Vancouver Courier January 9 2015 by Vancouver Courier

OPINION 10

FRIDAY

January 9 2015

Garr on Taxpayers Federation

Vol. 106 No. 02

PACIFIC SPIRIT 12

Call of the wild THEATRE 19

Falling for Beckett There’s more online at

vancourier.com WEEKEND EDITION

THE VOICE of VANCOUVER NEIGHBOURHOODS since 1908

Province backs transit plan Transportation minister supports plebiscite’s yes side

Mike Howell

mhowell@vancourier.com

Transportation Minister Todd Stone has given the yes side a boost in the upcoming transportation plebiscite by announcing that the provincial government supports a 0.5 per cent hike to the provincial sales tax to help pay for a $7.5-billion plan that includes a subway along the Broadway corridor. In a written statement provided Tuesday to the Courier, Stone said “We support a yes vote in the spring 2015 plebiscite but the voters of Metro Vancouver will have the ﬁnal say — this is the

commitment we made to them in the last provincial election campaign.” Stone earlier stated the government would remain neutral and not take sides in the emerging debate about asking Metro Vancouver residents to support a tax hike to help pay for a 10-year transit plan devised by the region’s mayors. “The provincial government believes the mayors’ council has put forward a vision for expanded regional transportation that people can get behind,” he said in his statement. “We agree that a sales-based tax, dedicated to vital congestion improvement projects, is the most equitable funding option available.” The province will pay for the cost of the plebiscite, estimated to be $5 million, but Stone said mayors and various organizations

mobilizing on either side will be responsible for funding their individual campaigns. Stone’s support for the yes lobby comes as NPA Coun. George Affleck will ask fellow councillors at a Jan. 20 council meeting to promote a positive vote in the plebiscite, which begins March 16 via a mail-in ballot. Affleck’s motion asks city staff to suggest initiatives the city could undertake to ensure the success of the plebiscite. Affleck wouldn’t speculate on costs related to such a campaign, saying that will be part of staff’s report back to council. Affleck’s motion is expected to get the support of Mayor Gregor Robertson and his ruling Vision Vancouver council, who are on record in supporting a yes vote. Green Party Coun. Adriane Carr was not available for comment this week.

“We need to fight for what we think is right for the region,” Affleck said. “It’s going to be a tough battle and I think it’s important that Vancouver take a leadership role on this for the yes side. It’s important for the long term prosperity of the city.” Jordan Bateman, spokesman for the No TransLink Tax group that is battling the yes side, said he wished Stone would have stayed neutral in the plebiscite debate. But, Bateman said, he didn’t think Stone’s position would sway undecided voters. “I’m not sure there were many people in the Lower Mainland waiting with baited breath to see which side the transportation minister landed on,” said Bateman, adding that he wouldn’t be surprised if Vancouver council unanimously supports Affleck’s motion. Continued on page 4

Heritage hopes shaky

General Gordon school demolished for new building Cheryl Rossi

crossi@vancourier.com

A wall crumbled into surging dust at General Gordon elementary in Kitsilano Tuesday. The more than century-old school is to be completely ﬂattened as early as Friday to pave the way for a replacement school that could better withstand an earthquake. “There was a large clamour before my time to save the building, and the way that it came down was real evidence of why it was such a seismic hazard,” said Jay Hiscox, project manager in planning and facilities for the Vancouver School Board. “You try to avoid the building pancaking in on itself and that’s how they’re demolishing it. They’re triggering a catastrophic failure.” Continued on page 6

TEAM SPIRIT Co-workers Sadie Henschel (left) and Louise Kelaher will run with a team to complete a 42.2 kilometre marathon in May. For the first year, the BMO Vancouver Marathon will allow relay teams of two, three and four runners. See story on Page 23. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

DYSLEXIA DIDN’T STOP ALBERT. We don’t let dyslexia or language-related learning disabilities affect our students, either. They learn differently, and we offer them an education in a setting where they can thrive. See for yourself at the Fraser Academy Open House: Thursday, Feb. 5, 9:30-11:15am. For more info or to RSVP, visit www.fraseracademy.ca or call 604 736 5575. © Estate of Yousuf Karsh

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News

City hall doesn’t smell a rat 12TH&CAMBIE Mike Howell

mhowell@vancourier.com

Apparently, the city has a rat problem. Apparently, the city doesn’t have a rat problem. Apparently, I’m confused. That was my reaction after leaving the last council meeting I covered in 2014. I was in council chambers when all the talk was about rats and how they had apparently increased their numbers in the city. At least that’s what NPA Coun. Elizabeth Ball was hearing from citizens. So was her NPA colleague George Afﬂeck. Both of them suggested the city’s ﬂedgling green waste bin program and scaled-back garbage pick-up had something to do with a sudden bump in the rat population.

