For Immediate Release
March 29, 2007

NDP Introduces Bill to Force Debate on TILMA

VICTORIA-The New Democrat Opposition has introduced the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) in the Legislature to force the Campbell government to debate the Agreement before it comes into effect April 1.

The Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) Act was brought forward this afternoon by Intergovernmental relations critic Michael Sather as a Private Members’ Bill.

“The Campbell government negotiated this agreement without any public consultation or debate,” said Sather. “And since that deal was signed, the B.C. Liberals have refused to bring the agreement to the house. So the NDP has brought forward a Bill to force this government to be open and accountable for its actions, and allow for public debate of TILMA and its implications for British Columbia.”

TILMA was signed by the Campbell and Klein governments behind closed doors at a joint cabinet meeting on April 28, 2006. It forces B.C. and Alberta governments to eliminate barriers that restricts or impairs trade or investment. And its labour mobility provisions threaten to erase differing regulatory standards between the provinces, including professional credentials.

“And British Columbians are growing more and more concerned that TILMA threatens B.C.’s professional standards, such as minimum education requirements for social workers,” said Sather, NDP MLA for Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows. “But the Campbell government doesn’t seem to be listening.

“We demand that the Campbell government provide for public debate on TILMA before the agreement comes into effect,” said Sather.

BC NDP Caucus

It’s Cherry Blossom Festival time in Vancouver, for the second time in a row. We have 36,000 cherry trees here, and a festival that runs from the last week of March to the middle of April.

Folks who don’t like Gateway are invited to come to East Delta Community Hall Saturday, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., for a rally to let Premier Gordon Campbell know that his government’s Gateway Program is unsustainable and unwelcome.

The Globe and Mail’s Sasha Chapman writes about chef Robert Clark, who hails from Eastern Canada and is a pioneer in sustainable use of seafood, and who has made Vancouver’s C  the best seafood restaurant in Canada.

Architecture critic, Trevor Boddy, no fan of the tall-thin-tower mediocrity that marks Vancouver’s downtown peninsula, is equally unimpressed with the South East False Creek Olympic Village concept presented by architectural firms Gomberoff Bell Lyon and Merrick Architecture, and which has been approved by the design panel.

Every site presents constraints, and Boddy recognizes the Olympic Village site presented the designers with some signifcant challenges and limitations. Even so, a concept that evokes the feel of unmemorable, pseudo-retro European heavy-heartedness is probably not what Vancouverites will want to see in this visually important precinct.

Never one to mince words, Boddy finds Vancouver architectural design disappointing: “Vancouver is failing to spark artful city-building and innovative architecture…a culture of mere sufficiency has prevailed over a culture of true excellence.”  To which I must sadly say, amen.

Via Absolute Arts:
Emerging Canadian artists working in any medium and pursuing their practice on a professional basis are invited to answer Balcone’s first annual call for submissions.

Balcone is a newly incorporated non-profit society for contemporary art based out of Vancouver. The vision is to create a unique context - outside of traditional frameworks - for the practice, curation, and exhibition of contemporary art in Vancouver and beyond.

Balcone’s mission is to support and promote emerging Canadian artists by focusing on curation, exhibition, research, criticism, and the development of a professional practice.

Twelve artists will be selected by Balcone’s directors to participate and collaborate in the first year of programming. Accepted artists will have a hosted profile and portfolio on Balcone’s website, will participate in a series of workshops and plenary sessions with the aim of accelerating professional development, and will be available for a group exhibition of new work from Balcone artists in Vancouver during September 2007.

By mentoring, promoting and publishing these artists and their works, Balcone’s directors aim to provide new territory for the support and development of emerging artists in Canada.

To be considered for inclusion in our 2007-2008 programs please submit the following information via email to submissions@balcone.org with the subject line reading “2007-08″:

• >curriculum vitae, recent, including full contact information and weblinks to show archives, if applicable
• >artist statement, 500 words
• >10-12 examples of work with descriptions, including title, date, medium.

Preference is for weblinks pointing to the artist’s own hosted portfolio, though where this is not possible we shall accept attachments of low-resolution JPEG’s, Quicktime movies or AIFF’s to a total of fifteen megabytes per applicant.

Full time students are not eligible. Only email submissions will be accepted. For more information, please visit: www.balcone.org

This comfortable neighbourhood hideaway on the edge of Kits features high stools that seat patrons at eye level with servers. Tables topped with stainless steel provide a modern contrast in a room that is otherwise a statement of informal elegance. Earthy tones of chocolate, custard, and cream are barely lit by rococo crystal chandeliers.

