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Bob Mackin

The West End penthouse where Vancouver mayoral candidate Hector Bremner held a fundraising party on Aug. 1 is for sale.

Assessed last year at $9.238 million, suite 3101 at Emerald West on Jervis Street was listed last week for $20.5 million by agents John Zhou, Fan Yang and Morning Yu of LeHomes Realty First, the former Marpole office of New Coast Realty.

The five-bedroom, eight-bathroom, 8,570 square foot penthouse on two storeys boasts 1,500 square feet of open and enclosed terraces and a 360-degree view of the city, from English Bay to the North Shore mountains.

BID Group chair Brian Fehr was named to the Order of B.C. (Facebook)

Property records show it is registered to Rally Management Services Ltd. at a Vanderhoof post office box. Company director Brian Fehr is also the chairman of Prince George-based construction and materials company BID Group.

Bremner, a failed BC Liberal candidate and former aide to ex-Deputy Premier Rich Coleman, is a full-time vice-president at lobbying and public relations company Pace Group and a part-time city councillor elected last fall under the NPA banner. Bremner started his own party after the NPA board rejected his bid for the party’s mayoral nomination following conflict of interest allegations related to his lobbying. Critics accuse him of being too friendly with developers who are seeking fast-track approval to build more condos. 

Bremner sold tickets to raise funds for his fledgling Yes Vancouver party at $50 each for an event that was billed “Let’s Give Them the Pink Slip.” Guests sipped, nibbled and watched Sweden’s Unique Pyrotechnic compete in the Celebration of Light fireworks festival. Earlier on Aug. 1, the Registrar of Lobbyists revealed that Bremner has been fined $2,000 for failing to disclose his job in the BC Liberal government. But the penalty was overturned on a technicality.

I am not really political and don’t talk much about it, but Hector is a longtime friend who I am always willing to support,” Fehr said in an email to theBreaker.

Just before B.C. Day weekend, Fehr was named to the 2018 class of the Order of B.C.

A profile in the Prince George Daily News said Fehr built a billion-dollar company with 1,800 employees in North America, despite having only a Grade 12 education and overcoming an alcohol and drug addiction in his late 30s. He supports the Baldy Hughes Therapeutic Community and is a director of the Northern Interior Health Board.

Fehr will receive the Order of B.C. with 13 others on Sept. 20 at Government House in Victoria.

The Elections BC database says Fehr donated $157,985 to the BC Liberals since 2005, including $30,000 to Andrew Wilkinson’s winning leadership campaign. In 2012, Fehr donated $58,500 to the NDP.

In 2013, the National Post reported that Fehr had proposed additional private investment to keep the BC Liberal government’s troubled Wood Innovation and Design Centre project alive in Prince George. Area MLA and Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training Minister Pat Bell, however, reneged on a promise to include Fehr’s company on the shortlist to build the so-called plyscraper. Then-Premier Christy Clark claimed civil servants, not politicians, were involved in procurement.

But, in an interview with then-media commentator Alex G. Tsakumis, Fehr said that he had met in 2012 with Clark to discuss the project. 

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Bob Mackin The West End penthouse where Vancouver

Bob Mackin

B.C. Lottery Corporation sent four senior managers to China’s gambling haven for a convention in May, while under a cloud of controversy from the casino money laundering scandal.

Vice-president of casinos Brad Desmarais was supposed to join them on the junket to Macau, but a BCLC covering letter said his travel plans were cancelled for unforeseen circumstances outside of his control.

BCLC marketing director Charlene Nielson visited the Stanley Ho-owned cornerstone of the Macau casino industry (Instagram)

Together, Charlene Nielson (marketing and product management), Garth Pieper (casino operations), Jerry Williamson (gaming facilities and development) and Darren Jang (casino product management) spent $18,913.93 on flights, ferries, accommodation, meals and per diems for the May 9 to 20 junket, according to records released to theBreaker under freedom of information.

BCLC was stuck with $1,570.94 in non-refundable hotel fees after Desmarais cancelled his trip.

Desmarais wrote a March 19 memo to CEO Jim Lightbody seeking approval for the entourage to attend Global Gaming Expo Asia, aka G2E Asia, to “explore opportunities to adopt/improve a culturally appropriate gambling/entertainment player experience in appropriate facilities as well as supporting the casino long term growth strategy.”

