Tag Archives: kennedy stewart

VanElxn2022 | The Latest Behind-the-Scenes Campaign Scumbuggery

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Edward Charles Kennedy Stewart. Vancouver’s next Mayor. The same Mayor as there always was.

See that photo of the guy above? That’s Kennedy Stewart, feckless Mayor of Vancouver since 2018. Why’s he smiling if he’s so feckless, you ask? Because, dear and constant reader, Kennedy Stewart is about to get re-elected to a second term as Vancouver’s once-and-forever Mayor. “How can that be?” you ask. Read on …

The provincial NDP, despite all, have decided that Kennedy Stewart is their guy.

A week or so ago, a letter went out to constituency associations telling NDP members that it’s Kennedy Stewart, or no one.

“We know that you’re not a big fan of Mayor Kennedy Stewart. We’ve not been, either. But here’s the thing: unless you cast your ballot for Kennedy, we’ll all be looking at a Council where the Mayor will be a right-of-centre, B.C. Liberal supporting opponent to everything the NDP stand for — equity, human rights, building a diverse British Columbia that is dedicated to inclusion, while building a diverse economy dedicated to job growth, and fulfilling our commitment to build 117,000 units of affordable housing.

None of that will come to pass if you elect right-wingers like …

Mark Marissen — His campaign’s senior advisor, that’d be his ex-wife, former B.C. Liberal Premier, Christy Clark. Mark is deep in the pocket of developers, dedicated to his own self-interest, and not yours. Electing Marissen as Vancouver’s next Mayor would be like Christy Clark redux. We don’t want that. You don’t want that;

Ken Sim, who is that much deeper in the pocket of developers than any of the other candidates seeking to become Vancouver’s next Mayor, who’s a front man for Lululemon multi-billionaire Chip Wilson, and some guy named Peter Armstrong, who locked his Rocky Mountaineer workers out for a year. Not only would Ken Sim turn Vancouver into a city for the ultra-rich, in the process, he’d fire union workers while attempting to destroy the union movement;

Fred Harding, who doesn’t even live in Vancouver. He calls China home. He’d be a commuter Mayor from halfway across the globe were he to become Vancouver’s next Mayor. Let’s face it, Harding is just visiting Vancouver during the current Vancouver civic election, stoking fear in the same manner as a PIerre Poilievre or Donald Trump — we think that’s despicable, something you don’t want;

And last, but certainly not least, Colleen Hardwick, who would turn Vancouver back 50 years and seek to create a paradise for the rich, while attempting to build a Vancouver that never was …

All four of these right-wing Vancouver Mayoral aspirants would do their level best to undo all that our government has achieved during the course of these past five years in government. Your only choice for Mayor in 2022: Mayor Kennedy Stewart.”

Other news of note concerning the Mayor’s Forward Together campaign for office. The provincial NDP has put the full weight of the party behind the candidacy of Tesicca Truong who, in the 2020 provincial election, came within a hair’s breadth of defeating B.C. Liberal incumbent, Michael Lee.

The BC New Democratic Party feels that Tesicca Truong represents the future of the BC NDP, and has set about to ensure a win for Ms. Truong — an immigrant, a refugee and a climate change activist — at the polls on Saturday, October 15th.

Of course, in promoting Ms. Truong’s candidacy, along with that of the Mayor, BC NDP stalwarts Alvin Singh and Dulcy Anderson are being left out in the cold.

Politics, as you may have gathered, is a dirty business, where no one really wins.

Soon-to-be defeated in her re-election bid, wrongheaded, unprincipled City Councillor, Christine Boyle.

In the meantime, in-between time, ain’t we got fun!

Not so much for Councillor Christine Boyle, who’s lost the support of the BC NDP.


Atiya Jaffar (left) and Anjali Appadurai. Jaffar volunteered to pay membership fees for prospective BC NDP leadership election voters while on an Instagram live event hosted by NDP leadership candidate Appadurai. The NDP leadership candidate and supporter Jaffar are under internal investigation for alleged vote buying. Ms. Jaffar is also active in the OneCity Vancouver civic party. | Photo: Instagram

Although Ms. Boyle has, for some while, been the fair-haired golden child of incoming B.C. Premier David Eby, seems that the NDP party brass are far from thrilled with OneCity Vancouver Councillor and candidate for re-election Christine Boyle’s association with Atiya Jaffar, the woman behind Premier-aspirant Anjali Appuradai’s campaign to unseat Mr. Eby and lead the BC New Democratic Party to oblivion, this same U.S.-based activist a major fundraiser for The Cult of Christine Boyle … er … we mean, OneCity Vancouver Councillor Christine Boyle.

