The ThunderBlogs

The Bloedel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park was unanimously saved Monday evening from the Vancouver Park Board budget chopping-block, following months of public outcry.

Park Board members voted to accept a proposal that will integrate the operation and management of the Conservatory with the VanDusen Botanical Garden.  The two facilities will work collaboratively with the Park Board.

A crowd gathered at the Vancouver Park Board head office to witness the decision.  Three rows of long green upholstered pews were full of spectators by 7 p.m., when the meeting was called to order.  A group of onlookers huddled near the doorway.  A Park Board staff member entered with an armful of stackable chairs and lined them up in front of the benches.  The overflow seating filled quickly as well.

As the proceedings wore on, one by one, circling the roundtable, the Park Board Commissioners expressed their support for the proposal.

“Bloedel was left to wither, it was ignored and we found ourselves in this crisis and through this crisis we have renewed our love for this incredible institution for this incredible amenity that we have.   And I’m very proud of the people of Vancouver for standing up and saying no to a decision that was made that was wrong,” said Commissioner Stuart Mackinnon.

The crowd that had amassed near the doorway stirred and chattered excitedly as it became apparent that the motion would pass.  And, with a unanimous vote, the crowd burst into applause, a standing ovation and a few congratulatory cheers.

“This is a remarkable achievement, I think the VanDusen Botanical Garden Association and the Friends of Bloedel can be so proud of themselves for doing this,” said Mackinnon.

The Friends of Bloedel Association and the VanDusen Botanical Garden Association filed a joint submission recommending this collaborative approach, after a Request for Expressions of Interest was issued by Parks staff on Jan. 29, 2010. The joint submission was presented to the Park Board’s Services and Budgets Committee on July 10, 2010.  At that time the Park Board expressed considerable support for the proposal.

This is in stark contrast to a Nov. 13, 2009, Park Board Meeting that identified the Conservatory as a facility that could be cut to address a $2.8 million operating budget shortfall for 2010.  However, a public outcry, rallied by the Friends of Bloedel, forced the Park Board to reconsider the fate of the 41-year-old plant and bird sanctuary.

“We’re just thrilled that this little jewell at the top of our city is going to be there for many many years and we’re going to continue to work extremely hard on it,” said John Coupar, president of the Friends of Bloedel Association.

Residents of Marpole expressed strong opposition against the Marpole Safeway redevelopment plans presented by the City of Vancouver Planning Department at a meeting on Monday.  Not one resident out of an estimated 200 attendees stood up to voice their approval of the rezoning application during the question and answer period.

During the question and answer period, many residents said they were unhappy with the height of the proposed building, the increased traffic to the area, and the implications for local businesses.  They were also concerned with the lack of community space and green space.

The plan proposed by Henriquez Partners Architects is to redevelop the current site at 70th Avenue and Granville Street to include four major building elements: replacement of the Safeway grocery store on Granville Street; a 24-storey rental tower; a 14-storey market condominium tower; and a 9-storey slab building consisting of townhouses at street level and condominium units above.

Gwen Ingham compiled a petition of 225 signatures of Marpole residents over the weekend.  A majority of the people who signed think the new buildings should be no more than four storeys high.  Several disagreed and think they should be no more than nine storeys high.

“We feel that the fundamental character of Marpole is threatened by this [project],” said Ingham.

“No major development or rezoning should happen without an updated community plan and revisioning,” said Gudrun Langolf, president of the Marpole-Oakridge Area Council Society.

“The question of the traffic in the area has to be addressed, the problem of the schools and other facilities has to be addressed, but most importantly, a community plan has to be done first,” said Sylvia Taylor, a resident of Marpole since 1972.

Ron Loui-Ying has been living in Marpole for 14 years and previously lived in Hong Kong.  He disapproved of the large number of towers going up around the neighbourhood at Cambie Street and Marine Drive, as well as near Oakridge.  “If the city can’t afford to give us a [community] plan,” said Loui-Ying, “maybe they should spend some money and change Marpole into Mar-Kong!”

Brent Toderian, Director of Planning, assured the audience that this project is in its early stages and still needs to be approved by Council.  The planning staff is open to the community’s feedback.

