News

Vancouver's 'Brand': Ski Bums or Green Brainiacs?

Page 2 of 2

Text size:

Rate this:

Login/Register

Related

"Overall, we're an exciting destination," Underwood says. "Vancouver's not just about things like the 2010 Games."

Down to the green wire

I arrive at city hall sweaty and out of breath, gasping after my steep bike ascent up Cambie Street. A milky grey sky lends drama to the hulking mountains in the distance, all the more striking from my hill-side vantage point. I'm here to meet Michael Magee, chief of staff to Mayor Gregor Robertson, and one of the creative minds behind a bold attempt to re-imagine Vancouver -- a mere six months before the Olympics.

"The city has never really branded itself," Magee tells me, as we settle into his corner office. "It doesn't really have a narrative or a story."

That could all change in the coming months. There's still some tweaking here and there, some lingering details, but Vancouver is close to launching a focussed, green persona. The goal is to cast the city as a global environmental leader. Draw green-minded companies. Sell the world on B.C.-style sustainability.

This all sounds great, I tell Magee, but why wait until so close to the Olympics, when the city's had years to contemplate its winning 2003 bid? Civic branding here has never been a real priority, he suggests. It's a job officials have largely left to the private sector.

Now, though, with climate change top of mind, Vancouver wants to capitalize on the global spotlight afforded by Games. That plan took a small hit when the feds cancelled the Forbes CEO Forum in Victoria, scheduled right before the Olympics.

But Magee's confident there's still plenty of chances to entice foreign investment.

After all, Vancouver offers much lower corporate taxes than places such as California. And the city's sheer livability, which is consistently ranked among the top in the world, is draw enough of its own.

"We've got a tremendous opportunity to bring a lot of business here," Magee says.

What are they smoking?

Last May, New York-based Bloomberg news agency posed this question to 2010 Games organizers: "Is it an Olympic torch, or a big fat joint?" The wire service barely suppressed giggles as it reported on the torch design unveiled by Canada's "marijuana capital," a whitish stick bulging in the middle with a flame burning at one end.

The design team had hoped to evoke skis slicing through powdery snow. Surely, any stoner likeness was coincidence. While the disparity made good comedic fodder, it was also symbolic of a larger disconnect -- Vancouver's own ideas of itself are not necessarily shared by the world.

A recent Angus Reid survey asked North Americans to describe B.C. Predictably, the Pacific coast province evoked the Olympics, great vacations and good weather for most respondents, British Columbians included.

More interesting, it also pointed to big gaps between local, national and international perceptions.

A majority of B.C. participants saw their province as an environmental leader and innovator of cutting-edge technology. Only 41 per cent of Canadians could vouch for B.C's green credentials. And a mere 28 per cent thought the techie label applied.

Meanwhile, less than a third of Americans surveyed identified B.C. as "Hollywood North," though Vancouver is the third largest film centre on the continent.

'Great story to tell'

"We've got a great story to tell here in British Columbia," Angus Reid research director Hamish Marshall says when I phone him about the results. "But perhaps we're not telling that story as well as we would like."

Do the Olympics offer a chance for renewal, I ask. Can a two week mega-event help Vancouver shape an identity worthy of such a pretty face?

"Absolutely," Marshall replies. "But people are focussing on the vacation destination. If the Games reinforce that I don't think we'll have seized all the opportunities they've presented us." [Tyee]

Geoff Dembicki reports on the Olympics for The Tyee.

33 Comments:

Login or register to post comments

  • wayfarer

    2 years ago

    Vancouver's brand?

    "Now, though, with climate change top of mind, Vancouver wants to capitalize on the global spotlight afforded by Games...."

    This all sounds like an untapped opportunity/exercise in greenwashing public relations, with the aim of a few people making a huge ton of hard, cold cash.

    Firstly, why is creating a 'brand' or 'telling a story' or 'shaping of identity' such a concern? And for whom is it a concern, other than the politicians? The homeless, working poor and addicted demographic, who are sure to be given one way tickets to Kamloops or Calgary just prior to the Games?

    Is this re-branding of BC really about bringing in more tourists? Vancouver needs no new brand on this score. Global tourism journals and magazines routinely rank the city at the top, while other polls rank us as 'most livable' place in the world. Insane real estate prices (which barely fluctuate during recessions) are proof enough of this. One of the reasons this "third rate" city is so appealing to outsiders is because of its relative lack of Disneyfication (and yes, it's sheer natural beauty, too). Thus, if the argument for the Olympics is that its a great advertisement - we don't need it. BC sells itself, thanks very much.

