Monday evening, 39 presenters queued up at the gymnasium of Sir Charles Tupper secondary school to comment on the Vancouver School Board budget. It was one of five meetings organized to discuss the 2016-17 VSB budget. Many in attendance heeded the call to wear red clothing in solidarity with a “No Cuts” campaign, providing a […]
Originally featured in Vancouver Courier newspaper A year ago it was the time of an auspicious occasion for our city’s political class — the swearing in of the new city council at the Southeast False Creek Community Centre. In spite of the costly and downright testy election campaign that had just concluded, everybody in the […]
Originally published in The Province newspaper and Huffington Post BC. If self-confidence is a quality you need to win elections, then NPA park commissioner John Coupar has it in spades. For years, the affable Coupar assured anyone who would listen that he and his political counterparts were on track to win in the 2014 Vancouver civic […]
Originally posted on the CityPoli Facebook page. First of all, congratulations to Mayor Gregor Robertson and to his Vision councillors for their victory on Saturday. We’ve talked about the Vision “machine” and we saw once again what focusing on identifying voters and marshalling voters means for election campaigns—it’s EVERYTHING, folks. The old adage is that “campaigns […]
This post was originally featured in VancityBuzz. When it comes to political campaigns, experts will tell you that it’s all about getting out the vote—period, full stop. But do conversations happening online through social media now matter more than ever? I’ve said for quite some time that Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver will be really hard to beat. […]
Originally published at Huffington Post BC. In 2012, I correctly predicted the re-election of Christy Clark as B.C.’s premier as well as NDP Leader Adrian Dix’s rejection of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, both based upon my perception of the political realities in play. In retrospect, I wish I had made better use of this prescience by picking […]
This post ran originally at Huffington Post BC, and in The Province on their paywall free blog. Vision’s brazen redefinition of “engagement” would even impress George Orwell I’ve got an idea – let’s add the expression “civic engagement” to Vancouver’s newspeak dictionary. “Newspeak” is the term George Orwell first coined in his novel 1984. In Orwell’s […]
This video showing NPA Mayoral candidate Peter Ladner touring Victoria Drive (link now deprecated) alongside City Council candidates David Lee, Kanman Wong and Daljit Sidhu typifies where politics is today in our city. The NPA have always been the political force who have worked best with Vancouver’s diverse ethnic communities, as Georgia Straight editor Charlie […]