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Vision Vancouver chooses ED with federal Liberal connections over NDP

March 18th, 2010 · 17 Comments

If you want to get a sense of what Vision Vancouver is evolving into, note that the party just chose Ian Baillie as its new executive director over, I’m told, Stephen Learey.

Baillie, one-time assistant to Liberal MP Sophia Leung, has worked on various federal Liberal Party campaigns and became the communications chair for the Liberal Party in B.C. last November.

Learey, who worked for years in the Downtown Eastside and with Jim Green, is more closely associated with the B.C. NDP.

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Sean Bickerton

    I don’t think it’s a matter of what Vision is evolving into so much as the fact that Vision is a party without any natural constituency, trying desperately to be all things to all people.

    Before the election, when Vision was still a large, populist protest movement, this worked to their advantage. Much like a Rorschach test, Vision represented a vast rainbow coalition of aspirations and dreams and was whatever any ardent follower wanted it to be.

    But now that they’ve been running the city for more than a year, they’ve had to make hard decisions and define themselves. And with each vote that angers another slice of their movement – last Tuesday’s vote to strike down Ellen Woodsworth’s motion to join the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination for instance – many of their most ardent followers, people like Sean Duffy, find themselves suffering from extreme buyer’s remorse.

    Residents living around False Creek and many other neighbourhoods have seen every attempt at meaningful community consultation shut down by a Vision hierarchy trying to keep control of every public process and limit the input of communities they once promised to engage.

    It’s true that the business and development community are generally happy with Vision because they’re getting 100% of what they want, including million-dollar subsidies to build expensive, luxury, rental towers. And they’ve done some good things for the cyclists of the city. But I’m not sure there are any other constituencies jumping up and down in excitement anymore at this midpoint between elections.

    I keep coming back to the central promise of their election bid, to end homelessness by 2015, a deadline that’s just four years and a few months away. The previous NPA administration ensured that more than 2400 units of socially-assisted housing were built in Vancouver, more than any administration in the history of the city.

    So far, Mr. Robertson has opened a few temporary shelters and called on his advisors to come up with a plan. If they haven’t delivered on this central promise by the next election, which means creating more than 3500 units of new socially-assisted housing for those most difficult to house, they will have failed in their defining initiative.

    Personally, I hope they’re serious about fulfilling their defining promise to end homelessness. But the clock is ticking, and it’s going to take more than the BC Liberals’ Communications chair to turn things around if they don’t.

  • MB

    So, Sean, should we miss the Days of Sam?

    I’d rather talk policy, thanks.

  • landlord

    @MB : policy is just talk. We can get that from anybody. Actions speak louder and, apart from reaming out the senior management team at the Hall, there have been very few actions from Vision.
    This is puzzling given their complete control of Council. What are they waiting for?
    It’s clear that they talk the holly-talk about “social change”, but what’s changed? My property taxes have definitely changed (i.e. increased) and, depending how much they get from the Village, will likely continue to do so.
    The problem most people have with the Mayor and his “party” is that they appear to have no clear policy, instead making it up as they go along.
    Recently the emphasis has been on damage control and hiring “communications specialists” to sell the brand. But again, marketing is not policy and you need to sell a product, not just an image.
    Do they want to run for re-election on a platform of “We can’t get the necessary funding from Victoria or Ottawa”?

  • JCobb

    These guys are amateur hour and the results will reflect this. Glad I’m no longer a Vancouver taxpayer.

  • RC

    @ landlord

    The Olympics to be over perhaps? The games were a huge undertaking and consumed a large portion of staff and council time last year including cleaning up the Olympic Village mess. I am surprised they got so much done.

  • Why? Why? Why?

    Frances:

    Why would you want to do this Stephen?

  • Frances Bula

    @Why? You’re presuming that this is a negative for Stephen. It’s not — it’s an indication of where the party is going. And, for the record, I wouldn’t have included his name if I didn’t have assurances that he was fine with this.

  • Urbanismo

    I’m guessing here now . . . but the frequent references to Hollyhock on Cortez?

    The antecedents of Hollyhock came to Vancouver in the late ’60’s via Fritze Perle who started his Funny Farm in the Cowichan Valley: George Brown at Cecil Green too.

    They changed many lives, including mine!

    But, oh boy, the last thing they intended was to spawn neo-liberal politicians.

    If I am right then Hollyhock is way screwed up from its original founders and purpose . . .

    And if Mayor Gregor and his Vision-istas are Hollyhock-istas then someone is not paying attention . . .

    Expensive retreats ain’t what they used to be . . . and substituting MBA’s and medical doctors for the real thing obviously isn’t working is it . . .

    Expect more of the same until inevitable change hits ’em between the eye balls . . .

  • Urbanismo

    I don’t remember Fritz teaching us to prevaricate or lie . . .

