Buh-bye, so long, adios: John Rustad, “interim leader” of the Conservative Party of British Columbia
One year from today John Rustad will no longer lead the B.C. Conservative Party.
How to explain VanRamblings’ late 2025 B.C. Conservative leadership projection?
B.C. Conservative Party infighting. In his interview with This is Vancolour’s Mo Amir, former BC NDP Premier Glen Clark referred to 20 of the newly-elected B.C. Conservative Party MLAs as “whack jobs” — this adjudication arising from a series of racist, misogynist, homophobic QAnon conspiracy theorist comments made by these, now, sitting B.C. Conservative Party members of the B.C. Legislature.
From what VanRamblings’ sources tell us, these 20 newly-minted B.C. Conservative MLAs are far from happy with their leader, John Rustad, for having roundly denounced several of their number during the course of the recent provincial election campaign. VanRamblings is told there is a movement afoot to remove Rustad as leader, in favour of a member of the QAnon conspiracy theorist contingent who more rightly align with their “the whole system is rigged and oughta be brought down” far right, People’s Party of Canada, anti-vaxx, Freedom Convoy-loving “philosophy”.
Meanwhile, Premier Eby has drawn what he calls a “bright line”, stating that his NDP government will refuse to work with newly-elected B.C. Conservative MLAs who have expressed “offensive” views on racial and other matters.
“Bright-line test a proverbial line in the sand. It establishes a clearcut, easily recognizable boundary between the right and the wrong, the good and the bad, the pure and the tainted.”
Eby singled out Brent Chapman, newly-elected B.C. Conservative MLA for Surrey South, and author of some deeply offensive social media posts in past years.
“Brent Chapman (is) a hateful man promoting hate and racism in our province,” Eby told host Vijay Saini of CJCN radio last week. “We have a very bright line around that and it is a non-starter for us. We need to fight hate and racism every day. So there are definitely restrictions on our willingness to work with the Conservative party.”
The BC NDP leader has suggested that B.C. Democrats are preparing a list of Conservatives whose utterances have consigned them to the dark side of the line.
“I’ve seen them speaking out with concern on issues that I share concern about — open racism from Conservative candidates, open homophobia, anti-Muslim sentiment, anti-woman sentiment — and those are bright lines. That is non-negotiable for us.”
Premier Eby has created a ‘no win’ situation for B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad: defend his MLAs who have expressed intolerant and hateful views, or denounce them. Smart, divisiveNDP politics, set to create much trouble for Rustad.
Elenore Sturko celebrating her B.C. United Party by-election win in 2022, with Kevin Falcon.
Elenore Sturko. VanRamblings has been told by our B.C. Conservative Party sources that former B.C. United MLA for Surrey South, now the newly-minted B.C. Conservative MLA representing the riding of Surrey-Cloverdale has formed an exploratory committee to challenge John Rustad for leadership of the Conservative Party of British Columbia. Elenore Sturko: thy name is ambition at all costs, the person in which such picayune considerations such as loyalty will never be vested. Just ask former B.C. United Party leader Kevin Falcon; he’s got a story or two to tell ya.
And, finally, why John Rustad won’t be the leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia, and His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, twelve months from now.
The venerable and exclusive Vancouver Club, on West Hastings in Vancouver.
Powers that be who rule our province. The same group of folks who just weeks ago — billionaire developers, and their ilk — convinced, under threat, B.C. United leader Kevin Falcon to fold his and his B.C. United tent in favour of supporting John Rustad’s far right B.C. Conservative Party — never for a moment wanting to see the conspiracy theory amenable Rustad continue on as B.C. Conservative Party leader should he “lose” the election — even as you read this, are meeting behind closed doors deep within the inner sanctum of The Vancouver Club, developing plans to oust John Rustad as B.C. Conservative Party leader — as they did with then B.C. Liberal leader Gordon Wilson, in favour of their hand-picked choice and oh-so-amenable, Gordon Campbell — to be replaced by Ms. Sturko, or Brad West or another potential B.C. Conservative Party leader, who would be acquiescent to their entreaties, a leader not wedded to conspiracy theories, someone more acceptable to the general populace.
So there you have it.
In the face of the chaos that will be wrought in the United States with the (re) election of Donald Trump as President, in British Columbia some degree of sanity will prevail, with the Nuremberg 2.0-compliant John Rustad set to be removed as B.C. Conservative Party leader, in favour of someone more balanced and palatable to a broad swath of the British Columbia electorate. With David Eby at the helm of a progressive British Columbia New Democratic Party, we can look forward to enjoying a government committed to empowering women, empowering members of our Indigenous community, and building the economy, an oasis of political sanity in this crazy old world of ours where stability, in British Columbia, is our friend.
Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen, elected to office on the evening of Saturday, October 15, 2022
Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen is, and has been for a very long time, one of VanRamblings’ closest, and very best friends.
Not to get too maudlin, but Mike Klassen is an executor of VanRamblings’ will — the other two: current Vancouver School Board trustee, Christopher Richardson, and former Vancouver City Councillor, Colleen Hardwick. VanRamblings’ ashes will be thrown off the side of Peter Armstrong’s yacht, which will be temporarily ‘moored’ just off Locarno Beach. Colleen, Mike and Christopher will be on board.
Mike Klassen. On January 17, 2024 as Vancouver experienced a cold spell and a 20mm dump of snow
All of which is to say three things, if you’re wondering where we’re going …
VanRamblings has known and been close friends with Mike Klassen for 30+ years;
In the interest of full disclosure, VanRamblings’ readers should be apprised that you will never, ever, ever read material on this blog that in any, way, shape or form disparages Mike Klassen — although we reserve the right, from time to time, to be critical of a policy decision taken by the good and honourable Councillor;
As VanRamblings expressed to Mike Klassen during the course of the recent holiday season: “I will not allow a disagreement on the future of Park Board, or any other policy issue that may arise, to disrupt or in any way interfere with our friendship.”
In VanRamblings’ world, loyalty counts for something; for a great deal, actually.
Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, who topped the polls on election day, October 15, 2022
For many years now, Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung has been VanRamblings’ favourite political person in the province: a dedicated, exceptionally bright public servant, who works night and day for citizens (the hardest working pol we’ve ever experienced); and a politician who doesn’t always ‘play by rules’ — which we think, on occasion, is a good thing, a very good thing!
Sarah Kirby-Yung succeeded in having cetacreans — whales and dolphins — in captivity banned at the Vancouver Aquarium during her tenure as Vancouver Park Board Chairperson, despite the fact that the initiative was contrary to the policy of the political party she ran for office with in 2014.
Even in light of the current contretemps surrounding the Park Board ‘abolition’ issue that has caused VanRamblings much consternation, and about which we have been writing endlessly in recent days, our affection, regard and respect for Sarah Kirby-Yung has not lessened one iota — although, in the interest of transparency, we will write that Vancouver Kingsway MP Don Davies has (unknowingly) worked hard in recent days, weeks and months to displace Councillor Kirby-Yung from her august position as VanRamblings’ favourite political person in the province.
Of course, VanRamblings is hoping saner heads prevail at Vancouver City Council, that Councillors Kirby-Yung and Klassen will lead the charge to convince Mayor Ken Sim that the time has come to “pull a Doug Ford” — which is to say, reverse his shameful position on eliminating an independent, elected Vancouver Park Board.
Today, 9 a.m., Jan. 25, 2024 | Mayor Ken Sim announces transition team that will lead to abolition of an elected Park Board. Pictured: Mayor Sim, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Brian Montague, Lenny Zhou, Mike Klassen
As someone who campaigned for ABC as a park commissioner, this is not true. Ken and the campaign team were clear that he was not going to abolish the Park Board. I would not have run otherwise. #vanpolihttps://t.co/oLPLTHuiIj
The maintenance of Kits Pool and Aquatic Centre was taken over by the City (under REFM department) and has been poorly managed since. This is not evidence of a broken Park Board. #vanpolhttps://t.co/S2Ti0DabUa
ABC Councillors: Lisa Dominato, 2nd term on Council | Rebecca Bligh, 2nd term, Vancouver City Council
ABC Vancouver Councillors Lisa Dominato, initially Non-Partisan Association Councillors, who switched party affiliations to join the nascent ABC Vancouver civic party seeking office, are serving their second term at Vancouver City Hall.
VanRamblings has known the principled and accomplished Lisa Dominato dating back to the autumn of 2017, when she was elected to the Vancouver School Board as a Board of Education trustee in a by-election that year. A strategic leader with 20 years experience in government administration, public policy, communications and stakeholder relations, Ms. Dominato was responsible for the construction and implementation of British Columbia’s SOGI 123 programme, which provides guidance to educators across our province to help make schools more inclusive and safe for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities (SOGI).
