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

#VanElxn 2022, #VanPoli Civic Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2022, ,

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.

American Crisis | The Devolution of Democracy

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Over the course of the past six months, British Columbians have experienced a heat dome in late June that saw temperatures rise above 40° Celsius for more than a week, a summer wildfire season that saw the Interior town of Lytton burn to the ground, an autumn season of previously unheard of atmospheric rivers that flooded large areas of the Fraser Valley, and towns along the Thompson River that destroyed the town of Merritt, only to be followed by a winter season of record low temperatures and more snow across the province than experienced ever before.

And, at least for those of us who reside in British Columbia — where climatologists predict ever-worsening summer heat domes and wildfire seasons, ever more autumnal atmospheric rivers and even more devastating winter seasons of record low temperatures across the province — you’d be left to think that our present climate emergency is the worst of the problems facing us going into the future.

But you’d be wrong.

In point of fact, even more devastation is on the near horizon, this time social, political and economic, as well as climate-based, given what we are witnessing on a daily basis in the country just south of the Canadian border, in the United States.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the insurrection that shook the very foundation of American democracy, the brief but devastating takeover of the halls of power of the American government forcing members of Congress, the Senate, and the Vice-President of the United States into hiding to protect their very lives.

Thomas Homer-Dixon, Canadian political scientist and author of the recently published Globe and Mail article, ‘The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare’.

The United States could be under a right wing dictatorship by 2030, Canadian political science professor Thomas Homer-Dixon has warned, urging our country to protect itself against the “collapse of American democracy”.

“We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine,” says Homer-Dixon, founding director of British Columbia’s Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University, in an article published recently in the Globe and Mail.

“In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become President would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.”

Homer-Dixon’s message is blunt: “By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right wing dictatorship.”

The author’s prediction centres on a Trump return to the White House in 2024, including Republican-held state legislatures refusing to accept a Democratic win.

“It’s not a matter of if but when: A civil war is on the way, as the United States is coming to an end,” writes Toronto-based historian Stephen Marche, in his new book, The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future.

Marche observes that the United States is riven by a sectarian conflict that cannot help but end, at some point, in violence. By his projections, the inevitable civil war will be uncommonly vicious, pitting neighbour against neighbour. “It’s not just Donald Trump’s fault, though he certainly did his best to sow hatred and division,” writes Marche, noting that Trump was right when he said, “This country was seriously divided before I got here.”

Marche posits a number of scenarios around which a civil war could emerge: the assassination of a President; the seizure by local authorities of a bridge condemned as unsafe by federal officials, drawing militias from afar into armed conflict with the Army; a campaign of terror initiated by anti-government patriots, with dirty bombs less lethal than panic-inducing, countered by a government that will suspend First and Second Amendment rights to contain the violence.

In all of the above scenarios, the fuel is the deep chasm between two visions of America, one multi-ethnic, the other White supremacist. This chasm is full of antipathy and venom. “Hatred drives politics in the U.S. more than any other consideration,” Marche writes, and in the America of today, the middle ground has disappeared. What is to be done? Marche proposes a radical solution: Allow the South to break away into a largely impoverished theocracy, grant prosperous California and Texas their own nationhood, and let the rest of the country form a flourishing, wealthy blue-state democracy. “Disunion would be the death of one country,” he writes, “but it would be the birth of four others.” For other possible remedies, after reading Marche’s new book, start with Barbara F. Walter’s How Civil Wars Start.

A terrible storm is coming from the south, writes Homer-Dixon, and Canada is woefully unprepared. Over the past two years as Canada has turned its attention inward, distracted by the challenges of COVID-19, reconciliation, and the accelerating effects of climate change, while just below the 49th parallel the unraveling of a long cherished American democracy portends a threat to the American citizenry, and an even greater threat for Canadians across every part of our country.

“If Donald Trump is re-elected President in 2024, even under the most-optimistic of scenarios the economic and political risks to Canada would be innumerable,”  writes Homer-Dixon. “Driven by aggressive, reactive nationalism, Mr. Trump or one of his acolytes who could go on to win the American Presidency could isolate Canada continentally.”

“Under the less-optimistic scenarios, the risks to our country in their cumulative effect could easily be existential, far greater than any in our federation’s history. What happens, for instance, if high-profile political refugees fleeing persecution arrive in our country and the U.S. regime demands them back. Do we comply?”

“Trump and a host of acolytes and wannabes such as Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, have transformed the Republican party into a near-fascist personality cult that’s a perfect instrument for wrecking democracy,” writes Homer-Dixon.