Neither are British Columbia New Democratic Party brass particularly thrilled that Ms. Boyle has not disavowed her association with “volunteers” on her campaign for re-election, those volunteers allegedly planning a campaign of terror …

“Maybe we give (Rohana Rezel) a taste of his own medicine and openly wonder why he’s associating on Twitter with possible pedophiles?” asks Tim Ell, who’s been door knocking with OneCity’s incumbent Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle during the campaign.

In a ThinkPol article published on Tuesday, Mr. Rezel wrote that he had obtained chat logs that show OneCity Vancouver volunteers plotting to destroy their opponents by fabricating damaging rumours — including rumours about pedophilia. Their targets involve affordable housing advocates, academics, journalists, and lawyers. Mr. Rezel writes that, “What they intend to do to us is jaw dropping.”

Yet Christine Boyle refuses to disavow her association with, as VanRamblings reported on September 13th, “volunteers” on her campaign for re-election, rife with alt-right white supremacists with a “history of racism, misogyny and violence.”

Christine Boyle’s new status? Persona non grata with the B.C. New Democrats.

The man you see above is Christopher Richardson, the best man we know.

A former Vancouver School Board Chairperson, Mr. Richardson was seeking re-election to Vancouver’s Board of Education, under the ABC (A Better City?) banner, until he got unceremoniously dumped as a candidate for Vancouver School Board.

The above the line story, as reported in a September 26th CBC story is …

“Late Friday afternoon ABC Vancouver was made aware that a charitable organization that Christopher Richardson was a board member of had its charitable status revoked by the Canada Revenue Agency on Sept. 10,” the statement by Kareen Allam read.

“On Saturday, ABC conducted several queries. At the conclusion, ABC sent an email at 8 p.m. Saturday evening to the chief election officer that ABC’s endorsement of Christopher Richardson be removed, knowing that the deadline to do so may have passed.”

The statement did not reveal the name of the charity or why its status had been revoked. However, on Sunday evening ABC spokesperson Kareen Allam said that Richardson was let go after ABC was contacted by local writer Vivian Krause advising them that a charity Richardson was affiliated with had its charitable status revoked.

A human note should be made at this juncture: Two minutes before Christopher Richardson received the call from ABC Vancouver campaign manager Kareen Allam advising him he was being “let go” from the campaign and his candidacy for School Board revoked, Mr. Richardson had taken a call from the care home where his mother-in-law was resident, advising him that his wife’s mother had passed.

With Ms. Richardson in tears and inconsolable, Mr. Richardson reluctantly took Mr. Allam’s call, which call when it ended was followed by hours of reporters camped outside his door, while he attempted to console his beloved and bereft wife, at the same time somehow finding the strength to participate in a number of incredibly difficult — and dare we say, unfeeling — interviews with the press, where he was put on the defensive, during which interviews he felt doggedly under attack.

The behind-the-scenes story is this: Christopher Richardson, who is a Chartered Professional Accountant, Charitable Gift Planning Consultant & Philanthropy Advisor, has worked since 2005 with Blake Bromley, a Vancouver-based lawyer, considered to be

As you might well expect, Mr. Bromley does not work exclusively with Mr. Richardson. From time to time, Mr. Bromley has taken on work for Joel Solomon, a philanthropist, real estate magnate and founder of Vision Vancouver — the civic party which held power in Vancouver between 2008 and 2018 — and who is also a co-founder of Hollyhock on Cortes Island, about which Shannon Rupp, a reporter for The Georgia Straight, has written …

“I assume this artificial feeling of love and acceptance is what people are paying for, but I have to admit I find these get-togethers oppressive. Perhaps the most annoying aspect of Hollyhock is its culture of conformity – Goddess forbid anyone should question anything. After five days here, I’ve found Hollyhock is really two places: the site itself is delightful, but the half-baked spiritual and psychological concepts it peddles make me uneasy.”

Vivian Krause, conspiracy theorist, given to arch-villain, under-researched, unsupported narratives.

For years, Vivian Krause, a controversial researcher and writer critical of Canada’s environmental charities and, we think it is fair to say, a rabid critic of Joel Solomon, who Ms. Krause has spent a good portion of her life “exposing” as a charlatan, a fraud and a ne’er-do-well, and for whom she has long had a hate on. Anyone even remotely associated with Mr. Solomon is persona non grata in her book, a despicable evil creature deserving of the worst she might visit upon him.