Rebecca Bligh is a passionate supporter of families, education and the environment who championed Vancouver’s diverse and inclusive communities in her first term of office — as she continues to do today — dedicating herself to helping make Vancouver a more livable city, while serving to address the affordability crisis and issues around public safety and the poisoned drug crisis, working in concert with her colleague, Lisa Dominato. Both make an invaluable contribution to our city.
On balance, VanRamblings believes ABC Vancouver had a good first year in office.
The ABC Councillors also brought a welcome civility back to the Council chambers.
Vancouver City Councillor Brian Montague | Lenny Zhou | and Vancouver City Councillor Peter Meiszner
All 10 Councillors and the Mayor worked as a team over their 12 months in office, arising from the expressed desire of Mayor Ken Sim to work collaboratively with “opposition” Councillors, One City Vancouver’s Christine Boyle — who is having herself some kind of (great) second term — and Greens Adriane Carr and Pete Fry.
There’s a tendency to dehumanize our elected officials — as if they’re not members of our larger family — to criticize the individual rather than the policy, to engage in the politics of character assassination over reasoned, thoughtful debate.
Was VanRamblings happy when the ABC Vancouver Councillors collectively decided to undo our City’s Livable Wage Programme, mandating that suppliers of goods and services to the City pay a living wage to their employees, currently in the $24-an-hour range? Absolutely not. We thought it was an abomination.
Which is to say, when you have a City Council where the average annual Councillor salary tops well over $100,000, it’s not just bad optics but borders on the inhumane, when you — as a majority ABC Vancouver Council — set about to cut the wages of working people struggllng to get by in Canada’s most expensive city.
VanRamblings realizes that the 36.3% of the Vancouver electorate who bothered to turn out at the polls in October 2022 to elect a new Vancouver City Council, did not cast their ballot the way they did to please VanRamblings as their priority for a new Council. ABC Vancouver won fair and square (unlike Donald Trump, we’re not given to saying things are ‘rigged’ when events don’t unfold as we might wish).
Dan Fumano, Postmedia: ABC Vancouver returns $116,000 in prohibited donations from 2022 election
VanRamblings will continue to be critical of our city’s majority ABC Vancouver City Council, involving their collective decision to attempt to eliminate a cherished 133-year-old environmental institution, the Vancouver Park Board. At no point, though, will we publish rhetoric that dehumanizes our ABC Vancouver elected officials.
Almost inevitable that VanRamblings would endorse Councillor Colleen Hardwick as Vancouver’s next Mayor, don’t you think?
Why is VanRamblings enthusiastically and wholeheartedly supporting and endorsingTEAM … for a Livable Vancouver’s Colleen Hardwick for Mayor of Vancouver?
Listen to what Patrick Condon — the James Taylor chair in Landscape and Livable Environments at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture — has to say about Colleen Hardwick.
Make no mistake, Colleen Hardwick is the only candidate running for Mayor in 2022 who is on your side, on the side of all of us who live within one of the 23 currently livable Vancouver neigbourhoods, that each of the other Mayoralty candidates would seek to destroy, as incumbent Mayor, Forward Together’s Kennedy Stewart, ABC Vancouver’s Ken Sim, the Non-Partisan Association’s Fred Harding, and Progress Vancouver’s Mark Marissen envision a future tower-driven city, encroaching on every neighbourhood, with twenty to seventy storey towers Vancouver’s almost inevitable future were any of these men to assume the Mayor’s office post-Election Day, only two short days from now, on Saturday, October 15th.
Colleen Hardwick is the only democrat running to be Mayor of Vancouver, the only candidate for Mayor that would pause, if not rescind, the Broadway Plan and Vancouver Plan, as she and her cohort of outstanding TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver’s candidates for Vancouver City Council would consult with those of us who live in each of the neighbourhoods across the city, towards building an inevitably more dense city, while developing renewed community plans that would give you a voice in how your neighbourhood would develop in the years to come.
Have we written that Sean Nardi is one of our very favourite candidates running for office as a TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver candidate for Vancouver City Council?
No? Well, now we have.