  • landlord

    A current offering at Poppycock : $545 for a 4 night program (meals and accomodation extra at $200-300/night). “Access your innate psychic senses to communicate with other species and discover that telepathy is a learned skill available to everyone”.
    Telepathy? Uh-oh. Where’s my tin-foil hat?
    As they say on Cortes Island “There’s a seeker born every minute”.

  • Chris Keam

    “It’s clear that they talk the holly-talk about “social change”, but what’s changed?

    (snip)

    But again, marketing is not policy and you need to sell a product, not just an image.”

    Social change is almost entirely an issue of marketing and branding (image).

    I would point to this book:
    http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/0688128165/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1

    for its numerous examples of how marketers get people to take action — by influencing them with marketing messages and communications that change their self-image, thereby precipitating actions based upon this new view of themselves.

  • Westender

    What a great summary of Vision’s betrayal of one their core election promises:

    “Residents living around False Creek and many other neighbourhoods have seen every attempt at meaningful community consultation shut down by a Vision hierarchy trying to keep control of every public process and limit the input of communities they once promised to engage. “

  • larry

    The developers I speak to aren’t happy either – the intense political involvement and abrogation of the processes that ensured that all received thorough and fair consideration has created instability; an inability to plan with certainty on the basis of clear policy. Instability is the worst nightmare of the developer who must commit substantial resources years in advance of bringing the product to market.

    It sounds as if this bunch isn’t pleasing anybody. The next election will tell.

  • Urbanismo

    VISION is us . . .

    IMO politics in Vancouver is rife with complacency, delusion and dishonesty. I posted a “development” alert some days ago, to all Vision-istas and plan-istas to virtually no response except for Andrew Past’s VPSN . . . which he promised a response from his design team . . .

    I await their assessment eagerly . . .

    In the meantime fear, indeed self-loathing, and denial is palpable . . .

    Here’s a great assessment of our group thinq http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18182 by the great Canadian Professor John McMurty of the emeritus U. of Guelph: his is a very brave and concise insight on how we Canadians, not just Americans, respond to . . . well just about everything!

    l
    Time present and time past
    Are both perhaps present in time future,

    And time future contained in time past.
    If all time is eternally present
    
All time is unredeemable.
    What might have been is an abstraction

    Remaining a perpetual possibility

    Only in a world of speculation.

    What might have been and what has been

    Point to one end, which is always present.

    Footfalls echo in the memory

    Down the passage which we did not take

    Towards the door we never opened

    Into the rose-garden.
    My words echo

    Thus, in your mind.
    But to what purpose

    Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves

    I do not know.
    Other echoes
Inhabit the garden.
    Shall we follow?
    Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,

    Round the corner.
    Through the first gate,

    Into our first world, shall we follow

    The deception of the thrush?
    Into our first world.

    There they were, dignified, invisible,

    Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,

    In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
    And the bird called, in response to
    The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
    And the unseen eyebeam crossed,
    for the roses
    Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
    There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
    So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
    Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
    To look down into the drained pool.
    Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
    And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
    And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
    The surface glittered out of heart of light,
    And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
    Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
    Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
    Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
    Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
    Cannot bear very much reality.
    Time past and time future
    What might have been and what has been
    Point to one end, which is always present.

    II
    Garlic and sapphires in the mud

    Clot the bedded axle-tree.
    The trilling wire in the blood
    Sings below inveterate scars
    Appeasing long forgotten wars.
    The dance along the artery
    The circulation of the lymph
    Are figured in the drift of stars
    Ascend to summer in the tree
    We move above the moving tree

    n light upon the figured leaf

    And hear upon the sodden floor

    Below, the boarhound and the boar

    Pursue their pattern as before

    But reconciled among the stars.
    At the still point of the turning world.
    Neither flesh nor fleshless;
    Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
    But neither arrest nor movement.
    And do not call it fixity,
    Where past and future are gathered.
    Neither movement from nor towards,

    Neither ascent nor decline.
    Except for the point, the still point,
    There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
    I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
    And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
    The inner freedom from the practical desire,
    The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
    And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
    By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
    Erhebung without motion, concentration
    Without elimination, both a new world
    And the old made explicit, understood
    In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
    The resolution of its partial horror.
    Yet the enchainment of past and future
    Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
    Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
    Which flesh cannot endure.

    Time past and time future
    Allow but a little consciousness.
    To be conscious is not to be in time
    But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
    The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
    The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
    Be remembered; involved with past and future.
    Only through time time is conquered.

