VanRamblings harbours a great deal of respect for retiring Vision Vancouver City Councillor Andrea Reimer, and for Stepan Vdovine — recent, and now former, Executive Director of the party that has governed Vancouver for the past almost 10 year now. We believe both to be admirable persons of honour and integrity, persons of conscience possessed of good judgment.
When Squamish Nation hereditary Chief Ian Campbell announced on May 14th that he would be seeking the endorsement of Vision Vancouver to become Vancouver’s next Mayor, we were surprised — and we would have to say disappointed, as well — that Ms. Reimer had signed on as co-chair of Mr. Campbell’s bid to become Vision Vancouver’s Mayoral aspirant.
We were also surprised (and disappointed, although one supposes we shouldn’t have been) that Stepan Vdovine, Mayor Gregor Robertson’s former chief of staff Mike Magee, Vision Vancouver’s former co-chairperson, Maria Dobrinskaya, and longtime Vision campaign veteran and labour activist Clay Suddaby had also signed on to Mr. Campbell’s bid to become Vancouver’s next Mayor. Ms. Reimer’s co-chair on Ian Campbell’s well-oiled-and-organized campaign is urban planner Ginger Gosnell-Myers, who resigned in March as the City of Vancouver’s aboriginal relations manager.
Why is VanRamblings disappointed that Ms. Reimer and Mr. Vdovine, in particular, have come forward as staunch supporters of Mr. Campbell?
As you’ll read today, and as you’ll read ad nauseum in the months to come should — c’mon, let’s face it, he’s a lock for the Vision Vancouver nomination — Mr. Campbell emerge as the well-financed and Vision Vancouver-backed candidate for Mayor, there won’t be enough print, enough social media space, and enough online blog and other chatter to carry all the stories of how Mr. Campbell is the developers developer, how he currently has 16 major development projects in Metro Vancouver in the pipeline — most of which projects will come before Vancouver City Council in the next term — and how “conflicted” he would be should he become Vancouver’s next Mayor, on the evening of Saturday, October 22nd.
Squamish Nations’ Ian Campbell ponders what it would be like to be Vancouver Mayor
In a story published last Friday, written by Vancouver Courier civic affairs columnist and reporter Mike Howell, he wrote that …
(Ian Campbell is) a key negotiator in getting (the Squamish Nation) to work with the Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh nations to reclaim more than 120 acres of land in Vancouver.
The properties include the 90-acre Jericho lands (the 36-hectare property overlooking Jericho Beach Park) …
Jericho Lands expected to be redeveloped into a residential neighbourhood
… the 21-acre Heather Street lands near Queen Elizabeth Park (ed. note, from The Straight, “which used to be the home of the RCMP headquarters in B.C., previously known as the RCMP Fairmont Lands, the property located north of 37th Avenue, south of 33rd Avenue, by the lanes behind Willow and Ash streets, the draft statement for the Heather Lands proposing a mainly residential development, which include towers ranging in heights from 12 storeys to 24 storeys) …
Heather Lands, a 21-acre development site between West 33rd & 37th avenues
… and the 10-acre Liquor Distribution Branch warehouse property on East Broadway, which is co-owned with the Aquilini Investment Group.
Once redeveloped, the value of the properties is estimated to be in the billions of dollars.
The federal government’s commercial property arm, Canada Lands Company, holds an equal interest in the Heather Street lands and 52 acres of the Jericho lands; the remaining 38 acres of Jericho is owned by the bands.
The Squamish also fully owns an 11-acre property that runs under the south side of the Burrard Bridge, which is not under the portfolio of the MST Development Corporation but is slated for redevelopment at some point in the future.
In total, Mr. Campbell is the developer of “approximately 160 acres in Metro Vancouver,” over one billion dollars in property that when developed will change the face of Vancouver in ways untold, and perhaps not desirable.
Do the citizens of Vancouver really want major developer Ian Campbell, the person behind the development of the critical properties to Vancouver’s future identified above, as our city’s next Mayor? Perhaps Mr. Campbell would not find himself conflicted as Mayor, but we have a difficult time believing that would be the case, as would the citizens of Vancouver, we would suggest. In politics it’s all about optics, and the optics here are bad.
Whether you’re on the left or on the right side of the political spectrum, the number one complaint about Vision Vancouver this past 10 years is that they are the developer party, in bed with the developers who have financed their winning campaigns for office — electoral wins that have served the interests of the majority Vision Vancouver party at City Hall, while ill-serving the interests of the average citizen in Vancouver, and ill-serving the crying need for building truly affordable housing in the City of Vancouver.
Additional note: VanRamblings reader Claudia Ferris writes, ” … if he’s (Ian Campbell) Squamish he is running in his territory,” as clarification and correction of what is written above, that Mr. Campbell is a “North Vancouver resident.”
Activist and community leader Claudia Ferris (2nd from right) standing with Squamish Nation hereditary Chief Ian Campbell — currently running for the Vision Vancouver nomination for Mayor — working together to build a Visitor Information park in Gibsons.
Ms. Ferris adds, “One of the reasons I like Ian Campbell is because of the interaction I had with him when I lived in Gibsons. I was on the leadership team of the Gibsons and District Chamber of Commerce when we built a visitor information park. The site is on the Squamish territory and I invited their leadership to the opening. And they came! Chief Campbell and his councillors were very responsive and helpful and it was a pleasant experience to be supported in building a community amenity. We also had singers from the Sechelt Band come out and it felt very inclusive and progressive to be working together. Chief Campbell was a total sweetheart throughout the process.”