“It’s not black and white for us,” said Toderian. “We’re still in the process of listening to the community’s perspectives on the nature of the application and we haven’t taken a position on whether the application is premature.”

The Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling blasted Tuesday evening from the speakers in the Walter Gage Towers lounge. Volunteers staffed information tables by the doors and distributed pamphlets about sexual assault. Twenty-eight women and eight men sat in the room and bopped their heads to the music’s rhythm. Meghan Gardiner stood beside a velvet footstool in front of the audience. She prepared to perform her one-woman show on sexual assault, Dissolve.

Lau Mehes, the program assistant for the Sexual Assault Awareness Program, helped organize the performance for the education initiative. She said the play offered the opportunity to reach more people with the information.

Tanya Prinzing sat in the third row beside her friends. Prinzing said she came because she had to attend a women produced event for her women’s studies class. She spotted many of her classmates dispersed throughout the audience.

The music stopped. Gardiner emerged onstage dressed in a simple black tank top and matching pants. She puffed out her chest, squared her shoulders and lowered her voice transforming into a club bouncer. For the next hour she morphed between different characters and delivered the story of one victim’s realization that she was drugged and sexually assaulted. The audience continued to applaud while she ran and grabbed a well-earned bottle of water after the show ended.

Gardiner returned with her face flushed from her performance and answered questions from the audience. She said that the play was based on her personal experience. She intended for it to entertain and be cathartic, but realized that it also educated, she said. “It’s hard because – dare I say it – the people who really need to see this show aren’t here,” Gardiner said.

Most of the blue and grey folding chairs in the room were occupied. The audience was composed of mostly females, a handful of volunteers from various relevant organizations on campus and the mandatory attendance of Prinzing and some of her classmates.

Gardiner had performed the piece for over 450 audiences. At the University of Portland it is mandatory to see the show and students have to write a 10-page paper and pay a $100 fine if they do not participate, she said.

At the University of British Columbia it was not a mandatory event, but the students who participated began an important discussion about sexual assault and walked away asking how to get involved.

On Friday afternoon the main room of UBC’s Asian Centre was full of economists eager to discuss fixing, of all things, the environment. Welcome to the 21st century.

Environmental economist Lawrence H. Goulder gave the keynote speech in a weekend long conference entitled, “UBC 2010 Workshop on Environmental Economics and Climate Change.” His talk outlined the role economists can play in creating policies to deal effectively with climate change. It was called, “Pricing Greenhouse Gases: Efficiency, Distribution and Politics.”

Coming from a talk in the neighbouring building, economists ranging in age and ethnicity shuffled in with coffee and cookies in their hands to take their places among the blue plastic chairs. For every two rows of men there were about four women.

“I’ll start off by showing you all a very simple economics graph,” Goulder said. As the slide went up the room filled with laughter at what was obviously, to most, a hilariously simple economics graph. But once Goulder began getting into the meat of his ideas the tone in the room changed. Heads tilted and bodies leaned back into chairs, arms crossed and eyes squinted in what looked like reserved and contemplative skepticism. An old man, with white hair in a ponytail and his blue bike helmet and backpack still on, squeezed into the middle of the third row to sit in one of the last empty chairs.

“Reasons why we haven’t had serious climate change policies are the influence of special interest and a lack of public knowledge,” Goulder said. “How can we as environmental economists breakthrough these barriers?” In terms of the special interests groups his answer was, “Buy them off. It actually wouldn’t cost that much.” He explained that in order to be able to pass carbon taxes it would be necessary to make it worthwhile for industry like oil and gas. Current stakeholders’ profits could be preserved while discouraging further investment into the industry.

It was probably his most contentious statement, but seemed to be gravely acknowledged as a practical solution. Alexandre Vigneault, a chemical engineering PhD student, said he agreed with Goulder. “It makes sense,” he said. His friend, Nick Chow, a political science major who was also minoring in economics, nodded. The atmosphere in the room was one of grave concern and a desire to find practical solutions.

“Climate change is a big problem, largely beyond economics,” Goulder concluded. “Some people are positive. I have a friend who says look at the anti-smoking campaign and how effective that was over time.”

He paused.

“I’m not sure that we have the time. We can’t wait three decades,” he said, “I’ll end on that note.”

