#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.

#VanPoli | Taxes | Downloading the Tax Burden to Municipalities

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In a disparaging VanRamblings story published last week on this site —  titled Vancouver City Council To Raise Property Taxes a Whopping 6.35% — we took Vancouver City Councillors to task for raising property taxes in our city beyond what most homeowners, small businesses, and landlords could reasonably afford.

Now, as it happens, VanRamblings is a big fan of taxes which, in good measure, pay for: our schools, from kindergarten through university post-graduate work; roads, highways, bridges and other transportation infrastructure (including public transit); our judicial and public safety systems (the courts, police, fire firefighters, paramedics, prisons); ‘social programmes’ including all aspects of child care (encompassing children in the care of the province, when family structures have broken down); all aspects of our vibrant health care system; and much, much more.

To be fair to Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and the five Vancouver City Councillors who voted in favour of the 6.35% property tax increase in 2022 — that would be the three Green Party of Vancouver City Councillors, Pete Fry, Adriane Carr and Michael Wiebe, OneCity Vancouver’s Christine Boyle and COPE’s Jean Swanson —  as is our wont, today we’ll publish one of our infrequent “history lessons” to explain, at least in part, the rationale as to why the Mayor and five City Councillors cast their vote in favour of a  6.35% property tax increase for 2022.

In 1984, Conservative Party leader Brian Mulroney was elected as Canada’s 18th Prime Minister, supplanting a Liberal Party of Canada that had been in power for 21 consecutive years, Canada’s 33rd Parliament in the autumn of 1984 consisting of 202 Tories, 135 Liberals, and 31 New Democrats. During Mr. Mulroney’s nine years in power, his government had many successes, on the environment and on the trade front, negotiating a groundbreaking free trade agreement with the United States. Contrary to billing, more often than not, Conservatives in power tend to be spendthrifts, all while cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, and failing to keep an eye on the federal budget.

In the midst of a deepening recession, when Mr. Mulroney stepped down as Prime Minister of Canada on Friday June 25, 1993, apart from and in spite of the then wildly unpopular 7% Goods and Sales Tax (GST) his government had brought in, Mr. Mulroney left his successor, Kim Campbell, with the legacy of a multi-year $42 billion annual budget deficit — a grim sum absolutely unheard of in those days.

Only four short months later, on Monday, October 25th, 1993 Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien was elected as Canada’s 20th Prime Minister. First order of business? Appoint a Finance Minister, and commit to not only eliminating the egregious annual deficit, but cut the accumulated $840 billion long term Mulroney legacy debt in half. Who would perform that masterful fiscal feat? The head of Canada Steamship Lines, from 1988 forward the Member of Parliament for the southwestern Montréal riding of LaSalle-Émard, and Prime Ministerial aspirant, Paul Martin.

In Canada, long ago the federal government negotiated what became known colloquially as a tax rental agreement with the provinces. The federal government would collect income taxes from Canadians, take a portion for federal coffers, while transferring the majority of the federal tax income collected back to the provinces. For years, back to 1945, the agreement worked well for all levels of government — until 1996, when Finance Minister Paul Martin “changed the game”.

In the 1995 federal budget Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government abandoned any pretense of federal financing of post-secondary education, changing what was known as the Canada Social Transfer into the renamed the Canada Health and Social Transfer(CHST), cutting a total of $3.5 billion in the CHST for the 1996/97 fiscal year. The total cuts to the provinces in the first five years Jean Chrétien was in power: $7.6 billion in transfer payments that would otherwise have gone to the provinces, or a devastating decline of 40.7% in health, education and other transfer payments to the provinces by the 1999-2000 federal fiscal year.

All of a sudden, the provinces were made almost entirely responsible for the largest provincial budget item: health care, and entirely responsible for funding post-secondary education, federally-funded programmes that had been in place since as far back as the end of World War II.

The good news for the federal government: by 2003 federal Liberal Finance Minister Paul Martin had not only eliminated any notion of an annual federal budget deficit — instead, creating a yearly surplus —  but had, as well, paid down $440 billion in long term debt, cutting the federal debt in half as Jean Chrétien had promised a decade earlier. The bad news for the provinces: provincial Premiers and their Finance Ministers had to come up with funds to make up for the lost / eliminated “tax rental agreement” revenue that funded provincial programmes.