BCLC and its casino operating partners have been criticized for already offering a player experience that caters heavily toward Asian “whale” gamblers, some of whom have used B.C. casinos to launder money. Anti-money laundering expert Peter German’s June-released, Dirty Money report said that Metro Vancouver is a key hub for transnational money laundering that is linked to the real estate business and illicit drug trade. On May 25, RCMP arrested Dan Bui Shun Jin, who has Australian and Chinese citizenship, in the hotel at River Rock Casino Resort. He is alleged to have laundered $855 million through casinos in Australia, is under investigation in Macau and was sought by U.S. authorities for fraud in Nevada.

The Desmarais memo said G2E Asia is one of the largest gambling conventions in the world “and showcases technologies and innovative approaches not necessarily available in North America.” 

Clockwise, from upper left: BCLCs Williamson, Nielson, Pieper and Jang LinkedIn)

The BCLC entourage planned to meet with service providers and share experiences and strategies, and to learn about a variety of topics, such as chip tracking, use of casino cheques, use of currency and associated controls, innovative signage and integrated entertainment strategies. They were also scheduled to tour four major casino properties in the former Portuguese colony and attend an all-day workshop on innovation and the future of the casino industry with Ernst and Young’s global gaming team.

The convention, organized by a Shenzhen, China, company, featured keynote speakers Lawrence Ho, chair of Melco Resorts and Entertainment, and Paulo Martins Chan, the director of gaming inspection and coordination for the Macau Special Administrative Region government.

Ho is the Canadian-raised son of Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho.

In 2017, Desmarais, Lightbody and BCLC security vice-president Robert Kroeker attended the G2E conference. They spent almost $16,000 on flights, hotels and meals, according to records obtained by theBreaker.

theBreaker was first to report that criminology professor John Langdale warned an Australian police intelligence conference last November about the “Vancouver model” of money laundering. Langdale told the conference that the “Vancouver model” involved transnational drug trafficking and capital flight from China, gambling in B.C. casinos and investment in Canadian real estate. Key to the scheme are criminals in B.C.’s Chinese sister province Guangdong, and nearby Hong Kong and Macau.

Lightbody is on vacation until late August. Sarah Morris in the BCLC media office said by email that BCLC staff “bring new learnings and business connections back to B.C. to improve further the gambling and entertainment experience for players.”

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18-076 Record – G2E Asia 2018 .pdf by BobMackin on Scribd

Bob Mackin B.C. Lottery Corporation sent four senior

Bob Mackin

A Vancouver travel agent says the closure of China tour wholesaler Sinorama Holidays Inc. could be the biggest failure in the Canadian travel industry since the fall of 2001.

“I haven’t seen anything like this on the vacation side since Canada 3000 [Holidays],” said Travel Best Bets CEO Claire Newell. “A lot of those people won’t get their money back, they may have saved up for years, and don’t have the room on their credit card or money in the bank.”

In late July, Quebec’s consumer protection authority placed Sinorama’s operation there under trusteeship. It voluntarily ceased operations in Ontario on Aug. 8, the same day that Consumer Protection British Columbia froze the bank accounts and suspended the licence of its Richmond operation, which shared an office building with a currency exchange business on Westminster Highway, east of No. 3 Road.

A letter to chief operating officer Xiwang Wang said Sinorama did not have enough working capital to operate as a travel agency. Sinorama Corp., which is traded in the U.S. on the loosely regulated Pink Sheets bulletin board, reported a $9 million working capital deficit for 2018’s first quarter.

Martine Jing Wenjia, CEO of Sinorama (YouTube)

“We believe that travellers may be at risk of not getting the travel they paid for,” said the CPBC website. CPBC recommended travellers confirm their bookings have been paid for, contact their credit card and/or insurance companies, and get copies of contracts, receipts, itineraries and proof of payment.

Newell said it is another reminder to never pay for travel by cash. Those who paid on credit cards can make claims and authorities in B.C., Ontario and Quebec have funds to help compensate travellers left high and dry.

Newell said Sinorama had been offering bargains on tour packages to China while spending heavily on national advertising in Canada.

“This deal was thousands of dollars cheaper than I could come close to and my price is priced with fair, but lower, margins,” she said.

