Tag Archives: 2022 vancouver civic election

#VanPoli | Housing & Development | Making The Vancouver Plan Irrelevant, Pt. 2

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On Monday, VanRamblings wrote about The Vancouver Plan, a visionary document destined to inform growth in our city over the next 30 years.

A core issue of concern VanRamblings explored was how, months in advance of the publication of The Vancouver Plan, Vancouver City Hall’s Planning Department has set about to place before the members of Vancouver City Council several massive redevelopment projects — including, two weeks ago, a revisioning of False Creek South — the 32 hectares (80 acres) of city-owned land situated between the Granville and Cambie street bridges, on the south shore of False Creek, that proposed to triple the number of homes on the site.

And, last week, The Broadway Plan, a massive development plan for the Broadway corridor, extending from Vine Street to the west, 1st Avenue to the north, Clark Drive to the east, and 16th Avenue to the south, came before Council, a proposal to build dozens of 30 to 40 storey towers surrounding the areas adjacent to future Broadway Millennium Skytrain stations — at Main, Cambie, Oak, Granville and Arbutus streets, and when the Skytrain extension to UBC is approved, at Macdonald, Alma and Blanca streets, with the shoulder areas adjacent to the areas surrounding the stations, extending from 1st Avenue to the north and 13th Avenue to the south, set for a mass construction of 20, 25 and 30 storey towers.

Given all of the above, as founding chair of UBC’s urban design programme, Patrick Condon, wrote in response to yesterday’s VanRamblings column …

“What’s left to plan?

Who voted for more unaffordable condo towers?”

Before her election to Vancouver City Council in 2018, and throughout her campaign for office, and every day since her election as a City Councillor,  Colleen Hardwick has hammered home two informed, salient points …

1. The population growth figures employed by the City’s Planning Department that are a determinative factor in development planning in the City of Vancouver are based on flawed data, arising from one immodest year of population growth in our city, the fiscal 2016 – 2017 year. Before that fiscal year, and each year since, population growth figures in Vancouver, as determined by both the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Pacific Regional office of Statistics Canada, have dwarfed that one unique year in the current millennium;

Reliance’s Burrard Place project, a three-tower development at Burrard and Drake

2. The City of Vancouver, the office of the City Manager, and the Director of Planning have become far too reliant on the Community Amenity Contributions developers must pay in order that their projects will receive approval from the City’s Planning Department. As an example of monies paid in CAC’s by a developer, when Reliance Properties made application for a three tower mixed use development at Drake and Howe / Burrard — now known as Burrard Place — Reliance Properties paid the City of Vancouver $46 million in Community Amenity Contributions.

Given the affordable housing shortage in our city, you’d think that the civic government of the day — Gregor Robertson’s Vision Vancouver — would allot a portion of that $46 million towards the construction of affordable housing. Instead, the then Mayor declared that there was NO affordable housing shortage in the West End (CAC monies must be dedicated to serve the interests of the neighbourhood where the large scale development project is to be built).

Another salient point informing decision-making by senior members of Vancouver’s Planning Department: in point of fact, the very employment of the excluded / non-union white collar staff at City Hall — to whose numbers, 1100 new staff have been added over the past decade — is almost entirely dependent on extracting from developers as much money in CAC’s as possible.

As VanRamblings promised yesterday, today we’ll present more massive developments slated to be built, or currently under construction, in our city.

Artistic rendering of the Sen̓áḵw redevelopment at the south end of the Burrard Bridge in Vancouver

The Squamish Nation’s Sen̓áḵw Indigenous redevelopment of their 11.7-acre reserve at the south end of the Burrard Street Bridge promises 6,000 homes will be built within 11 towers housing 15,000 residents, consisting mostly of rental housing — a 50-50 partnership between the First Nations and local developer Westbank — forming a new skyline in the Kitsilano neighbourhood, the tallest buildings, two 56 storey condo towers. As the project is being built on Indigenous lands, the sole involvement by the City of Vancouver respects a negotiation with the Squamish Nation on hooking up to the city amenities, and addressing issues such as the provision of schools, and transportation.