    Is the Olympic opportunity really about setting a green example for the rest of the world in these climate change and peak oil times? To show off our 100 mile diet, our new Burrard Bridge bike lane and the mythical Hydrogen Highway? Don't make me laugh.

    All this nonsense about brand and identity is corporate speak for capitalizing on windfall profit potential, that almost every other modern Olympic host city has shown benefits a minute minority of multi-national developers (most of whom will be offshore, and most of whom will take the cash and run), much less give a rat's ass about climate change and the pressing emergencies of our time.

  • snert

    2 years ago

    Sanity

    "Assuming cities do indeed jostle for positions on a global ladder, Vancouver has a ways to climb, Berelowitz argues. No one disputes that urban centres such as Paris, New York or Tokyo occupy the top echelon of the global imagination. They're truly iconic, unrivalled in influence, de-facto capitals of an ever-shrinking world."

    Just who, in their right mind, would want to live in any of these cities, maybe 10 or 12 people in Vancouver?

  • Urbanismo

    2 years ago

    Huh! World class oh not again!

    Picture this: early 1951.

    A young member of the Scarborough Rugby Union Football Club! After the game and the communal tub were, habitually, at the bar and I announce I'm off to live in Vancouver . . .

    Woweeey! Ooooooh how marvellous, how wonderful. Then out pours many tales of service men on big troop ships entering the Harbour under Lions Gate bridge . . . I'm eclipsed, of course, and the conversation turns to Vancouver.

    And over half a century later all the, "world class", "paradise", "veiws" coludn't beat that sincerity even after billions spent of bull shit and Lance's ridiculous hagiographic wot's-it-called.

    We should ease off on the paid prpoaganda and look ourselves in the face . . . Ojala

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    Super Greenwash BC and Vancouver!

    A veil of green, but no different than most cities 'green' wassh!

  • wetdenimdaydream

    2 years ago

    Did I seriously just read this article on the Tyee??

    Why does Vancouver need or want to be Paris or New York? What do we gain from that? Some help for our perpetually Canadian sense of inferiority?

    What don't we quit frickin worrying about what the world thinks of us and focus on actually building interesting and vibrant communities. Not for the benefit of the rest of the world but for the benefit of people who actually live here. I guarantee Paris and New York did not become what they are today by consciously thinking about how to 'brand' themselves.

    Honestly, Tyee, who edited this garbage?

  • dorothy

    2 years ago

    Don't worry..

    We who work this city, who make it our home, who go with it thorugh thick and thin year-round, year after year - we know who we are. Not 'what we could market', which is pretty irrelevant to us, as we are already sold on this city, but who we are and what we do.

    The flim-flammers can come and do their thing. They can make their moves and move their money and money their fantasies. They will leave someday, and new flimmers will rush in, etc., etc., etc.

    The city will endure. The real city, which these people will never take the time to know.

    'branding' be damned. Who do these people think they are??

  • Dan the socialist

    2 years ago

    Vancouver thinks it is a

    Vancouver thinks it is a world class city but it is not.

  • Zephyrus

    2 years ago

    Timely and much Needed...

    Berelowitz is right. In order for Vancouver to continue to have employment opportunities in new industries, whatever the future brings. Vancouver has to build on film production, video-animation (not just for games but for training, etc.), health and sciences, etc.

    Business activity and employment is what pays for a vibrant society. Improving and nurturing this, with branding would be a good idea, is all the more needed in Vancouver since not only it is so far from the nation's capital and centre of financial activity but traditional industries are waning. There will always be a small cadré of naysayers that think they would be better off in a small town.

    The Eiffel Tower was absolutely a defining and branding icon for Paris when it was built in 1889. At that time the average height of large buildings was about 100', the Tower came in at 1,000'. More than 200,000,000 people have visited the tower since its construction in 1889, including 6,719,200 in 2006, making it the most visited paid monument in the world.

    New Yorks's Statue of Liberty is also clearly defining. The classical appearance derives from Libertas, ancient Rome's goddess of freedom from slavery, oppression, and tyranny. How's that for branding!

  • lary waldman

    2 years ago

    how can you understand them ?