“Worse,” he writes, “Donald Trump may be just a warm-up act.”

“Returning to office, he’ll be the wrecking ball that demolishes democracy but the process will produce a political and social shambles,” writes Homer-Dixon. “Still, through targeted harassment and dismissal, he’ll be able to thin the ranks of his movement’s opponents within the state, the bureaucrats, officials and technocrats who oversee the non-partisan functioning of core institutions and abide by the rule of law.”

“Then the stage will be set for a more managerially competent ruler, after Mr. Trump, to bring order to the chaos he’s created.”

The consequences of the breakdown of the American system is only now beginning to be felt. January 6 wasn’t a wake-up call; it was a rallying cry. The Capitol police have seen threats against members of Congress increase by 107%. Death threats have become a standard aspect of the work life of every elected official. A third of poll workers in the U.S., in the aftermath of 2020, said they felt unsafe.

The United States has burned before. The Vietnam war, civil rights protests, the assassination of JFK and MLK, Watergate — all American national tragedies which remain in living memory. But the United States has never faced an institutional crisis quite like the one it is facing now. With most on the American right having abandoned faith in government, their politics is, increasingly, the politics of the gun.

The American right is preparing for a breakdown of law and order, but they are also overtaking the forces of law and order. Hard right organizations have now infiltrated so many police forces — the connections number in the hundreds — that they have become unreliable allies in the struggle against domestic terrorism. Anti-government patriots have used the reaction against Black Lives Matter effectively to build a base of support within law enforcement.

At this moment in the American crisis, the left has divided into warring factions seemingly incapable of confronting the seriousness of the moment. There are liberals who retain an unjustifiable faith that their institutions can save them when it is increasingly clear that they cannot. Then there are the educational and political elites dedicated to a discourse of willed impotence, not unlike pre-WWII America.

The right has recognized what the left has not: that the system is in collapse. The right has a plan: it involves violence and solidarity. They have not even repudiated the Oath Keepers. The left, meanwhile, has chosen infighting as their sport.

The United States must recover its revolutionary spirit. Does the country have the humility to acknowledge that its old orders no longer work? Does it have the courage to begin again? As it managed so spectacularly at the birth of its nationhood, during the Civil War of the 1860s, and again in 1932 with the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as President, the United States requires the boldness to invent a new politics for a new era. It is entirely possible that it might do so.

America is, after all, a country devoted to reinvention.

COVID-19 | Omicron | Winter of Our Discontent

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Amidst rising COVID-19 cases — mostly the less virulent, but 3 to 5 times more transmissible Omicron variant — with reimposed restrictions by public health authorities, more stringent mask mandates, a speeded up mRNA booster programme (at least in some Canadian jurisdictions, if not in British Columbia), more testing, renewed travel advisories, the closure of bars and gyms, and the likely prospect of increased infections and restrictions in the days to come and over the next couple of weeks, Christmas 2021 is quite not what most people had hoped it might be.

A couple of weeks back, on the day federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland presented her budget update, Politico Canada’s Nick Taylor-Vaisey reported that while interviewing senior government officials in lock up, the Deputy Ministers of Health and Finance, as well as representatives from the Prime Minister’s office, told the gathered journalists that the federal government doesn’t foresee Canada “getting a handle on” COVID-19 until the summer of 2023, at the earliest.

Although the likelihood is great that late spring and early summer 2022 will see a reduction in the number of COVID-19 infections — as was the case in the summers of 2020 and 2021 — next autumn and winter, including the holiday season in 2022, will in all likelihood mirror what we’ve all experienced over the course of the past almost 22 months. Sad and disappointing news, but our new collective reality.

British Columbia’s Public Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, told British Columbians last Tuesday that all British Columbians will likely become infected with the Omicron variant, clarifying her statement this past Friday, saying that, “All British Columbians will come into contact with Omicron in January.”

Jens von Bergmann, data scientist with British Columbia’s COVID-19 Modelling Group

For the moment, Dr. Henry is choosing to ignore the advice of the B.C. COVID-19 Modelling Group. In an article published in the Vancouver Sun last week, the member scientists in the modelling group told reporter Lisa Cordasco that …

“An Omicron tidal wave is coming, hospitals will be overwhelmed — although 20 to 40 per cent fewer people will end up in hospital, as Omicron cases skyrocket our health care system will be challenged,” said Jens von Bergmann, a data scientist and a member of the modelling group, who went on to say that “although most people who are vaccinated will suffer only mild symptoms from the Omicron variant, the sheer number of people becoming infected across British Columbia will mean that many of our fellow citizens will suffer severe illness and death.”