I arrived with a friend on a recent early Friday evening to find Vintropolis about half full of what looked to mostly be 30-something happy Kitsilano habitués. We had decided to drop in for a snack and a glass of wine before proceeding with the rest of our evening.

The food menu offered a variety of small plates as well as larger entrées, all designed to be wine friendly, because wine is the name of the game at Vintropolis. There are over 150 wines on offer, including about 60 by the glass, and a series of themed wine flights—each a series of three two-ounce glasses.

A couple of glasses of Malbec and the antipasto platter kept us happily chatting for the better part of an hour. The antipasto was generously and artfully arrayed, consisting of a tasty selection of mixed olives, grilled vegetables, tapenade, salumi, prosciutto, goat cheese, pita bread and toasted baguette. Service was friendly, the wine good, and the food fresh.

By the time we left around 7:30, the room was full with hardly a man in sight. Whether that was because of the restaurant’s proximity to the Zalko fitness emporium, or some other random phenom, or merely a coincidence, it was notable.

More than two years after opening, Vintropolis and its next door VQA wine shop continue to thrive. Hopefully, it will continue to warm its eastern corner of Kitsilano for a many more years.

1809 West 1st Ave.     Tel: 604-732-8827

Likeable characters, mildly entertaining, and not particularly profound. The “real” sex scenes, complete with “real” body fluids did nothing to enhance the story or the film. I am sure the cast and crew will not soon forget their Shortbus-making experiences, though I will soon forget I watched.

The Killers are coming! Oh, and Bjork, too. At Vancouver’s V-Fest, May 21st and 22nd.

Mount St. Helen’s, the active volcano closest to our fair city, could be burping up lava for the next hundred years or so.

The rumour mill has it that local telecom, Telus, may soon become a private jewel in Jerry Schwartz’s Onex crown. Telus was prevented from converting to an income trust last year by the Harper Conservatives. Incidentally, Jerry Schwartz and his wife, Heather Reisman (chair of Chapters-Indigo), are well-known philanthropists who last year left a longterm relationship with the federal Liberals, going over to the Harper camp because its views on Israel more closely matched their own.

According to British publication “Time Out Vancouver,” we have seven hip hotels,

If the VPD is to be believed, we do not have enough cops. We apparently have more than our fair share of grifters, and least one of them considers Vancouver a backwater.

That said, we are recognized as a food city and we have some great scenery, along with the poorest, most AIDS-infested neighbourhood in North America.

Despite the grittiness, Vancouver, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association, remains one of the top ten meeting destinations in North America.

So, for the first time in seventeen years they have decided to give Canada a chance, and to grace our city during the third week of April.

The purpose of all this largesse? To see what can be done to fix the flagging “Brand USA.”

Vancouver writer, Douglas Coupland, coined the expression “McJob” in Generation X, which was published in 1991. By 2001, the expression was memorialized in The Oxford English Dictionary as: “An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector.”

According to this story from the BBC, last year, McDonald’s tried to improve its image among potential employees with the tag line: “McProspects - over half of our executive team started in our restaurants. Not bad for a McJob.”

Rumour has it McDonald’s is also considering a public campaign to try to get the definition of McJob changed.

McDonald’s. If a steady diet of their food won’t kill you, then working for them probably will. And if that doesn’t kill you, at least it will deep fry your mind.

Internet commerce expert, Michael Geist, expresses some concern about the sweep of Bill C-47, otherwise known as the “Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act.”

Bill C-47 is ostensibly drafted to protect official corporate sponsors who make large investments in the Games, specifically from ambush marketing–unauthorized use of the Olympic brand, slogan, and marks–because such tactics would devalue the investsments official sponsors have made. So far, so good.

However, the Bill lists close to 20 words that are protected by legislation when they are used in combination, including “games,” “2010,” “medals,” “gold,” “silver,” “bronze,” “Vancouver,” and “winter.”

Geist is concerned that, while there appears to be some consideration for use of these words by the mainstream media, the Bill may exclude protection for satire and for non-conventional news reporting including bloggers and podcasters:

“…despite the assurances from VANOC that the law will be applied in a ‘disciplined, sensitive, fair and transparent manner,’ the experience in other countries suggests that the legislation will create a chill for artists, bloggers and social commentators who fear that their legitimate expression may lead to a date in court. For example, an Australian animal rights activist was forced to stop distributing t-shirts that contained an image of a hen in a cage with five eggs, since the Australian Olympic Committee believed that the five eggs resembled the five-ring symbol.”

I guess that rules out my planned exposé, “Sex Lives of Inukshuks.”