Indeed, the company’s financial reports show advertising expenditures had skyrocketed from almost $1.45 million in 2015 to $6.43 million last year. At the same time, it was cutting prices.

“The 5.6% reduction in revenue-per-customer reported for Asian tours in 2017 reflected our efforts to expand volume by offering very competitive prices,” said a Sinorama financial disclosure. “These reductions in price were the result of a calculated decision to promote the Sinorama brand as a location for better service and lower prices than that offered by competitive travel agencies.”

Sinorama grossed $98.3 million but reported a net $571,447 loss in 2017, which was lower than the $5.6 million lost in 2016. Asian tours accounted for 77% of the business. It said it sold packages to 37,281 customers in 2017, up 32% from 2016.

There was no answer at the company’s offices in Montreal, Markham, Ont., or Richmond on Aug. 13.

Sinorama Corp. was originally founded in 2005. It incorporated in 2016 in Florida and had a complex ownership structure.

The Sinorama Tours Ltd. holding company was organized in June 2015 in tax haven Samoa and includes Vacances Sinorama Inc. of Quebec and Sinorama Voyages of France.

Sinorama Tours owns two-thirds of Vacances Sinorama through Simon Qian Voyages, a wholly owned subsidiary, and 51% of Sinorama Voyages. The other one-third of Vacances Sinorama is owned by Sinorama chairman Qian Hong, who is married to Sinorama CEO Martine Jing Wenjia. Minority shareholders of Sinorama Voyages are Yang Ming (39%) and Zhao Hongxi (10%), the chief financial officer of Sinorama. Zhao was the highest-paid executive in 2017 at $71,446.

Jing owned 54.33% of the parent company and 131 shareholders owned the rest. The company reported employing 167 people at year-end.

Through the first quarter of 2018, Sinorama had already spent $2.6 million on advertising, but reported a $2.7 million net loss on $15.9 million revenue.

“The primary factors affecting our working capital deficit at March 31, 2018 include customer deposits of $38,388,443 representing prepayment by customers of tours they have booked, partially offset by our prepayment and deferred expense asset totalling $20,820,412, mostly representing our prepayment to vendors for those tours,” said the quarterly report. “Customer deposits exceeded our prepayments because we generally require customers to deposit the full cost of a trip some time in advance of departure, but our vendors do not require us to pay in full until the customer disembarks from the tour.”

Its main vendors were Flash Travel, Sinorama International Travel, Hubei Sinorama, Chongqing Yangtze Gold Cruise Co., Ltd. and Chongqing New Century.

Sinorama trades under the SNNN symbol and shares closed at 87 cents on Aug. 13, up from 33 cents last week. 

  • Did you, or someone you know, book with Sinorama? Did you work for Sinorama? Are you a supplier to Sinorama? Contact theBreaker

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Bob Mackin A Vancouver travel agent says the

KitsFest marked 10 years by bringing back bathtub races to Vancouver. 

From 1967 to 1996, the Loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society organized the World Championship from Nanaimo to Vancouver. Since 1997, the World Championship has been contested off the coast of Nanaimo only.

KitsFest, Vancouver’s number one beach sports and culture festival, hosted an afternoon of races on Aug. 11, off Kitsilano Beach. Jaime Garcia in the Securiguard tub was the ultimate winner.

The event also marked the centennial of the birth of late Nanaimo Mayor Frank Ney, who promoted his city and bathtubbing by wearing a pirate costume. His son, Peter Ney, attended the KitsFest races. Organizers Howard Kelsey, Ron Putzi and Jamie Pitblado are already planning the 2019 event. 

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KitsFest marked 10 years by bringing back

What do Shauna Sylvester, Kennedy Stewart, David Chen, Ian Campbell, Ken Sim, Wai Young, Hector Bremner and Fred Harding have in common?

They have all announced their candidacy to succeed Gregor Robertson as Mayor of Vancouver in the Oct. 20 civic election.

Unless there are moves to prevent vote-splitting on the left or on the right, they will make their campaigns official during the Sept. 4 to 14 filing period. With a field of eight candidates, the next mayor of Vancouver (population 631,000) could win the race with as few as 20,000 votes. 

Harding is the latest to throw his hat in the ring as leader of the right-of-centre Vancouver 1st party. The retired veteran of the London Metropolitan Police and West Vancouver Police Department vows to bring law and order back to the city after it wasn’t a priority under Robertson and Vision Vancouver since 2008.

