to ensure the long-term viability of  B.C.’s, and indeed, Canada’s, most spectacular green spaces, for generations to come.”

And then there’s the disposition of the 242 Vancouver’s parks, one hundred of which do not a have a protected park designation.


Former ABC, now independent PB Commissioners, l-r: Laura Christensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky, Scott Jensen

Perhaps the most articulate and moving participant in Thursday afternoon’s Town Hall was Laura Christensen’s month-old daughter, who cried throughout most of the proceeding, voicing the despair clearly felt by her mother — to whom Mayor Ken Sim had committed his support, when he asked her to run as a Park Board Commissioner on his ABC Vancouver slate — and the despair and frustration of those who had gathered together in common cause to, as one speaker, said “fight ABC’s undemocratic initiative to abolish our cherished, independent Park Board.”

Music Sundays | Norah Jones | The Discovery of a New, Young Talent

A & E, Music, Pop Culture, VanRamblings, ,

Norah Jones’ 2002 multi-Grammy-winning début album, Come Away With Me, has become one of the 21st century’s instant classics, an album for all time.

Jones comes from formidable musical stock. Her father is the heralded sitar player Ravi Shankar, her mother the acclaimed American concert producer Sue Jones.

Jones was born in Brooklyn in 1979. After her parents separated in 1986, she lived with her mother, growing up in Grapevine, Texas. Jones’ music took its form early on in the local Methodist Church where she regularly sang solos. At the age of 16, with both parents’ consent, she officially changed her name to Norah Jones.

Norah Jones showed enormous talent as a pianist from an early age, and was soon immersed in the works of pioneering American jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans, and renowned jazz singer, Billie Holiday … which led to Jones registering as a jazz piano major at the University Of North Texas, where her collaborations with Jesse Harris and Richard Julian set her on a new jazz country fusion path.

Urged by friends and mentors to move to New York to expand her musical vocabulary, Norah Jones arrived in New York City in 2000, whereupon she began appearing in ever larger clubs in and around Greenwich Village.

After a year and a half in New York, with A&R reps from the major record labels having heard of this young jazz / country-style artist, Norah Jones, and having seen and heard her in concert, a 22-year-old Norah Jones was signed to a recording contract with Blue Note Records, a label owned by the EMI Group, and production on her début album began.

Come Away With Me was released shortly thereafter, on February 26, 2002, becoming a monolithic, out-of-nowhere success in a way that’s almost hard to imagine now, when few releases can capture more than a week’s worth of attention.

Norah Jones’ début is a mellow, acoustic pop affair with soul and country overtones, immaculately produced by the legendary Arif Mardin.

Jones is not quite a jazz singer, but on her début album she was joined by highly regarded jazz musicians: guitarists Adam Levy, Adam Rogers, Tony Scherr, Bill Frisell, and Kevin Breit; drummers Brian Blade, Dan Rieser, and Kenny Wollesen; organist Sam Yahel; accordionist Rob Burger; and violinist Jenny Scheinman.

Jones’ regular guitarist and bassist, Jesse Harris and Lee Alexander, respectively, play on every track and also serve as the chief songwriters. Both have a gift for melody, simple yet elegant progressions, and evocative lyrics.

Jones, for her part, wrote the title track and the pretty but slightly restless Nightingale. She also includes convincing readings of Hank Williams’ Cold Cold Heart, J.D. Loudermilk’s Turn Me On, and Hoagy Carmichael’s The Nearness of You.

There’s a touch of Rickie Lee Jones in the voice of Norah Jones, a touch of Bonnie Raitt in the arrangements; her youth and her piano skills could lead one to call her an Alicia Keys for grown-ups.

Jones’ début record provided listeners with a strong indication of her alluring talents, Jones and Come Away With Me winning a slew of Grammy Awards.

Debuting at No. 139, Come Away With Me reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 within two weeks of its release. The single Don’t Know Why hit No. 1 on the Top 40 Adult Chart in 2003, and Billboard’s Hot 100 Singles Chart.

At the 45th Grammy Awards in 2003, Norah Jones was awarded …

  • Album of the Year: Come Away With Me | Arif Mardin / Craig Street / Jay Newland / Norah Jones / S. “Husky” Hoskulds / Ted Jensen;
  • Best Engineered Album: Come Away With Me | Jay Newland / S. “Husky” Hoskulds
  • Best Pop Vocal Album: Come Away With Me | Arif Mardin / Jay Newland / Norah Jones / S. “Husky” Hoskulds;
  • Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Don’t Know Why | Norah Jones;
  • Record Of The Year, Don’t Know Why | Arif Mardin / Jay Newland / Norah Jones;
  • Song Of The Year, Don’t Know Why | Jesse Harris.

By February 2005, Come Away With Me was certified diamond for selling ten million copies, one of the top selling albums of the decade.