    .Officials at Tourism Vancouver, BC, whatever are to busy stuffing their mouths with canapés, paid for by people in Revelstoke, for their message to be intelligible. When they stop stuffing their faces and pockets, maybe, just maybe, they will have something coherent to say.

    Lary Waldman

  • lynn

    2 years ago

    "when they stop stuffing their faces and pockets"....

    Delicious comment, lary Waldman.

    Absolutely the best....loved it.

  • inwonderment

    2 years ago

    World Class

    An underlining and fascinating aspect of this article is how the author (he is not the first) writes about the City of Vancouver. It is if the City of Vancouver and its approximate 600,000 residents seem to have come completely unhinged from the rest of the metropolitan region and the province as a whole. It is as if what happens in Vancouver is completely unrelated to the forces that are shaping the rest of this metropolitan region and the province. It would make an interesting political science and social psychology piece to exam the political and social relationships between Vancouver and the rest of the province since we moved into the era when Vancouver politicians have controlled the Provincial agenda.

    On the note about Expo 86 being Vancouver’s coming out event I think a compelling argument could be made that the Alaska cruise business had more of an impact on tourism in Vancouver and BC than Expo 86, which is long forgotten in most peoples minds. In fact others have made this argument.

    As a resident of the province I am tiring of having to listen to Vancouverites as they search for affirmation of their great city and I am growing weary of paying taxes to provide the residents of Vancouver with cultural and economic institutions that supposedly make a great city while conditions in the rest of the region and province deteriorate at what may be described at an alarming rate.

  • G West

    2 years ago

    Nope

    Business activity has nothing whatever to do with a city being a vibrant and livable place. The example of Tour Eiffel indicates only that you don't know anything about the history of Paris either. Although you clearly do know how to use Wikipedia.

    Once again, back to the drawing board and please remember that the Statue of Liberty was given to the US by France…As for the idea that it defines anything whatever about modern America or New York City, I suggest you take those ‘principles’up with an illegal Mexican farm worker in California or an illegal Colombian scullery maid in the Bronx.

    Branding is not what Vancouver needs - in fact, it's already branded as a failure as a humane place to live for any but a small elite. They're the small cadre - sadly, too many of them seem to have found their level of incompetence with the tourist board and the chamber of commerce.

  • Zephyrus

    2 years ago

    Some people are quite content with the local A & W.

    "As is the case with many major architectural projects that today constitute part of France’s cultural heritage, the Tower has suffered the slings and arrows of detractors. Protest well predates the construction of such controversial structures as the Pompidou Center and the Louvre Pyramid. But time alone always proves the final judge – and in the case of the Eiffel Tower, the verdict has already been rendered. ... A number of persons did
    later change their views and make amends. Sully Prudhomme, for example, expressed his
    admiration as early as 1889. Coppée waxed lyrical on the subject, and the Tower inspired
    Gounod to write a little “concerto in the clouds”."

    Branding is exactly what Vancouver needs. In the absence of the City defining itself it becomes branded by international study groups and travel writers.

  • Chris Keam

    2 years ago

    some suggestions

    I've always had an interest in branding, so here's my contributions

    Gore-Texas

    Metro-Pot-olis

    taglines:
    Sliding Downhill Fast Since 2010
    We put the Gangsta in Ganja

    I could go on but clearly the Tylenol 3s are kicking in.

  • VivianLea Doubt

    2 years ago

    essence of a brand...

    I think it is worthwhile quoting the VP of advertising for American Express (yep, that biiig company): "Service brands are not created solely in advertising. In fact, much of a brand's equity stems from the direct customer experiences with the brand". Note also the multi-year, multi-organization study called the Profit Impact of Marketing Strategy which found that quality of experience, not advertising, is what increases market share. When Tourism Vancouver talks about "safe, exciting, and welcoming; liberal-minded; superior value" (?) they are talking about marketing the kinds of experiences visitors will have...Naturally, it is the actual experience that visitors have, in contrast to marketing 'promises', that determine their length of stay, how much they spend, whether they will come back...and most importantly, what they will tell their friends and colleagues.
    All of which begs the question, why not put those advertising budgets into helping make the city a place where these experiences are true?

    Vancouver is without doubt a beautiful place, but - to name just a few - the downtown Eastside, the ugly commutes,the gangsters, and the costs of staying and playing in the city are significant detractions. The world's smartest marketers have found out the truth about hype...but not here in "The Best Place on Earth." Do you think anybody will believe it? Experience it?