But Harding says he will bring more to the job if elected. He also has ideas for tax relief, housing affordability and transportation. Listen to host Bob Mackin interview Harding on this edition of theBreaker.news Podcast. 

Harding says that he has been “shaped out of looking at the adversity of others, out of looking at how people are treated in this province, how people have been taxed in this province, how people have been marginalized… I want people to know that they’ll have a mayor who is going to be looking at everybody’s interests, not just the wealthy.” 

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What do Shauna Sylvester, Kennedy Stewart, David

Bob Mackin

Look who waded into Victoria’s Sir John A. Macdonald statue debate. 

None other than Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose Progressive Conservative government offered to pay for the statue of the Father of Confederation to be shipped to Ontario, where Canada’s first prime minister (a Conservative, to boot) was the Member of Parliament for Kingston. 

Ontario Premier Doug Ford (left) and House Leader Todd Smith (Twitter)

Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps is running for re-election on Oct. 20 and she announced Aug. 8 that the 1982-erected statue of the former Victoria MP would be removed this weekend, in sympathy with local First Nations because of Macdonald’s role in setting-up Indian residential schools. City council voted 7-1 in favour. 

Ontario PC House Leader Todd Smith wrote to Helps on Aug. 10, in a bid to take the unwanted statue off Victoria’s hands. 

“Our government does not believe his memory and legacy should collect dust in a storage facility,” Smith wrote. “The government of Ontario is offering to take ownership of the statue and we will proudly display the statue on Ontario government property.”

Smith’s letter said Macdonald should be honoured for holding a “significant place in the hearts of many Canadians.” 

Sculptor John Dann at the 1982 unveiling of Victoria city hall’s John A. Macdonald statue (Twitter)

“Sir John A. Macdonald built and shaped this country and province. He connected the west to the east under one flag and one name.”

Helps has not formally replied to Smith, and has not explained why. In an email to theBreaker, she said that Victoria is not getting rid of the statue. 

“It was a gift to the city. We are storing it carefully and in the meantime, we will have a continued dialogue with the nations and the community as to the best place, way and context to place the statue that balances commemoration with reconciliation.” 

Helps has a master’s degree in history on public space in Victoria from 1871 to 1901 and is studying for a doctorate on the history of housing, homelessness and poverty in Victoria and San Francisco, from 1931 to 1971. Yet, she is running for re-election in a city that counted 1,525 people living on streets and in inadequate housing last March. A third of those people are indigenous, even though indigenous people are less than 5% of the population. 

Lisa Helps (City of Victoria)

Helps is also mayor of a city named after Queen Victoria, who is known as the “Famine Queen” by many Irish who blame her for indifference during the potato famine that claimed an estimated million lives from 1845 to 1852.

John Dann, who made the statue that was erected on Canada Day in 1982, wrote to Helps. His Twitter-published letter said: “If my sculpture can engender a discussion about the violence inflicted on native peoples, then frankly I am honoured.

“I am not sure that removing the sculpture is the best way to accomplish this, however, the sculpture belongs to the city and it may do with it as it pleases, governed, of course, by law, including artists’ rights.”

Update (Aug. 19): The statue’s sculptor, John Dann, said he is seriously considering running against Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps in the Oct. 20 election .

“It keeps pulling at me,” he told the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington.

Dann denied his work was intended to glorify Macdonald or colonialism, but is disappointed because the public was not properly consulted before Helps rammed through the decision to remove the statue.

He said the controversy provides an excellent opportunity for Canadians to reflect on the past and find a way towards unity. 

Dann need not be a resident of Victoria to put his name on the ballot. In 2014, fringe candidate David Shebib ran for mayor in 13 Victoria-area municipalities. It is legal for any Canadian, 18 or over, who has lived in B.C. for at least six months to run in any municipal election in the province.

Vancouver resident Dann, however, would not be allowed to vote for himself.

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Letter from Ontario’s House Leader to Victoria’s Mayor by BobMackin on Scribd

Bob Mackin Look who waded into Victoria's Sir

Bob Mackin

Vancouver city hall is one step closer to the potential for Greenest City 2020 snow globes, Vancouver Salt Co. salt and pepper shakers and “My other car is a bait car” bumper stickers.