As a key organizer of the Fairview Slopes / South Granville Action Committee, Sean devoted countless hours to rallying the community to fight the out-of-scale for the neighbourhood, 28-storey Jameson Birch Street project, devoting hundreds of hours to analytical research and neighbourhood organizing. Sean’s painstaking fact-based advocacy work impressed the hell out a broad network of activists from across the city, City Councillors who sat up straight in their chairs when he addressed Council, senior staff within the labyrinthine City Hall bureaucracy, and our devoted civic affairs journalists. Believe us when we write, Sean means to make a difference — and with his newly-acquired MBA from Simon Fraser University, a dozen years of project management in the field of information technology, his hard-won expertise in problem-solving, as well as his work in crisis management and fiscal management, plus Sean’s work developing innovative strategies to build better, more efficiently, more humanely — always with a focus towards addressing issues involving our present climate emergency — Sean Nardi is definitely a candidate for Vancouver City Council for whom you want to cast a vote.
While most of our current crop of Vancouver City Councillors — not to mention, the current crop of Vancouver Mayoral candidates — consider themselves to be Gods on Mount Olympus, the holders of all knowledge, who believe they have the preordained right to rule over you, whether you like it or not, TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver’s Mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick and her outstanding, feet planted firmly on the ground Council candidate slate walk the Earth just as you do.
TEAM will work for a livable, affordable city for local residents, for renters, housing co-op members, and condominium and home owners from across the city. TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver will focus on delivering homes at a lower cost, including for low wage workers, the homeless, and those experiencing housing insecurity.
Providing a mix of non-market and market housing, for rentals and ownership, including housing co-ops — where no one will pay more than 30% of their income to be housed — co-housing, secondary suites, multiple conversion dwellings, infill, laneways, multiplexes, townhouses, and apartments — planned in partnership with local residents at the scale of each neighbourhood, employing City-owned, provincial and federal Crown lands to build affordable housing across the city, TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver is making the commitment to you that they will work to build affordable housing that will meet every Vancouver citizen’s needs.
TEAM Mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick, and her outstanding and well-experienced TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver slate of candidates for Vancouver City Council, acknowledge the contract the City of Vancouver has entered into with the provincial government that will see the construction of towers within a two-block radius surrounding Millennium line Skytrain stations along the Broadway corridor. The notion that this mass, tower-driven style of development, though, might become Vancouver’s default housing typology is anathema to everything the TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver slate of candidates for Vancouver City Council stand for.
Campaign manager for, and candidate for Vancouver City Council with, TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver, the well-experienced and tremendously engaging Bill Tieleman, no matter which other candidates for office in 2022 that you are selecting to cast your vote for, Bill Tieleman is the must, must, must-elect for Vancouver City Council this year. No other candidate in this election is as accomplished as Bill Tieleman as a communicator, and as someone who has worked deep within government — from 1996 through 2001, for instance, as Director of Communications in the Premier’s office, in the first term when the provincial New Democratic Party was in power — Bill is a must-vote. You’ve likely seen Bill fighting — successfully! — for the re-opening of the Coast Guard station just west of the Burrard bridge, and seen him on your TV screens many evenings representing the interests of workers, and the community-at-large, always fighting the good fight on your behalf.
Did we mention that Bill Tieleman is VanRamblings’ “next door neighbour” (he lives in the condominium due west of our housing co-op home), and that Bill is the most honest and authentic person we know, that Bill brings himself to the world with such heartbreaking integrity, fidelity and sense of purpose, with an unmatched energy as he works for social change, and a fairer,more just city, region and province, that for us — on almost a daily basis — is little short of revelatory. Make sure you save a vote for Bill Tieleman, to help us realize the city we need.
Well, the six outstanding TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver slate of candidates for Vancouver City Council, including a heartbreakingly bright Colleen Hardwick for Mayor of Vancouver, constitutes for VanRamblings the must-elect majority that, when elected, will turn this city around, and set a course that will place the city back in the hands of Vancouver citizens, and not the developer class in our city, as TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver sets about to rebuild the trust of Vancouver residents, lost over the course of the past fourteen years, first with the 2008 election of a majority Vision Vancouver City Council, followed by Vision 2.0 this past four years.
Above, VanRamblings has identified the must-elect majority who will turn our city around, build affordable housing, build a human-scale transit system that serves the needs of Vancouver residents across the city, re-engage with all of us who live in one of Vancouver’s 23 vibrant neighbourhoods, address the issue of public safety, and work with the federal and provincial governments to respond to the human tragedy on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside that warehouses our most vulnerable citizens in substandard SROs, where crimes against those who call the DTES home continues to run rampant, where death has become a tragically common feature of life around Main and Hastings, where we must do better, and with a TEAM-led civic administration at Vancouver City Hall, we will do better.