A rendering of the proposed buildings to be constructed on Point Grey’s Jericho Lands

Another  Indigenous land development within the City of Vancouver will occur on the 90-acre Jericho Lands — a largely undeveloped site bordered by West 4th Avenue to the north, Highbury Street to the east, West 8th Avenue to the south, and Trimble Park to the west.

The sprawling, hillside site, a former military base and home to the West Point Grey Academy, is owned by a partnership of three local First Nations — Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh, collectively known as the MST Development Corporation — and the federal Crown Corporation, Canada Lands Company. As the First Nations purchased the Jericho Lands, development of the site falls under the jurisdiction of the City of Vancouver’s Planning Department, who will be intimately involved in the project’s development.

Construction on the Jericho Lands site will begin in 2024, with a completion date of 2050. Although the Jericho Lands site is five times the size of the Sen̓áḵw development, the Jericho Lands project envisions 10,000 new homes and 25,000 residents. West Point Grey is currently home to 13,000 residents — the Jericho Lands development will triple the number of residents who will call Point Grey home.

November 2021 artistic rendering of the Broadway Commercial Safeway redevelopment, Vancouver

Over on the east side of town, in the Grandview Woodland neighbourhood, there’s the redevelopment of the Safeway site, next to the Broadway Skytrain station, just east of Commercial Drive. Heights ranging between 24 and 29 storeys above the podium’s retail plinth are, as can be seen in the graphic representation above, planned for the site. The project is a partnership between Crombie REIT and … wait for it, wait for it … leading luxury developer, Ian Gillespie’s Westbank Corporation, which has engaged its usual architectural design firm, Perkins & Will.

A massive redevelopment of the Norquay ‘Village’ Neighbourhood — which community activist Joseph Roberts writes about frequently on his Eye on Norquay website — has been underway for more than a decade. Roberts writes, the redevelopment plan for Norquay went “against what renters and homeowners want to see happen in their neighborhood.” The Norquay neighbourhood densification redevelopment will more than triple residential population of Norquay by 2030.

An autumn day at Trout Lake Park, in the heart of the Kensington-Cedar Cottage neighbourhood

And, the area bounded by Victoria Drive on the west, Nanaimo Street on the east, 12th Avenue on the north, and Kingsway on the south, in the Kensington-Cedar Cottage neighbourhood, the very heart of east Vancouver,  where the urban park and Trout Lake is located, is set for massive densification that will more than triple the number of residents in the neighbourhood over the course of the next 20 years.

Ian Gillespie is also the developer behind the redevelopment of the Oakridge site.

  • 2,600 homes in 19 towers will house nearly 6,000 residents;
  • A workspace for 3,000 creative professionals will be created;
  • More than 300 stores will feature the world’s most distinguished brands;
  • Oakridge will be home to one of Vancouver’s largest community centres;
  • Oakridge will be home to Vancouver’s second-largest library;
  • A nearly 10-acre rooftop park made up of six integrated smaller parks will be built.

   The Heather Lands 8.5-hectare (21-acre) development, situated between West 37th and 33rd  avenues, and bounded by the lanes behind Willow and Ash streets.

Nearby is the Indigenous-owned Heather Lands development, the 21-acre site the subject of a rezoning application to the city, is a comprehensive planning site overseen by the City of Vancouver’s Planning Department. 2,600 rental homes will be constructed on the site, ranging from three to 28 storeys.

And let us not forget, either, the first of many development applications to be made by Concord Pacific on the currently undeveloped northeast portion of offshore billionaire Li Ka-shing’s Expo lands, where a permit has been applied for to build a mixed-use commercial and residential community.

The current application proposes a maximum floor area of 181,625 sq. m (1,955,000 sq. ft.) and building heights of 89.9 m (295 ft.). on the 10.28-acre site, once known as the Plaza of Nations, where construction of a variety of terracing buildings of up to 30 storeys is planned, and set for approval by the Planning Department at Vancouver City Hall, and our current City Council. The Plaza of Nations redevelopment is expected to house 20,000 residents.

