Vancouver activist Blair Petrie sent me an email this week. The Vancouver Sun had contacted him, asking him to write about his seasonal memories and his hopes for the future. Petrie’s response to them was well written, honest, and hopeful. He wasn’t sure the Sun would print it, so he sent it out to some of his email contacts.

As it turns out, Blair’s letter did run in the Sun yesterday. Even so, with his permission, I’ve included it here:

My most memorable moments of the season are those with my family now, and in the past, when I was young and my father was alive. I cherish the joys of being together and having friends and relatives drop by to share those unrehearsed and spontaneous moments together.

I also cherish the times I was working at Four Corners Community Bank in the Downtown Eastside as an outreach worker. Seeing the pride of local residents coming into the bank and telling me how proud they were that this was their bank—a place where they mattered most and could actually be treated with respect. They felt some dignity that they had a little something like other Canadians, a bank account. Something most of us take for granted.

My hopes for the New Year are that the world my two-year-old son will inherit will still have truly wild places with old growth forests. That we will no longer be clear cutting them as fast as possible and shipping off raw logs to other countries to make a quick dollar. That we will have real value added, sustainable industries here in BC based on selective logging of second growth forest. That we will understand that intact, old growth forests are an important way to combat climate change.

I hope that there will be social justice at last and all British Columbians and Canadians will have a decent home, enough food and clothing, life skills and job skills training to make all of our lives better and that equality will be for everyone, not just the rich and powerful.

I hope that my son will have the world at least as good as it was when I came into it, and hopefully, much better. I know he will be a better steward of it than my generation was—if he is given the chance.

Blair Petrie

Niblette’s recent post discusses gentrification in Mumbai, which has some similarities to the situation in Vancouver’s DTES.

Here in Vancouver, in the name of Eco-density, upmarket towers full of granite and stainless steel hamster cages, costing upwards of half a million dollars per cage, are beginning to infill Vancouver’s Downtown East Side, the neighbourhood that was once the exclusive turf of the underclass–the abjectly poor, the hopelessly addicted, and the untreated mentally ill.

Project Civil City aims to deal with Vancouver’s underclass by cutting homelessness in half before the 2010 Winter Olympics. Major housing announcements from senior levels of government have been or are about to be made. Not much has been said, so far, about what will be done, or how it will be done.

In Mumbai, most slum-dwellers, regardless of their life problems, toil for a living, often in factories that take up much of their living space. The work they do is inextricably linked to a complex local economy that in many ways depends on the goods and services that originate in the slums.

In a new program, Mumbai developers raze entire slum neighborhoods and use part of the land to build tenement towers to house those disposessed of their shanty homes. The new apartments for the underclass measure 225 square feet, or 21 square meters, about the size of a typical shanty. In return, for only the cost of the slum resettlement, the developers are permitted to build luxury towers on the rest of the land.

Sounds like the kind of trade-off that could warm the cockles of most Vancouver developers’ hearts. Verticalize homes for the homeless into externally stylish towers, and sales of the new slum condos to slumlords would likely be as lucrative, on a per square foot basis, as the luxury hamster cages built for the young urban professionals who are dying to get their hands on a sliver of the downtown pie. And everyone could pat each other on the back in a feel-good gesture of accomplishment. Homes for the poor, and all that profit, too.

For the resettled slum dwellers of Mumbai, things aren’t working out so well. While some residents like living in the new slumtowers, others feel as if they are living in lonely cages, cut off from the life and commerce of the street, and would happily go back to their ground-oriented slums, had these not been razed.

The same could probably be said for most of the people who live in Vancouver’s DTES. No matter how sad and revolting it looks to the casual observor (and I count myself in that category) it is the life on the street that gives meaning and a sense of connection. New housing solutions that take away, or make more difficult, a connection with community are no solutions at all.

Well, I guess I’m down for the count. I’d hope to squeeze in one more post, but it will have to wait till the silly season comes to an end. Mr. V. and I are off to the Cowichan Valley for a family Christmas. Of course, I’ll bring a laptop and my very best intentions. No rest for the wicked.

Meantime, let us all have a season of light and peace, spared from eucharistic truffle versions of the Blessed Babe.