VanRamblings has known Mike Klassen for more than 30 years, as the most honourable person of our long acquaintance, a friend in a time of need, phenomenally skilled, a true neighbourhood advocate, and VanRamblings’ webmaster who created our site during the holiday season in 2003, débuting VanRamblings in 2004.
And now, Mike Klassen is running for Vancouver City Council, with ABC Vancouver.
We have known Mike Klassen, always, to be fair-minded, possessed of an umatched personal and professional integrity, and during his years as Vancouver’s première civic affairs columnist with the Vancouver Courier newspaper — where his writing was superb, his insights possessed of an integrity and a heart that spoke both to his professionalism as a journalist, and to how Mike has always brought himself to the world — there was no finer journalist in town. There is no one running for City Council in 2022 who is more intimately familiar with how government works, how decisions are made, and how change for the better comes about.
In his work as a vice-president with the B.C. Home Care Providers Association, Mike Klassen has gained a rapport with members of the New Democratic Party caucus that is second-to-none, each member of that caucus having come to respect Mike Klassen as someone who gets things done, someone with whom it is easy to work towards change for the better, someone who does his homework, someone who is non-partisan in the interests of better serving the needs of British Columbians, and those of us who call Vancouver home. Quite simply, Mike Klassen gets things done.
VanRamblings loves Mike Klassen, the candidate and our friend, with all our heart, and believe that he will emerge on Council as a generational difference maker for the better. Please, please, please save a vote for ABC Vancouver’s Mike Klassen.
Sarah Kirby-Yung. Yep, there she is above, VanRamblings’ favourite political figure, on Vancouver Park Board — where, as Chairperson of the Board, Sarah Kirby-Yung worked with then Park Board General Manager Malcolm Bromley to ban cetaceans in captivity (that means no more whales cruelly kept in “cages” at the Vancouver Aquarium) — and this past term on Council, as one might reasonably expect if you know Sarah Kirby-Yung at all, Ms. Kirby-Yung emerged as the hardest-working member on Council, steering clear of the toxic politics that weighed Vancouver City Council down for much of the past four years, on a Council where Ms. Kirby-Yung actually managed to build alliances across the political spectrum, among a disparate group of her fellow electeds — with Green Party of Vancouver City Councillor, Pete Fry (who VanRamblings is also endorsing!), who loves, respects and admires Sarah Kirby-Yung, as is the case with Sarah’s fellow ABC Vancouver colleagues, Lisa Dominato and Rebecca Bligh, achieving this feat on a toxic City Council, where she even managed to bring an often too-partisan, and at times misogynist, Mayor on board as a fan — to get things done.
As VanRamblings has written previously, you have Sarah Kirby-Yung to thank for helping see us through the pandemic while providing aid to restaurants in dire financial straits, while championing restaurant patios, and side street plazas, where we could meet together in the open, in neighbourhoods across the city.
You know who the most productive person on City Council was this term , the Councillor who was always available to the press, by far Council’s best communicator (although, Pete Fry gives Sarah a run for her money), and the (am I allowed to say this?) the get ‘er done gal around the Council table, always, always, always on your side, fighting for you, and fighting for a better, fairer and more just city — Sarah Kirby-Yung. If you love our city, you must save a vote for Sarah Kirby-Yung.
And now, to our two new favourite, first time candidates in this 2022 Vancouver civic election who, if there is any justice at all, will win in a walk on Saturday night.
Stephanie Smith, 2022 Green Party of Vancouver candidate for Vancouver City Council
A labour and social justice activist living in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, since the late 1990s, Stephanie Smith has worked in the non-profit sector as a front line legal advocate, most recently in the Downtown Eastside at First United, providing legal advice to those who’ve come to her expressing a concern about the conditions of their lives.
“What that’s meant is that representing tenants on the DTES, we’ve worked to save one tenancy at a time, one eviction hearing at a time. In labour terms, ‘One job, one grievance.’ One person’s income, one person’s disability benefits appeal at a time. Over the years, my colleagues and I have won countless battles, but sometimes it feels to us like we’re losing the war.”
For Stephanie Smith, entering this campaign as a Green Party candidate for Council, she has come to feel a new sense of possibility, of optimism in places that she hasn’t felt it for a long time.
“This is a terrible moment in a lot of ways. The forces aligned against people seem so overwhelming, and there’s so much suffering. So many people in Vancouver feel like they’re on the bubble, they’re one eviction notice, one demoviction, one renoviction away from never being able to come back to the city.
That profound insecurity is destructive to people, destructive to community, and destructive to our city.