“It is not clear to me that we have done enough and I think there is a very good chance that it is not (enough),” said von Bergmann. “If we have large indoor gatherings, these are opportunities for super spreader events. That certainly includes large sporting events like Canucks games, or going to restaurants to dine.”

The member scientists in British Columbia’s COVID-19 modelling group said they believe the only way to prevent super spreader events is, at a minimum, by shutting down all restaurants and indoor public events for three weeks.

On Tuesday December 21st, Dr. Henry ordered all bars, nightclubs, gyms, fitness centres, yoga and dance studios to close, and limited sports venues to 50% capacity until Tuesday, January 18th.

The members of B.C.’s COVID-19 modelling group have stated emphatically that the actions of British Columbia’s Public Health Office, and B.C.’s Ministry of Health taken to date are far from adequate to meet the challenge of the fast spreading Omicron variant. This past Friday, Health Minister Adrian Dix told reporters at the hastily-called 10 a.m. press conference that this coming Wednesday, December 29th, he and Dr. Henry will hold another press conference that could very well include more restrictions.

As is the case with many people, VanRamblings has chosen to stay close to home for the next month, going out only to shop for groceries, when we wear our Health Canada-recommended three-layer mask with a polypropylene melt blown 5 layer pm2.5 Activated Carbon filter, placing a new filter in the mask each week.

Where we’d planned to spend much of the holiday season sequestered in one darkenend cinema or another, due to the spread of the Omicron variant, we have opted for safety over indulgence, and instead have chosen to spend our evenings in front of the luxurious 4K screen in our home theatre system, taking in all of the soon-to-be Oscar nominated films available on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime of Apple TV, or setting about to watch Oscar nominatable films available On Demand through our service provider.

Safe, rather than sorry.

The salutary aspects of the Omicron variant: it burns bright, but just as is the case with a shooting star, it begins to burn itself out — in the case of Omicron, within a month, and six weeks in settles down, with case counts plummeting.

Far fewer of those who contract the Omicron variant will be hospitalized, or die. If one is wise and does not place themselves in harm’s way by going out to restaurants, or attending large sporting or other events inside, the prospects are good that you’ll survive Omicron, and go on to thrive, and live another day.

This afternoon, after 3pm, when the province releases its 3-day totals for Friday to Saturday, Saturday to Sunday and Sunday to Monday, if the three-day infection total tops 10,000 — in spite of the fact testing capacity is topped out, and all those who’ve contracted the Omicron variant can’t possibly be reflected in the COVID-19 infection numbers that will be released this afternoon, as a variant on what Dr.  Henry told British Columbians last week, “We’ll be in a whole new ballgame.”

If infections rates are indeed climbing, come Wednesday British Columbians can reasonably expect to find a new and varied set of restrictions imposed, up to and including, in the worst case scenario, a circuit-breaker lockdown.

Note Belgian virologist, Dr. Guido Vanham (right) and his son, Peter

Today, we’ll leave you with a hopeful note, a letter sent by Dr. Guido Vanham, a Belgian virologist, to his family on how best to protect themselves — and by extension, us — from the Omicron variant. You may read the entire letter by clicking on the link available at the top of this paragraph.

In part, here’s how the letter reads …

Dear grandchildren,

Your mom and I are so very much looking forward to celebrating the holidays with you — and especially with the newest member of our family! We’re so glad you’re all safe and that Valeria had a good pregnancy and got herself protected by taking a vaccine (and soon a booster) early.

Sadly, the Omicron “variant” of the COVID-19 virus is spreading all over the world now. And I know that you’re wondering: What should we expect? Is this going to be the first wave all over again or will we be better off?

My assessment is: This may be the most contagious variant yet, with a possible tsunami of infections and sadly little effect of the vaccines on that front. We therefore are better safe than sorry and should do everything we can to protect ourselves and those around us.

Here’s what I think you should know:

First, this Omicron “variant” is a new form of the COVID-19 virus, which causes a new wave of infections because it’s somehow more potent than the previous variant. Omicron is both more contagious than previous variants (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta) and also escapes from the “immunity” the antibodies induced from the previous variants.

Omicron remains sensitive to the vaccine, but less than Delta. That’s why you need a third dose of the vaccine to help protect you from serious illness and hospitalization.

Unfortunately, even three doses don’t protect against the infection itself. If you’ve been vaccinated three times and still become infected, you’ll often hardly notice it: You may have a “common cold,” a sore throat, and sometimes a fever. So I know you’re all lining up for your boosters and you’re doing the right thing.