Artist’s conception of the new Northeast False Creek neighbourhood Vancouver is planning for

The new northeast waterfront False Creek neighbourhood will be housed in a forest of highrise condos that stretches from the Plaza of Nations on the west, to Carrall Street on the east. The plan includes taking down the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts, which will be replaced by an expanded street network. Three acres of waterfront park will be added to the neighbourhood. By the time the plan is completed in 2038, Creekside Park will be expanded by another eight acres.

The tallest site will be at Georgia and Pacific, where the city envisions a 425-foot tall building, which probably means 46 or 47 storeys.

In an article published in The Vancouver Sun on October 30th, Elizabeth Murphy, formerly a property development officer in the City of Vancouver’s Housing and Properties Department, as well as for B.C. Housing, wrote  …

“Vancouver continues arbitrary citywide re-zonings without neighbourhood context. The Vancouver Plan just implements the previous Council’s initiatives, without any meaningful planning process. To achieve positive outcomes for the citizens of Vancouver that avoid negative impacts on the climate, affordability and livability, growth needs to be managed very carefully.

The city must first consider the broader consequences of growth. Council asked for transparent data to recalibrate the housing targets that are currently almost three times what can be justified by census population growth of about one per cent per year.

After a decade of record amounts of rezoning and development, Vancouver is one of the most unaffordable cities in the world. Spot rezonings, land assemblies, displacement, speculation and land inflation are significant contributors to our current malaise.

Going forward, in order to be a livable, affordable and sustainable city, Vancouver must build for actual needs, in a scale and location that suits each neighbourhood, with meaningful community input, supported by affordable transit, and community amenities.

The indefatigable Patrick Condon, one of — if not the — most important voices on urban development and the livability of Vancouver, as a city for everyone, here and across the Metro Vancouver region

We’ll leave the final word to UBC professor of all things good, Vancouver’s beloved commentator on development across our city, Patrick Condon …

“Providing affordable housing is the existential need in our city. Our service workers, many of who are our sons and daughters, are being forced out of this city in droves. This Trojan Horse of the proposed rental bylaw changes at City Hall will mainly benefit the land speculator, whose pockets are already stuffed to overflowing. We need to put the interests of citizens first, over the interests of speculators and developers, and those who mean ill for our city.”

#VanPoli | Housing & Development | Making The Vancouver Plan Irrelevant, Pt. 1

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Vancouver Planning Staff and Developers Set to Turn Vancouver into Manhattan West

A core element of Colleen Hardwick’s successful 2018 run for office as a Vancouver City Councillor was the need for the city to draft a visionary planning document — to be called The Vancouver Plan — a bold, comprehensive and inclusive city-wide, neighbourhood and heritage community development plan for all residents living in the City of Vancouver, a 30-year plan that would focus on creating opportunities to integrate new housing, recreation centres, jobs, and amenities across our city.

As a first order of business early in her inaugural term of office, working with three term Vancouver City Councillor, Adriane Carr, Councillor Hardwick seconded a pioneering motion that would have staff employed within the Planning Department at Vancouver City Hall draft The Vancouver Plan (initial title, the City-Wide Plan) document, towards the creation of a livable, affordable and sustainable city, a single, city-wide plan that would guide future growth consistent with key community priorities, a guide to our city’s future growth …

  • The provision of affordable housing in all of Vancouver’s 22 neighbourhoods;
  • Working on a meaningful climate action plan, and environmental sustainability;
  • The provision of well-paying jobs city-wide & in neighbourhoods + economic growth;
  • Prioritizing public and active transportation needs for Vancouver residents;
  • Arts & culture, and the provision for related community amenities;
  • Infrastracture, including community pools, ice rinks and recreation centres.

Public input would be sought in The Vancouver Plan engagement process, which continues through until this day.

The final draft document of The Vancouver Plan is set to be presented to the public and to members of Vancouver City Council in early spring of 2022.

In the video above, the narrator of the visionary Vancouver Plan intones …

“Now more than ever, it’s important to reduce our use of carbon fuels, and adapt to climate change. To advance these big ideas, we need to rethink our low density neighbourhoods. To that end, we could help shape future growth more in major transit areas. New housing, jobs, child care centres, and public plazas would be built along these transit corridors.”