  • dorothy

    2 years ago

    The IDEA...

    "..why not put those advertising budgets into helping make the city a place where these experiences are true?"

    Obvious, my dear Watson: it could create a dangerous precedent. It might begin to break down the careful conditioning, the one that makes people not really ever expect the real thang, but just consider themselves lucky, when the ripoffs are not compleytely devastating. Like the young couple who bought a carpet steam-cleaner in front of me the other day, and who, wide-eyed and innocent, listened to how the thing was only guaranteed for a year, but if they bought the warranty extension, they could get a new one after the two years it was probably going to hold out, rather than having to buy a new one after the four to five years it sure to break down irreparably...I waited to hear one of them ask: where can I buy one that's not a piece of crap with built-in obsolescence, but which will actually keep running for a decenty number of years?

    I did not hear that. And that is why we don't start now delivering the real thang, for it could start a snowball rolling, the consequnces of which could, some time in future (OMIGAWD!) cut into the PROFIT we make on selling people phony stuff and castles in the air.

  • Fish-counter

    2 years ago

    The Games have not yet begun....

    With a classic El Nino building up in the Northeast Pacific, let's see whether there is snow next February before we start bragging.

    By the way, the "Toque Torch" looks good to me. Was it designed by Ross Rebagliato?

    In all seriousness, my concern is for John Furlong. What is his fate when the games are done? Will he be promoted to John Quarter Mile?

  • G West

    2 years ago

    Excellent points VivianLea

    Brands, as Tourism Vancouver sees them, are little more than purpose statements...a few aphoristic phrases printed on cheap vellum, framed and hung in a prominent place in a 'banking hall'.

    They 'enhance' the experience of the bank's clients not at all and provide - for the employees of the bank - a momentary 'frisson' when each of them realizes (slowly or quickly as the case may be) how far from 'reality' the mottos and 'statements of purpose' actually are.

  • mjscox

    2 years ago

    our brand is bland

    Bland may not be such a bad thing: think of the so-called ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Bland means safe. Bland means non-challenging. Bland means--well, why am I calling Vancouver's brand "bland?"

    Take a look at the north shore of False Creek, that uni-tecture of green glass and pretty well identical towers (with the exception of the Erickson); take a look at downtown: where's the focus? Surely not on the edges, at the new trade and convention centre? But as someone (Douglas Coupland?) once said, Vancouver is a "centrifugal city" with our focus outward on the scenery. There is no city centre, no large public space, no focal point.

    Bland is diesel buses instead of modern streetcars; bland is the Vancouver Sun and Province; bland is local television. Yep, bland is what we are. It's not all bad, its just...kinda boring.

  • KevinC

    2 years ago

    Make do?

    One thing is certain: regardless of one's opinion about whether or not it was a good idea in the first place, the Olympics are going ahead, and the world will be watching. It has already started happening; I recently read a Vancouver preview online in an Austrian newspaper. Hint: It contained no shortage of sea-to-sky stereotypes.

    Since the games are a done deal, does it not make sense to try to realise some benefits, however meagre, to offset the incurred costs? And I do believe that raising Vancouver's profile would ultimately be a benefit for BC as a whole. The city would obviously be the main beneficiary of any increased attention and/or image enhancement, but since Vancouver is the defacto gateway to the province for most of the world other than land traffic from Alberta or Washington/Idaho, if visitors aren't even inspired to at least make the trip to Vancouver, then there is practically zero chance that they will get any further and discover what else BC has to offer.

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    Vancouver Brand is 'Veiled"

    Hide the homeless; the mentally ill; and hide the fact that we aren't actually green at all!

  • fishtron

    2 years ago

    Too little too late

    While this is a worthwhile endeavour, I think it needs much more than a 6-month ad campaign. Contrary to "wetdenimdaydream" above who said: "Paris and New York did not become what they are today by consciously thinking about how to 'brand' themselves," they probably actually did:

    UK Design Council:
    http://www.designcouncil.org.uk
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Council

    German Design Council:
    http://www.german-design-council.de/index.php?id=678

    Japan Design Foundation:
    http://www.dexigner.com/jump/news/16760

    However, this six-month effort falls far short of anything needed to re-brand a whole city; as others have noted, it will be not much more than shallow green-washing that even children will see through. It takes years for good design to take hold, especially in the environment, since, well, it take time to design and build houses and roads and so on. With this short-sighted mentality, Vancouver (and indeed BC) will forever remain third-rate, no matter the resources we have at our disposal.