This pandemic will pass, just like the Spanish Flu a hundred years ago, but no one can predict when. I hope with all of you that this is our last COVID-19 winter, but I’m only a doctor and a scientist — and a father and grandfather — not a prophet …

Take care, and let’s hope we can still get together for the holidays, albeit extremely carefully,

Dad

You may click here to read Dr. Vanham’s letter to his son in its entirety.

#Holidays | Bah Humbug! | 2021 Christmas Lights Tour

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When VanRamblings began our first annual Christmas Lights Tour 50 years ago, the residences along every block of the city of Vancouver and the whole of the Lower Mainland was alight in Christmas light decorations, whole stretches of blocks where every homeowner had strung lights on the balconies around their homes, and on their lawns, competing with their next door neighbours and the neighbours across the way to take the community prize for best residential light display.

That was then, this is now. Much has changed.

Over the past 50 years, fewer and fewer homeowners have taken the time and trouble to put up Christmas light displays around their home. Back in the day, there were no Christmas LEDs available, so putting up residential Christmas decorations proved to be a costly seasonal expense, often topping $1000. For the past 20 years or so, LEDs have been all the rage — more environmentally sound, and much less costly — yet fewer light displays.

In 2021, VanRamblings’ recommendation to our readers: take a walk, or a drive, around your neighbourhood, and you’re likely to see a surprising number of residential light displays — which is what we found to be the case this year, across all 23 Vancouver neighbourhoods.

                                             Sutton Place Christmas tree

As in past years, our Christmas Lights Tour begins with the downtown hotels.

The photo above of a decorated Christmas tree was taken at the Sutton Place Hotel on Burrard Street. In the 1990s, when the hotel was named Le Meridien, and the General Manager was the diehard romantic, Louis Daniel, the hotel went out of its way to create a festive environment in the hotel.

Each year, the chef created an entire chocolate village in the front lobby, featuring a huge chocolate village table, and a continuation of the chocolate village all along the south wall at the entrance to Le Meridien. The remaining area in the lobby and the seating area north of the lobby was filled with a riot of lustrous Christmas trees.

That was the 90s, this is now. No more chocolate displays, no ‘huge’ trees, and many fewer of them. Even before COVID this was the case. One supposes fiscal times were tough even pre-COVID, and the first things to go were the chocolate villages, and the riot of huge Christmas trees. Alas.

  Hyatt Regency Hotel Gingerbread display, located at the entrance to the lobby

Next, it was a stroll down an almost deserted Burrard Street (amidst the supposed hustle and bustle of the Christmas shopping season) to the Hyatt Regency Hotel at Georgia Street, to see if the hotel had come through with their annual Metro Vancouver public and private school-created Gingerbread villages. As was the case last year, again this year, aside from the gingerbread display you see above — created by Hyatt Regency staff, one would suspect — there were no gingerbread village displays to be found. Must be this new Omicron variant that’s been spreading so wildly this past week, or so.

Hotel Georgia Christmas tree in the lobby of the hotel. Don’t miss the optical illusion art on the wall.

Next it was to the Hotel Vancouver, and then to the Hotel Georgia. In the past, the Hotel Georgia set up a free hot chocolate bar every visitor to the hotel might enjoy. Not this year, or last. There’s still the optical illusion art work on the wall in the lobby area to admire, and the trees you see in the photo above.


View of Stanley Park, from the concourse of Canada Place. Don’t miss the Woodwards window displays.

Next on the gloriously sunny and clear-skied Thursday, December 16th, it was to Canada Place to see the Woodwards window displays, and to admire the view from the concourse. VanRamblings could continue to bah hug! our way through this portion of the tour, and comment on the fact that neither the Pan Pacific Hotel nor the Fairmont Hotel had bothered to create any kind of festive atmosphere in their hotels, and once again this year there were no 25′ decorated corporate Christmas trees in the Canada Place open area — but we won’t do that, because we’re in an upbeat and festive mood!

As always, the Woodwards windows — which VanRamblings enjoyed as a child — were spectacular if, as our friend commented, “more than a bit colonialist in their presentation.” Still and all, free, something to behold, and a must-see.

We got back into our comfy and spacious EVO sedan car (with heated seats!) — although we had tried to secure one of EVO’s fleet of Kia Niro EV’s, of which there are only four in a fleet of 2500 EVO vehicles, but were unsuccessful. Next year maybe.

