Tag Archives: bc election 2024

#BCPoli | The Knock Down, Drag Out Fight in Vancouver-Yaletown

BC Election 2024, BC Votes 2024, Canada, canadian politics, Essay, News, Politics, Vancouver, VanRamblings, , , , , ,

One of the more interesting battles for office in the 2024 British Columbia provincial election will occur in the new, redistributed riding of Vancouver-Yaletown.

Vying for supremacy on election night, Saturday, October 19th, are Conservative Party of BC candidate for office, Melissa De Genova, and the recently recruited British Columbia New Democratic Party candidate, Terry Yung.

As we say above, Vancouver-Yaletown is a new British Columbia electoral riding that was created from a 2022 re-drawing of electoral riding boundaries.

Previously, the area was part of the Vancouver-False Creek riding, which is a geographical area that includes the False Creek South neighbourhoods.

Between 2013 and 2020, the riding of Vancouver-False Creek was held by former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan. Currently, Vancouver-False Creek is represented by the BC NDP’s Brenda Bailey, who is the Minister of Jobs, Economic Development, and Innovation. In 2024, Ms. Bailey will seek elected office as the BC NDP candidate in the newly-created riding of Vancouver-South Granville.


Melissa De Genova, her VPD officer husband, Blair, and daughter, Lili — who just entered Grade Two

B.C. Conservative Party leader John Rustad, upon successfully recruiting Melissa De Genova as a party candidate, had this to say …

“Melissa brings valuable experience regarding getting housing built, with her deep understanding of the challenges of actually getting housing built, from all perspectives. In her tenure as a two-term Vancouver City Councillor, and her work in the private sector, Melissa worked to get both market and non-profit housing built. The Conservative Party believes Melissa De Genova’s expertise in housing is critical to tackling the affordability crisis in BC.”

The Conservative Party website adds about their Vancouver-Yaletown candidate.

Ms. De Genova was named one of the top forty under forty by Business in Vancouver for her work in creating affordable housing. She has volunteered for numerous community-focused charities, including the Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre, the Salvation Army in the Downtown Eastside, Odd Squad productions, Honour House and the Italian Day Festival Society.

What is true about Melissa De Genova is that she is a fighter, a community activist and elected official who doesn’t put up with any guff.

When Melissa De Genova fought for the construction of the Killarney Seniors Centre —  despite members of the majority Vision Vancouver City Council dragging their heels on approval of the needed seniors facility — Melissa was relentless in working to get the seniors facility built, as she moved the sun, the moon, the Earth and the stars to achieve her goal.

VanRamblings, and anyone who has worked with Melissa, can tell you, this three time elected official (Melissa sat as a Park Board Commissioner from 2011 to 2014, before being elected to two terms on Vancouver City Council) is no one to mess with when she sets her mind to serving the best interests of the community.


Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, and her beloved husband Terry Yung, BC NDP candidate.

Retired Vancouver Police Department (VPD) Inspector Terry Yung — who recently left the VPD after three decades of distinguished service — on August 28th became the British Columbia New Democratic Party candidate for office in the newly-created Vancouver-Yaletown riding, ready to fight for victory in the October 2024 provincial election.

“I know Terry is values driven.

He readies action any time someone is pushed around, exploited, taken advantage of, or left behind,” said BC NDP Premier David Eby, when Terry Yung secured the nomination.

“He knows we need to be tough on crime, and tough on the causes of crime. These values led him to an exceptional career in law enforcement, and have called him to public life as a BC NDP candidate. Terry will join two other senior police officers on our candidate team, all of whom have spent their careers dedicated to delivering safe and strong communities. The people of Vancouver-Yaletown can count on him to be in their corner,” continued Eby.

Terry Yung was also the longtime board Chair of the non-profit social service organization SUCCESS (United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society), and involved with other organizations such as the Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver, the Vancouver Cambie Lions Club, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver. Terry is a recipient of the BC Medal of Good Citizenship and a Melvin Jones Fellow.

