Category: Politics

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My Slate

This is one of the most difficult posts I’ve had to write, as it’s the time where I choose some friends over others in whom I’ll support, and whom I’m asking my friends and supporters to support as well. For those not selected – with a field this talented, it was inevitable some very talented people will be left off – if you’re curious as to why I chose someone else over you, please just email or call me, and I’m happy to talk you through my decision making process. Nominate these people on September 20th at Charles Tupper School.

City Council (8 Candidates)

  • George Chow – has done an excellent job these past years, I look forward to seeing what he can do with a majority.
  • Heather Deal – another incumbent who deserves re-election, she, to me, has been the most effective councilor for Vision these past three years.
  • David Eby – His passion and articulateness in dealing with serious issues have won him my support.
  • Heather Harrison – she was oh-so-close last time, and has real credibility on sustainability initiatives.
  • Raymond Louie – He was my choice for mayoral candidate, and I think he’ll be an excellent councillor still.
  • Kerry Jang – an academic with expertise and care in dealing with community mental health issues; I feel he and David Eby together round an excellent slate to help deal with the homeless and mental health crisis in vancouver
  • Andrea Reimer – An environmentalist with ridiculous amounts of energy and solid credibility.
  • Tim Stevenson – I love his slightly ‘rogue’ persona, not to mention the incredible service he’s done over the past years as a councillor.

Park Board (4 Candidates)

  • Constance Barnes – I believe that she can speak both to family & arts issues on the parks board. She also has more energy than virtually anyone I know.
  • Sarah Blyth – a passionate advocate for youth and ‘alternative’ sports, she’s shown a clear ability to generate consensus and win people over to her point of view.
  • James Gill – I don’t believe there’s another candidate at any level who knows more about the process and arcana of the park board.
  • Steven Tannock – Who else did you expect? Nominate me to restore trust to the Park Board and to bring the communication & consultation process into the 21st century.

School Board (4 Candidates)

  • Patti Bacchus – A long time advocate for children with disabilities, she’ll bring passion and a deep understanding of the VSB from her time on the other side of the fence
  • Mike Lombardi – with amazing experience and a genuine likability, his experience and skills will be critical in consensus building
  • Helesia Luke – an author, and more of a policy-wonk than the others, she likewise has long experience on PACs and child-support activism.
  • Stepan Vdovine – Previously a Board member in Maple Ridge, Stepan is young, and his youthful energy and committment is required and should be encouraged. Despite his youth, his previous Board-member experience will be critical to help the others navigate the VSB,
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My Closing Remarks

I somehow completely neglected to include my closing remarks from last Thursday’s Park Board All-Candidates Meeting. Without further ado, here they are:

I’d like to share with you a vision of the future, that with your help, we can achieve.

In my vision, every Community Centre runs a community garden or two, where they teach their neighbours how to grow food in their own yards. Much of this food is given to the foodbank. People sell their own produce through a community-run grower’s co-operative to supermarkets and restaurants throughout the city, sharing proceeds with the board and neighbours alike.

Children attend daycare that is the envy of the country, run in partnership with the School Board and our local colleges and universities. Older kids can learn to skate & ride in Park-Board-run skate & bike parks. Our senior citizens sit and read books with entranced children, in a veritable babel of languages, keeping our cultural diversity strong while integrating our elders firmly into the community.

Every community centre has a space where local artists can display and perform their work. Local musicians play all-ages-shows to raise money for the community centres & parks where they practiced long hours learning their instruments.

Let’s make our parks and community centres not just facilities, but the heart and soul of our communities.

On September 20th, nominate Steven Tannock.

Thank you.

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My Opening Remarks

Last night was the Vision Vancouver Park Board All-Candidates Meeting, held at the Fletcher-Challenge Theatre, SFU Downtown. I believe it went well. For posterity, here is the written version of my opening remarks (not a transcript, as this was written beforehand, and I’m certain I didn’t relate this verbatim). My thanks to everyone who attended.

Good Evening Ladies & Gentlemen. My name is Steven Tannock.

I am a business owner and web developer. This may not seem like the most relevant experience for being a Park Board Commissioner, I know, but bear with me a moment here. Fundamentally, Web development is about communication, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I wish to talk to you about this evening.