Could Vancouver city hall sell a bumper sticker like this?

Those are some of the more than 50 civic trademarks and Aug. 9 is the deadline for marketing and merchandising experts to express interest in launching official souvenirs. The city wants to “generate visibility and awareness, while producing positive revenues that can be reinvested into a number of Vancouver public services,” according to the tendering document.

“The goods would specifically utilize city brand and trademark for the purposes of preserving, commemorating and promoting the Vancouver experience and building local pride for the City of Vancouver.”

City hall says it is interested in collaborating with local artisans, designers and indigenous artists. 

The city says Vancouver is “one of the stronger brands when compared to the other municipalities in British Columbia,” that is “uniquely associated” with clean, green and environmental sustainability.  

The goals include “increase loyalty to City assets and attributes by preserving, commemorating, and championing consumer-based investment in City experiences” and to promote and support political politically driven initiatives, such as Greenest City 2020 Action Plan (GCAP), Zero Waste 2040, Urban Forest Strategy, Women’s Equity Strategy 2018-2028, and Healthy City Strategy.

The tendering document includes a list of 52 marks, plus the Vancouver Police Department, spanning 1982’s “Vancouver and design” to 2017’s Sport Hosting Vancouver. They include Greenest City 2020, Eco Density, Bikes We Share, By Sea, Land and Air We Prosper, Vancouver Salt Co., East Van and Cross Design, Stanley Park, Vancouver Green Capital and Bait Car. 

Also listed is the Vancouver Affordable Housing Society Ltd., but its trademark registration was abandoned, because it “missed the reg. fee payment deadline.” 

Words that rose to prominence under Mayor Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver since 2008, but are not yet trademarked, include: “F-in’ NPA hacks,” “Dude Chilling Park,” “robust,” “lame,” “bike lane trial,” “Stanley Cup riot 2011,” and “End street homelessness by 2015.”

In February, lame duck Vision Vancouver councillor Andrea Reimer successfully pitched city council on her idea of selling Vancouver-branded merchandise, after TransLink opened an online store last fall. 

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Bob Mackin Vancouver city hall is one step

Bob Mackin

In hindsight, the first sign that the Beijing 2008 Olympics weren’t going to translate to more basic freedoms for Chinese citizens was the pre-Games Internet clampdown. 

The Bird’s Nest on Aug. 8, 2008, as seen from the Huiyuan Media Village. (Bob Mackin)

The Chinese government had promised the International Olympic Committee that reporters from all nations would be able to surf the web, without any censorship, on the Olympic system. Reporters arrived at the main press centre and international broadcast centre to find various websites blocked, particularly those referring to Taiwan, Tibet and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

The IOC’s press commission protested and the filter was adjusted. We got over the Great Firewall of China, but search engines continued to warn that sites on the T-topics contained viruses. After the world’s media went home, it returned to normal. Westerners and daring Chinese relied on VPNs to get them around or over the Great Firewall.

China was opening up, but on its terms and not the way the world really hoped. The 29th Olympic Games led to greater two-way trade, tourism and technology. And, eventually 2022: The next Winter Games are coming to China’s capital and its mountainous outskirts.  

China is now a world leader in controlling news and online surveillance under President Xi Jinping, whose leader-for-life status was announced in time for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics closing ceremony. Prospects for basic freedoms by 2022 are dim and the censorship is likely to prevail again. Reporters Without Borders says more than 50 journalists and bloggers, that its knows of, are detained in China. Human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo was arrested four months after the Games opened and died in 2017. His widow, Liu Xia, was finally allowed to leave for Germany in July Meanwhile, the Beijing studio of dissident artist Ai Weiwei — who helped design the Bird’s Nest stadium — was demolished last weekend. 

Chinese leader Hu Jintao is greets the Chinese team into the Olympics opening ceremony on Aug. 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Bob Mackin)

The Games opened Aug. 8, 2008, the most-unique and historic venue for a birthday I may ever have. My day began smoggy across the street at the Huiyuan Media Village, where the maid left a souvenir pin and panda toy on my pillow with a birthday greeting.

