Posts from — February 2010

Westergard-Thorpe, wearing National Lawyer's Guild hat, exercising right to assembly at Victory Square Friday morning.

Of the many commitments made during the Olympic Games bid process, one of the most important was a pledge to uphold civil liberties.

Confirmation that commitment is being upheld came yesterday from Alissa Westergard-Thorpe, one of the bid’s harshest critics and a regular at confrontational protests.

The first disruption to the Olympic Torch Relay in Vancouver came Friday morning at Victory Square, where demonstrators under Westergard-Thorpe’s general direction blocked Hastings St., forcing the relay to detour away from waiting veterans.

(Earnest “legal observers” trained by the BC Civil Liberties Association stood nearby in green t-shirts and caps, holding clip boards and video cameras.)

Not content with that level of resistance, others later rolled barbed wire across Venables, forcing another detour away from Commercial Drive and heartbroken school children waiting for the flame.

A larger afternoon convergence at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which drew about 1,500, was more festive, but the subsequent march to BC Place Stadium was ultimately stopped by a line of police.

Despite some pushing and shoving and two arrests — one released at the scene, a second charged with assault police — Westergard-Thorpe declared that “We’re happy that so far we’ve been allowed to exercise our rights to expression and assembly.” [Read more →]

Harbhajan Mann and the Quantum Bhangra Feb. 27 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre promises a hot Punjabi ending to a Cultural Olympiad that began with the cool Taiwan dance classic Moon Water.

While not the first event of the Cultural Olympiad, Moon Water by Taiwan’s Cloud Garden dance company Feb. 5 was an extraordinary evening, not least because of the quiet pool of water that literally flooded the stage as the hypnotic performance unfolded.

Cultural Olympiad director Robert Kerr said the near sellout crowd at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre made it perhaps the largest-ever single audience for modern dance in the city.

If so, it is a tribute to the Taiwanese company and its community supporters, but also a sign of the transformation the cultural program may be working on Vancouver audiences.

For a few weeks, Vancouver will host a series of world-class events normally available only global cultural capitals.

An example, in complete contrast to the cool yet intense Moon Water, is Quantum Bhangra with Harbhajan Mann, an evening of the world’s top bhangra performers on one stage, that will close out the Games program. It is as big a gift to the city from India as Cloud Gate was from Taiwan. At the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Feb. 27, 7 p.m.

The Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts: part of Vancouver's future or relics of a project the city rejected?

In honour of the today’s shutdown of the Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts, for the first time since their construction in 1971, I have created this small archive of background information and history on the lower mainland’s shortest freeway.

More contributions are welcome.

The most recent reorganization of Translink, triggered in 2007 by former Highways Minister Kevin Falcon, arguably cost the system $150 million.

That’s how much of its accumulated surplus Translink burned through waiting for the new governance model to gather steam and produce new sources of revenue, which it finally did last September.

That’s when the Translink Mayor’s Council finally approved a package of revenue measures worth $130 million annually to cover costs without increasing service. Today, the Mayor’s Council heard Translink Commissioner outline his reasons why he has signed off on the fare increase portion of the new plan, as he must by law.

However, Crilly declined to approve Translink’s applications for fare increases for 10 years, limiting the current decision to three years.

Of 270 submissions on the fare increase, almost none were in favour.

The main news at today’s meeting: Translink will not be proceeding with another supplement application to increase revenue and service until next year at the earliest, ensuring at least another year of drift at the corporation while Victoria considers yet another legislative intervention.