“City cores across North America are facing crises with homelessness and addictions, and the impact on public safety that follows. Here in B.C., we’re focused on keeping people safe and getting to the root causes of crime — it’s starting to make a difference,” Yung told those gathered for the Vancouver-Yaletown BC NDP meeting where he was acclaimed the party’s candidate.

“As a former VPD officer, I know B.C. can be a leader in successfully taking on these challenges with kindness and compassion, recognizing the roles of poverty and mental health in creating these conditions. And that’s the approach David Eby’s government has taken: hiring new police officers to take on organized crime, launching mental health crisis response teams, while opening more homes and treatment facilities. B.C. is tackling our public safety challenges on every level. It’s work worth doing — and worth being a part of, which is why I came forward. I can’t wait to get to work in the British Columbia Legislature.”

The emergent, central, defining election issue in Vancouver-Yaletown: crime.

VanRamblings sources tell us that …

  • When recruiting Terry Yung, the Premier made a commitment to Mr. Yung he would appoint the decorated VDP Inspector as our province’s next Solicitor General, and …
  • According to internal party polling, from both the Conservatives and NDP, Melissa De Genova currently enjoys a substantial lead over her opponent. But believe us when we say, with 46 days to go until Election Day, it is waaayyyy too early to predict the outcome of the electoral race to represent the residents of Vancouver-Yaletown..

Terry Yung’s claim to fame is that the residents of Yaletown give him credit for shutting down the controversial Overdose Prevention Society safe injection site — which was a magnet for crime and disorder in their neighbourhood.

Given that Yaletown has emerged in recent years as a family neighbourhood — we’re always surprised to find young children and their families walking throughout the neighbourhood, heading home from a visit to the T&T market, to their home on the 11th floor of one of the myriad Yaletown towers — moving the safe injection to a nearby site, adjacent to Yaletown, was the first order of business for Terry Yung, and the grateful residents of Yaletown.

If we have a criticism of Melissa’s 2024 campaign for provincial office it’s that she is — as has been the case throughout her political career — far too partisan for her own good, her daily visceral, ad hominen attacks on David Eby … who most folks actually like on a personal level, even if they’re not fans of his government … we believe to be counterproductive to her goal of attaining a seat in the provincial Legislature. In the 2022 Vancouver civic election, the electorate tired of her act, relegating her to a 19th place finish on election night, on Saturday, October 15th.

Melissa may wish to reconsider her strategy by adopting a somewhat less inflammatory approach to her goal of winning elected provincial office.

We will say two more things pertinent to Ms. De Genova’s bid to attain office.

  • There is no love loss between Ms. De Genova and current ABC Vancouver / former Non-Partisan Association (NPA) Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung. Terry Yung loves his wife, and hardly cottons to Ms. De Genova’s less than generous appreciation of his beloved spouse. For Melissa, this is personal, not to mention which, knowing Melissa it is probable that she feels Terry Yung to be a turncoat — “How dare he have supported his wife’s run for Vancouver City Council under the centre-right Non-Partisan Association banner, while supporting his good friend, Vancouver-Langara B.C. Liberal Member of the Legislature, Michael Lee, and now emerge as a latter day candidate for the hated NDP.”
  • Terry Yung is a respected and beloved, retired 30-year member of the Vancouver Police Department. Ms. De Genova’s husband is Blair Da Costa, a multi-year member of the aforementioned Vancouver Police Department. Now, dear and constant reader, you may have heard something about “the boys in blue are a brotherhood.” If Terry Yung doesn’t exactly cotton to Ms. De Genova’s derision for his wife, you can bet that members of the VPD will not be thrilled with Mr. Da Costa’s wife going after one of their own. Just sayin’ …

One more thing: for far too long, members of the public — particularly on the left side of the political spectrum — have underestimated Melissa De Genova, written her off as a “whack job,” designated her as a ne’er-do-well right winger (this name calling on the left drives VanRamblings crazy).