It ended in heat that I had not experienced before or since. By the end of the night, a pile of at least 10 empty plastic water bottles had formed under my seat in the Bird’s Nest. Manolo Romero, CEO of Beijing Olympic Broadcasting and managing director of Olympic Broadcasting Services, told me that thermometers at weather stations inside the National Stadium reached 50 degrees Celsius, a full 20 C hotter than outside the steel-framed structure. The host broadcaster was less worried about equipment overheating and more worried that a cameraman would expire. “That bowl is like a cooking vacuum,” Spaniard Romero remarked in an interview. 

On the eve of the opening ceremony, I stopped for drinks with a friend from Vancouver at a rooftop bar in the old embassy district near Tiananmen Square. As we left to get to the British Columbia-government hosted reception, a waitress asked if we were part of the Goldman Sachs party that had booked the joint. What would we have learned about the global economic shock to come had we stayed and downed drinks with the Wall Streeters? 

We arrived at the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall to learn that Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State, had earlier made a short visit to the lobby, but not the B.C. pavilion. It was a career milestone for the honorary IOC member, who was instrumental under U.S. President Richard Nixon for opening relations with China and then-leader Mao Zedong in the early 1970s. I never did find out whether Kissinger visited Mao’s mausoleum across the street at Tiananmen Square. 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn’t go. Predecessor Paul Martin skipped the opening of the 2004 Games in Athens; he was in Whitehorse, Yukon, instead. David Emerson, the Foreign minister known for crossing the floor from the Liberals to Conservatives, was at the B.C. government reception. Relations with China were improving, though the countries agreed to disagree on human rights. Emerson wasn’t about to say anything as newsworthy as U.S. President George Bush had already said. 

The scene inside the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics (Mackin).

“We’re no shrinking violet on that issue, but we don’t choose to use the Olympics as the venue to make the point,” said Emerson, who led a delegation that included federal sport secretary Helena Guergis. 

The People’s Liberation Army was stationed throughout the capital, never far from any of the venues.  Later in the Games, the PLA mysteriously parked a tank next to the north entrance of the Main Press Centre. Games organizers said they didn’t know why it was there, which was hard to believe because the Games was organized by an arm of the government. Was it a show of force or a show of farce? The vehicle became a popular meeting point for reporters, near a designated pin-trading zone outside the gate. 

I saw one reporter stand in front of it, attempting to recreate that iconic tank man moment from the Tiananmen Square Massacre of June 4, 1989. 

I will never know if the uniformed local volunteers were perplexed, because they didn’t know what it meant. Or if they were too scared to admit they did, because they were under the constant gaze of surveillance cameras. 

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Bob Mackin In hindsight, the first sign that

The Non-Partisan Association, Vancouver’s oldest political party, has finally settled on a city council slate.

Six newcomers were chosen behind closed doors by the party board and mayoral hopeful Ken Sim. 

Among them is Colleen Hardwick, a former Hollywood North film producer who founded PlaceSpeak.com, a digital platform to consult citizens.

She is putting her name forward for the second time, in the ultimate civic consultation: the October 20 Vancouver election. Hardwick fell 3,310 votes short of winning a seat on council for the NPA in 2005. 

You might say it is in her genes. Hardwick is the daughter of Walter Hardwick, the late University of B.C. geography professor and 1969 to 1974 city councillor with TEAM. 

In an interview with host Bob Mackin, she said the next government at 12th and Cambie needs to press pause and review where the city is, both  financially and socially. City hall needs to go back to basics and focus on its chief responsibilities, land use and taxation of the 115 square kilometres that lie west of Boundary Road.  

“Are we happy with the city as it has evolved over the last decade?” she asked. “You talk to the people who are lifelong Vancouverites, they feel they are not at home in their own hometown anymore. Simliarly, you talk to people that are new to the city, they feel alienated and disconnected.” 

Listen to the entire interview, the first of several with candidates from across the spectrum. 

Also: commentaries and headlines from around the Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest.

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The Non-Partisan Association, Vancouver’s oldest political party,

Sweden’s Unique Pyrotechnics lit up English Bay on Aug. 1, during the second of three nights in the 2018 Honda Celebration of Light. 

theBreakerVision was in Kitsilano Point to record the sights and sounds of Team Sweden’s display. 

South Korea ends this year’s festival, Vancouver’s biggest annual event, with a bang on Aug. 4. 

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Sweden's Unique Pyrotechnics lit up English Bay