As the Christmas Lights Tour is supposed to be a free event, as we drove by the Christmas Market at Jack Poole Plaza we noticed the line was long, and entrance to the Market was fiscally dear — so we drove on to see the row houses in the 100 block of Victoria Drive that were all lit up last year. Not this year.

We drove to Victoria Park, where last year we noticed that the entire 1800 block of houses along Kitchener Street were lit up with Christmas decorations galore. Not in 2021. The same proved true along Victoria Drive from East 3rd Avenue south — with no light display surrounding the house at 12th and Semlin Drive, either. A minor disappointment, as we made the decision to drive along the residential streets of Grandview Woodland, from Victoria Drive and East 2nd through to East 8th Avenue, and up to Nanaimo Street. There were  in the neighbourhood a pleasing number of residential Christmas light displays, so our festive holiday lights needs were more than met, we found.

We next drove through East Vancouver (see photos above), along Kitchener Street, up Rupert Street to Price Street, then over to Ontario Street just west of Main Street, and finally to Canuck Place west of Granville Street.

We continued our Christmas Lights Tour drive through Vancouver, as we drove through Vancouver’s neighbourhoods towards Canuck Place (always a delight!) — although, this year, there is no entrance to the grounds, as in past years —  but we did run across the home pictured above that was not on our Lights Tour last year. In fact, we found that the entire 3200 block of West 14th Avenue was completely lit up. There are also a great number of holiday light displays west of Waterloo Street, from West 11th Avenue to West 14th Avenue.

We continued our drive, now over to the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club light display, then to Granville Island, and downtown past the St. Paul’s Hospital Lights of Hope display, to English Bay, and then on to the Bright Nights display — which we were disappointed to find this year requires a purchased-in-advance $13 ticket that both gains you entrance into the Firefighters Holiday Lights Display, and a ride on the Christmas train. VanRamblings is of a parsimonious nature (we had our $10 in hand to donate to the Firefighters Burn Fund), and given that by this time we were famished, we decided to drive over the Lion’s Gate Bridge towards the Cactus Club at Park Royal, where we both enjoyed nutritious bowls of goodness.

Preparing for our drive out to Horseshoe Bay along Highway 1 — which affords an eagle’s eye view of Metro Vancouver — we first ‘stopped in’ at the 800 block Eyremount in the British Properties, where we were wowed by the Christmas Lights Display. On the way back from Horseshoe Bay along the lower road of Marine Drive, right next to the water and then along and through Dundarave, we next decided to take in the lights of North Vancouver, which may be found in the Google Maps display just below.

Traveling over the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge we took the turn off, and headed towards Hastings Street where the street was all lit up.

As the hour was late, and my Lights Tour companion was fading — with Google Maps on his smartphone, he had acted as the navigator throughout, and did a darn fine job — prior to heading home we stopped in for a late night hot chocolate at Timmie’s, after which we returned to our respective homes.

When conducting the Christmas Lights Tour from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, Megan (VanRamblings’ very decided ‘knows her own mind, knows what she wants’ daughter, 8 years of age in 1985), along with her brother Jude decided that the Christmas Lights Tour would begin at 3pm, when they were let out of school, and last until the wee hours of the next morning, usually around 4 a.m., when we took in not just the whole of Vancouver, but the entirety of the North Shore, Burnaby, New Westminster, the Tri-Cities, and then over the Port Mann bridge to Surrey — the ability to get by on only four hours sleep a night, and get a second wind to take us through the night, but one salutary feature inherited from their loving and devoted papa.

If you wish to go further afield than what we’ve outlined above, take a look at the second half of VanRamblings’2020 Christmas Lights Tour guide.

On a final note, should you click on the 2020 Christmas Lights Tour guide, you’ll find the following festive home in Surrey, near Guildford.

Flavio Marquez, the homeowner of 16468 104 Avenue, in Surrey, wrote to VanRamblings awhile back to say …

In 2021, my family has built an even larger holiday lights display, with many more lights and more lawn decorations than last year. During the holiday season in 2020, we raised over 1,400 lbs of food and almost $1,800 in cash donations. With the support of your readers — who we would very much like to see visit our home this year — we hope to do even better in 2021!

Again this year, my family has created a Facebook photo album (click on preceding link) that will provide your readers with even more insight into what we’ve been able to achieve.

Hoping your family, and all of your readers’ families, enjoy the merriest of Christmas seasons. Merry Christmas, and may the New Year fulfill all of your fondest wishes.

Thank you, Flavio! And thank you to all VanRamblings readers. Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, and the happiest & most rewarding holiday season.