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#VanElxn2022 | TEAM Announces Innovative Affordable Housing Plan

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

Yesterday morning, Vancouver civic election Mayoralty candidate Colleen Hardwick, and members of her TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver slate of Council candidates introduced their viable and innovative affordable housing plan.

Within 18 months of being elected to office, a majority TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver Council would bring forward a binding referendum to ask the citizens of Vancouver to allow TEAM to borrow $500 million dollars — amortized over a 35-year borrowing plan — to build 2,000 co-operative housing units in neighbourhoods across the city, providing homes for up to 5,000 Vancouver residents (many of those who would reside in Co-op housing would be families with children — as a rule of thumb when constructing new housing a 2.5 multiplier is employed).

Co-operative Housing Built By Bosa Development as a Community Amenity ContributionCo-operative Housing Built By Bosa Development as a Community Amenity Contribution

Ms. Hardwick also suggests that should the federal and provincial governments come on board to support and match the expenditure of monies proposed by TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver, as most assuredly would be the case, we’d be looking at 6000 new units of Co-op homes, housing up to 15,000 Vancouver citizens, before the end of the next municipal term of government — that means affordable housing for you, your children and your grandchildren, low income seniors, wage earners, and more, who are currently underhoused, or are considering leaving the city because there’s simply no affordable housing to be found.

As you will hear in the video of the press conference located at the top of today’s post, Mayoralty candidate Hardwick expresses the housing mix of future Co-op owners (co-op housing is owned collectively, under Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation guidelines) as one-third, one-third, one-third.

A Collective Vision for Non-Market, Affordable Co-op Housing in Vancouver

Here’s what the one-third, one-third, one-third mix of residents in a housing co-op means: one third of members who live in a housing Co-op receive a deep subsidy — this group usually involves seniors on a meagre pension income, those persons in single parent households, and persons with disabilities. The second one-third grouping consists of wage earners, and persons in the creative industry, who earn an income of under $60,000 annually. Subsidy is provided to Co-operatives across Canada through a Federal Housing Co-operative Subsidy Fund.

The final third in the housing co-operative resident mix are those earning between $60,000 and $80,000 a year. These persons pay a low-end of median market rental rate — an explanation of which is available in VanRamblings’ Sept. 6, 2022 post. The CMHC-determined median market rental rate is generally half of the market rate.

As VanRamblings has resided in a housing co-operative for forty-plus years, allow us to explain how Co-ops work, and what TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver intends.

Housing Co-ops: The Solution to Vancouver's Affordable Housing Crisis

Co-operative housing was developed by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau-led federal Liberal government in the 1970s as a means of providing affordable housing for wage earners, members of the creative community, seniors and persons with disabilities, as well as for persons earning under $80,000 a year — the latter group paying a low-end-of-market housing charge rate, subsidizing those with lower incomes. 2500 housing co-ops were developed across Canada over a 10-year span, providing affordable housing to 135,000 Canadians, in every region of our nation.

Here’s how housing co-ops work. Each member of a co-op is owner of her or his home — sometimes it’s a townhouse, other times it’s row housing, or an apartment / condominium style housing typology. A member makes a refundable share purchase on being accepted into the Co-op — generally, the share purchase amounts to one month’s housing charge. For those who struggle to pay the share purchase, often the Co-op will add a portion of the share purchase to a household’s monthly housing charge — alternatively, the CCEC Credit Union offers a no interest share purchase loan to prospective Co-op members.

Co-op Housing: The Non-Market Solution to Vancouver's Affordable Housing Crisis

Housing co-operatives require member participation in the operation of the Co-op.

  • An Executive Committee — a President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer — are elected at the Annual General Meeting of the Co-operative. The Executive is the Co-operative’s legally responsible body, under British Columbia’s Society Act, that ensures the good operation of the Co-operative. The Executive is responsible for the economic rectitude of the Co-operative, and must arrange for the conduct of an annual audit of the Co-operative’s fiscal operation. Every member — often, that includes children — must participate in the life of the Co-operative, and sit on one of three Co-op Committees: the Finance, Membership or Maintenance Committee.