So the two councillors proposed weekly garbage pick-up be resumed and food scraps be picked up twice per week in the summer. Then they found out it was going to cost millions of dollars, that more trucks would be needed and that rats weren’t the problem they seem to be, according to senior staff. “There are some local issues that come along from time to time but overall, across the city, we’ve seen no signiﬁcant increase in the frequency of rats,” city manager Penny Ballem told council. During the debate, Ballem made a reference to a memo that general manager of engineering services Peter Judd circulated in October regarding rats. I obtained a copy of the memo and here are some facts he presented: • Call volumes to 311 from people complaining

about rats average three per month. • The majority of calls, especially the repeat calls, come from areas where there are food establishments. • A review of the 311 call locations was cross-referenced with the implementation of the city’s green bin program and “there was no obvious correlation between the two.” • Vancouver Coastal Health, which investigates when rats are seen in commercial establishments or in and around their dumpsters, has not seen an increase in their call volume regarding the rodents. “They indicated there is no epidemic of rats in the City of Vancouver,” wrote Judd, adding that the city’s permits and licensing department also checked to see if building demolitions caused a surge in rats. The department found no correlation but Judd acknowledged that

If Vancouver does have a rat problem, the number of complaints to the city finking on the little rodents doesn’t show it. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

rats do scatter when a building is knocked down. To tackle that problem, Judd said a new bylaw drafted through the permits and licensing department calls for any building slated for demolition to have pest control conﬁrm it is rat free. Ball’s response to the memo: “I certainly don’t live in a neighbourhood of uncontrolled garbage

or too many composters, but we have seen a vast increase in rats. If I go out in my backyard, which is compost-less and is clean as a whistle, and all the fruit is picked up and I can see ﬁve rats within a day, I know there’s a problem in my neighbourhood. So I believe that people are telling me this because this is an issue.” But Vision Vancouver

Coun. Andrea Reimer said her research indicates there has been no increase in 311 calls related to rats at any point over the last ﬁve years. Which means two things: Either people aren’t calling to report rats or there’s no signiﬁcant rat problem. (Note: The Courier was unable to reach any rats for comment.) twitter.com/Howellings

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News No side preparing alternative

Continued from page 1 “They have one of the most expensive big ticket items in [the plan.]” Bateman, a member of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, was referring to the estimated $1.9 billion cost to build a 5.1-kilometre subway line from the Vancouver Community College-Clark SkyTrain station to Arbutus Street. The plan also calls for more B-line buses, more frequent bus, SeaBus and HandyDart service and investments in cycling and pedestrian infrastructure and road maintenance. Surrey is on track for a $2.1 billion light-rail transit project and a new-four lane Pattullo Bridge at $980 million is another big expense outlined in the plan. Bateman and the No coalition are expected to release next week an alternative plan to alleviate congestion that doesn’t rely on a tax increase. Former Conservative party insider Hamish Marshall, who has ties to controversial blog EthicalOil.org, will play a key role with the no lobby, according to an article in Business in Vancouver. (See Courier col-

Transportation Minister Todd Stone says his government will urge Metro Vancouver residents to vote yes in the spring plebiscite related to a 10-year transportation plan for the region. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET.

umnist Allen Garr’s column on page 10 for more insight). Iain Black, CEO of the Vancouver Board of Trade, has been campaigning for a yes vote as a spokesperson for the Better Transit and Transportation Coalition, which includes business, labour, environmental and community groups. Black, a former Liberal cabinet minister, welcomed Stone’s support and said it builds on the momentum of the coalition, which is

expected to formally launch its campaign at the end of the month. “This validates that this is not a partisan left versus right issue,” he said of the coalition. “It is not a political hot potato. It’s something that is just the right thing to do.” Added Black: “This is a unique opportunity to actually make sure that your tax dollars are going to something that you believe in as voiced through a yes vote.” twitter.com/Howellings

F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

News

t h e

WI N T E R s a l e

Out-of-catchment parents Robert Macdonell (L), Maggie Milne Martens and other parents want their children at Charles Dickens Annex to be permitted to attend the main school. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