Almost three years past its opening, Seb’s remains for me a hit and miss affair. It’s cozy enough, with service that is mostly friendly, a menu that spans breakfast, lunch, brunch and dinner, and a location on a part of Broadway that remains somewhat down-at-heels, but is just off the Main Street track and conveniently located for the hordes of Vancouver urbanites who are moving eastward as property values creep upward.

Food at this bistro-like joint is prepared using local and organic ingredients, including free-range eggs. The menu attempts to cover all the bases, without trying to be all things to all people. Brunch and breakfast are definitely Seb’s strong points, though the seasonal dinner menu includes steak, lamb shanks, and seafood. Desserts are made on the premises. Live jazz is played on weekend evenings.

It’s not in the concept, but in the execution that Seb’s sometimes disappoints, and it disappoints not by being bad, but in sometimes not being as good as it could. Seb’s can offer up a delicious breakfast on one visit, and a non-descript grilled sandwich from which slimy romaine lettuce must be extricated to render it palatable on the next. Likewise, the service can be prompt and friendly sometimes, and at others desultory bordering on slack.

Nevertheless, with the dearth of decent breakfast places in Vancouver, particularly on the east side, Seb’s will continue to do well. Hopefully it will also continue work at being better.

Seb’s Market Café, 592 East Broadway, Vancouver.

We see them everywhere. Eyesores clad in cheap stucco, with low-slung roofs, useless balconies, utilitarian finishes, and boxy lines that maximize floor space but put the boot to aesthetics and neighbourhood charm.

We see them everywhere in Vancouver, that is, the city that has mindlessly cashed in on its gorgeous natural setting, erecting one ugly house after another, mostly made out of ticky tacky, and all looking the same. And we have aptly named them “Vancouver Specials.”

The 1970s versions were cheap to build and relatively easy to maintain. They were easy to get permits for. They maximized builder profits, and when they appear in clumps, as they too often do, they provide a kind of up-market shantytown feel to the unfortunate neighbourhood they inhabit.

Is there no helping them? And what about people who must look at these eyesores, sometimes on a daily basis?

I’ve seen various attempts to renovate the 1970s-era Vancouver Specials, including ersatz façade changes that appear to raise the roofline, or that break up their boxy lines and add better quality cladding. None of these attempts seem to work very well.

Not so Vancouver architect Stephanie Robb’s renovation of Lakewood Residence, her own home in east Vancouver. Robb has created a modern, contemporary home that retains the best intentions of the Vancouver Special concept while providing open, airy living spaces where there were once cramped rooms.

Although it took the better part of a year to negotiate with Vancouver city planners, who preferred to see the structure torn down, before Stephanie Robb got her building permits, the house won last year’s Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia Innovation Award for Architecture.

This narrow-lot, on-grade house makes the most of its site and its external spaces. Its renovation is a sustainable approach that enhances its neighbourhood. Hopefully, it has opened the minds at city hall to possibilities beyond teardown and new construction.

Bombay Bhel occupies a modernist and spare space anchored by an Iberian tile floor left over from the room’s previous incarnation as a Portuguese restaurant. The floor warms the ambiance nicely, but the abundance of hard surfaces in the room makes for a cacophonous dining experience. This is not a place for serious dinner convo à deux.

Bhel means “customized street food” and there are a range of street-style appetizers available, both hot and cold. But for the most part, the menu offers fare that is common in lower mainland Indian restaurants.

Despite ordering all dishes mildly spiced for the sake of sensitive palates in our group of six, every dish, save one was well prepared and very enjoyable.

The prawn vindaloo was a bit rubbery, but that was the worst of it. Pakoras, butter chicken, palak paneer, chicken tikka, garlic naan, were all tasty if a bit too redolent of ghee for a guilt-free dining experience.

Two dishes that really stood out were the wonderfully smoky, eggplant-based baingan burta, and the lamb chops, which might have the potential to knock Vij’s famous Lamb Popsicles off their pedestal.

The Burnaby location of Bombay Bhel is the first in the “colonies” for this small, reasonably priced Toronto-based chain. A decent wine list offers some choices from BC.