And so she does.

Ms. Krause’s undeserving and unwitting “target” in the 2022 Vancouver civic election: Christopher Richardson, because of his loose affiliation with Joel Solomon, through his work with Vancouver charitable foundations lawyer Blake Bromley. For the past decade and more, Vivian Krause has dragged out every and any untoward, unsupported and unsubstantiated allegation of wrong-doing concerning Mr. Richardson, in some ways making his life on Earth, at times, a living hell.

For weeks in the current election campaign, Ms. Krause has attempted to peddle her scurrilous allegations about Mr. Richardson — who in the cutthroat world of civic politics is a beloved figure — to every campaign in the 2022 election, which entreaties by Ms. Krause by each and every one of the Vancouver civic parties — much to their credit — save one, was rejected. Seems that Ms. Krause has a relationship of longstanding with one of the ABC candidates for election, and it is this candidate who stuck the knife in Mr. Richardson’s School Board candidacy.

Some weeks ago Blake Bromley and Mr. Richardson submitted a renewal of the application for charitable foundation status for one of the foundations Mr. Bromley and Mr. Richardson represent, the every five year re-application in accordance with Canada Revenue Agency guidelines, as required under law. Apparently, the documentation submitted by Mr. Bromley and Mr. Richardson was incomplete — one or more boxes was left unchecked — leading the CRA to reject the application, and revoke the charitable status of the foundation re-applying for certification.

Upon being advised of the revocation, Mr. Bromley immediately launched an appeal, which appeal is under review, the corrected and fully completed application now in the hands of the Canada Revenue Agency. Mr. Richardson advises VanRamblings that he believes the re-application will be successful, after which he has been assured by Mr. Allam, once all outstanding matters have been resolved, he may once again resume his ABC candidacy for Vancouver School Board.

Oh, there’s more, so much more. But not today. We’re already over length.

Chances are that as you are reading this, VanRamblings is attending the much-looked-forward-to announcement of the TEAM for a Livable Vancouver housing policy — finally, with UBC urban geographer, VanRamblings’ most beloved Patrick Condon one of the presenters — where we’ve been assured that our dreams about an affordable housing policy, which we have written about ad nauseum and to distraction during the course of the current civic election campaign — will be realized.

Colour us thrilled and over-the-moon. I believe that there’s a lunch with Mr. Condon & Ms. Hardwick, in the Olympic Village, in each of our respective futures.

#VanElxn 2022 | Five Candidates Vie to Become Vancouver Mayor | Part 1

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In 2022, there are a record five serious-minded candidates intent on occupying the Mayor’s office following the October 15th Vancouver municipal election.

One of these stalwart persons of character and intent who would lead is …

Edward Charles Kennedy Stewart (born November 8, 1966), who has sat as Vancouver’s Mayor since being elected to office in a close fought race in 2018.

Recently, Mayoral candidate rival and current sitting Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick, was asked to say something nice about Mr. Stewart, for an article to be published later this month. Ms. Hardwick’s response, “He once played bass in a band.”  Which, if you come right down to it, pretty much encapsulates Mayor Stewart’s contribution to the life and politics of his adopted (he was born in Halifax) home town of Vancouver, over the course of the past, almost, four years.

In recent days, VanRamblings has referred to Mr. Stewart as hapless. But a more accurate description of his time as Mayor would be the following word …

Indeed, for much of the past four years, Mr. Stewart has proved an in absentia Mayor, rarely if ever around, absent from the public eye for much of the pandemic — except when he was whining to the press about how “Vancouver needs more money, the federal and provincial governments have to help us” … with, all the while, OneCity Councillor Christine Boyle and Green Councillor, Adriane Carr having gone rogue, demanding a 15% property tax increase, because “the pandemic presents us with a golden opportunity to address our climate emergency” … with nary a contrary word of disagreement heard from Mr. Stewart.

Where other Canadian mayors —  think Don Iveson in Edmonton, Naheed Nenshi in Calgary, John Tory in Toronto — pulled their respective Councils together to forward the cause of the citizens they’d been elected to represent, Mayors who not only acted like but were true, red-blooded statesmen in a time of crisis, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart — lacking any evident leadership skills or abilties — allowed a fractious Vancouver City Council to go hither, thither and yon pursuing their own political agendas, far too often at the expense of the public interest.