There are things we can do together, if we are bold, if we are thoughtful, and if we are collaborative, that will bring security and a sense of belonging, a sense that we’re going to be able to remain here and not be pushed out of the city by developers.”
Stephanie Smith assures VanRamblings that she will dedicate every waking moment as a Vancouver City Councillor to working towards creating housing in our city that is genuinely affordable housing for wage earners, for the working poor, for seniors and single parents, for all those who are in need, where no tenant or co-operative housing member would pay more than 30% of their income to be housed, and real tenant protections enacted.
Elect Stephanie Smith, a well-experienced, grassroots community activist and people’s advocate. You can make that happen, you must make that happen, by marking your ballot for Candidate #141 this upcoming Saturday, for the people’s advocate, Stephanie Smith — to help transform Vancouver into a city for all.
Arezo Zarrabian, NPA candidate for Vancouver City Council, in which Ms. Zarrabian blows the roof off the rafters at the Vancouver Police Department’s all-candidates forum! Watch. Listen. Cheer!
NPA Vancouver candidate Arezo Zarrabian, running for a seat on Vancouver City Council is, by far, the loveliest, the strongest, the best informed, the most articulate and the candidate with the most commanding presence that we’ve come across and become acquainted with during the 2022 Vancouver civic election season.
Everyone who’s heard Arezo Zarrabian has come away mightily impressed.
Just watch and listen to the video at the top of this portion of today’s VanRamblings column, where you’ll see Vancouver’s première crime data analyst, a decorated 13-year veteran of the Vancouver Police Department, where in the video she blows the roof off the rafters because she, and she alone, knows what’s going on in our city, was the first to identify that there are four random, unprovoked attacks occurring in our city, across every one of Vancouver’s 23 neighbourhoods, on unsuspecting, innocent victims, each and every day.
As if the video above, featuring Arezo Zarrabian as she goes up against Mayor Kennedy Stewart and ABC Vancouver Mayoral candidate Ken Sim — where she calls them out for their hapless foolishness and divisiveness — is not astoundingly impressive enough — and we’re here to tell you that it’s damned impressive — when Arezo Zarrabian, a first generation Iranian-Canadian born citizen, spoke at the University Women’s Club of Vancouver all-women candidates Women Transforming Cities forum, as she began her address to the audience, she broke down as she spoke about Mahsa Amini, whose death in police custody in the jails of Iran, has triggered continuing nationwide and worldwide protests calling for regime change in Iran. Recovering from her moving display of emotionally, Arezo Zarrabian gave, by far, the strongest, most well-received candidate speech of the evening, the only candidate to receive — in her case, alone — an extended standing applause.
If you’ve been saving yourself to vote on Election Day, this upcoming Saturday, October 15th, we strongly encourage — we beg you — to save a vote for Arezo Zarrabian, number 150 on your ballot. Quite simply, we in Vancouver need more persons of character and integrity, more informed decision-makers like heartbreakingly brilliant Arezo Zarrabian involved in the life of our city.
Believe us when we write: Arezo Zarrabian is a difference maker, from whom you will be hearing much in the months and years to come.
Saving the best for last, yes it’s the guy who makes you weep because he’s all heart, and wit and commitment, the Vancouver City Councillor who (along with his friend, and fellow member of Vancouver who is running for a second term on Council, Sarah Kirby-Yung) is a must-vote for Vancouver City Council.
Following the 2018 Vancouver civic election, in his first four-year term on Vancouver City Council, Pete Fry worked with constituents to resolve their problems with City Hall’s labyrinthine bureaucracy, while also dedicating his energies to resolving land use issues in order that the interests of Vancouver residents might best be protected. Renter protection, the provision of affordable housing, transparency and good governance, working to make Vancouver more resilient in the face of climate change, protecting our natural habitats, and supporting our vibrant arts, culture and small business communities, these were but a few of the issues that were addressed by Pete Fry in his first term on Vancouver City Council. Pete Fry is now asking for your support, to re-elect him to a 2nd term on Council.
VanRamblings say: hell yeah, VOTE FOR PETE FRY, the guy who’s on your side.
In 355 days from today, the citizens of Vancouver will go to the polls to elect our next Mayor, and the 10 duly-elected Vancouver City Councillors who will make decisions on our behalf between November of 2022 and late October of 2026.
Most elections are the “throw the bums out” kinds of election, whether it be provincially, federally or municipally. The level of dissatisfaction with our elected officials is near off the charts these days. In Vancouver in 2018, a Vision Vancouver administration which held majority government for 10 years in our city were thrown out on their ears, with only incumbent, 19-year elected trustee Alan Wong surviving as the party’s sole elected representative, to Vancouver School Board.