Generally, there are work parties twice a year, collective Co-op cleaning activities, usually held in the autumn, and again in the early spring. The work required of members is rarely onerous — rather it’s a grassroots means for members to participate in the affairs of the Co-op that contributes to the livability of the Co-operative.

Two housing co-ops located on the south shore of Vancouver's False Creek
Phase 2 housing co-ops: co-operative housing built along the south shore of False Creek in the 70s/80s

Quite honestly, TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver’s affordable housing plan is the only viable affordable housing plan VanRamblings has seen published as policy in any of the 10 civic party’s policy handbooks, whose affordable housing policies are little more than a chimera, an ephemera trotted out as a faux election promise only.

Tomorrow, VanRamblings will be writing about the Vancouver International Film Festival, which kicks off its glorious, much-anticipated 41st annual edition today.

As we won’t be back writing about the election until Monday, October 3rd, for perusal over the upcoming weekend, we’ll leave you with …


Video of the Business in Vancouver Mayoral Forum held at The Terminal City Club on Tuesday evening, September 27th, with all five Mayoral candidates on hand, the event moderated by Kirk LaPointe.

#VanPoli | Homelessness + Housing | A Series | Part 3

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

British Columbia, should candidate to lead the BC NDP become our province’s 37th Premier, David Robert Patrick Eby — and the City of Vancouver, as well, should TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver Mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick be elected as Vancouver Mayor this upcoming October 15th — may be on the verge of adopting a revolutionary new approach to the provision of care for, and provision of housing for, our province’s homeless population, once and for all eliminating the scourge of a homelessness crisis that has for so long bedevilled our city, and our province.

In 2008, the Vancouver Police Department released a 56-page prescriptive visioning report titled Lost in Transition: How a Lack of Capacity in the Mental Health System is Failing Vancouver’s Mentally Ill and Draining Police Resources, that cogently argued for a near revolutionary reformation of the service model the VPD felt must be adopted to better provide for the necessary care for all those persons in need who are resident in the square mile around Main and Hastings, a report compiled and written by a particularly illustrious and celebrated cabal of PhD holding Vancouver police officers, long in the employ of the Vancouver Police Department.

In essence, the Lost in Transition report argued for the provincial appointment of a czar to oversee the provision of social services on the DTES. When the Lost in Transition report was updated in 2013, the world czar was replaced with the phrase, “the provincial appointment of an individual with the authority of a Deputy Minister”, and in the 2018 update of the Lost in Transition report, that individual was now called a Commissioner, a provincial appointee who would be given the authority to oversee a radical reformation of the DTES social services model.

In 2012, Charles Campbell — a former editor of The Georgia Straight — was commissioned by Vancouver Coastal Health to author a report on the provision of services on the DTES. Mr. Campbell’s report, Working With Health Agencies and Partners On Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside [PDF}, identified 277 social agencies providing services to those in need who were resident on the downtown eastside.

Arising out of the publication of both the Lost in Transition and Partners reports, a serious-minded and goal-oriented discussion on a reformation of the social services model that had long been in place on the DTES commenced in earnest.

This past weekend, TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver Mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick apprised VanRamblings of a discussion she’d had with Chief Constable of the Vancouver Police Department, Adam Palmer, where the two touched on what might constitute a radical reformation of the social services model provided to habitués of the DTES, in order that those in need might receive better and more appropriate care, and how — working with the province — a plan might be developed that could eliminate homelessness across the city of Vancouver.