Most people came to the President’s Campus Town Hall carrying umbrellas on the rainy Monday morning. Arrivals shed their wet raingear in the Chan Centre of Performing Arts and a homogenous business casual crowd emerged.

Platters of bite size sandwiches, colourful vegetables and chocolate covered deserts spread across three tables in the lobby and invited participants to sample the lunch buffet. Uniformed servers maneuvered through the crowd and restocked diminishing food supplies.

People mingled while carrying glass plates filled with refreshments and sipping non-alcoholic beverages. Groups formed around tall tables draped in white cloths that grazed the floor. Postcards lay on the tables promoting Place and Promise: The UBC Plan.

Sweatpants and hoodies infiltrated the sea of suits when the student crowd lingered in. The buffet line grew longer and plates were piled higher with snacks. But the free lunch was not why students attended.

Andrew Longhurst said he came to report for CiTR, the campus radio station, and would not have otherwise. He said he finds these types of events formulaic and would prefer an organic session. He was interested to see if the president would take questions from the floor, he said.

Jennifer Peverelle, a first year engineering transfer student, came because her unique academic question went unanswered after being shuttled through a long line of administrators and faculty members. It is a “last ditch effort to take it as high as I can,” said Peverelle.

“10 minutes ladies and gentleman,” said an aide and people moved inside the Telus Studio Theatre. Many chatted with their neighbours while a baby’s wail carried throughout the dark hall. “Good afternoon everyone,” said Sarah Morgan-Silvester, chancellor elect of the University of British Columbia, and silenced the crowd.

Professor Stephen J. Toope, president and vice-chancellor of the University of British Columbia, began his speech after a series of thanks and introductions. The speech discussed the university’s upcoming strategies to promote research, excellence and community engagement. The audience listened and waited to hear what form the question and answer period would take.

Toope finished his speech and pointed to two microphones set up on either side of the audience. Anyone with questions would be allowed to line up at the microphones while he answered two queries received earlier by e-mail, he said.

Longhurst arrived at the microphone first. He and many others seized the opportunity for an open discussion.

When Pastor Joe Russell from the New Beginnings Baptist Church found out that Woodland Park was already booked for Saturday Sept. 19, he saw an opportunity.

The park had been booked by the Grandview-Woodland Community Policing Centre for their annual event, Cops, Kids and Commercial Drive.

By hosting the church’s community day in the same space, both New Beginnings and the community policing centre had the chance to reach out to people who might not otherwise come to their event.

From noon until 3 p.m., community policing centre volunteers led the activities. Kids could ride bikes through a traffic safety course, learn how to call 9-1-1, and meet a police dog.

The community policing centre hoped that by bringing families to Woodland Park, parents would feel safer coming back with their kids, Adrian Archambault said. When a parent complains that they feel uncomfortable in a park because there are “people hanging around,” it often says more about the person making the complaint than it does about the safety of the space, Archambault said.

A row of tables split the park two. From one table hung a banner that read “Everyone Welcome!” and in smaller print, “Aboriginals 4 Jesus.” Behind the tables, two grey-haired men gave Christian-themed books to children who stopped to look.

At 3 p.m. Cops Kids and Commercial Drive volunteers lowered tents, while churchgoers erected a small stage on the other side of the park. The congregation of New Beginnings, mostly aboriginal and poor, gathered.

Davie Paul rode up on a bicycle and was greeted with an embrace from Russell. Silver and black hairs strayed from under his backwards baseball cap. He asked, “Pastor Joe, are you going to feed us some good food today?” Paul turns 57 next month.

A girl asked Russell why the potato sack race hadn’t started. Her face was painted with a pink butterfly and decorated with sequins. Her wide grin exposed two missing front teeth, and the teeth on either side of the gap were capped in metal.

Dr. Don Bartlette came to the Baptist Church event as a guest speaker. Born with a cleft palate, Bartlette had spent 12 years as an outcast from his aboriginal community before finding God, he said.  Bartlette waived his usual $2000 speaking fee, Russell said. “I came to speak to my people,” Bartlette said.

The Baptist Church had encouraged its congregation to participate in the community policing centre’s event. “In our church we teach that cops are our friends,” Russell said, “even if there are some bad cops.”