In our long association with Melissa, VanRamblings has always found her to be a progressive on the social issues of the day — and, dare we say, a union supporter — a person of heart and conscience who means well for our city, a person who strives each and every day towards building a better tomorrow for her young daughter, and for all children and families who reside in every region of our province.


Photo of Terry Yung taken on May 11, 2012 for a BBC story on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

When it come to Terry Yung — who we know and like — we’re unconcerned about the viability and potential for success of his bid for elected provincial office.

Terry Yung went after the Vancouver-Yaletown New Democratic Party nomination with his eyes open. To underestimate Terry Yung’s wit, his intelligence, his experience and his political acumen — hell, he’s married to VanRamblings’ favourite political person in the province! — would be a terrible mistake. No fool he — they’re ain’t a smidgen of naïveté in how Terry Yung brings himself to the world.

Not to mention which: David Eby has no intention of losing this election.

The BC NDP and the BC NDP alone in the 2024 British Columbia provincial election have built an unassailable election campaign machine, with Dippers from across Canada arriving on our shores daily — experienced and winning campaigners, who mean to re-elect David Eby’s NDP government, given that there is so much on the line as they run against an alt-right, Trump-like John Rustad (who actually told the CBC’s Michelle Elliott last week that teachers are indoctrinating students in their care, distributing pornography to Grade 4 students as part of the SOGI 123 programme — without any evidence whatsoever to prove his claim — and that his government would ban thousands of books currently on the shelves in school libraries) — ready to fight for what is right, forward thinking and just for all.

#BCPoli | The Uncommon, Remarkable Genius of Dimitri Pantazopoulos

BC Election 2024, BC Votes 2024, Essay, Politics, Vancouver, , , , , , , , , ,


Dimitri Pantazopoulos, President @ Yorkville Strategies, Inc. | Partner @ Maple Leaf Strategies

Dimitri Pantazopoulos could very well play a determinative role in the outcome of the 2024 British Columbia provincial election.

Should John Rustad’s fledgling B.C. Conservative Party emerge victorious late on the evening of Saturday, October 19th, such an outcome will arise in part from the genius organizing skills of Mr. Pantazopoulos, the pollster / de facto co-campaign manager for the upstart, recently revived British Columbia political party.

Dating back to 2004, Dimitri Pantazopoulos was Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper’s pollster, a role he played through until the defeat of the Harper government in 2015. Mr. Pantazopoulos remains to this day the definitive pollster for Pierre Poilievre’s — certain to be government in 2025 — federal Conservative party.

When it comes to British Columbia, Dimitri Pantazopoulos’ myth-making claim to fame arises from B.C. Liberal Premier Christy Clark’s come from behind victory at the polls on Monday, May 13, 2013, in that year’s all-important provincial election.

When Dimitri Pantazopoulos arrived in British Columbia in early 2013, from his home in Ottawa, to survey the political scene in our province on behalf of the B.C. Liberal party, Mr. Pantazopoulos and his crack team from Maple Leaf Strategies set about to conduct intensive polling in the, then, 84 provincial ridings that comprised British Columbia’s tumultuous, voter capricious political landscape.

At the time, an unpopular Premier Christy Clark was mired at 26% in the polls, while newly-minted B.C. New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix was riding a wave of unprecedented popularity, registering 49% support from British Columbia residents, an electorate eager for change, ready to make Mr. Dix B.C.’s 35th Premier.

In late mid-March 2013, a confident, ebullient Dimitri Pantazopoulos told the Premier, B.C. Liberal campaign manager Mike McDonald, and top B.C. Liberal fundraiser, Bob Rennie that the election could not only be won by Premier Clark, but that she could secure a majority government early in the evening of May 13th.

To say that Premier Clark, Mike McDonald and Bob Rennie were incredulous upon hearing what Mr. Pantazopoulos had to say would be to understate the matter.

Here’s what Dimitri Pantazopoulos told the political trio of disbelieving doubters.

