On Wednesday afternoon, the Vancouver Tenants Union (VTU) held a rally in Morton Park to protest the pending renoviction of the 60 tenants currently resident in the Berkeley Tower, a rental building owned and operated by Vancouver-based Reliance Properties. Community activist and current COPE (Coalition of Progressive Electors) candidate for Vancouver City Council Jean Swanson was a featured speaker at the rally.
All renters await the release of West End NDP MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert’s Rental Task Force report, which the VTU and COPE argue must include protection for renters from renovictions, with a commitment that legislation will be introduced by the BC NDP government not only mandating protection for renters from renoviction, but provisions in new legislation that would ensure displaced tenants would find secure tenancy in the newly-renovated apartment buildings at pre-renoviction rental rates.
As busy as OneCity Vancouver candidate for City Council Christine Boyle finds herself amidst the maelstrom that is the 2018 Vancouver civic election, and as loathe as she is to take time off the campaign trail — and against the advice of her party, and her campaign team — Ms. Boyle … heroine, must-elect candidate for City Council, saviour of our city (you think that’s hyperbole - you just wait and see), the woman who working with the members of the next City Council will transform our paradise by the sea into a fairer, more just, more environmentally conscious city, where children will no longer go to school hungry, where residents will be consulted and play a key role in determining the future of their neighbourhoods, and where the livability of our city will be enhanced so that Vancouver will once again be deserving of the accolade the world’s most livable city …
… took time off the campaign trail to respond to an untoward tweet posted by Norquay community activist (and cynic, apparently), Joseph Jones. In the parlance of days past, it might rightly be said that Christine Boyle took Mr. Jones to the woodshed, giving him the hiding he so richly deserved.
Christine Boyle responded to Joseph Jones with a velvet-gloved tweet storm, the likes of which has entirely re-defined the 2018 campaign for Vancouver City Council, not just for her fellow Council candidates, but for all 158 candidates seeking civic office in our current municipal election.
Civic election misogyny is dealt a wounding blow in 2018 …
The Twitter thread in response to Joseph Jones’ tweet not only constitutes the single most heartening event of the 2018 Vancouver civic election race, but the most heartening event in Canadian politics in recent years.
VanRamblings will leave you today, first, with this Twitter message …
Then this poignant truth from 1960s Ottawa Mayor, Charlotte Whitton …
And, finally, this bit of poignant & pungent wisdom from P.G. Wodehouse …