    Arieff recently wrote an article in the NYTimes on where "design meets policy" (http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/designs-on-policy/). There's some cute fluff about redesigning currency at the top, but the salient point is that while good design does not prevent all problems, it often mitigates a lot of it. While I'm not of the radical position that everything should be redesigned right now, perhaps more thought should be put into the design of something new. If "long sightedness" and good sense should be instilled in our children, we had better first instil it in the environment!

  • DavidN

    2 years ago

    MJScox and Chris

    How about Cocacouver? Ganjopolis?

    MJSCOX nailed it. It is a poor example of green, it just is. Technologically backward, a sprawling dull city in a beautiful place with a false sense of self. Try getting around town on a bicycle and then try branding the city as green. It sucks unless you can pay for parking your luxmobile.
    If it wasn't for half of Hong Kong coming to town (forget expo) and the simple easy dull safe reality there would still be about 4 good restaurants in the city. People come here to chill. Chillcouver? Branding is marketing which is not about truth per se. If you want awesome live in Berlin, but rest and excersize in Vancouver.
    Dullsville? Phonybaloneytown? Wannabestadt? Sprawlopia?
    I love Vancouver, just the way it isn't. Why lie to the world? Here is a tag line Chris:
    "Notice us...please..."

  • G West

    2 years ago

    Personally NO

    I hope the world stays the hell away and Campbell chokes on the dry sour taste of a multi-year deficit as it rises in his gorge.

    There have been too many 'benefits' already for the Gordon Campbells and the Jack Pooles and the Peter Browns, the John deC Evanss, the big union bosses and the rest...what the city needs more of is 'real' progress for real people and not the phony ersatz kind that touches nothing but facile elitists.

    Bring on a five-ring bust...and build something positive when we finally learn from our mistakes. Olympic success won't mean a thing for the poor, working and otherwise, the disabled and the disadvantaged, the under housed or the homeless.

    Maybe an Olympic bust will help the world realize what a crock of shit the whole phony exercise has become to boot.

  • Moat

    2 years ago

    Deserving of a Brand?

    Whenever I think about Vancouver’s "brand", I often wonder how the city would stand on its own, without the locational factors such as the mountains and ocean. What if Vancouver was situated in an area with relatively flat geography with a slightly less favorable climate? Or not have the wind push the smog blanket east of the city? Would our architectural and cultural institutions be enough to make the city considered as livable as it is today?

    Yes, we have people who have created and maintained the Grouse Grind, built ski trails on three local hills, and advocated for walkways. But at the same time, development creeps up the mountain sides, and the urban forest canopy is being replaced by those who pave over their backyards for multicar driveways or those who want to display to love for the lawn. Walking through a city such as Portland, you can see how much one city values its urban tree cover. In Vancouver, we continually remove our urban green from neighborhoods. Some companies are now planting trees in near freeway entrances/exits, but we should have been doing that long ago. There are other exceptions, such as Hastings Park, but when you look at the GVRD as a whole, it is enough to make one cringe.

    The building height restrictions have created a glass fence rather than a skyline, as we put limits on the creativity of our architects and encourage developers to go maximize the square footage.

    Maybe we could have brand ourselves with these slogans…

    “Vancouver – Naturally borrowing from the Future” or
    “Vancouver – Naturally boring by Nature” or “A View for a Select Few – Vancouver”

    Hey, I love this city/region… but we are not cultivating and are using up what is lovable about it at a quick rate. There lantern festival was good and downtown is alive (compared to other North American cities) at night. Jogging in the city is good too! And the food!

    Still, let’s not kid ourselves as to our level of greenness or sustainability, and our brand.

  • DavidN

    2 years ago

    Cocacouver

    How about more slogans:
    "Better than Prince George, by quite a bit!"
    or
    "You thought Port Alberni was cool!"
    or
    "Tired of Berlin and Paris? Try cycling to work here!"
    how about
    "Best place to get the munchies on planet Earth....except Amsterdam of course. Or Berlin. Don't forget Bangkok.Oh yeah, Prague...wow"

  • Chris Keam

    2 years ago

    A rose by another name

    " What if Vancouver was situated in an area with relatively flat geography with a slightly less favorable climate?"

    We'd call it Edmonton

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    Although...