Provincial governments made up for the lost federal revenue by creating, or dramatically raising, provincial sales taxes, instituting or raising fees for every imaginable service, from driver’s licenses to camp ground fees, along with instituting bridge and road tolls while looking to any other sources of revenue provincial Finance Ministers could come up with to make up for lost federal funding.

The major source of newfound provincial revenue: municipalities. If the federal government had download responsibility to the provinces for health care, housing, and post secondary education, provinces sought to gain revenue from the towns, villages and cities that filled the landscape of their provinces. All of a sudden, cities, towns and villages were almost entirely responsible for the provision of affordable and social housing, social programmes, child care, road construction and maintenance, and other infrastructure (sewers, provision of clean water), and any number of programmes previously almost the sole responsibility of the provinces.

Where senior levels of government may run deficit budgets, cities, towns and villages, school boards, and Vancouver’s Park Board are required to run an annual balanced budget. With responsibility for programmes previously funded by the province now the responsibility of municipalities, cities, town and villages scrambled to find the required revenue, which translated into: skyrocketing parking rates and extended paid parking hours, dramatically increased parking fines, and skyrocketing development permit fees for homeowners and developers alike — and, what is known as Community Amenity Contributions by developers paid to the city to fund child care centres, neighbourhood recreation centres, as well as social and affordable housing, and a variety of arts and other programmes.

Here, then — as may be seen in Councillor Boyle’s tweet above — was the dilemma faced by Mayor Kennedy Stewart and our City Councillors when, last week, together our elected civic leaders voted for a 6.35% property tax increase for 2022, to fund not just core programmes, but the programmes that determine the livability of our city, and also fulfill the election commitments made by the Mayor, the three Green Party City Councillors, and our OneCity and COPE Councillors. Last week, for Mayor Stewart and five of our Councillors, conscience won out over fiscal restraint.

#VanPoli | Vancouver City Council To Raise Property Taxes a Whopping 6.35%

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In a contentious, multi-hour meeting of Vancouver City Council, in a split vote along party lines, with COPE’s Jean Swanson, OneCity Vancouver’s Christine Boyle, all three Green Party of Vancouver City Councillors — Pete Fry, Adriane Carr, and Michael Wiebe — voting to raise property taxes in the City of Vancouver in 2022 by a whopping 6.35%, with dissenting votes coming from the former Non-Partisan Association electeds on Council — Sarah Kirby-Yung, Lisa Dominato, Colleen Hardwick, Rebecca Bligh and Melissa De Genova —  arguing that Council should hold the line at a previously promised five per cent increase, at the end of a long and arduous day on Tuesday, reason and fiscal prudence did not win the day.

Next year’s highest in Metro Vancouver property tax increase will see much of the burden borne by small business owners as part of their triple net lease responsibilities, as well as landlords, and the much-put-upon homeowners across the city.

Among the more contentious parts of the debate was an amendment by Councillor Adriane Carr in which she introduced an additional $9 million per year in taxation to fund a variety of the city’s climate emergency goals.

It includes more money for more electric vehicle infrastructure, planting trees, and improving active transportation infrastructure, and comes two months after Council narrowly voted against funding similar measures through a new parking permit system. Councillor Rebecca Bligh said she supported the initiatives, but expressed concern only “some Council members” had been consulted in advance.

“It’s not popular not to support this (climate change measure), we’re likely to be called out on Twitter for not supporting this, and being called climate [change] deniers,” she told the media.

“The people who are going to vote for this, were engaged ahead of this meeting, and the people that likely are not going to vote for this, were not engaged at all.”

Vancouver City Council budget meeting on Tuesday, December 7 2021. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG

As Vancouver Sun civic affairs reporter Dan Fumano writes today …

“Property taxes will rise 6.35% in the city of Vancouver after Council narrowly approved a 2022 budget on Tuesday. After a day of debate, Council passed a $1.747 billion operating budget, with a property tax increase higher than the five per cent proposed in last month’s draft budget. Most of the additional money goes to the police, fire department and climate measures.