Remembering for just a moment that The Vancouver Plan is far from having completed its community engagement process, and is not due to be presented to both the public and Vancouver City Council until spring 2022, this past Wednesday, November 3rd, the Planning Department presented The Broadway Plan to the members of Vancouver City Council, a fait accompli document that will add 50,000 new residents along the Broadway corridor, framed by Vine Street to the west, 1st Avenue to the north, Clark Drive to the east, and 16th Avenue to the south.”

As reported in The Daily Hive Vancouver by civic affairs reporter Kenneth Chan …

“The emerging direction of the densification strategy calls for increasing Central Broadway’s population by up to 50,000 to about 128,000 residents — an increase of 64% compared to 78,000 residents today. This would be achieved by growing the number of homes in the area from over 60,000 today to up to 90,000 units, with much of this is intended to be more affordable forms of housing.

Added office, retail, restaurant, institutional, and creative industrial spaces would grow the number of jobs from 84,400 today to up to about 126,000 jobs.”

The residential and employment targets outlined above would occur over a period of the next 30 years, through until 2050. Tower heights between 30 and 40 storeys will be built in areas around the stations. Shoulder areas adjacent to the immediate area surrounding the stations — generally within a two or three block radius — will see height allowances of 20 to 30 storeys.

Example of a “Centre” area near the future South Granville Station, November 2021. (City of Vancouver)

Example of “Shoulder” areas along Broadway in the Broadway Plan, November 2021. (City of Vancouver)

More details on the “Broadway Plan” may be found both in Mr. Chan’s story in The Daily Hive, and John Mackie’s story in The Vancouver Sun.

The question has to be asked: if the reasoned, thoughtful and neighbourhood resident consulted 30-year visionary document, titled The Vancouver Plan, is not due to be presented to Vancouver City Council until spring 2022, why are the members of Vancouver City Council being asked by the City Planning Department to approve The Broadway Plan as early as next week, on either November 16th, 17th or 18th?

And why, if The Vancouver Plan is a city-wide and neighbourhood visionary development plan for Vancouver as we head towards 2050, why is the City Planning Department taking a piecemeal approach to presenting any number of development plans in the pipeline to Council now — months in advance of the presentation of The Vancouver Plan to the public & members of Vancouver City Council?

Tomorrow on VanRamblings, we’ll present 1) several more “visionary” large scale developments currently in the Vancouver development pipeline — of which you may not be aware — that are destined to have a major impact on the livability of our much cherished Vancouver home; 2) a continued exploration of VanRamblings’ ongoing thème du mois — “A city for whom? Benefiting whose interests?”; and 3) whether the tens of thousands of housing units set to be built as envisioned in proposed Vancouver development plans to be presented to Council even before the final draft of The Vancouver Plan will be made public, will result in an overbuilt city that will cater explicitly to wealthy and offshore investment interests and their developer friends, rather than to the implicit and explicit interests of Vancouver residents living in the 22 neighbourhoods across our city.

The 70+ storey Bay Parkade development — due east of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and sandwiched between Seymour and Richards streets — one of seven 65+ storey downtown developments approved by Vision Vancouver (the first two, the Shangri-la Hotel on Georgia, and its neighbour across the street, Holborn’s “Trump Tower”), the Bay Parkade development will be presented to Council for approval sometime before the 2022 Vancouver civic election.

#VanPoli | The Worst Council in 50 Years?

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The current Vancouver City Council is the worst, most inept, least productive, least progressive City Council Vancouver citizens have witnessed in 50 years.

In the amalgam of Green Party, OneCity, COPE and “independent” (formerly Non Partisan Association) Councillors, we have a group of 10 Councillors and a Mayor who cannot seem to get along with one another, do not work in common cause to benefit the electorate, and genuinely don’t like one another.

Burnaby City Council vs Vancouver City Council, 2018 – 2022

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

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

The Burnaby City Council tenant assistance plan created inclusionary rental zoning bylaws, which requires of developers one-to-one replacement of demolished rental apartments, and that at least 20% of new housing developments in Burnaby will be secured as rental, in perpetuity.