“Having surveyed the province, my team and I believe that the B.C. Liberal party could win 50 seats on election night. We’ve identified those 50 seats. The remaining 34 ridings are write-offs, and represent unwinnable NDP strongholds into which the B.C. Liberals, although you may nominate candidates in those ridings, should not put one plug nickel into supporting the B.C. Liberal candidates running in those ridings.

On the other hand, in the 50 winnable ridings for the B.C. Liberal party, you’ll want to pour all of your resources into those ridings. Maple Leaf Strategies will conduct nightly polling in those 50 ridings, and “meet” with the candidates in those ridings each morning to advise them of the issues — identified in our nightly polling in the riding — that should be the focus of their activity and public pronouncements that day. I guarantee, should the B.C. Liberal party move forward on my recommendation, the party will secure victory in each of those ridings, as we run a hyper-local campaign for office in 2013.”

Premier Clark, Mike McDonald and Bob Rennie thought that Mr. Pantazopoulos had lost his marbles — but what did they have to lose in adopting Dimitri’s electoral strategy? Defeat seemed almost certain at that point. Dimitri Pantazopoulos offered the doleful B.C. Liberal election team a ray of hope that the party would not be wiped out at the polls, as unconvinced as they remained of the prospect of victory at the polls two months hence.


Premier Christy Clark, grinning like the chesire cat that both got the cream, and swallowed the canary

Premier Christy Clark did, indeed, emerge victorious with a comfortable majority government on May 13, 2013 thrilling the Premier, her campaign manager and major fundraiser. Dimitri Pantazopoulos had been right and there was untold joy at B.C. Liberal election headquarters that night.


Conservative Party of British Columbia leader John Rustad. Soon to be 38th Premier of our province?

In 2024, Dimitri Pantazopoulos has returned to British Columbia with a vengeance, working overtime to a secure victory for the band of untested newbies running for office with the embryonic, nascently inchoate British Columbia Conservative party.

Nine years on, Mr. Pantazopoulos and his team have identified 55 winnable ridings for the B.C. Conservatives, a number that may rise now that B.C. United has folded into the B.C. Conservative party. The fly in the ointment in 2024, though? The B.C. Conservative Party is woefully underfunded, having raised a paltry three million dollars, a fraction of the $26 million with which Premier David Eby’s New Democratic Party of British Columbia will fight the upcoming provincial election.

In some measure, the success of the B.C. Liberal campaign in 2013 was due to the 30-second game changing ads that ran incessantly, multiple times during the Global BC, CTV Vancouver and CBC morning, noon, 5pm, 6pm and 11pm newscasts — not to mention, every radio station across the province — that cast Adrian Dix as an ineffectual flip flopper, and a poor choice for Premier of the province. Add to that two botched debates by the NDP leader.

Taking into consideration Dimitri Pantazopoulos’ game plan, together with the devastatingly effective campaign ads run again Mr. Dix, and the poor debate performances by the NDP leader, spelled electoral doom for Adrian Dix’s New Democratic Party, which lost and lost badly to Christy Clark’s B.C. Liberals.

Underfunded or not, Dimitri Pantazopoulos and his team believe a victory for John Rustad’s B.C. Conservative party a near certainty — not, of course, if Premier David Eby’s BC NDP have anything to say about the matter. And they do, and they will.

All said, the wind is at the back of British Columbia’s provincial Conservative party, as they ride the wave of popularity that federal Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre currently enjoys in all parts of British Columbia, and across Canada.

Add to that, members of the election teams that helped secure victory for Conservative Premier Tim Houston in Nova Scotia, a second term for Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and last year a surprise victory for far-right-of-centre Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, the outcome of British Columbia’s upcoming election — our provincial election officially gets underway on Saturday, September 21st — may be far from certain, but given, as well, that the B.C. Conservatives, apart from the controversy that some of their soon-to-be-former candidates caused, could win it all on Saturday, October 19th, and form the next government.


Two fine B.C. Conservative candidates, one of whom we’ll endorse, the other who we like very much

Wednesday and Thursday on VanRamblings, we’ll take a look at the Vancouver-Yaletown and Vancouver-Little Mountain ridings, where two strong B.C. Conservative candidates for office are currently vying for elected provincial office.