Full school leaves Dickens kids in limbo Parents worried out-of-catchment students can’t graduate to main school

Cheryl Rossi

crossi@vancourier.com

Maggie Milne Martens enrolled her socially anxious eldest daughter in Dickens Annex after the family moved halfway through kindergarten. Milne Martens liked that children in Dickens Annex and Dickens elementary participate in multi-age learning with the same teacher for three years. “It’s very, very stable and secure,” she said. Milne Martens subsequently enrolled her younger son in the annex, which accommodates students in kindergarten to Grade 3. Now parents of approximately 40 out-ofcatchment students in grades 1 to 3 in Dickens Annex worry their kids won’t be able to move to the main school for Grade 4. Milne Martens said 18 of 36 students in Grade 3 at the annex are out-ofcatchment. Milne Martens’s family lives near the main Dickens school, outside the catchment boundaries. David Nelson, a Vancouver School Board director of instruction, says out-of-catchment students at the annex have always had to apply to attend the main school. But the main school has historically had lots of space.

But Dickens main school, for kindergarten to Grade 7 students, is projected to be at or over capacity next year and the school board accommodates in-catchment kids ﬁrst. The board doesn’t want to see in-catchment kindergarten kids bumped by out-of-catchment Grade 4 students. Out-of-catchment parents say their kids wouldn’t bump in-catchment kids. But Nelson notes there are only so many classrooms and the board must make sure the school accepts a sustainable number of students to move forward from grade to grade. After a stressful kindergarten experience at another school, Rob Macdonell moved his anxious son to Dickens Annex, which was much more “chill.” He subsequently enrolled his younger son there and the family moved closer to Dickens. They live one block outside of the catchment for Dickens main school. Milne Martens guesses eight of 10 out-ofcatchment families chose Dickens for its pedagogy that is unique in the city. Neither Macdonell nor Milne Martens want to see their children uprooted to a different school community. Macdonell says a couple of other families

with children at the annex were evicted from their rental homes in the catchment purportedly because of renovations. They were unable to ﬁnd new rentals 1606 West Second Avenue at Fir within the catchment and Armoury District, Vancouver now their children might Mon-Sat 10-5:30 604 736 5681 be ousted from their D I S T I N C T I V E D E S I G N S S I N C E 19 4 8 eastindiacarpets.com school community, too. Dickens parents of outof-catchment kids want their children grandfathered into the main school over the next three years. Dickens PAC executive RICHmember Christy Thomas VANCOUVER / NORTH SHORE / BURNABY / RICH MOND / DELTA / SURREY / WHITE ROCK / NEW WEST says she and other incatchment parents want MINSTER / COQUITLAM / MAPLE RIDGE / LANGLEY / VANCOUVER NORTH SHORE / BURNABY / RICHMOND to see their children’s out-of-catchment friends / DELTA / SURREY / WHITE ROCK / NEW WESTMIN STER / COQUITLAM / MAPLE RIDGE / LANGLEY / VAN accommodated, too. COUVER / NORTH SHORE / BURNABY / RICHMOND / The school board is DELTA / SURREY / WHITE ROCK / NEW WESTMINSTER working on solutions. VSB spokesperson Kurt / COQUITLAM / MAPLE RIDGE / LANGLEY / VANCOU Heinrich told the Courier VER NORTH SHORE / BURNABY / RICHMOND / DELTA in an email that the board / SURREY / WHITE ROCK / NEW WESTMINSTER / CO is monitoring kindergar- QUITLAM / MAPLE RIDGE / LANGLEY ten registration, which runs until the end of January, to see how many spaces will be needed in September. VSB staff are to present options and solutions at a planning and facilities committee meeting, Jan. 21, with further discussion at a school board meeting, Jan. 26. Dickens is just one of a handful of schools in adjacent areas of the city that are seeing a surge in enrolment, while total enrolment in the city has News from 10 leading community newspapers in your pocket! declined. Just visit the APP store now to download or visit www.mylowermainland.com twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi

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Continued from page 1 The total cost of the demolition and school construction project is $14.7 million. Hiscox said it would have been “many times” that amount to retain and strengthen the old brick structure. Javier Campos, president of Heritage Vancouver, said on close inspection, the non-proﬁt society couldn’t justify a seismic upgrade of the old school. Heritage Vancouver worked with the Vancouver School Board and other interested parties to consider community uses for three schools: General Gordon, Queen Mary and Strathcona elementary. Donald Luxton, the former president of Heritage Vancouver, says the process started when Gordon Campbell was premier. General Gordon and Queen Mary rest in what was Campbell’s riding. Luxton says the collaborative review was a success. Heritage schools Queen Mary and Strathcona are being retained and seismically upgraded. Heritage Vancouver

constantly tries to talk to the school board about future seismic projects, said Campos, who believes the society is treated like it’s treading on school board turf. He and Luxton acknowledged the board faces tight budgets and enrolment pressures. More than 40 more schools in Vancouver require seismic mitigation and Heritage Vancouver wants a process established to collaboratively and realistically assess their merit for preservation. Campos has been told the school board has deferred maintenance on schools, knowing they will be torn down. “So the cost of upgrading them and repairing them from a safety standard is very high and so it skews the decision [whether to strengthen or demolish and replace them],” he said. “One of the things that just shocked me is how much power existing principals have deciding whether or not a building’s going to be torn down or not,” Luxton

said. “Also certain communities want a new school… Well by the time the building’s done, their kids aren’t even at that school. Nobody’s taking a long-term view of this.”

Demolition to dust

Crews stripped General Gordon of anything, such as lighting, that could be reused, according to Hiscox. “Lockers, there was a lot of clamour to reuse them,” he said. “A lot of them were either anchored in the wall, so we couldn’t take them out, or they were so old that they had lead paint on them.” He said windows couldn’t be reused because they don’t meet building standard and code requirements. Hazardous materials including lead paint and asbestos were removed from the school before anything came down. Anyone awaiting the sight of a wrecking ball will be disappointed. Crews are removing columns in sequence so the walls fold in on themselves.

Metal, wood and concrete are to be recycled. Wrought iron columns will be reused in landscaping and granite from the old stairs is also to be reused. The old bricks are being salvaged to construct a heritage wall at the corner of West Sixth Avenue and Bayswater Street and potentially to be sold in a school fundraiser. Interested parties should contact General Gordon at 604-713-5403. The school board doesn’t want residents clambering around the demolition site searching for mementoes, which has happened. Hiscox said someone started a “little campﬁre” on the second ﬂoor of the school Tuesday night. Demolition is to be completed in February and construction of a seismic replacement school begins March 1. Staff and students are working in portables at Queen Elizabeth elementary annex. The new General Gordon is expected to open in fall 2016. twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi

F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

News

Living Intensely

Intensity & Sensitivity of gifted learners featuring Dr. Lannie Kanevsky

The feelings of highly able students are often amplified so they experience events in their lives with greater intensity and sensitivity. These feelings are essential to their development. Understanding them and accepting their role in personal growth provides powerful insights on the ways in which they are similar to and different from others their age.

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The Joseph and Rosalie Segal Family Centre is expected to open mid-2017.

Mental health facility nears approval Project included one of largest personal donations for mental health in country’s history DEVELOPING STORY Naoibh O’Connor

noconnor@vancourier.com

A mental health facility on the Vancouver General Hospital site is on track to open its doors in 2017. The project goes before the Development Permit Board at the end of this month, while the Urban Design Panel voted 7-0 in favour of the project in early December. The eight-storey, $82-million facility is being named the Joseph and Rosalie Segal Family Centre in honour of the Segals’ $12 million donation to the project. The first two floors will provide outpatient programs and services, while floors above will provide 100 in-patient mental health and addiction beds. The top floor will have a roof garden and screened space. Joseph Segal told the Courier’s Mike Howell in March of 2013 that he was donating the money towards the project “because nobody else did it. That’s the only reason. I felt that mental health was something that was invisible and you have to step forward.”

The donation was one of the largest personal gifts for mental health in Canada’s history. The provincial government is covering $57 million of the project costs, while Vancouver General Hospital and the University of B.C. Hospital Foundation promised to fundraise $13 million. They are close to meeting that goal. The centre replaces the Vancouver General Hospital Health Centre at 715 West 12th Ave., which is 70 years old. Patients are currently there but the building will be demolished once the Segal centre is built. The centre is meant to consolidate mental health in-patient and outpatient services and feel completely different from what exists today. Twenty beds from the UBC mental health unit will also be brought over to the facility. Features in the building for patient use will include an exercise room and teaching kitchen. There will also be dedicated family and visitor space. It will be a LEED Gold building and is being built according to B.C. Hydro’s high-performance building program.