Did Vancouver’s City Council’s purported, on the side of working people ‘left saviour’, OneCity Vancouver’s Christine Boyle, or the three-person environmental Green Party contingent, the Mayor, or any one of the five (now former) Non-Partisan Association City Councillors even consider implementing a tenant assistance policy similar Burnaby’s — and, now, New Westminster, as well?

Not on your life they didn’t, a point made comprehensible in the tweet below.

As Charles Menzies — a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia — wrote on Twitter yesterday in response to VanRamblings’ Tuesday column, about how some folks have deemed current Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick to be “right wing”, he wrote …

Tom ‘Not So Terrific’ Campbell, controversial Vancouver mayor, 1966 to 1972

In 1966, running as an independent, a brash Tom Campbell defeated Non Partisan Association mayor, Bill Rathie, to become Vancouver’s 31st mayor. From the outset, Campbell heralded a pro-development ethos that would make even Vision Vancouver (not to mention, our current City Council) blush, as he advocated for a freeway that would cut through the downtown east side, demolish the historic Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings, and bring about the construction of a luxury hotel at the entrance of Stanley Park, as well.

Vancouver’s West End neighbourhood, circa 1960, pre high-rise construction

In the West End, where Campbell — a wealthy developer — owned substantial properties in the neighbourhood, the newly-elected Mayor all but ordered the demolition of almost the entirety of the well-populated West End residential neighbourhood — housing mostly senior citizens in their single detached homes — as he made way for the rapid construction of more than 200 concrete high-rise towers, irreversibly transforming Vancouver’s West End … forever.

All of these “changes” augered controversy among large portions of the Vancouver populace, leading to vocal, often violent protests throughout Campbell’s treacherous tenure as Mayor, finally leading to his defeat at the polls in the November 1972 election, with the election of a majority, progressive T.E.A.M. (The Electors’ Action Movement) Vancouver civic administration.

Mayor Art Phillips discussing his legacy project, the Property Endowment Fund

Since 1972 and the election of the T.EA.M majority Vancouver civic government, whatever their stripe over the years — Non Partisan Association, COPE or Vision Vancouver — have strictly adhered to the dictum of Abraham Lincoln, “a government for and by the people.” Can the members of our current City Council honestly say that their primary goal is to serve the “public good”?

How Can VanRamblings Write That The 2021 City Council is the Worst in 50 Years?

A diverse — not — set of Vancouver City Council aldermen, circa 1933

Say what you will about Vision Vancouver Councillors.

At least they got along with one another, and saw themselves as a team working to make Vancouver a greener and more  livable city, while also working to achieve the laudable goal of eliminating homelessness in our city.

Vancouver’s current Council? How do they fare in an objective analysis?

Unlike any City Council elected to Vancouver City Hall over the course of the past 50 years, the current contingent of Vancouver City Councillors have steadfastly continued to spot rezone across the city, causing land prices to skyrocket, while not listening to the citizens who elected them to office.

Absolutely bereft of humility, most of the 10 members of Council have arrogantly set about to enact policy that is “good for us” because ‘our’ Councillors “know better” and were elected to govern not listen — despite what the citizens of the city say we all need — all the while building ever more unaffordable condominium and market rental complexes.

All this while barely paying lip service to the provision of “social housing” and “affordable housing” — which Council continues to define in the same manner former Vision Vancouver Councillor Kerry Jang elucidated as …

“Affordable housing is something that somebody can afford.”

Isn’t it so much hyperbole to call this Council the worst in 50 years?

To deny the Councillors their innate humanity, while failing to take into account that all 10 Councillors and our Mayor are dedicated servants of the people, who week-in and week-out work anywhere from 50 to 75 hours a week, more often than not sitting in Council chambers from 9:30 a.m. until 11 p.m., on behalf of and in the social, financial and environmental interests of  Vancouver citizens, as creditable and exemplary servants of the public good?

Maybe.

Over the next 360 days, leading up to the upcoming and always critically important Vancouver civic Election Day, on Saturday, October 15, 2022, VanRamblings will set about to support the claims we make, while introducing you to the next contingent of civic candidates seeking elected office in Vancouver.