4266 East Hastings Street, Burnaby, BC 604-299-2500

Arch-conservative and former Sam Sullivan supporter, Alex Tsakumis, has renounced the mayor’s Civil City policy framework. Tsakumis was one of the major backroom forces in Sullivan’s overtaking Christy Clark for the NPA mayoralty nomination.

Taskumi’s criticism of Sullivan and Civil City is powerfully written and tells the truth about Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. It is reprinted on sometime-NDP-strategist Bill Tieleman’s blog.

Sullivan’s Civil City policy is full of holes and mystery, particularly how he will pull from his sleeve the specialized housing that is so desperately needed. Whether Sullivan will survive his term as mayor without having his own throat ripped out is yet another mystery.

First, a story on the occupational hazards of being Santa, just in case you are childless and think those old farts have an easy time of it making quick Christmas cash.

Next, a “Christian-themed” video game to put an end to all that peace, love, and understanding. Not funny at all.

And finally, one more reason not to shop at Walmart.

Hot off the presses. This six-block stretch of east Vancouver puts on a wonderful show every Christmas that is not to be missed.

The 8th Annual Trinity Street Christmas Light Competition kicks off on Sunday, December 10th, and you’re invited!

Residents in the 2400-2900 blocks of Trinity Street in Vancouver have once again gone all out in creating a fantasyland experience.

You get to vote for the best house and the best block. Ballot stuffing is encouraged. Each vote costs $2.00 and the proceeds go to Cottage Hospice, Harbourview Daycare, and the Burrardview Community Association.

Ballots are available at McGill Grocery and in brightly decorated rural mailboxes along the way. Your completed ballots can be put through the mail slots of designated houses or at McGill Grocery, at 2691 McGill Street.

The decorating extravaganza is best appreciated on foot - please park on the neighbourhood’s side streets and come and “Walk the Experience”.

One of the best nights to appreciate the wonders of Trinity Street is Sunday, December 17th, the evening of our annual Street Fair which kicks off at 6:30pm. The entire street will be alive with people offering food, refreshments, musical entertainment and a nativity play.

Please come and “vote early, vote often”!

Events of the past week or so have left me with a couple of questions about Vancouver politics. The first question is why does Sam Sullivan want to be mayor; the second is how long is he going to be the NPA poster boy.

It’s been years since I believed that traditional politics are an effective fulcrum for meaningful change, but I still like to watch. Some internet voyeurs expend their online energy on the naughty bits flashed by the slut du jour, others, like me, prefer to be creepily fascinated by the pols and their hos.

Various conservatives have been cackling because Liberal guru Tom Axworthy finally told the truth about liberalism, which is that it doesn’t always work. These same conservatives, of course, are reluctant to admit that conservatism (whether of the compassionate or the neo variety) doesn’t always work either.

As a citizen of the 14th best country in the world, I’m content for social policy to take a meandering course from left to right and back again, because over the long haul this means its course will be moderate, theoretically resulting in the greatest good for the greatest number and all that jazz.

But even with moderate social policy, government doesn’t work very well. Mostly, I think that’s because of all the fat in the middle. Too many bureaucrats conducting studies and writing reports, and living comfortably, when what is needed is action, rather than measuring problems and theorizing about the utility of various proposed solutions.

But then, who can blame the bureaucrats for trying to secure their sinecures when everybody knows that shadowy rich peeps are controlling the international flows of capital and wealth to ensure that they and their reptilian masters get to die with the most toys? At least that is what David Icke would have you believe.

And even if the economy isn’t being controlled by off-world lizards, we all know that whoever is setting the direction, whether in the federal Liberal party, in the Bush Republican camp, or in Putin’s Russia, it isn’t the folks out front whose job is to rally the troops.

But enough with the preamble already. Why does Sam Sullivan want to be mayor?

My first question was prompted from reading Allen Garr’s column in the December 1 Courier. Garr, no fan of the NPA, is certain that Sullivan’s Civil City policy hodgepodge is nothing more than a PR exercise to keep our streets clean for the Board of Trade and the folks who will be making off like bandits from the treacle down effects of we-the-taxpayers’ 2010 largesse.

I’m not so sure that Sam’s motivations are purely PR. He’s a mysterious sort who spent more than a few years on social assistance after a skiing accident that consigned him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Social assistance is a not atypical outcome for young men who are that badly disabled. But what happened after that is a mystery shrouded in an enigma. Sam had some sort of spiritual experience, or vision, or kick in the pants, and ended up completing a business degree from SFU.

