Vancouver mayoral candidates Peter Ladner and Gregor Robertson keep emphasizing a theme about their campaign. For Ladner, it’s “experience.” For Robertson, it’s “change and leadership.” I had a story in the Globe Friday that looks at why code words like that get used. As University of Victoria political-science professor Dennis Pilon points out, those kinds […]

[Read more →]

Oh yes, another election. Don’t forget. The billboards are starting to go up. (There’s one a half block from my house with Peter Ladner and his smiling team saying something about creating a green and affordable city.) The Visionistas are happily out delivering lawn signs. Yes, it’s time for the main battle. Well, almost, as […]

[Read more →]

This election campaign in Vancouver is a treasure trove for research junkies, since the candidates’ full financial disclosures are listed online — sorry to all of you whose privacy feels violated. (Go to the section where the election information is kept and there’s a link in the top right to their nomination and financial-disclosure forms.) […]

[Read more →]

Here’s the full list of candidates, all, for those of you not in direct communication with city hall. As you’ll see, it looks like it will be a relatively clean election, since there is no “Pete Ladner” or “Gregory Robertson” in there to muddy the waters. I’ll skip the boring parts (“two parties with exciting […]

[Read more →]

Hey, we’re not the only ones. While people here are wringing their hands over Vancouver’s problems with the Olympic village construction (developer Millennium Developments is facing significant cost overruns and the city, which is legally required to make sure the village is ready on time, is facing some pressure to provide a guarantee for the […]

[Read more →]

For many people, the news that house and condo prices are dropping and that developers are even offering things like mortgage payments for a year, discounted mortgage rates or free upgrades on finishes is great. But the reality is that, even though prices are softening, they still haven’t — and won’t — drop down to […]

[Read more →]

So the Peter fans really liked Peter and the Gregor fans really liked Gregor, but the middle of the road seemed to be that there weren’t strong or detailed answers from either candidate at this point. See the comments attached to my previous post to get a flavour. Monte Paulsen also has an excellent summary […]

[Read more →]

Sorry, folks, couldn’t make it to tonight’s Peter Ladner-Gregor Robertson No. 2 debate in the debate-a-thon that this campaign has turned into. Your thoughts and impressions welcome, although I think we’ve all come to realize that it’s like people are living in parallel universes when it comes to judging the candidates. I’ve found it quite […]

[Read more →]

It was the Non-Partisan Association’s annual fundraising dinner tonight, even though that fact went unrecorded by all media but me as far as I can tell. Time was it was a routine item for coverage. (Remember three years ago when Sam Sullivan apologized to the banquet crowd for his misjudgment in letting a drug user […]

[Read more →]

Those of you passionately interested in this story may have found it already in print or online, but for those of you who didn’t, here’s my follow-up story on the Southeast False Creek/Millennium/Olympic village story that was in the Globe and Mail.

[Read more →]