Tag Archives: vancouver

#VanPoli | False Creek South | The Heart of Our City Preserved

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


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

In early October, when the City of Vancouver’s Real Estate Department presented a sordid, mercenary plan for the redevelopment of False Creek South —  that parcel of land on the south side of False Creek stretching from the Cambie Street bridge to the Granville Street bridge — Mayor Kennedy Stewart the very next day came out in full-throated support of The Plan, writing in an overly solicitous column published in The Straight that averred …

“Great cities like ours can never stand still. We must always examine whether our city is meeting our needs, both for today and tomorrow.”

The Real Estate Department’s Plan called for a greedy financial return to the City, that sought to more than triple the existing density of homes in the False Creek South neighbourhood, from 2450 units to a reconfigured 6600 units.

The real cost of the Plan?

The absolute, utter destruction of the False Creek South neighbourhood, a decimation of the heart and demographic integrity of one of Vancouver’s most sustainable and livable districts — the ‘close-fisted’ Plan laying waste to existing housing co-operatives dotted throughout the neighbourhood, moving residents from their current locations to a ghettoized, ‘poor door’ stretch of land situated along the bustling, carbon emitting 6th Avenue traffic corridor.

Community outrage soon ensued.

As founding chair of the UBC urban design programme, Patrick Condon, wrote in an article in The Tyee , the City’s Real Estate Department’s Plan would …

  • Increase market condos nearly fourfold, from 688 to 2,350 units;
  • Increase by more than 13x market rental units, from 150 to 2020 units;
  • See all new buildings constructed at least six storeys tall, ranging up to 50 storeys tall at the Granville Street bridgehead. Today, most buildings on the district’s city-owned land are three to four storeys in height;
  • Shift the tenure mix on city-owned land from the current 36% market strata, 8% market rental & 56% non-market co-op / affordable rental units, to 35% market strata, 30% market rental, and 34% non-market co-op and affordable rental;
  • Eventually demolish most of the existing co-ops, with these sites reused for market rentals and market condos, or to expand Charleson Park.

As Robert Renger, a retired senior planner who worked with the City of Burnaby, wrote in a response article in The Straight to the column written by Mayor Stewart — as well as to supporters of the City of Vancouver’s Real Estate Department’s Plan for False Creek South, which accused False Creek South residents of both nimbyism and elitism …

  • 15% of FCS residents are children, with 11% freehold and 16% citywide;
  • 17.5% of False Creek South family households are single-parent, compared to 10.9% of False Creek South freehold and 15.9% citywide;
  • The income mix on FCS lands closely parallels that of the city as a whole.
  • The residents of False Creek South had long ago published a document they called RePlan , a thorough and critical vetting of the City’s proposed Plan for the False Creek South neighbourhood, writing that …

    “False Creek South offers a housing model that is affordable, resilient and community-focused, with a variety of affordable, mixed-income housing options that span a spectrum of housing tenures. We are calling on Vancouver City Council to protect the existing variety of affordable, mixed-income housing options in False Creek South, to eliminate the threat of housing insecurity on leased City land, to kick start community growth, and to create right-sized housing in the False Creek South neighbourhood.

    Let’s expand affordable, resilient, mixed-income, mixed-tenure housing communities. Vancouver needs to protect and create more housing that is community centred, diverse, equitable, inclusive and secure that spans all leasehold housing tenures, including permanent housing for people who have experienced or are at risk of homelessness.”

    On October 5th in a motion presented to her colleagues on Vancouver City Council, Councillor Colleen Hardwick did just that in calling for security of tenure for the beleaguered residents of False Creek South, whose ongoing residency in the neighbourhood would be jeopardized by the redevelopment Plan published by the City’s Real Estate Department. Before that motion could be discussed around the Council table, the members of Council sought to hear feedback from the residents of False Creek South, as well as citizens from right across the city.

    Councillor Colleen Hardwick + retired CoV planner / RePlan co-author , Nathan Edelson

    Long story short, after hearing from some 171 residents of the City of Vancouver — many of them children, now adults, who had grown up in the False Creek South neighbourhood — in, perhaps, the most moving series of addresses this or any other Council has ever heard, in an amendment motion presented by Councillor Christine Boyle, all 10 Vancouver City Councillors, with an about face by Mayor Kennedy Stewart, unanimously rejected the City Real Estate Department’s Plan for False Creek South, instead opting to turn the process of the redevelopment of False Creek South to the City’s Planning Department, which planning process will include respectful and extensive consultation not only with False Creek South residents, but engaged residents across the city at-large.

#VanPoli | The Only Two Vancouver City Councillors Assured Re-Election

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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.

#VanPoli | The Worst Council in 50 Years?

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

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

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

Burnaby City Council vs Vancouver City Council, 2018 – 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Say what you will about Vision Vancouver Councillors.

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

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

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

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

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

“Affordable housing is something that somebody can afford.”

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

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

Maybe.

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

#VanPoli | A Friendship | Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick looks askance at a Council colleague

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A tamped down Pete Fry tweet deriding Councillor Colleen Hardwick

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

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

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

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

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


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

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