Stories of a Life | Redux | Raymond | Late No More

Stories of a Life Redux, VanRamblings,

In the early 1980s, I was perpetually late on almost every occasion where I was depended upon to be on time. At the time, being on time was not a priority for me.

Now, as  has been suggested by psychologists, lateness may be interpreted as a sign of passive-aggressive behaviour, a faithless statement to those who are waiting for you to arrive, that your time is more valuable than theirs.

Most people won’t bear a grudge if you’re five minutes late — but to be more than five minutes late, when people might start getting annoyed with you is a whole different kettle of fish. Let’s face it, to mature adults lateness betrays a lack of respect and consideration for those who you are inconveniencing with your lateness.

In the inverse, although being late may well be considered as an insult to others, it also serves to undermine the person who is late.

Psychologists suggest that lateness betrays a lack of emotional intelligence on the part of the person who is consciously or unconsciously “choosing” to be late, as an indication of a distinct lack of self-knowledge, will power, or empathy.

Or, it may be that the person who is late has set unrealistic goals, or underestimated the time that it takes to travel from one place to another.

There may even be a more perfidious reason for being late, than mere mediocrity. Sometimes it involve anger and aggression, and at other times self-deception. Lateness may be interpreted as treacherous anger expressed as passive-aggressive behaviour, a vigorous means of expressing aggression covertly, and doing so without incurring the full emotional and social costs of a more overt aggression.

It may be, too, that the person who is late feels inferior or unimportant, being late a way to impose themselves on a situation by attracting attention, if even it is negative attention, even going so far as to “overtake” an event, situation or proceeding.

Sometimes, being late is your unconscious (intuition) telling you that you don’t actually want to be there, or that it would be better for you not to be there — for instance, it could be that a meeting (or even a job) is not the best use of your time, or that arriving at your destination on time will work against your best interests.

Still, there are few habits as infuriating as someone making us wait.

Despite what may be running through your mind as you’re kept waiting again, it’s unlikely your friends or colleagues who are persistently late are just being selfish.

“Lateness is really a commonly misunderstood problem,” says Diana DeLonzor, author of Never Be Late Again, who has conducted research on the perpetually tardy. “Yes, it’s a rude act, but I’ve interviewed hundreds of people and the vast majority of late people really dislike being late, they try to be on time, but this is something that has plagued them throughout their lives.”

In 1982, an event occurred in my life that ended my lateness forever.

Now, in my contemporary life and with rare exception, I always arrive on time — or, more often than not, early. When I arrive early, I tend to hold back on knocking on the door or depressing the buzzer, until the exact minute of my proposed arrival time occurs — and over the course of the past 42 years, I’ve felt all the better for it.

In the autumn of 1982, having finished work on my Masters, I found myself employed in a suburban Metro Vancouver school district as a secondary school English and Drama teacher.

When I’d visited my mother one mid-autumn weekend, she invited me for dinner in her North Vancouver condominium apartment, in the coming week. “Arrive at 5pm, Raymond,” she said to me. “You know I like to eat dinner early.”

On the mid-week day of the appointed dinner date, I skeddaddled out of the school at 3:45pm, a little later than I’d planned, but I figured that seventy-five minutes to travel from the Tri-Cities to North Vancouver should get me to my mother’s house in good time. Such, however, proved not to be the case. Traffic was particularly bad on Highway One that day — there was an accident on the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge that slowed my travels, as traffic moved along at a crawl.

Note should be made, the event being related occurred in pre-cell phone days.

So, there I was stuck in traffic with no way to contact my mother to let her know I’d likely be a few minutes late.

Long story short, I arrived at my mother’s door at 5:20pm — late for sure, but I had a good reason, or so I thought. I knocked on the door.

My mother’s newest boyfriend, a tall, clearly fit, imposing man used to getting his own way — a retired commander in the Canadian Armed Forces Navy, as it happens — glowered at me standing in the hallway as I made my way into my mother’s home, whereupon he grabbed me, shoved me up against a wall and lifted me off the ground, my feet dangling below me, and set about to lecture me on how rude I’d been in arriving late, that on behalf of my mother, he wasn’t having any of it.

“This is the last time you’ll be late for any event, ever, for any reason,” he roared at me, my feet still dangling below me. “From here on in, not only will you arrive on time, you will arrive early — but wait until the appointed time to make contact with those with whom you are to meet. You will plan all of your excursions and travels, and in so doing will always leave more than enough time in order that you might arrive at your destination not just on time, but early. Do I make myself clear to you?”

I nodded my head meekly, and said quietly, “Yes sir, I do.”

And, you know what?


Visiting the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood of my youth, where I have many friends

From that day to this, I have always made a point of leaving early, allowing myself at least an extra half hour of traveling time, often more — as when I’m traveling to Vancouver’s east side from my Kitsilano home to visit a friend for lunch or dinner,  or a couple of beers,  or a saunter through the Grandview Woodland neighbourhood, or for any other reason when I’m meeting with a valued acquaintance.