VanRamblings believes — based on what David Eby told The Vancouver Sun’s Katie DeRosa last Friday, and may also have arisen from TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver Mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick’s discussion with VPD Chief Adam Palmer — the following aspects of a revisioning of the social services model for the DTES may be on the table …

  • As David Eby told Ms. DeRosa last week, “There really hasn’t been a co-ordinated strategy or a plan about how we get out of the problems of the Downtown Eastside. I think … putting an invisible fence around the neighbourhood and saying ‘this is the best we can do’ and just hope that things work out, it’s a strategy that will no longer carry us forward.” Eby said if he’s successful in his bid to replace Premier John Horgan … he’ll co-ordinate a long-term response to the issues in the Downtown Eastside with help from the federal government, the city & concerned groups;
  • In 2008, discussion surrounding the publication of the Lost in Transition report touched on / recommended consideration of the following: merging the 277 social services agencies on the DTES into 30 umbrella organizations. Each of the 277 social agencies employs an Executive Director, Director of Finance, Director of Human Resources, Manager of Supported Housing, among other senior administrative staff — each earning up to $325,000 annually — a duplication of services and administration funded by the province, at a cost of almost $1 billion dollars, annually. The initial 2008 VPD Lost in Transition report questioned if such duplication of services properly served the interests of those who are resident, and cared for, on the DTES;
  • There was also discussion upon the publication of the Lost in Transition report, and a recommendation within the report, that argued for the provincial appointment of a Commissioner who would oversee the reformation of the provision of services on the DTES, a person with the authority of a Deputy Minister who would report only to a provincially appointed Board of Directors who would oversee the transition of the current service model, reporting as well as to the office of the Premier.

For a great long while, there has been much talk about the DTES on the perpetuation of a “poverty pimp industry” within the community, an “industry” that pays well upwards of a billion dollars annually to fund a social services administrative structure on the downtown eastside that better serves the interests of those highly paid administrators over those persons who our society is truly meant to care for.

At present, as well, and impeding change are the various unions representing their members: there are 10,000 union employees who work on the DTES, represented by the BCGEU, HEU, CUPE and the Health Sciences Association, whose members fill union coffers with 2.7% of their gross pay each and every two week pay period.

At one social services agency where VanRamblings was employed, senior staff worked fewer — and were available on site for fewer — than 30 weeks a year. Each time an administrator traveled to Nova Scotia, or some other locale, for a 3-day conference — air fare, accommodation and expenses provided by the employer (that’d be you and me) — each day away meant the banking of two days in compensatory “vacation pay”, or more than one week of paid time off. Same thing for attending evening meetings, and working “overtime”, wherein the administrator banked more paid days off. Nice work if you can get, paid for at taxpayer expense.

And don’t get us started on the absenteeism rate for employees working on the DTES, averaging 6 paid days off per month, despite what the union contract says, replaced by on-call staff who generally work more hours than full-time employees.

As a final note today on VanRamblings’ four-part series on homelessness and housing: Premier-to-be (let’s face it, come December, we all know who will become British Columbia’s 37th Premier) David Eby has made a commitment to moving away from a corrupted and wholly unsuitable SRO (Single Resident Occupancy) housing model providing shelter for B.C.’s homeless population, while moving towards something akin to Finland’s ‘Housing First’ concept, where those who are affected by homelessness are provided with a self-contained apartment — with their own bathroom, bedroom / sleep area, kitchen / dining room, fully furnished with amenities provided for — and counseling, without any preconditions.

Four out of five of those previously affected homeless persons, in time, make their way back into a stable life, re-joining our society as productively happy citizens.

All this represents a responsible, fiscally sound model of service provision to those in need, so much better than accepting homelessness, and perpetuating an administratively corrupt model that has for far too long ill-served indigent persons.

#VanElxn2022 | Colleen Hardwick | Vancouver’s Must-Elect Next Mayor

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

If we are to preserve our city for future generations, and not give it away wholesale to the greed of developers who would envelop Vancouver with massive 40, 50, 60 and 70 storey greenhouse gas-emitting, glass and steel, plynth and podium style towers, if we care for our neighbourhoods and all the residents who reside in those neighbourhoods, if we believe in democracy — as Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and all of the other sitting Vancouver City Councillors clearly do not, given their “we know all, we were elected to make decisions, we’re not interested in anything citizens might have to say, on any subject, at any time” ‘woke’, virtue signalling, elitist orientation to governing —  then come early October, there is only one Mayoral candidate, and only one political party, for whom you must cast your ballot: TEAM Mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick, and her outstanding and diverse team of community activists, who will return your city to you, the citizens of Vancouver.