The Curse of Politics podcast, where the ineffable David Herle, Jordan Leichnitz and Kory Teneycke discuss and debate the shenanigans that have gone on in British Columbia politics this past week.

#BCPoli | Kevin Falcon Definitively Defines BC United’s Politics & Goals

BC Election 2024, BC Votes 2024, Canada, canadian politics, Politics, Weblogs, , , , ,


BC United leader Kevin Falcon, and BC Conservative leader John Rustad: poles apart on the issues

When Kevin Falcon was elected leader of the B.C. Liberal party on Saturday, February 5th, 2022, through until Saturday, April 30, 2022, when he won the recently vacated Vancouver Quilchena seat — long held by the B.C. Liberals, and before that the Social Credit party — taking his seat in the British Columbia Legislature, Mr. Falcon sought to re-define the values of the party he now headed, to bring the B.C. Liberal party into the 21st century, as a forward thinking, big tent party, well accepting of members of the LGBTQ community, and the broad cultural and ethnic communities that comprise the British Columbia we all call home.

Meeting individually with the 27 other members of the B.C. Liberal caucus in the two-month interregnum between February 5th, 2022 and April 30th of that year, Kevin Falcon sought to work with the members of his caucus to identify the values of his party as an inclusive, welcoming political party.

Not for Kevin Falcon, nor most members of his B.C. Liberal caucus, the fiasco of the 2020 provincial election, when Chilliwack-Kent B.C. Liberal candidate Laurie Throness’ comments on eugenics — a movement that promotes selective human breeding to weed out characteristics seen as undesirable — were captured in a Zoom recording, with Throness adding, “contraception would be a low priority for medical spending” should the B.C. Liberal party be elected to government.

Many in the B.C. Liberal party believed that Laurie Throness’s inflammatory statements, and then B.C. Liberal party leader Andrew Wikinson’s failure to repudiate Mr. Throness’s comments, caused such controversy among the B.C. electorate that on Election Day, October 24, 2020, the B.C. Liberals were denied government, and the B.C. NDP government of John Horgan was elected to a majority government.


Elenore Sturko, a Surrey RCMP sergeant and media spokesperson, took leave from the force to run as a B.C. Liberal candidate in the Surrey-South riding, winning the by-election held on September 10, 2022

Consistent with the B.C. Liberal party’s new, inclusive, welcoming and and expansive philosophy, Mr. Falcon sought well-known, Surrey-based lesbian activist Elenore Sturko to run as the B.C. Liberal candidate in the Surrey South seat that had become vacant when B.C. Liberal incumbent Stephanie Cadieux resigned her seat to become Canada’s first Chief Accessibility Officer.

Throughout the Surrey-South by-election period, Kevin Falcon continued his meetings with members of the B.C. Liberal caucus, one of whom was former B.C. Liberal Environment Minister, John Rustad, who had represented the northern riding of Nechako Lakes (Prince George-Omineca; 2005–2009) since 2005.

Kevin Falcon was astounded to find John Rustad was fundamentally opposed to the “new direction” of the B.C. Liberal party under Mr. Falcon’s leadership, that he disagreed with welcoming members of the LGBTQ community, that Mr. Rustad was vehemently opposed to the non-mandatory SOGI 123 (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) programme that had been implemented by the Christy Clark government in 2015, that Mr. Rustad felt climate change was a hoax, that he was a supporter of the anti-vaxx community, and adhered to any number of QAnon conspiracy theories, including wireless 5G as a root cause of COVID, a “theory” recently espoused by current B.C. Conservative candidate for Prince George-Mackenzie, Rachael Weber,  who was caught amplifying online conspiracy theories that 5G wireless networks are “genocidal weapons” and spread the coronavirus.

In a 2021 Facebook post, Ms. Weber voiced concerns about “microchips,” cashless payments and the threat of “total government dependency / control” by saying “the anti-Christ comes before the rapture.