#VanPoli | A Friendship | Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick

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First term Vancouver City Councillor and 2022 Mayoral hopeful, Colleen Hardwick

In 2013, a group of community activists came together to Save Kits Beach, a community-led environmental response to a Vision Vancouver proposal to run a 12-foot wide asphalt bike path through Hadden and Kitsilano Beach parks.

Although I had known Colleen in the years prior to 2013 — both as an arts reporter writing about the film industry, in which she was involved, as well as working with her father, the late Dr. Walter Hardwick, in the late 1980s / early 1990s on the Livable Region Project — it was not until 2013 that Colleen and I came to know each other better, working on Save Kits Beach, when we first became true friends.

In mid-2016, when I was diagnosed with hilar cholangiocarcinoma, Colleen gave me a call one morning, and in her inimitable, straightforward manner exclaimed boldly to me over the phone, “If you’re going to beat this thing, Raymond, you’re going to need a spiritual element in your life. I’ll be picking you up this coming Sunday morning at 10 a.m. to take you to church!”

During the course of the telephone call Colleen revealed to me that she, too, had earlier been diagnosed with cancer, and that she was still in recovery, as was a good (and mutual) friend of ours, Tina Oliver — who was still receiving treatment. If you know Colleen, you know that there’s no refusing her when she has her mind set, so that next Sunday morning, I dragged myself out of my sick bed, and the two of us headed off to Fairview Baptist Church — where I gratefully attend to this day.

Quite obviously, Colleen was right — for despite my terminal cancer diagnosis, I am still here today, grateful to be alive, and thankful for Colleen’s friendship.

Over the years, Colleen had spoken with me about making a run for Vancouver City Council. In 2014, she created A Better City, the name of the nascent Vancouver political party since “appropriated” for the upcoming 2022 Vancouver municipal election by former Non-Partisan Association President, Peter Armstrong — without permission, of course, with not even a call, text or e-mail posted / made to Colleen.


A Better City, a political party created by City Councillor Colleen Hardwick in 2014

After much thought and discussions with friends, Colleen made the difficult decision not to make a bid for elected office in 2014, under the ABC banner.

All that changed,  however, in 2018, when Peter Armstrong approached and pleaded with Colleen to run for Vancouver civic office under the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) banner — about which she had significant misgivings, not the least of which was the lack of a nomination process.

Having run with the NPA in the 2005 Vancouver municipal election, where she placed 14th after a hard fought campaign, Colleen decided to take Peter up on his offer to fund her civic election campaign, as he all but assured Colleen of her election to Vancouver civic office on October 20.

In fact, Colleen placed a very respectable fifth place in the hard fought 2018 Vancouver civic election, where she would sit as one of five Non-Partisan Association City Councillors — all women —  the others: second term Councillor Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato, Rebecca Bligh, and barely squeaking onto Council, former Vancouver Park Board Chairperson, Sarah Kirby-Yung.


Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick looks askance at a Council colleague

In the five weeks following her election as a City Councillor, then City Manager Sadhu Johnson arranged an orientation for the newly-elected Councillors, during which time the Councillors became intimately familiar with how the city works, with visits to each of the City’s departments, from Planning to Engineering, and Transportation, and beyond, including instruction on City “processes”. During the orientation, the Councillors got to know one another well.

At the Council table, to Colleen’s right sat Christine Boyle, and to her left, Pete Fry. Colleen already knew Pete, but apart from what I had written about Christine during the course of the 2018 Vancouver civic election, was not all that familiar with Ms. Boyle, and what she “brought to the table.” From the outset, Christine let it be known that each and every one of us is living on the stolen lands of the Coast Salish peoples, raising issues of indigenous relations with novice Vancouver City Councillor, Colleen Hardwick.

Quite an education it proved for Ms. Hardwick, who came to like, respect and admire her principled, younger, distaff Council colleague.

As it happens, there was to be no “mutual admiration society” extant between the two nascent Vancouver City Councillors. Christine Boyle implicitly and explicitly let it be known — with a viciousness that Colleen found both perplexing and unsettling — that she despised Colleen and all that she “stood for”, that she would not work with her, had no interest in developing any kind of working relationship with her more mature Council colleague, that she considered Colleen to be a “right winger” and would set about to make Colleen’s life on Council “a living hell.”