Stewart: unavailable to the press — a lesson he seems to have learned from former Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper —  given over to near hourly meetings with various well-heeled developers (who would fund his re-election campaign), these greed merchants brought to the Mayor’s suite by former Vision Councillor Raymond Louie, who since the last Vancouver civic election has acted as an extremely well-paid lobbyist for Vancouver’s development industry.

The icing on the cake for Mr. Stewart’s tenuous (and we hope soon to end) era in the Mayor’s chair is the bastardized Burnaby by-law proposal wherein he’s promised the construction of affordable housing amidst the burgeoning greenhouse gas-emitting concrete-and-steel massive tower developments that will envelop the “Broadway Corridor” from Clark to Vine, from the Inlet to 16th Avenue …

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 construction is underway, 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.

Mr. Stewart’s affordable housing plan does not encompass the notion that developers would pay the difference between a tenant’s current rent and the rent in the new building tenants move to — where would tenants move to in their neighbourhood or in Vancouver, who’d been paying $1100 a month for their rent, where would they find such accommodation at a similar monthly rate … Spuzzum?

The other “flaw” in Mr. Stewart’s so-called “plan” is that tenants who would be displaced from their livable four or five storey buildings, where one-bedroom suites encompassed 700+ square feet, would upon completion of the new building return five years later to the  40-story purpose-built rental building where one-bedroom suites would encompass only a postage-stamp sized 395 square foot apartment.

Kennedy Stewart: the worst Vancouver Mayor since Jack Volrich’s greasily reductive, inauspicious, and best forgotten, late 1970s two-year term in office.

Last week, Mayor Kennedy Stewart held a press conference, to address the issue of the tent city along East Hastings, between Carrall Street and Main. There was in his demeanour a sense of frustration and melancholy, verging on defeat. For the first time in his 33-month tenure as Mayor, there was about him a humanity that, prior to that press conference, had not been previously witnessed by this reporter.

Here’s what Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart had to say …

“For more than 3 years, my administration has worked in concert with all of our elected Councillors, city staff, the provincial and federal governments, as well as a myriad of social agencies to find a resolution to our ongoing homelessness problem.

As Mayor, I’ve been down to Hastings Street and spoken with some of those who are  resident in the tents that we see strewn along East Hastings. I’ve spoken with homeless advocates Fiona York and Sarah Blyth, asked them what my administration can do to alleviate the human misery we are witness to each and every day.

The answer is always the same: housing that will provide dignity. A home with a bedroom, a fully stocked kitchen, a living room with a sofa, a dining room, comfortable furniture, the amenities of life.

Having spoken with various senior administrators at B.C. Housing, I’ve been told that housing is on its way, but not until this autumn.

What to do now, though, in the midst of this housing crisis?

I am at my wit’s end as to how we, collectively as a society, how my administration, and the provincial and federal governments will resolve, once and for all, Vancouver’s homelessness crisis. I want to assure you that I, personally, my administration, our Vancouver City Councillors, city staff, and senior levels of government are working together to find resolution to the issue of the human misery to which we are witness each and every day.”

For the first time since he took office early in November 2018, Mayor Kennedy admitted that there was a homelessness crisis that he had previously not acknowledged, in as full and forthright and humane a manner as he did at his press conference last week. There was no whining, no “it’s not my fault, the federal government is not giving me the money I need”, no meaningless “woke” nostrums about how those who express a concern about tent cities are doing nothing more than engaging on an unwholesome and mean-spirited attack on the poor.

What there was, though: a display of humanity, how we’re all in this together, how resolving the issue of homelessness is a struggle we should all be engaged in.

A few more displays of humanity before the October 15th election, a fidelity in his speech, in his words and intent and, hell, Kennedy Stewart may well be re-elected to a second term of office, with realigned priorities and a new sense of purpose.

#VanPoli | The 2022 Mayor’s Race | They’re Off and Running | Part 2

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Colleen Hardwick, TEAM Vancouver, running against incumbent Mayor, Independent, Kennedy Stewart

In the next month or so, current and sitting independent Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick — who is at present seeking the Mayoral nomination with the recently-formed Vancouver municipal political party team … for a livable vancouver — will, in all likelihood, announce at the end of the nascent civic party’s upcoming AGM that she has won the TEAM Mayoral nomination, and will officially announce her bid to become Vancouver’s next Mayor, on Saturday, October 15, 2022.