As B.C. Conservative party leader, John Rustad has not disavowed Ms. Weber’s inflammatory comments, past or present, attributing calls for her removal as a candidate as a function of “culture wars.” Ms. Weber remains the B.C. Conservative candidate for Prince George-Mackenzie.

In posts on both Facebook and Twitter, Rustad shared a graphic and post arguing that people had been “hoodwinked” by climate change science and they should be glad CO2 is being emitted into the atmosphere.

In response, Kevin Falcon distanced himself from Rustad’s stance.

Long story short, on August 18, 2022, Kevin Falcon removed John Rustad from the B.C. Liberal caucus for boosting a social media post casting doubt on climate change science and urging people to “celebrate CO2.”

Ms. Sturko won the Surrey South seat with 52% of the vote, in a decisive victory over the B.C. NDP’s Pauline Greaves, receiving 5,568 of the 10,742 votes cast.


Elenore Sturko, and B.C. Liberal party leader, Kevin Falcon, celebrate Ms. Sturko’s landslide win

Sadly, Kevin Falcon’s jubilation at Ms. Sturko’s win was relatively short-lived.

On Friday, March 31st, 2023, John Rustad became leader of the B.C. Conservative party, and the rest is — as they say —  history.

As BK Anderson, in a Facebook comment on a VanRamblings post earlier in the week, writes: Kevin Falcon — a man of conscience, a visionary leader, a good man who cares deeply for all the citizens of our province — in bringing the B.C. Liberal party into the 21st century, positioned the party as too liberal for many party members, such that the renamed B.C. Liberal party, now called B.C. United, has become a pale imitation of David Eby’s centrist B.C. New Democratic Party.

Put simply, there is no sunlight between the B.C. United and BC NDP positions on the social and cultural issues in our province — unlike John Rustad’s regressive, antediluvian B.C. Conservative Party. Not for the good and progressive Kevin Falcon, the Trump-like culture wars that have plagued American politics, since Donald Trump’s marginal victory to become U.S. President in November 2016.

Rather than fight the ‘no win’ culture wars that have sewn division across the vast range of states in our neighbour to the south — the ground where B.C. Conservative leader, John Rustad, seems to want to fight the coming provincial election — Kevin Falcon is instead mounting a dynamic campaign of renewal, based on economic policy, towards building a better and more vibrant full employment economy, a stronger and better funded public education system, a renewed health care system where emergency room closures will be a phenomenon of the past, a democratic party where the voices of British Columbians from across of province will be heard, where job number one will be to ensure the construction of 100,000 new homes in the coming term of government.

Tomorrow on VanRamblings, we’ll conclude our four-part series on Kevin Falcon and the B.C. United party, with how Mr. Falcon intends to fight the coming provincial election campaign — set to get underway on Saturday, September 21st — and how B.C. United will fight the regressive forces of John Rustad’s out of touch B.C. Conservative party, so that his children — and all the children across our province — might grow up to adulthood to raise their own families, secure in a province where clean air, a vibrant public education system, and a full employment prosperity economy — where parents can earn a decent wage in order to care for the needs of their children — will cause all who reside within our province to thrive.

#BCPoli | The Rise of BC Liberal MLA Kevin Falcon

BC Election 2024, BC Votes 2024, Canada, Essay, News, Politics, , , , , , ,


BC United leader Kevin Falcon, with his arm around his much cherished 14-year-old daughter, Josephine, standing with his beloved wife Jessica, and their endearing 12-year-old daughter, Rose.

VanRamblings is flummoxed. For the life of us, we cannot understand how it is that one of the most successful political leaders in British Columbia history seems — if the polls are correct, and are the polls correct? — to have fallen on hard times, the citizens of the province seemingly deserting him en masse, his political fortunes not just in decline, but so low as to barely register on the political landscape, as 2024’s British Columbia provincial election looms, only 54 short days from today.

Kevin Falcon has had a storied quarter-century career in B.C. politics.