    The NDP initiated the bid for the Olympics and the The Liberals, as well as the NPA, COPE and now Vision Vancouver, have all been enthusiastic and supportive, there are people that hope for a bust. People that don't want the thousands of spin-off benefits for thousands of British Columbians.

    Does anyone seriously belive that it would be good to lose all those advantages and all those benefits and jobs and go into debt,just so one man, the hated by some Premier, is dissapointed?

    quoted above:
    "I hope the world stays the hell away and Campbell chokes on the dry sour taste of a multi-year deficit as it rises in his gorge...."

  • G West

    2 years ago

    IF it were only the Premier

    The fact is that the whole province is going into debt for the benefit of that premier's ego and the profit of his small cirle of friends.

    We're going to have the deficit anyway - and Campbell is going to have his little party - there would be some justice however if the people who are going to lose their jobs, the families who are going to lose their homes, the small businesses who are going to go bankrupt and the working poor and the disabled who are going to find themselves out on the streets were not the ones to do do the suffering.

    '
    However, when a rather lengthy statement is reduced to a sound bite, that's what happens.

    Easily remedied though, because the rest of that comment can be readily added back to give the reader the benefit of understanding the WHOLE QUOTE...
    There have been too many 'benefits' already for the Gordon Campbells and the Jack Pooles and the Peter Browns, the John deC Evanss, the big union bosses and the rest...what the city needs more of is 'real' progress for real people and not the phony ersatz kind that touches nothing but facile elitists.

    Bring on a five-ring bust...and build something positive when we finally learn from our mistakes. Olympic success won't mean a thing for the poor, working and otherwise, the disabled and the disadvantaged, the under housed or the homeless.

    Maybe an Olympic bust will help the world realize what a crock of shit the whole phony exercise has become to boot.

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    G West

    "facile elitists..."

    Wow. I just read a story on Jack Poole. You should read it too.

    http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/bcb/top-stories/2009/07/02/never-say-quit

    He's doing all this for British Columbia at the age of 76 for one dollar. Do you have any idea of this man's background and his struggles from his simple roots in Saskatchewan and the struggles he's overcome?

    Do you honestly imagine that this man is doing anything other than give?

    I don't think this type of language is appropriate but you wrote it - don't you know that the whole world realizes 'what a crock of shit' your opinion is?

    No matter who you voted for, that party at one time supported or supports a successful Olympics.

    Fortunately, we live in a democracy and the anger of a tiny minority cannot upset the desires of a substantial majority.

  • G West

    2 years ago

    Unfortunately

    We do not live in a functional democracy. Less than half our citizens vote for one reason or another and that “substantial majority” Campbell’s apologists talk about is actually a pretty tiny plurality. The same would be true if the NDP had managed to garner a few thousand votes more and turfed him out on May 12. We also do not have a functional opposition – except among the actual people who try, in their daily lives, to hold all of these imposters to the idea of ‘public service’ to account.

    The Olympics, as presently constituted are, in my opinion and in that of a whole lot of other people all around the world, little more than a crock of shit. The fact the elitist paramours of big business promote them as something other than a fascist exhibition is hardly surprising.

    Olympic athletes are not amateurs, many (if not most) of them use whatever unfair and or foul means to succeed that they can access and they are rewarded handsomely for their larceny as long as they bring home some brass.

    As for Jack Poole and the others I mentioned, they do what they do, as one dollar Jimmy Pattison did during the last orgiastic public spectacle to darken the landscape here in British Columbia, not for the good and or enrichment of anyone except themselves.

    He should have said 'quit' some time ago...the fact that the bought and paid for folks who write for BC Business magazine think he's a saint notwithstanding.

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    "...bought and paid for

    "...bought and paid for folks who write for BC Business magazine..."

    You refer to an article by Gary Mason, the guy that exposed the Vancouver city obligation regarding the Olympic Village, that caused a major rupture in the last Vancouver civic election and probably led to Gregor Robertson being elected. Now, there's another guy that's looking for a Vancouver Brand; crunchy, greenie, bykie, sustainableie, earth-motherie, Birkenstockie, woolie, Happy Planetie. I look forward to the taxpayer funded composting toilets on every street corner. Groovy.

  • reality_check

    2 years ago

    Developers thank you, if you voted for the big O!

    Just like Expo! Although, I must say that the value of my place will probably be raised, which is good because I intent to sell it and move out! :)

    • The discussion for this story is closed. No more comments can be added.