    III
    Here is a place of disaffection
    Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
    Investing form with lucid stillness
    Turning shadow into transient beauty
    With slow rotation suggesting permanence
    Nor darkness to purify the soul
    Emptying the sensual with deprivation
    Cleansing affection from the temporal.
    Neither plenitude nor vacancy.
    Only a flicker
    Over the strained time-ridden faces
    Distracted from distraction by distraction
    Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
    Tumid apathy with no concentration

    Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
    That blows before and after time,
    Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
    Time before and time after.
    Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
    Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
    Hampstead and Clerkenwell,
    Campden and Putney,
Highgate,
    Primrose and Ludgate.
    Not here

    Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.
    Descend lower, descend only
    Into the world of perpetual solitude,
    World not world, but that which is not world,
    Internal darkness, deprivation
    And destitution of all property,
    Desiccation of the world of sense,
    Evacuation of the world of fancy,
    Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
    This is the one way, and the other
    Is the same, not in movement
    But abstention from movement; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
    Of time past and time future.

    IV
    Time and the bell have buried the day,
    The black cloud carries the sun away.
    Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
    Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
    Clutch and cling?
    Chill

    Fingers of yew be curled

    Down on us?
    After the kingfisher’s wing
    Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
    At the still point of the turning world.

    V
    Words move, music moves
    Only in time; but that which is only living
    Can only die.
    Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence.
    Only by the form, the pattern,
    Can words or music reach
    The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
    Moves perpetually in its stillness.
    Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
    Not that only, but the co-existence,
    Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
    And the end and the beginning were always there
    Before the beginning and after the end.
    And all is always now.
    Words strain,
    Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
    Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
    Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
    Will not stay still.
    Shrieking voices
    Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
    Always assail them.
    The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
    The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
    The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
    The detail of the pattern is movement,
    As in the figure of the ten stairs.
    Desire itself is movement
    Not in itself desirable;
    Love is itself unmoving,
    Only the cause and end of movement,
    Timeless, and undesiring
    Except in the aspect of time
    Caught in the form of limitation
    Between un-being and being.
    Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
    Even while the dust moves
    There rises the hidden laughter
    Of children in the foliage
    Quick now, here, now, always—
    Ridiculous the waste sad time
    Stretching before and after.
    BURNT NORTON

    Yet we have gone on living,
    Living and partly living.
    MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL

    T. S. Eliot

    Oh shit, I had a great day, yesterday, sailing around Entrance light . . . so . . .

    . . . TO MY FELLOW BULA-BLOG-ISTAS WHO GOT THIS FAR (wow! “Eructation” there’s a word!) . . . GOD BLESS YE AND MAY YE ALL ENDURE A LONG AND PROSPEROUS LIFE . . .

  • Glissando Remmy

    The Thought of The Day

    “I’m thinking, BASHING IN THE HALL…could be…should be…must be, Vancouver’s version of MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL!”

    Urbanismo, oh, you ‘Thomas a Becket’ that was simply great Saturday morning read! Thanks.
    Above all, I liked the appropriate allusion. What’s new? We too, have back-stabbings, “killings”, treason… in other words we have same Vision.
    Don’t put your hopes up though; the Vision people especially the Mayor will not have the patience to go through the whole poem. By Jupiter, he couldn’t go through his own Etiquette Manual!
    However, as long as we are here in the rhyme & lyrics category, get yourself a glass of Port and I’ll give you my kind of sweet insinuation. The question is: “To Bee or not to Bee?” Do you like honey?

    THE WORKING BEE AND THE QUEEN FLY

    I’ve got this note the other day
    From my good girlfriend Emily,
    She’s just below my rate of pay
    A Hive Hall normal working Bee!

    The Hive she’s in, I read, is terrible “in shape”,
    Crowded with lazy ass-needle friends of the new Queen,
    A Common Fly that walks around in a repulsive cape,
    Bee-haves like a baboon. She’s also very mean!

    Morale is at its lowest in the colony,
    There is no long-term honeycomb perspective,
    The Fly Queen’s new approach is… bee colony-oscopy.
    Who’s not conforming, gets right on her invective.

    When ordering the working ranks she makes this buzz,
    Her voice is scary high, sounds like a Honky-Tonk,
    But through her angry cacophonic jazz,
    The only sound that permeates is “Oink!”

    At Hive Hall everyone pretends to pollinate,
    The Honey quality, has dropped,
    This unsound situation will not terminate
    Before the year’s whole harvest is flopped.

    That’s why when Working Bee did not exactly mind
    To speak up, she wanted again to be her own self,
    “Hey,Queen Fly! That pretend needle you cart behind,
    Why don’t you go, and Sting yourself?”

    Useless to say, my little friend
    Is happier know, that she was slapped
    The Queen Fly, they say, will retire in the end,
    But trust me; most likely, she’ll be Zapped!

    We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

  • Gassy Jack’s Ghost

    Thanks for that, Urbie! To which I might add, from The Waste Land:

    “What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

    Out of this stony rubbish? Son of Man,

    You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

    A heap of broken images…”

  • Urbanismo

    Thanqxz for the heads-up Glissando and GJG . . . but . . .

    I’m beginning to see Bula-blog comments as a harmless vent for RAGE that should be directed towards those responsible for this mounting debacle . . .