Back in 1999, having fought for the B.C. Liberal nomination in his home riding of Surrey-Cloverdale — defeating B.C. Liberal incumbent Bonnie McKinnon — only two short years later, 38-year-old political novitiate, Kevin Falcon, was selected to sit as the duly-elected Member of the B.C. Legislature, to represent the interests of his much cherished constituents — on whose behalf he fought for all of his time in politics — Mr. Falcon came to sit on the governing front bench of newly-minted Premier Gordon Campbell’s B.C. Liberal government.

Wanting to undo the “economic damage” that the British Columbia New Democratic Party had wrought in their 10 years in power — from October 17, 1991 through May 16, 2001 — said the newly-elected Premier, Mr. Campbell appointed the novice MLA from Surrey-Cloverdale as Minister of State for Deregulation, his job to undo arcane regulations impeding economic growth across our province.

Mr. Falcon took to his task with alacrity, élan, energy and dedication.

So effective was Kevin Falcon as Minister of State for Deregulation that the woebegone resource industries across B.C. began to thrive as they had not for generations, the mining and forest industries experiencing unimaginable growth, in consequence creating good paying union jobs for those living in rural communities across our province, all the while pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue into government coffers, monies that would pay for an expanded health care system to meet the needs of all British Columbians, with the portent (it was hoped) of future growth in British Columbia’s long ignored transportation system, as well as benefiting our province’s beleaguered public education system.

Kevin Falcon’s reward for a job well done?

On Monday, January 26, 2004 with a show of confidence arising from his successful achievements in government, exceeding expectation, Premier Gordon Campbell appointed Kevin Falcon as British Columbia’s new Minister of Transportation, a position he held through June 10, 2009, at which time the eight-years-in-power Premier Gordon Campbell called his second provincial election.

As both a builder and a visionary, the newly-minted Minister of Transportation set for himself the task of ensuring the construction of a rapid transit line from Vancouver to Richmond, an idea that was pooh-poohed by the left in our province, thought to be unnecessary, unfeasible and a boondoggle.

“Nobody will ride the damn thing,” said those who decried the project.

At the time, Vision Vancouver Councillor Raymond Louie — who sat on Translink’s Board of Directors — opposed the construction of what came to be known as The Canada Line. Over weeks, which turned into months, Kevin Falcon met with an intransigent Raymond Louie, in an attempt to change his mind on the efficacy of a rapid transit line along the Cambie corridor, out to Richmond.

On Wednesday, June 30, 2004 — with boos and jeers from enraged citizens who had gathered in large numbers in the gallery to attend the public meeting — the TransLink Board of Directors — including the once recalcitrant Raymond Louie — voted 8 to 4 in favour to resurrect the controversial RAV rapid transit project, from Richmond-Airport to Vancouver, to the “best and final offer” stage.

On August 17, 2009 — three-and-a-half months ahead of schedule, and under budget — the Canada Line became a reality, ferrying passengers from downtown Vancouver to Richmond / the Vancouver Airport, from Day One far exceeding the projected ridership projection of ten years hence, the project a wild success, much appreciated by those citizens who rely on public transportation.

Long story short, upon re-election in the 2009 British Columbia provincial election, Kevin Falcon was appointed as Minister of Health Services in British Columbia, succeeding George Abbott in that post, on Wednesday, June 10, 2009.

Subsequently, on March 14, 2011, Kevin Falcon was assigned the post of Minister of Finance / Deputy Premier for the province, by Premier Christy Clark.

As we wrote yesterday, married for three years now to Jessica, the love of his life, and set to raise together their two young daughters, in 2012 Kevin Falcon made the decision to withdraw from public life, and focus on the needs of his family.

VanRamblings is attempting to write “short” these days.

Although we’d love to publish a 2500-word barn burner, in the interest of preserving our readers’ sanity, we’ll wait until tomorrow to explore the topic of The Decline of BC United Leader Kevin Falcon, and what may very well turn out to be, a four-part series on the esteemed — if beleaguered — Kevin Falcon.

See you back here on Wednesday.