Why is VanRamblings, so early in the Vancouver 2022 civic election cycle, endorsing Ms. Hardwick for Mayor of Vancouver post election day, Saturday, October 15th, as well as endorsing each of every one of her strikingly well-qualified and community-oriented candidates for Vancouver City Council?

The answer to that question is easy, because …

  • Colleen Hardwick is far and away the most qualified candidate seeking the Mayor’s office in the 2022 Vancouver municipal election. Having all but completed her work on a PhD / the granting of her doctorate pending, says Ms. Hardwick, the focus of her studies in urban development (applied innovation). To be perfectly precise, cuz she’s detail oriented and truth-telling, Ms. Hardwick wrote to us after publication, stating “My work at UBC has been in Applied Innovation from the ISGP (Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program). Patrick is one of the faculty on my PhD Committee, which includes professors from several different departments. The innovation that I created is PlaceSpeak, the “unique geo-verification technology that connects participants’ digital identity to their physical location, ensuring that data collected is relevant and defensible for evidence-based decision-making.” Don’t know that you want to go there, but Masters is the level of Urban Planning and that is from SCARP. Penny Gurstein is also on my Committee.” Ms. Hardwick continues her work with her mentor, the esteemed professor Patrick Condon (who’ll be endorsing her upon his return from Massachusetts) — the James Taylor chair in Landscape and Livable Environments at UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture . Quite simply there is no other Mayoral candidate in the 2022 Vancouver civic election who has a better grasp on urban planning, governance and community engagement than is very clearly the case with the creditable Colleen Hardwick.
  • Colleen Hardwick and TEAM have the only viable, realistic and achievable affordable housing programme, of all 10 of the parties running candidates in the 2022 Vancouver municipal election. We’ll write about the plan at length another time, but for some time now there’s been discussion within TEAM that a majority TEAM for a Livable Vancouver Council will work with senior levels of government to turn over — on a leasehold basis — up to 10 crown land properties located within the City of Vancouver each year, for the development of affordable housing co-operatives, to be developed through a revived relationship with the Community Land Trust, who would be the de facto project managers. In a TEAM-initiated plan, the city could both expedite the construction of ten 150-unit family housing co-ops each year — think the City Gate Housing Co-operative on Milross Avenue, the Roundhouse Housing Co-operative on Marinaside Crescent, in Yaletown, or the Railyard Housing Co-operative on Quebec Avenue at 1st, just east of the Olympic Village — all built at no expense to Vancouver citizens — while foregoing the 1 million dollars in development permit fees generally paid to the city for a building of such size, dating back to the time when Vision Vancouver signed an agreement back in 2022 with the Community Land Trust (this affordable housing plan is already city policy, that was allowed to lay dormant through lack of action by the current Vancouver City Council). Construction and materials cost: paid for through a combination of mandated developer Community Amenity Contributions and provincial and federal funds (both Prime Minister Trudeau and former B.C. Housing Minister, David Eby, have already signed off on all of the above). Cost to Vancouver citizens: zero. Cost of land: zero. Cost to Vancouver citizens for construction and materials: zero. A negotiation with the federal government would ensure that all subsidy monies for Co-op members would be paid for through the federal co-op housing subsidy fund. All monies paid by Co-op residents — after administrative, amenity payments and maintenance costs, as well as monies placed into a “replacement reserve fund” for major, future renovations — would be returned to the City to build supportive social housing, at no cost to citizens.
  • As part of TEAM’s public safety programme, there’s been discussion within the party about re-implementation of former Mayor Phillip Owen’s revolutionary, but simple Four Pillars Plan: prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement.
  • Mixed representation system. Ms. Hardwick and her TEAM are giving consideration to implementing a mixed representation system in the next Vancouver municipal election, a Mayor and five Councillors elected at large, with 5 other Councillors elected in five district neighbourhoods across the city.
  • Another key element of TEAM’s public safety programme could include the expansion of the VPD’s Car 87 programme — long a TEAM policy initiative, stolen by ABC’s Ken Sim recently — Car 87 teaming a Vancouver Police officer with a mental health professional, to help provide on-site assessments and intervention for people living with mental illness. Car 87 is the first programme of its kind anywhere in the world, each year saving dozens of the lives of citizens experiencing severe psychiatrist distress.