Colleen Hardwick’s platform?

The platform has occurred as a function of a series of policy meetings TEAM conducted on October 24, 2021. VanRamblings would understand that Ms. Hardwick and the TEAM candidates who will soon be announced will prioritize …

  • A return to neighbourhood democracy, where residents in the 22 neighbourhoods across Vancouver will be empowered to formulate policy affecting their neighbourhood, and will be listened to when decisions are taken at Vancouver City Hall;
  • A move away from podium and high-rise tower-driven plinth construction, in favour of medium-and-low-rise, largely wood frame townhouse, affordable apartment and rowhouse construction, along arterials, and along some residential streets;
  • At Park Board, a re-prioritization of elected Park Board Commissioners as stewards of our parks and recreation system, while working to develop policy to strengthen our community centres, and developing new public pools and parks;
  • A commitment to sustainable fiscal management at City Hall that will reduce annual property tax increases, while prioritizing the delivery of core city services;
  • Arts & culture, transportation, reconciliation, public safety and security, finance and administration, economic development, climate emergency, and School Board policies that were decided on at the October 24, 2021 TEAM Policy Conference, and set to be announced at the upcoming team … for a livable vancouver AGM.

The team … for a livable vancouver AGM will take place either before year’s end, or early in the New Year / first quarter of 2022.

According to a Research Co. poll published in The Vancouver Sun on June 23rd, early pre-election polling has incumbent Mayor Kennedy Stewart with an almost insurmountable lead, and a 49% approval rating among the Vancouver electorate.

Note should be made that the Research Co. poll was commissioned by the Vancouver and District Labour Council , which represents more than 100 Vancouver-based unions. The Labour Council endorsed Kennedy Stewart as their Mayoral candidate in the 2018 election, and has announced their intention to do so again in the lead-up to the 2022 Vancouver municipal election.

Not everyone is thrilled with Kennedy Stewart, though.

Mike Howell, longtime and well-respected Vancouver civic affairs columnist, in a column published in Vancouver is Awesome, posted the question, Why is a former Vancouver councillor bringing developers to meet the mayor?

“Former Vancouver City Councillor Raymond Louie has been advocating for some of the city’s high-profile developers and joining them in a series of private meetings at City Hall with Mayor Kennedy Stewart. Louie participated in seven meetings in February and March in the Mayor’s office, which included Ian Gillespie of Westbank Projects Corp., Bruno and Peter Wall of Wall Financial Corporation, and Brian McCauley of Concert Properties.

Louie, who served 16 years on Council with COPE and Vision Vancouver before retiring (prior to the 2018 election), also met three times by himself with Stewart, according to the mayor’s monthly calendars posted on the city’s website. The frequency of Louie’s visits to City Hall are in contrast to a major plank of Stewart’s election campaign in which he called for new conflict of interest and lobbying rules for elected officials and senior staff members.”

Meanwhile, The Tyee’s Paul Willcocks took Stewart to task last year for his “painfully lame” response to police reform.

“There are 11 municipal police forces in B.C., including Vancouver … Stewart chairs the 9-member Vancouver Police Board, but he’s the only elected and publicly accountable member. The Police Act says Police Boards are responsible for determining the ‘priorities, goals and objectives of the municipal police department.’ But they are also required to “take into account the priorities, goals and objectives of the Council of the municipality.”

If Stewart and Vancouver’s Councillors agreed on measures to combat systemic racism — and shared them publicly — the Police Board would have to respond, or be held to account. That doesn’t take (a provincial government) review, as Kennedy Stewart suggested. No. It just takes leadership.”

VanRamblings believes Kennedy Stewart to be Vancouver’s worst, most inept Mayor since Jack Volrich was elected Mayor in the late 1970s.

Kennedy Stewart has proved throughout his term in office to be a feckless leader, given to whining about a “lack of support” from senior levels of government on the housing file, objectively the worst Mayor of any major Canadian city when it came to responding to the COVID crisis we’ve been living through over the past 20 months, and given to taking positions on issues that rather than serve the public interest, serves the plundering interests of Vancouver’s development community.

Two examples of how Kennedy Stewart serves the development community, rather than interests of all of us who call Vancouver home …

Councillors reject Christine Boyle & Kennedy Stewart’s developer-friendly motion

On May 28th, Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle brought forward a controversial motion that would allow projects up to 12 storeys to be built across the city, sans public hearing and community input, a proposal Boyle had worked closely on with Mayor Kennedy Stewart before bringing it before Vancouver City Council.