On a proposed $9 million fund for the climate emergency measures, the five Councillors elected in 2018 with the Non-Partisan Association — Rebecca Bligh, Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato, Colleen Hardwick, and Sarah Kirby-Yung — voted no. It was one of several times Tuesday the five voted together. Four  have long since quit the NPA, citing concerns about its Board of Directors. Only De Genova is still with the NPA.

The other six Councillors, including the three Greens, one from OneCity, one COPE, and the independent mayor voted for the extra climate measures funding, with Stewart accusing the opponents of ignoring the climate emergency so evident in B.C. this year.”

Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung reflecting on the shenanigans going on at Council’s budget meeting

In the hour prior to the taking of the final vote on the 2022 budget, VanRamblings was afforded the opportunity to speak with Councillor Kirby-Yung.

“All members of Council are dedicated climate change activists, recognize our climate emergency, and to date every member of Council has voted in favour of meaningful climate change policy when it has come before Council,” Kirby-Yung told VanRamblings.

“To, at the last minute, add a $9 million climate measure to a City budget already stretching at the seams — when tens, and over the years working in concert with senior levels of government, hundreds of millions of dollars has been set aside as the City’s response to our climate emergency represents for me, the height of fiscal irresponsibility, and as such emerges as a disservice to the already overtaxed residents of Vancouver.”

Non-Partisan Association City Councillor Melissa De Genova also weighed in.

Late Tuesday evening, Councillor Kirby-Yung tweeted out these thoughts …

Councillor Rebecca Bligh less than pleased with the ‘game playing’ of some of her Council colleagues (Photo courtesy of CBC photographer, Ben Nelms, and CBC civic affairs reporter Justin McElroy)

As CBC civic affairs reporter Justin McElroy writes …

“Despite repeated motions in the last two years to try and keep the average property tax increase at five per cent or below, the $1.7 billion budget passed has an increase of 6.3 per cent. That works out to $72 for the average detached condo in the city, or $178 for the average home, not including parts of the property tax bill not under municipal control.”

Councillor Colleen Hardwick looks askance at a Council colleague during budget debate

Mr. McElroy then quotes Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick …

“The stark reality is we are just going ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, and taking it not out of the one per cent, but of the middle-class people who are trying to afford to continue living in this city.” Hardwick said at one point. “I’m choked as I continue to see us add more and more. It was bad enough that we were looking at five per cent.”

Other than the climate measures included in the 2022 budget, some of the other increases that were not originally included in the draft budget included an extra $3.1 million to Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services for more firefighters, $670,000 for enhanced street cleaning, $1.2 million to fund the newly created Auditor General’s office, and additional funding to the Vancouver Police Department, allowing them to fill current vacancies and fund recent salary arbitration decisions.

#VanPoli | Making Members of the Media Your New Best Friends

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In 314 days, voters go to the polls to elect the next Vancouver civic government.

For which Mayoral candidates will voters cast their ballots, which civic parties and which candidates for office will garner their support? How will Vancouver’s plethora of municipal parties get their ‘Elect Me, Elect Me’ message out to voters?

Social media? Advertising? All candidates meetings? Door knocking? Well-run, well-organized, ‘get out the vote’ civic campaigns for office, staffed by volunteers?

The Globe and Mail’s Frances Bula, the dean of Vancouver’s civic affairs reporters

All of the above, and … the media, members of the working press, and more specifically, the hard-working civic affairs reporters who have dedicated their lives to reporting on democratic engagement in Vancouver civic politics: the doyenne of Vancouver civic affairs reporters, Globe and Mail freelancer & Vancouver Magazine columnist, Frances Bula, who has dedicated her working life to reporting on the livable city.

And, the hardest working journalist in civic politics, The Vancouver Sun’s Dan Fumano; former much respected Vancouver Courier, and now much respected Business in Vancouver and Vancouver is Awesome municipal affairs reporter, Mike Howell; the indefatigable Kenneth Chan at Daily Hive Vancouver (how does he accomplish so much — after all, there are only 24 hours in a day?), who is also editor of Vancouver’s première online source for Lotusland news; and the man-of-good-cheer who loves charts, the CBC’s ‘I live to report the news’, the one, the only civic affairs and jack of all journalistic endeavours reporters, Justin McElroy.