Two final important points, the first related to sustainable neighbourhoods: Colleen Hardwick and her TEAM candidates for Council believe that the massive tower construction programme envisioned by the Planning Department in Vancouver — the so-called Vancouver Plan, and the Broadway Plan — that would extend from Boundary Road to Blanca, from Burrard Inlet to the Fraser River,  is an absolutely unnecessary intrusion into the neighbourhoods which provide the livability of our city, and constitute the city we call home, the city we love.

Another note. In the current term of office, this Council has approved 110,000 new units of housing, some already under construction, and some set to begin construction soon. All while the Planning Department tells our citizens that 100,000 units of housing must be built by 2050 to house the incoming population. Hell’s bells — Vancouver City Council has already approved more housing than the Planning Department says is necessary. Sort of negates the need for the massive construction of towers on every street, in every neighbourhood, don’t you think?

Gentle density, consultation with those who live in the neighbourhoods across our city, not NIMBY-ism, but democratic engagement with citizens to construct community plans that would ensure the building of schools and public recreation centres, and the inclusion of parks and green spaces with space for small businesses along our neighbourhood arterials, with gently increasing density in every neighbourhood — not massive towers — while ensuring that every neighbourhood would be home, as well, to those in need, in a city meant to house, and will house, everyone.

And let us not forget, either, that while the population of Vancouver grew by 7.2% between 2016 and 2022, when new building construction added 7.8% more units in that same time period (in this neck of the woods, we call that an overbuilt city, an oversupply of housing), much of that population moved into Vancouver in the period between 2016 and early 2020 — in the past two years, starting with the pandemic, Vancouver has experienced a net out-migration of 100,000 of our citizens, who simply cannot afford to live in the most expensive city on the planet.

And, we need these towers, why? And who are they being built for?

Certainly not you and me, in a city of towers as envisioned by our NPA, Green, ABC, OneCity, Progress Vancouver and Forward Together civic political parties —  but hell no, not by a TEAM for a Livable Vancouver majority Council, and a steadfast Mayor Colleen Hardwick, who would fight for you every day of her term in office.

Importantly, as well, a majority TEAM Council would conduct a core review of city staffing levels, and services, in its first year of office. During his brief time as City Manager, Sadhu Johnston hired 1100 new middle-management staff, with executive assistants paid at $75,000 and management staff paid at $165,000, and up, annually. Many believe — and this belief extends to those working inside Vancouver City Hall — that Vancouver has an overstaffed, inefficient bureaucracy that serves as a driver of our city’s unsustainable 5.8% annual property tax increases. TEAM believes it to be likely that the core review will reveal that Vancouver employs a bloated middle management staff, and far from enough union workers — you know, the folks who do the actual work, who don’t push pencils around all day.

Let us not forget, either, that it was Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick who successfully moved to appoint an independent Auditor General in the City of Vancouver, Vancouver’s new auditor Mike Macdonell set to save the city tens of millions of dollars in non-essential expenditures, annually. Good job, Councillor!

To read TEAM policies on issues ranging from democratic engagement with Vancouver citizens, and the establishment of democratic advisory neighbourhood councils to inform Council decision-making; restoration of funding for our beleaguered parks and recreation system; pursuing reconciliation with our Indigenous peoples; health and safety for all Vancouver’s citizens; supporting the creative community, and so very much more, just click here for enlightenment.

Remember: when it comes time to cast your ballot in October, if you care about our city at all — and we know you do — the one, the only Mayoralty candidate, Colleen Hardwick, and the only Vancouver civic party you can, in all good conscience, cast your ballot for is TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, for a spectacular Sean Nardi, Grace Quan, Stephen P Roberts, Param Nijjar, Cleta Brown and Bill Tieleman — who constitute the hardest working, best informed team of candidates for Vancouver City Council you’ll find on Vancouver’s voting ballot come October.

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

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

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.