The rooms will be singleoccupancy with bathrooms, and each ﬂoor will have two balconies and a multi-purpose room. Ensuring there is a lot of light is a building requirement, according to VCH. Once completed, it will be the largest facility of its kind in B.C. Anita Molaro, the City of Vancouver’s assistant director of urban design, said city staff are currently reviewing the complete development permit application, which will be decided on by the Development Permit Board Jan. 26. If the board approves the project in principal later this month, the applicant would have to meet conditions established by the board. Construction work on the site is ready to begin once the project is approved, according to Westley Davidson construction, manager of capital projects at Lower Mainland Facilities Management, and the project remains largely unchanged from its original design. The contract for the project was awarded to EllisDon Corporation in partnership with Parkin Architects. twitter.com/naoibh

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thousands @VanCourierNews all you need to know in 140 characters!

Winemakers, proprietors and executives representing 170 wineries from 14 countries will soon converge on the city for one of the oldest and largest wine festivals in the world. Tickets are on sale now for the 37th annual Vancouver International Wine Festival, organized to provide an informative, educational and entertaining experience for the public and those in the trade. Each year the festival highlights wines from one country or region and for 2015, the regional country is Australia and the global focus is Syrah. The heart of the festival is the Acura International Festival Tasting at the Vancouver Convention Centre where 750-plus wines will be available for sampling with an additional 165 for trade tasting. In addition, more than 825 wines will be served at special events including a gala dinner and auction, seminars, trade happenings, and food and wine pairing affairs. Since 1979, the event has raised $8.3 million for the performing arts in Vancouver and since 2012, the charitable beneﬁciary has been the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. The festival, which take place at 29 venues across the city, is headquartered at the Vancouver Convention Centre West. Tickets for the public start at as little as $49 for events such as 25 under $25 and go as high as $395 for the Bacchanalia Gala Dinner. Trade tickets start

An estimated 6,000 participants are expected to attend the 130th annual Modern Language Association Convention this weekend at the Vancouver Convention Centre. This is the ﬁrst time the convention, the world’s largest gathering of language and literature scholars and teachers, is being held in Vancouver. Many sessions are free and open to the public including several with a Vancouver and Canadian focus. The association includes more than 1,200 Canadian members and of the 3,000 presenters at the convention, 293 are from Canada. The list of presenters includes bestselling mystery writer Sara Paretsky, Japanese-Canadian poet and activist Roy Miki and Canadian poet JonArno Lawson. The convention runs Jan. 8 through 11 at the convention centre, 1055 Canada Place. For more information, visit mla.org/convention.

Various locations

The Vancouver Public Library is hosting three workshops during which parents will learn how to make a feltboard story to take home. Parents’ Night Out: Felt Story Make and Take is an evening for adults only, sorry kids. The ﬁrst workshop takes place Jan. 27 at Collingwood Branch, 2985 Kingsway, from 7 to 9 p.m. To register, call 604-665-3953. The second is scheduled for Jan. 28 at the West Point

Grey Branch, 4480 West 10th Ave. from 6:45 to 8:45 p.m. To register, call 604-665-3982. The ﬁnal workshop runs from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Central Library, 350 West Georgia St. Register by calling 604-3313663. These events are free but registration is required.

Various locations

SFU Philosopher’s Cafe and the City Program have organized a series of Bike Cafés, which will take place along major commuter cycling routes at cyclistfriendly coffee bars. This new series was designed to engage Vancouver’s cycling community and others interested in discussions regarding the sustainable evolution of our cityscape. Check out: • All Weather Cycling, Musette Caffe in Chinatown, 75 East Pender St. with moderator Richard Campbell, Jan. 13 at 6 p.m. • Building the Bicycle Culture We Want, Tricycle, 2685 Maple St. with moderator Chris Bruntlett, Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. • Cycling and Generational Politics, Musette Caffe, with moderator Gordon Price, Feb 10 at 6 p.m. • Cycling and Automated Vehicles, Tricycle, with moderator Richard Campbell, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. • What Are the Links Between Transportation Choice, Affordability and Happiness?, Musette Caffe, with moderator Erin O’Melinn, March 10 at 6 p.m. • Bridging the (Cycling) Gender Gap, Tricycle, with moderator Melissa Bruntlett, March 26 at 7 p.m. • Car Free Streets in Vancouver, Musette Caffe, with moderator Richard Campbell, April 14 at 6 p.m. twitter.com/sthomas10

F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

Happy New Year 2015!

by Cheryl Rossi, inspired by Brandon Stanton’s Humans Of New York

2010

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ding anniversary he went in the hospital and he never came home. And he used to spoil me rotten on Christmas. It’s very strange not being spoiled, not that I need to be spoiled, but I’m used to being well treated.