The crowd chuckled as Hannah Carpendale delicately held up a drone between her fingertips and continued to explain the social organization of a beehive. Carpendale, 22, was one of the eight youth who, as part of an apprenticeship program with the Environmental Youth Alliance, were taking care of two hives at the Means of Production community garden.

The culmination of the summer-long apprenticeship program was a mini-symposium held on Sunday under a single tent in China Creek park. Locals were invited to learn more about bee species and their habits. Yellow and black balloons marked tables that displayed an assortment of beekeeping books and paraphernalia. A little table of honey goodies was set up, and hot cups of ginger -lemon-honey tea were served up to the few people who braved the grey skies to attend.

Brian Campbell, master beekeeper of the Blessed Bee Farm in Richmond was there to support the youth. “What’s happening is that there are about half as many beekeepers as there were 25 years ago. Older beekeepers are giving up and so it is important to engage with youth and teach them about beekeeping.” He also talked about the importance of preserving the rapidly declining bee population, citing the carrot-seed shortage that had recently troubled West Coast Seeds as a case in point “We already see the impact on our food. No bees to make the seeds means no seeds to plant the carrot.”

Campbell said that preserving the delicate balance between flora and fauna is a matter of immediate concern. “People need to take personal responsibility for their actions. The use of pesticides is incredibly harmful to B.C.’s wild bees. They are being killed off and this means that we lose native plants, which means we lose native wildlife.”

The youth-led presentations included an overview of the evolving BC beekeeping bylaws, beekeeping practices from around the world. In his presentation titled “Other reasons why bees are better than you and I,” Bryan Brent talked about how bees were being used to diagnose illness because of their acute sense of smell. According to Brent, bees can detect pheromones for cancer, diabetes, and tuberculosis. They have also been trained to find land mines by smelling out TNT residue.

“The idea is to bring awareness into the community, bring bees to them, educate, inspire and connect to this sacred species,” said Shielagh Mckenna, the program coordinator with the EYA who mentored the youth through their apprenticeship.

Blue and red flashing lights, uniformed officers and an explosives detection dog are usually signs that a major incident is happening in East Vancouver.  But on Sunday, these were part of the draw to Cops, Kids & Woodland Park, a family-friendly event put on by the Grandview-Woodlands Community Policing Centre.

Some East Vancouver communities have a rocky relationship with the Vancouver Police Department, with distrust being a fairly common sentiment in the area.  For Adrian Archambault, coordinator for community policing with the centre, the point of Sunday’s event was outreach to the community’s youngest members and their families.  The goal of community policing, according to Archambault, is to provide a bridge between the police and the people who live in the neighbourhood.

The annual event is usually held in Grandview Park, but moved to Woodland Park this year because of Grandview’s closure in August.  Archambault hopes that the event will encourage families to make more use of Woodland Park, which is located just off the Adanac bike route.

The theme for the day was back-to-school safety, with 50 volunteers on hand to help with child identification, bike safety and face painting.  Prabhjot Sandhar, 15, has been volunteering at events like these for the last three years.  She helps out at the community policing centre because she wants to become a police officer.

The flashing lights of a fire truck proved to be one of the day’s major draws, as children were given the opportunity to clamber into the cab for a photo.  A small crowd also formed around two-year-old Bailey, a black Labrador eager for pats from the gathered children.  Handler Constable John Alleman of the transit police explained Bailey’s role as an explosives detection dog working mostly in the Skytrain system.  Alleman tries to bring Bailey out to community events as much as possible.  “Police don’t solve crime on their own,” he said.

Tim Smatlan is a young father who lives around the corner from Woodland Park.  He brought his daughter Violet to the event after hearing about it from a neighbour.  Asked about her favourite part of the day, four and a half year old Violet proudly showed off a blue butterfly drawn like a mask over her eyes.  “Face painting!” she said between bites of hot dog smothered in ketchup.

The event seemed successful, with a few hundred people taking part in the day’s various activities.  But just three blocks away, fresh-looking graffiti painted a different picture of East Vancouver.  “Dead copz,” read a tag in vibrant green lettering on a mural near Britannia high school.  Despite events like Cops, Kids and Woodland Park, tensions between some members of the community and police still exist in this area.