After that, he went on to found several non-profit organizations that fall under the rubric of the Disability Foundation. Each organization has been developed to enhance the lives of people who live with physical handicaps, and Sullivan’s work on behalf of these organizations has earned him numerous awards including a prestigious Peter F. Drucker Award for Innovation as well as induction into the Order of Canada. Sullivan’s foundations include the Disabled Sailing Association and the Tetra Society. The Disability Foundation’s combined donation revenue for the year 2004 was reportedly $1.58 million.

Sullivan earns management and consulting fees from the various organizations he has founded. This income, along with his city councillor’s salary of just over $52,000 afforded him a comfortable life in a Yaletown condo.

Sam is no slouch. In fact, he’s a big time self-improvement junkie who has taught himself at least the rudiments of more than a few languages. He can not only speak passable Cantonese, but also read Chinese characters. He’s figured out, with support from his Adaptive Music Society, how to play decent keyboards for his band, Spinal Chord.

He’s starred in a documentary movie that let not only his vulnerabilities but also his throat-ripping sadistic streak hang out for all to see. Although he attends a liberal Anglican church, he spouts a conservative political creed because it’s the folks with the money that get things done.

In 2002, despite his relative passivity in the job, Sam was the only member of the Non Partisan Association re-elected to Vancouver city council. By the end of that term, Sam had spent twelve years on city council.

Most of that time he watched, waited, and plotted while he took it all in. He formed some strongly held views about how the city should be administered (by senior bureaucrats) and led (by the NPA). He picked his allies carefully, and by the end of his last term as city councillor he had not only managed to hold his own as the lone NPA representative, but ultimately to wrest the NPA mayoralty nomination out of the hands of federal Liberal insider Mark Marrisen and Marissen’s wife, Christy Clark, whom Sullivan beat for the nomination.

Sam’s NPA has been accused of skullduggery along the campaign trail concerning the mysterious candidate, James Green, who garnered about the same number of votes by which Vision Vancouver candidate Jim Green lost the mayoralty race. They’ve also been accused of intolerance over the banning of now-independent parks board commissioner, Alan de Genova.

Perhaps the unkindest cut of all is the street level scuttlebutt that, overall, Sam will go down as an ineffectual and forgettable mayor. But let us not jump to conclusions too rapidly. The guy has his reasons for being mayor, and they may not have all that much to do with being either a pol or a ho. He’s just dragged his butt back from Ottawa for yet another ministerial tour, this time with Susan Anton in tow, his fourth trip in his first year as mayor.

He goes, apparently, to personally yank the chains of various cheque-signing federal ministers. All the traveling can’t be particularly easy, given that he can’t simply jump on a plane and jet off. Even so, he doesn’t just pick up the phone or wait for ministerial visits.

It can’t be for the additional $70,000 or so he garners for being mayor instead of city councillor. He could probably manage that in speaking and consulting fees without having to put up with interminable council meetings that often go late into the night.

It might be because the guy has a vision, and one that is well developed and coherent enough that Sam manages to keep a cadre of supporters around him. Some of those supporters, like City Manager Judy Rogers, might be attracted to Sam’s vision because it enhances their own power. Sam, after all, believes in letting senior bureaucrats rule.

Another big part of Sam’s vision seems to be densely populated, clean urban streets full of well-behaved taxpayers. The small part seems to be everyone who doesn’t fit on the envisioned streets. Would they all be swept up somewhere into cruise-ship style accommodation and kept quiet with their drugs of choice?

Will the NPA continue to support Sammy’s vision? The federal liberals have a new leader, Stéphane Dion, whose victory was brought about in large part by the political legerdemain of Mark Marrisen. Before too long, Monsieur Dion will probably be the next Prime Minster of Canada.

It may be that the NPA is collectively kicking themselves for not letting Christy Clark take the mayoralty nomination. The Marrisen-Clark camp, after all, has direct access to Ottawa’s soon-to-be-resurrected Liberal power center.

Times change, politics change, and so do people. But in the end there is no pol like an old ho, and it may be the pols, and not the people, who bring Mr. Sullivan down.