As dedicated and hard working as are the entire contingent of our elected representatives at Vancouver City Hall, history — and the recent ‘change elections’ that were held in Calgary and Edmonton — tells us that the electorate are in a finicky mood, dissatisfaction with municipal elected officials is through the roof, and any objective analysis of electoral re-election prospects for our not-ready-for-prime amalgam of 10 Vancouver City Councillors and incumbent Mayor are dire, indeed.
In today’s VanRamblings headline, we write that only two Councillors will be re-elected to office in 2022. Should Coalition of Progressive Electors Councillor Jean Swanson opt to run for a 2nd term of office — by the time the 2022 Vancouver civic election rolls around, Ms. Swanson will be 80 years of age. Should she be re-elected on October 15, 2022, she would complete her next term of office at age 84. Joe Biden is the same age as Jean Swanson and appears to be doing well, and is set to run for re-election in 2024 — so “age” ought not to be a consideration in one’s re-election potential. Willingness to work into our mid-80s? There is that.
Councillor Colleen Hardwick would also be a lock to be re-elected in 2022 — we’ll explain why another time — but as it’s likely she’ll be the Mayoral candidate for the revived TEAM, that places her outside of the Councillor re-election sweepstakes.
Vancouver City Councillor Pete Fry is a lock to be re-elected to Vancouver City Council in 2022. As many disparaging things as we may write about Pete, nothing but a cataclysmic event will prevent the affable, if paranoid, Mr. Fry to being re-elected to a second, thankfully post-pandemic term at Vancouver City Hall.
Now, VanRamblings believes that Mr. Fry has served an inauspicious first term.
1. When Pete ran for office in 2018, VanRamblings made him promise that he would respond to every telephone call and e-mail he received in his office at City Hall, and that he would meet with citizens in the community — a la former Mayor, the late Philip Owen, or former COPE City Councillor, Tim Louis — to help resolve issues of concern, such as clogged drains, or improper drainage, or the myriad issues homeowners have to deal with that, more often than not, requires intervention from City Hall. Did Pete Fry follow through on this sacred promise. Nope. No he didn’t.
2. The first year in office, Pete held up decision-making around the Council table by plunging Council into “amendment hell.” There was no motion presented by a City Councillor that he did not seek to amend, dragging Council meetings out into hour upon hour of fruitless discussions on meaningless amendments that served only to inhibit decision-making around the Council table. VanRamblings was told by our sources at City Hall that it was not Pete who was drafting the amendment motions, but then City Manager, Sadhu Johnston — who wished to sandbag our newly-elected Council from achieving the goals which got them elected to Council.
Apparently, Pete had struck a deal with Mr. Johnston that would see Mr. Fry resign his office as a Green Party Vancouver City Councillor in March 2022, pull a Fritz Bowers and take on a senior administrative position at City Hall. Ain’t heard nothing on that front in recent months, tho, so that outcome would appear now to be ‘moribund’.
3. Pete Fry’s big claim to fame in his first couple of years in office, aside from obstructing Council from making decisions, was two fold: i) passing the all-important “trial” project on reducing vehicular traffic to 30kmh on residential side streets, and ii) protecting the interests of China at Union of B.C. Municipalities conventions, so China could continue to treat delegates to Chinese goodies — this while both Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were locked inside unlivable Chinese jails.
Now, as it happens, none of the three points made above matter a whit.
And why not?
Well, there are two good reasons that ensure Pete Fry will be re-elected.
As much as Pete Fry did not “de-escalate” the situation involving the Strathcona Park encampment resident, and as much as the “left” in Vancouver would disapprove of his intervention on behalf of his neighbour, that is not how the vast majority of the Vancouver electorate see Mr. Fry’s intervention.
Rather, the residents across the City of Vancouver see Pete Fry as a hero, a superman, a man who did what they would do in a similar situation — and that “belief” assures Pete Fry of re-election in 2022, as Vancouver’s Superman Hero, however much he would disclaim such an appellation or the accolations of Vancouverites.