How many of you here have attended a Park Board consultation meeting?

How many of you here WOULD have attended a consultation meeting, if you had heard about it?

Or still, how many of you here attended a consultation meeting, only to never receive any follow up communication, or any indication that you’d been heard at all?

The Park Board Consultation process is broken. The public has lost faith in the process, and by extension, the board itself. As I sat in on park board meetings this past year, this became starkly apparent as I listened to speakers, regardless of their stance on the issue:

“I didn’t hear about the meeting”
“I live in the neighborhood, where was my notice?”
“There was only one small sign – you call that notice?”
And so on.

As an exercise, try and find the status of any current park board project. Identify which councilors voted for, and which voted against the motion. Tell me the budget, hired vendors and the project timeline. It’s remarkably difficult. To learn about the English Bay Bistro, I needed to open 3 different web sites – and still the best information was found in the Vancouver Sun’s archives, not the Park Board’s own site.

As a stakeholder in every decision it makes affecting our parks & community centres, it is a conflict of interest for board and staff to also control how, when and where the consultation takes place. The Park Board needs an independent, arms-length Consultation office to oversee all three stages of community decision making: Notification, Consultation and perhaps, most importantly, Reporting. Only this will restore trust in the Park Board communication process.

On September 20th, please nominate me, Steven Tannock, so that I can fight to bring back the community in community consultation and decision-making.

Thank you.

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Cooperative Agreement between COPE and Vision Executives

Cooperative Agreement between COPE and Vision Executives

(VANCOUVER) The COPE and Vision executives are announcing a tentative agreement for cooperation for the 2008 election. Both organizations feel that the agreement is an important step to create the kind of campaign that can return progressive government to city hall.

Members of both organizations have consistently sought a cooperative effort and the executives of both Vision Vancouver and COPE have endorsed an agreement that will see the following:

  1. COPE, Vision, and the Green Party have agreed to run less than a full slate of candidates for each level. The breakdown is as follows:
    • Mayor: Gregor Robertson
    • Council: 8 (Vision), 2 (COPE)
    • School Board: 5 (COPE), 4 (Vision)
    • Park Board: 4 (Vision), 2 (COPE), 1 (Green Party)
  2. Vision and COPE will cooperate around specific policy issues, including a strategy on homelessness.

“Vision Vancouver believes the issues in this upcoming election are too important to be ignored. With this agreement, we can work with COPE to maximize our chances to bring progressive government back to Vancouver,” said Mike Magee, co-chair of Vision Vancouver.

“It is crucial that we work together to return progressive government to city hall, park and school board, said COPE Councilor David Cadman. “We want to work with Gregor Robertson and Vision to cooperate around areas of common concern. With this agreement we can avoid splitting the progressive vote and create a better Vancouver.”

The cooperation agreement is subject to ratification by the COPE membership at their Sunday, September 14 policy conference.

I wholeheartedly endorse this agreement, and you should too, if you care about progressive policies for Vancouver.

Show your support by joining the Facebook group

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Important Upcoming Events!

There’s a few key Vision Nomination events that you should all be aware of:

  1. If you are unable to vote on September 20th, there is an advance poll on September 15th. The deadline to register to vote in advance is September 10th. You can apply to vote in advance online at Vision Vancouver’s site
  2. This Thursday, September 11th is the Vision Vancouver Park Board all-candidate meeting. This is your only chance to hear each of the Park Board candidates speak before the nomination meeting. The details are as follows:
    Park Board all-candidates meeting
    Thursday, September 11th, 7pm
    Fletcher Challenge Theatre, SFU Downtown (515 W. Hastings)
    Admission is free, but a ticket is required. I have a handful of tickets left to hand out, so please email me if you would like one (hello at tannock dot net).
  3. Saturday, September 20th is the Vision Nomination Meeting. The details are as follows:
    Location: Sir Charles Tupper High School (419 East 24th)
    Hours: 10am – 7pm
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A Challenge: Electoral Gender Parity

We all know that at this point, Vision Vancouver has an amazing set of potential candidates – at current count, we have 15 Council Candidates, 12 Park Board Candidates and 7 School Board Candidates. That’s a total of 34 candidates. However, there are a total of only 11 female candidates running for spots on the various components of municipal government. Breaking it down by board, there are 4 City Council, 4 School Board and 3 Park Board candidates who are women.