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PRESENTS

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5

Opinion Taxpayers Federation SPIDER sense tingles tax their credibility with peek into cosmos Allen Garr Columnist agarr@vancourier.com Before you get to the question of yes or no on the referendum to increase sales tax for the proposed transit plan, you may want to ask yourself another question: Who or what is the Canadian Taxpayers Federation? And why are they getting so much air time these days. As you may know, a most awkward coalition is now forming in support of this proposition. Strange bedfellows include business, labour, students, environmentalists and mayors, with the most notable, predictable exception of the chronically curmudgeonly contrarian mayor of Burnaby, Derek Corrigan. So far the formal opposition will be led by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, an increasingly ubiquitous although somewhat enigmatic presence on our political landscape. Its principal goal seems to be to convince us that taxes are evil and governments are neither as effective nor efﬁcient as the private sector. So to try and answer the who and what and why: For starters Jordan Bateman is its B.C. director, one of seven across the country all of whom appear from the organization’s website to be white. Only one is female. Last year it got donations of just over $4 million and claims over 84,000 supporters. Bateman is Bible-belt minister from Langley, a one-time columnist with the Langley Advance who spent two terms as a township councillor and was president of Liberal MLA Rich Coleman’s riding association. The creation and evolution of the organization is documented in the 2009 book Not a Conspiracy Theory: How business propaganda hijacks democracy by SFU academic Donald Gutstein. The genesis of this phenomenon begins with the Fraser Institute, a conservative think-tank which you may recall ﬁrst appeared in Vancouver in the days when Dave Barrett’s NDP government had capitalists freaked out. It was an organization funded by business dedicated to advance the values of free-enterprise. And then, Gutstein notes: “The Fraser Institute launched a program in 1988 that would have far-reaching impact on advancing the corporate agenda. This program, aimed at students, is actually a half-dozen initiatives through which the institute ‘is cultivating a network of thou-

sands of young people who are informed and passionate about free-market ideas and who are actively engaging in the country’s policy debate,’ as the organization’s publication Frontline puts it.” Bateman recalls taking in a Fraser Institute webinar he found “interesting.” He was apparently one of some 17,000 young people the institute claims it influenced. As Gutstein quotes the institute, this “is one important way that the Fraser Institute is working towards changing the climate of opinion in Canada.” And he observes “graduates have spread into politics, academia, other think-tanks and the media.” Most notable of late would be Danielle Smith, who went on to become the leader of the Alberta Wild Rose Party. That network of like-minded folks includes the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, where Jason Kenney was the first CEO and went on to become an MP with the Reform Party and carried on as it evolved into the Canadian Alliance and the Conservative Party and could well become the party’s next leader. Mark Milke was a B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayer Federation and is now a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute. Erin Chutter, among other things, was on the board of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and was brought on to assist the NPA and Kirk LaPointe with their messaging during the last municipal election. But the point of all this is to confirm just how successful this movement has become in changing the conversation in this country around the role of governments and the benefits of taxation for the public good. Bateman and his fellow travellers regularly make news by picking the low-hanging fruit of public sector abuses: gold-plate pensions, excessive bonuses, outrageous expense claims. Or in the case of the upcoming referendum, he is on about the burden of increasing sales tax and that money being turned over to a basket case of an organization like TransLink. In this rare case however, even his organization’s traditional allies, the Vancouver Board of Trade, the provincial Liberals and the NPA, seem to be turning their backs on him. And while it is by no means a slam dunk, perhaps this time the public good will win out. Next week, Bateman says, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation will be rolling out its campaign in an attempt to thwart that possibility. twitter.com/allengarr