Vancouver City Councillor Pete Fry gives “good quote,” he’s become Global BC’s ‘go to’ guy for on camera interviews about decisions that are made around the Council table, he’s articulate, bright, affable, engaged, and willing (and able) to answer any question that is put to him by the media — as such, Pete Fry has emerged as one of the few stars on the current term Vancouver City Council. The role of the media is to act as the voice of citizens. Most other Councillors have avoided the media like the plague — not Pete Fry, who is accountable and available always, humble as all get out (on this Council, that’s saying something), with one of the great voices of all time — calm, measured, reassuring, down-to-earth, a just folks kind of guy who is simply impossible to dislike.
Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung at Council, with Lisa Dominato to her right
And then there’s VanRamblings’ favourite member of Vancouver City Council (even if she’s not a particularly big fan of ours … alas, it was always thus) — yes, we can hear you Councillors Melissa De Genova and Colleen Hardwick — we love you, too.
Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung is not just VanRamblings’ favourite Vancouver City Councillor, she is — along with Vancouver West End NDP MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert, and B.C. Minister of Health, Adrian Dix (and if Patti Bacchus were an elected figure) — our favourite British Columbia elected official.
If Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle has emerged as the current Council’s biggest disappointment, activist City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung (a one-time Park Board Chair) has fulfilled her promise as an elected Councillor, and much more.
Not to pick on Councillor Boyle (yet again), Sarah Kirby-Yung is the complete social progressive on Vancouver City Council. Articulate, bright, incredibly hard-working, some have derided Councillor Kirby-Yung as a “populist” (the same appellation has been applied to Councillor Fry) — if that’s the case we’ll take a heaping handful of Ms. Kirby-Yung’s populism each and every day, and twice on Sunday.
The “mother” of the pandemic patio movement in Vancouver (now set to become a permanent summertime feature) is — yes, you guessed it — Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung. In addition, Ms. Kirby-Yung is the push behind the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship race next year, an all-electric race set to take place in the city’s False Creek neighbourhood over the July 2022 long weekend.
“Formula E is a win on so many levels, from being a net-zero event that supports sustainable transportation to being a huge boost for our hard-hit tourism sector, our residents and our local economy,” Vancouver City Councillor said in a news release.
One year ago, Councillor Kirby-Yung was the big push behind a mask mandate for inside city facilities — a motion that went down to flaming defeat thanks in part to the fact that Pete Fry hates Councillor Kirby-Yung — there’s just no accounting for the ill motivations of some of our childish elected officials at Vancouver City Hall.
If the media loves Pete Fry — and they do — they’re absolutely infatuated with Ms. Kirby-Yung, for whom being in elected office means being available 24-7, always available not just to those in the working press, but to everyone, all Vancouver residents across the city, Ms. Kirby-Yung as a true blue advocate for all that is good and necessary and, as we’ve written previously, the one true Mayor of Vancouver.
Elected life, though, is not easy for Ms. Kirby-Yung. When she and Councillors Lisa Dominato, Rebecca Bligh and Colleen Hardwick left the Non-Partisan Association political party fold to sit as independents, the question arose as to the fate of each Councillor leading up to the 2022 Vancouver civic election.
We already know that Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick has re-formed her father’s old progressive party, TEAM, and for some time now, rumour has had it that Peter Armstrong has reached out to Rebecca Bligh to join with Ken Sim in the nascent, but well-funded, socially progressive A Better City Vancouver civic party.
Whither then Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, and her equally progressive colleague, Lisa Dominato (architect of B.C.’s SOGI 1 2 3 programme)?
Will Ms. Kirby-Yung (and Ms. Dominato) join their Council colleague Colleen Hardwick, and join with TEAM to seek a Council nomination? Nuh-uh. Not much likelihood of that. How about traipsing over to Ken Sim’s ABC, with Rebecca Bligh? Maybe, a possibility, we’ll see. Or, how about Ms. Kirby-Yung joins with her old (and young at heart, and socially progressive) Park Board colleague John Coupar, who is running with the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) as their Mayoral candidate?
Most folks — as in the vast majority of the electorate, well north of 90% in the months leading up to early October 2022, when VanRamblings predicts there’ll be a record low voter turnout — are unaware of the inner machinations of Vancouver politics, but they do know about the NPA. Or maybe Mark Marissen is chasing after Ms. Kirby-Yung to join his Progress Vancouver campaign for Vancouver civic office.
As we stated at the outset of our coverage of Vancouver civic politics, and next year’s Vancouver municipal election, “round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows.” More VanRamblings civic coverage, hopefully tomorrow.
Elenore Sturko celebrating her B.C. United Party by-election win in 2022, with Kevin Falcon.
The venerable and exclusive Vancouver Club, on West Hastings in Vancouver.
