More than any other candidate seeking office in the 2018 Vancouver civic election, VanRamblings believes that it is important that you cast a vote for Christine Boyle when arriving at the polls this upcoming Saturday.
This week, Vancouver voters are presented with the opportunity to cast a ballot for our town’s most environmentally responsible, progressive, qualified, socially conscious and ‘can do’ activist candidate seeking a seat on Vancouver City Council in our city’s current civic election.
Christine Boyle, for those of you who don’t know her, is a minister at the Canadian Memorial United Church at 15th and Burrard, a climate change & environmental activist, and a gifted community organizer who, with her partner Seth, parent their two children in the Grandview neighbourhood.
With a Bachelor of Science degree in urban agriculture and First Nations studies from the University of British Columbia, and a Master’s degree in religious leadership for social change from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, the pillars of Christine Boyle’s civic election platform involve implementing an affordable housing action plan, greater community participation in decisions affecting the lives of citizens across our city, a focus on renewed action to fight climate change, and ensuring “strong and compassionate public services” to serve the interests of the public.
In the months since we began writing on Vancouver’s municipal election, VanRamblings has come to believe that only with the participation of Christine Boyle at the Council table will those of us who live in Vancouver realize the resolution of the social and economic ills that plague our city.

VanRamblings has identified Christine Boyle as a member of the historic trinity of change candidates — the other two members of this trinity, the Greens’ Pete Fry & COPE’s Derrick O’Keefe — who working together with their party running mates will effectively work to build the city we need. I’ll
What does all of the above mean for you, for your life in the city, and the livability of Vancouver going forward? As is the case with must-elects Pete Fry and Derrick O’Keefe, Christine Boyle is committed to …

• Public amenities. After 10 years of woeful underfunding of Vancouver’s parks and recreation system, Christine Boyle is committed to the growth and renewal of this critical public infrastructure;

• Affordable housing in every neighbourhood. Christine Boyle’s one city for all programme recognizes housing as a human right; she will work to build 3500 units a year of low cost housing for millennials, seniors, working people earning under $55,000 a year, with a mix of co-and-co-op housing, social housing and rental buildings where residents would pay no more than 30% of their income on meeting their housing needs.

  Christine Boyle on City Council will work with her fellow Councillors to set a goal of 50% below-market-rate housing, built on city-owned land, as well as provincial & federal Crown land, on a leasehold basis, construction costs to be paid through developer community amenity contributions, federal and provincial funding, and a speculation land value capture tax;

• Enhancing and building on Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan. From working to make walking, cycling and public transit the preferred transportation options, to leading the world in green building design, eliminating Vancouver’s dependence on fossil fuels, creating a zero waste economy, ensuring that we have the cleanest air and water of any city in the world, and creating incomparable access to our green spaces, Christine Boyle is the environmental candidate in the 2018 election;
• Small business. Christine Boyle is committed to lowering small business tax, while having major corporate business pay a fairer share of tax.

Christine Boyle, in concert with her fellow City Councillors, will work with the provincial government to shorten the timelines for rollout of $10-a-day child care, while also making known the need for more money for transit, community shuttle bus, and overnight Skytrain and Canada Line service.

Child care centres established in housing co-op developments, as is the case at the 135-unit Railyard Housing Co-op, built on city land, the construction and materials paid for by Concert Properties through an arrangement with Vancouver’s Community Land Trust, a re-opening of The Playhouse as a year-round theatre company servicing all other theatre companies in Vancouver, continuity of care seniors housing built in every neighbourhood, and keeping our streets and our boulevards clean and groomed so it might once more be said that Vancouver is not only the most beautiful city on the continent, but the cleanest and most welcoming city.

OneCity Vancouver co-founders, Christine Boyle, Cara Ng, and Alison Atkinson (Anna Chudnovsky missing from photo) working during last year’s Vancouver civic by-election

A troubling feature of the 2018 Vancouver civic election is, as Christine Boyle writes on her campaign website, “the toxic tone of politics online.”
Whether it be from the left or from the right, women candidates in the 2018 Vancouver civic election have too often found themselves the target of nasty commentary about their candidacies, and that includes — we are sad to report — One City’s Christine Boyle, who was able, in a reasoned manner to respond to noxious online commentary with a measured tone.

The word most often employed by those who have either just met her, or who have known Christine Boyle for awhile, is smitten. How could anyone not be? Just watch the video above, and listen to what Christine Boyle has to say, and you will come to realize — as all of the other candidates in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election acknowledge — Christine Boyle is a transformational candidate for Vancouver City Council, and perhaps the single most important candidate for civic office of our lifetime.

VanRamblings urges you to take this list to the polls when you vote, referring to the graphic while looking at your smart phone. Easy enough to copy the graphic, and place it into your photos app. Otherwise, you can print VanRamblings’ endorsement list — as hundreds have — and take it to the polls. We flat out guarantee that this is the City Council, School Board and Park Board you want to elect on Saturday, October 20th!

VanRamblings’ City Council endorsement rationale is available here.
VanRamblings’ School Board endorsement rationale is available here.
VanRamblings’ Park Board endorsement rationale may be found here.
VanRamblings’ all women slate for Council may be found here.

Raymond Tomlin

Raymond Tomlin is a veteran journalist and educator who has written frequently on the political realm — municipal, provincial and federal — as well as on cinema, mainstream popular culture, the arts, and technology.

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