Boyle and Stewart’s cynical proposal called on the City’s Planning Department to come up with suggestions that would allow 12-storey, so-called ‘social housing’ developments in areas designated for apartments, without the benefit of a public hearing that would allow neighbourhood resident comment. The following Vancouver neighbourhoods would have been impacted were Boyle’s and Stewart’s motion to pass: Fairview, Grandview-Woodland, Hastings-Sunrise, Kensington-Cedar Cottage, Kitsilano, Marpole, and Mount Pleasant.

The Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods posted a statement online on May 16th in opposition to Boyle’s and Stewart’s motion.

“This will increase development pressure, increase rental inflation, gentrification, demovictions, and displacements for existing older more affordable rental buildings,” the coalition said. It noted that existing rents in older buildings “tend to be much lower than new rentals, sometimes even lower than typical subsidized social housing rents, while existing older units are also generally larger”.

The Coalition also reiterated its longstanding objection to the city’s definition of social housing that allows 70% of the units at market-rate rents, but counts entire projects as 100% social housing “when it is mostly market rents”.

“It’s the carrying on of the policies that were established during the Vision administration, and the staff who was in place then is still in place now, and is simply carrying on with these things,” Larry Benge of the Coalition said, “and unfortunately, staff is directing the way this Council is approaching housing policies.”

Boyle and Stewart’s motion offered a cynical sinecure to the development industry that would allow developers to designate an entire building as ‘social housing’, when in fact, 70% of such proposed units within a 12-storey tower would be made available at market rental rates (generally $2150 for a studio, $2575 for a 1-bedroom, $3100 for a 2-bedroom, $3722 for a 3-bedroom), with the remaining 30% of units available at 20% below the going market rates, rather than the much more affordable 20% below CMHC-determined median rental rate — resulting not only in unaffordable housing units for the vast majority of Vancouverites, but creating unnecessary, counter-productive land inflation across the city.

When the motion failed (miserably) — as well it ought to have —  both Mayor Kennedy Stewart and Councillor Christine Boyle’s OneCity Vancouver municipal party sent out withering funding letters to their supporters, derisively calling out those who had voted against this ‘very important equity motion’.

Balderdash.

The bottom line, for the beleaguered citizens of Vancouver: the majority of Vancouver City Councillors saw through Boyle’s and Stewart’s cynical, developer-friendly ruse, voting against the Boyle/Stewart motion, voting in favour of democratic citizen engagement in the planning processes in our city’s neighbourhoods.


REJECTED | City of Vancouver Real Estate Department Plan for False Creek South

When the City of Vancouver’s Real Estate Department put forward a proposal to Vancouver City Council that would have laid waste to False Creek South, and turned this friendly, low-and-medium-rise townhouse and four-and-six storey apartment-style, and largely housing co-operative neighbourhood into a mirror image of the podium and high-rise tower-driven plinth False Creek North neighbourhood, Mayor Kennedy Stewart was first out of the gate to sing the praises of …

“The new False Creek South Plan”, Stewart wrote, “will add more than 4,600 new below-market and market rental, strata, and co-op homes, so thousands of more Vancouver residents can enjoy the benefit of these publicly owned lands. Great cities like ours can never stand still. We must always examine whether our city is meeting our needs, both for today and tomorrow.”

Too bad that the 171 articulate and informed speakers who appeared before Council to denounce the Plan were so moving Council unanimously rejected the Plan, preserving the heart of our city for generations to come. Notice how in the graphic below, Kennedy Stewart has ‘changed his mind’ on the appropriateness and efficacy of the City’s greed-driven plan for False Creek South.

Kennedy Stewart’s last minute change of heart: rejects greedy False Creek South Plan

As might be expected, one of Kennedy Stewart’s main rivals for Mayor of Vancouver in 2022, the very bright and principled Mark Marissen, takes the Mayor to task for re-announcing and re-launching proposals already soundly rejected by Council. “This is not leadership,” writes Mr. Marissen.

Seems that other of Vancouver citizens — you know, the ones that Research Co. didn’t call — are among the many who find Mayor Kennedy Stewart wanting, in the integrity and climate emergency departments …

Make no mistake, Kennedy Stewart retaining power at Vancouver City Hall for a 2nd term will prove no easy task, for reasons other than you’ll find above. That issue, though, will be the topic of Thursday’s VanRamblings column.