And let us not forget, the longtime editor of The Georgia Straight, Charlie Smith — independently-minded, a man of tireless endeavour when it comes to reporting on civic politics, and so very much more, a man possessed of much wit, passion and compassion. And, his civic affairs reporting colleague at The Straight, Carlito Pablo.

Another primary source for coverage of Vancouver’s critically important upcoming municipal election is Bob Mackin’s theBreaker.news. Not familiar with, don’t know about, never visited the curries no favours with politicos, tells it like it is and gives you the straight goods, the source for real reporting on the civic events of the day, and the must-visit muckraking site, in the tradition of I.F. Stone, theBreaker.news is your source for breaking news on Vancouver’s civic affairs scene.

Make no mistake, it is Ms. Bula’s, Mr. Fumano’s, Mr. Howell’s, Mr. Chan’s, Mr. Smith’s, Mr. Pablo’s, Mr. Mackin’s and Mr. McElroy’s reporting, the stories they choose to tell and their interpretation of what they see and what they’re being told, how they feel about the worthiness of the candidates who are offering themselves for service to the residents of Vancouver, who will emerge as the factor of greater importance in the determination as to which party will govern as a majority at Vancouver City Hall — every one of Vancouver’s municipal parties want more than anything else to govern as a majority — as to who will emerge as Vancouver’s next Mayor, and who will sit as Vancouver City Councillors in the 2022 – 2026 term of office.

Current and probable candidates for Vancouver’s next Mayor: Ken Sim, with A Better City; Mark Marissen, with Progress Vancouver; John Coupar, with our city’s oldest and longest governing municipal party, the Non-Partisan Association; Colleen Hardwick, with TEAM … for a livable Vancouver; Wai Young, with Coalition Vancouver; Andrea Reimer, with Vision Vancouver; Patrick Condon, with the Coalition of Progressive Electors; Jody Wilson-Raybould, with OneCity Vancouver; and independent, current Mayor, Kennedy Stewart will all want to garner much attention from Vancouver’s respected, reputable and influence-making municipal affairs reporters, make these good folks of conscience their new best friends.

All the while, the current and probable Mayoral — and their party colleague — candidates will want to convince these all-important civic affairs reporters that they, and they alone, possess the key, the will power, the wit, the acumen, the knowledge of how government works, and the exquisite humanity to make Vancouver the affordable and livable city all Vancouver residents want and need, drawing support from across the political spectrum, across Vancouver’s economic strata and in every one of our city’s 23 diverse neighbourhoods, and across and in every critically-important ethnic community comprising the city we love so very much.

In addition, the CBC’s Early Edition host, Stephen Quinn — no fool, he, and ‘influencer’ of extraordinary proportion. Plus, CKNW’s talented and inquisitive, Simi Sara, who knows how to ask the pointedly unsettling question; Al Jazeera’s lover-of-all-things civic politics, and along with former Vancouver City Councillor (and sometime CKNW host), George Affleck, of The Orca podcast, Jody Vance; former publisher-editor of the much-missed and well-researched political affairs CityCaucus ‘blog’, Mike Klassen (who is VanRamblings’ 17-year-long webmaster), and his Vancouver Overcast podcast; and last but certainly not least, This is VanColour’s tough, yet fair-minded, Mo Amir, now on CHEK-TV, Sundays at 7pm.

The coverage that will be provided to all political candidates offering themselves for service in the municipal arena and asking for your vote — by all those journalists whose names appear above — is called ‘earned media’, and is — and has always been — of exponentially greater importance to candidates running for office — or at the very least, of equivalent importance — than the combined efforts of candidate campaign teams, the donations to political parties from members of the public who will fund the civic party campaigns, and the myriad of all-candidates meetings that will fill civic affairs calendars from the spring of 2022 on, through until Vancouver’s next civic Election Day, to be held on Saturday, October 15th, 2022.

Make no mistake — journalists represent the voice of the people.

Journalists are, and have always been, the information and news conduit between those who govern, or would propose to govern us, and Canadians, be it  provincially or federally — and because, municipally, journalists and candidates are so much closer to the residents of the city whose interests they represent than is true of senior levels of government, journalists should be seen as part of a candidate’s family, as they are members of the families of the 40% of the Vancouver electorate who will cast their ballot at an election polling station, just 314 days from today.