In spite of the fact that Canada narrowly escaped the effects of the global recession, many in Vancouver still cannot afford current housing prices. However, an elite group of citizens in the South West Marine Drive have enjoyed mansions with imposing front yards and doorways.  As attractive as these houses were, a lasting impression of privacy remained since gardens and entrances seemed guarded from any passer-by.

The front yard appeared to be a powerful place in this private community, flaunting beautiful gardening designs and grand entrances around the public streets. But one could only enjoy the view of these demonstration gardens from the distance, providing some level of privacy to their owners.

Neighbors in this area have incorporated narrow entrance halls of tall pine tress and pebble roads in their homes, blocking ones’ view from the actual property. Likewise, mansions at times could not be fully appreciated due to high-clipped hedges or walls casing the entire plot, leaving only dashing doors and elegant house number plaques visible to the observer.

More often than expected, houses around these blocks placed commanding signs of active alarms systems in use and of defense dogs on these premises.

Gardeners outstand in this neighborhood, contrasting the image of the richest with the working class. “Status is important around here. They have beautiful houses and of course they want beautiful gardens as well,” said Reagan Olmstead, an employee of the Silent Gardener, a landscape maintenance company offering services to several residential properties in this locality. “The owners of these houses rarely come outside when we work here, they sometimes greet us, some are nice to us, but it is not very common,” said Olmstead.

Hence, aesthetics seemed to be a relevant matter for the South West Marine Drive residents, and art has a strong presence in this part of Vancouver. Kilometers (and at times acres) of trimmed hedges, perennial gardens, stone patios, oval lawns surrounded by flowers, small piazzas, vibrant fountains, cascades, modern plant vases, limestone walkways and romantic sculptures in steel or ceramic dominated the scene.

An exhibition of assorted winter flowers was at view around this drive; with petunias, roses, cyclamens, lavender flowers, lilies, tulips, yellow narcissuses, magnolias, hydrangeas, iris bulbs, purple wisterias at display. “We come once per week to each house, and usually two gardeners work in one house at the same time for at least 8 hours removing leaves, weeds and dead flowers,” Olmstead said.

A plethora of ethnic restaurants thrive on the far-stretching Kingsway Road, mostly Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian — but the lack of Filipino businesses speaks for the community’s economic marginalization.

There is only one Filipino dentist that services the community, on Kingsway and Broadway. Of course, Filipino Canadians need not to be served only by a Filipino dentist, but that there is only one that made it to the level of practicing such a profession is a sign in itself of the lack of work opportunities.

Dr. Gloria Samosa advertises her clinic in the Philippine Journal, a local Filipino newsletter, alongside only one Filipino lawyer, Anthony M.M. Remedios.

The phones are constantly ringing in Samosa’s clinic, as Filipino receptionists pick up calls in both English and Tagalog and the dental assistants are also Filipino, carefully preparing the utensils and offering medical gowns.  Such semi-professional jobs are barely even available to Filipino Canadians, as professional Philippine degrees are not recognized by the government.

Further down Kingsway, Real Liquidation Store, on the corner of Joyce, struggles as they run multiple businesses, such as providing a money remittance service, renting out films and selling non-perishable Filipino food and miscellaneous dollar-store-like items.  Within its dusty shelves, the best selling, of course, are the cheap phone cards.

Moving down Joyce, there is a sign of hope as five businesses in a row are Filipino, though all equally appear low-budget and unpopular. One of them, the Goto King, with its hybrid Chinese/Filipino menu, is more populated with clients that feast on bowls of mami, a Filipino version of Chinese congee.

Kay Market, a Filipino grocery store, advertises Western Union under its sign, which is an ideal sponsor because Filipinos are known for sending half of their pay cheques home.  A lot of the produce look like they should have been thrown out a week ago, but the beat up tomatoes and spongy radishes still sell, so long as those hard-to-find, Asian long beans, known as sitaw are still shelved.

One of the workers complained of the cold while he was arranging the vegetables.  Having moved here two years ago, he still has not gotten used to it, he said.

He cheerfully chatted with practically everyone who walked in.  But he was not doing so as a formidable vendor, but as a fellowman trying to make a personable relationship with people who likely aren’t used to the cold as much as he isn’t.