The United Nations says that a critical mass of at least 30% women is needed before legislatures produce public policy representing women’s concerns and before political institutions begin to change the way they do business (see more here , here (both PDFs) and here).
source: Equal Voice.

If I’m reading Frances‘ list correctly, the NPA have already nominated 4 women as City Council candidates, 3 as School Board candidates and 2 as Park Board candidates – meaning that they’ve already reached the magic (if we can say that magic = the minimum threshold) 30% mark for Council and School Board, and are one short of meeting that minimum threshold for Parks Board. Of course, the NPA has significantly less geographic, ethnic and age diversity than is present amongst the Vision nominees, and these considerations are also very important.

Reading the tea leaves for Vision, however, worries me – it strikes me as all too possible that the Vision Vancouver membership will end up nominating only one female candidate at each level. However, while the NPA can do very little at this point to change the make-up of their candidates, the door is wide open for Vision Vancouver to prove that not only is it the most ethnically and geographically diverse party, but it is also has understood and met the needs of gender equity.

So here’s my challenge to us all:

  • Vision Membership: You have the most important role to play in achieving a more balanced slate. Your votes will determine who represents our party in this fall’s municipal election. When deciding upon who to vote for, consider whether the list of nominees you are supporting includes women, and how the slate you’re choosing represents Vancouver’s gender balance, Vision’s progressive ideals, and the issues directly affecting the women of Vancouver.
  • Vision Candidates: We all want to be nominated, I know, so asking you (and I speak primarily to my fellow male candidates here) to actively support your fellow female candidates may seem odd, but here’s my challenge. Choose at least two non-incumbent women for whichever office you’re running for, and ask them what you can do to help them get nominated. They may refuse, but they may not. This is not meant in a patronising, ‘women-need-men’s-help-to-get-elected’ way; but rather the stark reality is that there’s a severe gender imbalance amongst the candidates. It’s easy to think that nominating only one non-incumbent woman counts as progressive, but it is mistaken. Nominating more women candidates is essential if we are serious about seeing more women elected. Regardless, when emailing your supporters, let them know the importance of nominating female candidates, and endorse at least two non-incumbent women candidates for each office.
  • Vision Executive: After this election cycle is complete, I challenge you to strike a committee to investigate electoral gender parity issues and to present the committee’s suggestions to the Vision membership for a vote on at our next AGM.
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How to support me

I aim to be a Vancouver Park Board candidate this fall. I’m very excited to have the chance to serve the city over the next few years as a Park Board Commissioner!

However, before I can be a candidate in the civic election, I need to be nominated by my party, Vision Vancouver. The nomination meeting will be held September 20th. To be eligible to vote for me (as well as all the other excellent candidates), you must become a member of Vision by August 20th. To that end, I’m posting below the Vision Vancouver membership form (In PDF format).The best way to help me become a candidate is to fill out the form below. If you don’t want to mail it in yourself, then let me know either by phone (604 318 1956) or email (hello AT tannock.net) when you’ve filled it out. I’ll come to you, pick it up and hand it in to Vision on your behalf.

Click the link below to take action and support my nomination:
Vision Vancouver Membership Form

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Water Bottle ban gaining traction

I’m pleased to see that Tim Stevenson has found greater traction with the second go-round of a proposed ban of water bottles on city property. CBC is current running a poll on the topic as well, so drop on in and have your say.

For my part, I’m pleased that this issue is gaining traction, but whether or not council passes the motion, I’ll continue to press for it at the Park Board this fall.

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An Endorsement from Silas White

I can’t contain my excitement that Steve Tannock is running for the Vancouver Park Board. I’ve known Steve for many years as someone who listens (a rare commodity in politics!), yet is also so well-rounded and well-informed himself that he brings a tremendous skill set and perspective to the table. He’s the kind of forward-thinking, personable and reasoned representative needed by not only our generation, but also all of Vancouver.

—Silas White, Chair of the Sunshine Coast Board of Education, Publisher of Nightwood Editions

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