And thus the Christine Boyle-created narrative of Colleen Hardwick as a morbid, unredeemable and entirely loathsome “right winger” was born.

As proved to be the case over the next two years, Vancouver City Council’s chief  dissembler — Christine Boyle — was more than true to her word.

Even more, when other of Colleen’s City Council seatmates saw how vicious was the treatment Colleen was being afforded by Christine Boyle, the three men on Council (Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and Green Councillors, Pete Fry and Michael Wiebe) — or as I like to refer to them, the Three Misogynist Musketeers — were only too happy to pile on the train of hate throwing rotten fruit at Colleen, with Christine Boyle handing them the fetid, putrid projectiles.

On two occasions in December 2019, at the end of our regular Sunday church service, Colleen threw herself into my arms, crying and inconsolable, that when I was able to settle her down was told by her that sitting on Council had become too much. The hateful treatment she was afforded at every Council meeting, most particularly by Christine Boyle, but also by Mayor Kennedy Stewart and Councillors Pete Fry and Michael Wiebe, was more than she could bear, it was unrelenting.

Never had she been so miserable, at any point in her life, she cried out.

As it happens, I attended the OneCity Vancouver AGM later in the month of that December, making contact with Christine, telling her how much Colleen had admired her in their early days on Council, how much she had learned from Christine, how grateful Colleen was for the humanity Christine brought to the issue of our relations and collective obligation to our Indigenous peoples.

While staring daggers at me as I made my exclamatory statement, Christine harrumphed, spitting out “I’m not interested,” then briskly walked away.

And this was at a pre-Christmas / Hannukah celebration by a whole passel of OneCity Vancouver members — just about the kindest, most welcoming, generous and socially conscious, as well as activist people you’d ever want to meet.

In March 2020, when a decision was to be made — arising from the demands of the just declared pandemic — Council decided that until further notice that Council meetings would be held virtually through WebEx. Both Councillors Boyle & Fry posted bitter tweets deriding Ms. Hardwick, with Pete tweeting, “At least I don’t have to sit next to that whack job anymore,” referring to Colleen.

A tamped down Pete Fry tweet deriding Councillor Colleen Hardwick

That original tweet has since been deleted. The sentiment and ill-regard remains.

Later, when Christine Boyle — the Chairperson of Council’s Selection Committee — insisted that independent Councillors Melissa De Genova and Sarah Kirby-Yung resign their positions on Council Advisory Committees (which they did … to this day it befuddles me as to why Melissa, by far the toughest person on Council, puts up with Christine’s hateful nonsense, with nary a response to Ms. Boyle’s myriad provocations), and when Ms. Kirby-Yung, Ms. De Genova and Ms. Dominato recommended Councillor Hardwick for a position on the expanded Selection Committee, Christine Boyle cried long and loud that she would not sit on a Selection Committee with … well, let’s not record what the Councillor actually said, but it weren’t pretty, it weren’t kind, and it certainly wasn’t collegial, nor professional.

The Mayor finally had to intervene in response to Councillor Boyle’s childish tantrum, and appointed Councillor Hardwick to the Selection Committee.

All of the above is by way of saying that I’ve had it up to here with the ill treatment Colleen has been afforded on City Council — enough’s enough!

And, no, this is not Raymond Tomlin riding in on his white steed to rescue the damsel in distress. On her most emotionally fraught day, Councillor Colleen Hardwick is 100x tougher than I am, have ever been, or will ever be. Colleen hardly needs my “help” — my friendship and loyalty, maybe, but just that.


Colleen Hardwick and her daughter,  at the 1984 Liberal Party leadership convention 

Let me state for the record: Colleen Hardwick is not a right-winger — as a lifelong member of the Liberal party, and as a multi-term member of the Vancouver Centre Liberal riding executive, Colleen has always been a left-of-centre Liberal, from the time she fought for child care, when in 1984 she attended the Liberal leadership convention, when child care was hardly on anyone’s agenda, but it was on hers, Colleen has always remained a progressive, yet reasonable and centrist Liberal, very much in the mold of former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a political leader she has greatly admired all of her adult life.