BEST OF VANCOUVER
Artist Jocelyn Wong painted this mural in Vancouver’s Marpole neighbourhood to send a message of love in an era dogged by global turmoil and all-around craziness. Photo by Vancouver Mural Festival.
The 25th annual Best of Vancouver marks a milestone for the Straight by Steve Newton, Charlie Smith, Craig Takeuchi, and Mike Usinger
B
ack in 1996, when the Georgia Straight produced its first Best of Vancouver issue, we never imagined that we would still be doing this 25 years later. But that first issue was such a success that it’s become an annual tradition. Regular readers know the drill. The public votes for its favourites, which are listed in the boxes throughout the issue. We congratulate all those who cracked the top three. And the writers have fun dishing up their bests in categories that weren’t in the online ballot, which was on Straight.com from late September to late October. Enjoy!
POLITICS BEST MACHIAVELLIAN MOVE OF THE YEAR
Snap election John Horgan’s decision to call a snap election in the midst of a pandemic was widely condemned as an assault on democracy. It violated the tradition of fixed election dates in this
BEST INDICATION THAT THE B.C. LIBERALS NEED TO CLEAN HOUSE
province and an agreement between the B.C. Green and NDP caucuses not to go to the polls until next year. Horgan also exploited the goodwill shown by the B.C. Liberals and B.C. Greens in supporting the provincial response to the pandemic. But this sneaky trick worked wonders for the premier, delivering the largest NDP majority in B.C. history. That’s because his opponents were so ill-prepared for the campaign. And their claims that Horgan was a scoundrel didn’t resonate with the voters on election day. BEST IMPERSONATION OF AN EARLY 20TH-CENTURY POLITICAL PARTY
B.C. Liberals Someone needed to tell the B.C. Liberals that the recent election campaign was taking place in 2020, not 1920. That’s because the party led by Andrew Wilkinson didn’t nominate a single woman in any of Vancouver’s 11 constituencies. Unbelievable but true. Under Wilkinson’s leadership, the party also nominated only one woman in all of the nine Surrey constituencies. This came more than 102 years after women obtained the right to vote in Canada. Jeepers creepers, as they used to say almost a century ago.
It wasn’t the defeat of a former Vancouver mayor, Sam Sullivan, in Vancouver–False Creek. Nor was it the downfall of another long-time B.C. Liberal, Jane Thornthwaite, in North Vancouver–Seymour. No, the biggest political upset in Vancouver and its inner suburbs in the past provincial election came in the former B.C. Liberal fortress of Richmond. That’s where the NDP captured three—count ’em, three—of the city’s four seats, marking the first NDP victories in this city since 1972. BEST PLACE TO LEARN ABOUT COUNCILLORS’ EXPENSES
City of Vancouver Open Data Portal Here you’ll find out which councillors charged taxpayers for Toronto Star subscriptions (Melissa De Genova and Pete Fry), who attended the Leadership Prayer Breakfast on the taxpayers’ dime (De Genova and Lisa Dominato), who submitted expense forms for Remembrance Day wreaths (Adriane Carr, Sarah Kirby-Yung, and Jean Swanson), who is getting the public to pay for their Compass card (Swanson) and their Zoom account (Christine Boyle), and who charged the city to participate in the Canucks Autism Network Pro-Am Hockey Tournament (Michael Wiebe). It’s all on display at https://opendata.vancouver.ca/explore/dataset/councilbudget-and-expenses/table/?sort=year.
NOVEMBER 19 – 26 / 2020
see next page
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
9