Geoff Olson Columnist

mwiseguise@yahoo.com

Last week a group of scientists from universities across the world, including the University of British Columbia, launched a telescope designed to peer back to the beginnings of space and time. The team transported the Hummersized SPIDER to Antarctica, where it was hoisted 36 kilometres above the Earth’s surface by a helium balloon bigger than a soccer stadium. According to an article in Scientific American, the name derives its insectlike appearance when all six of SPIDER’s cameras are extended. (You may object that insects have six legs and arachnids have eight, but we’re talking about experts in astronomy, not etymology.) A bit of background here — the cosmic microwave background, to be precise. Back in 1964, two engineers at Bell Labs couldn’t identify the source of background noise in their receiving equipment, which was originally built to detect radio waves bounced off satellites. After ruling out any of the possible suspects — including pigeons nesting in the antennae — they determined the buzz was evenly spread across the sky. Astronomers believe the engineers found the residual radiation from the Big Bang, cooled after 13 billion years to three degrees Kelvin above absolute zero. In other words, the glow from the fires of creation. The SPIDER’s six cameras are poised to look back to the first half-million years of the universe, the “era of light” when radiation was freed from the hot soup of matter — energy. The researchers are looking for polarized light in the cosmic microwave background, a theorized signature of gravitational waves. A positive finding will give greater credence to the theory of cosmic inflation, the linchpin of Big Bang theory. (Cosmic inflation supposedly took the universe from smaller than a grain of sand to a macroscopic scale faster than the speed of light.) Actually, if we’re to get technical, there wasn’t anything for the inflating cosmos to expand into in the typical sense, because space and time came bundled with the matter — energy from the Big Bang. Wrap your head around that one.

The week in num6ers...

The number of rat complaints the city receives via its 311 line in a typical month.

0 14.7 6

The number of rats intrepid Courier photographer Dan Toulgoet was able to track down, despite staking out several supposedly infested areas.

In millions of dollars, the approximate cost of demolishing General Gordon elementary school in Kits.

In thousands, the number of linguists taking part in the 130th annual Modern Languages convention held in Vancouver this weekend.

The only thing hotter than the moment of creation are the exchanges online between deists, atheists and armchair cosmologists on what accounted for the so-called “singularity” that birthed the universe. As author Terrance McKenna observed back in the ’90s: “What orthodoxy teaches us about time is that the universe sprang from utter nothingness in a single moment… It’s almost as if science said, ‘give me one free miracle, and from there the entire thing will proceed with a seamless, causal explanation.’” The one free miracle McKenna refers to is the instantaneous appearance of all the mass — energy of the universe (hardware) and the laws (software) to go with it. No wonder Pope Pius XII welcomed the Big Bang theory in 1951 during an address to the Pontifical Academy of Science. For the pontiff, the newly minted hypothesis seemed to allow for a narrow but manageable aperture for God’s hand in space and time. (The scientific community’s response to this theological endorsement was muted.) However, “nothing” turns out to be a problematic concept in physics. Every second inside your body and all around you, “virtual particles’’ are popping in and out of existence. They emerge from the so-called “zero-point field” and disappear back into it in extremely small amounts of time. These subatomic will-o’-the-wisps have actually been detected in the lab. As long as they dematerialize quickly enough (according to a time-energy variant of the Uncertainty Principle), they don’t violate the conservation of energy or any other physical law. Similarly, many cosmologists argue a quantum fluctuation in a primeval field was scaled up into the ultimate free lunch: the cosmos itself. According to this line of thinking, if you add all the original matter and antimatter together, along with all the mysterious “dark energy” and “dark matter,” the net amount should equal zero. This sounds like the ultimate accounting trick, sort of like how money is created out of nothing as loans by commercial lenders. Maybe we should call it “the Big Bank theory.’” Here’s hoping SPIDER gives us a peek into the vault. geoffolson.com

The number of kilometres above the Earth the SPIDER telescope will be floating in a helium balloon for 20 days to try and help prove the Big Bang Theory.

Out of a possible seven, the number of votes the Urban Design Panel gave in favour of building a new mental health facility at Vancouver General Hospital.

F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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Mailbox

Many Marpole residents have been very vocal in their objections to rezoning. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

Clarifying Marpole matters

CO U R I E R A R C H I V E S T H I S W E E K I N H I S T O R Y

City worker beats shark to death

Jan. 7, 1925: A city diver became locked in deadly combat with a 6’2” shark while working on a water main at the Second Narrows in Burrard Inlet. Jack Bruce, a 37-year-old former British navy diver in the First World War, said the shark began circling him and he was forced to fend it off with a large iron bar he had with him. He didn’t dare signal colleagues to pull him up due to fears the shaker would go for his legs. The battle lasted nearly 20 minutes before Bruce overcame his opponent, whose carcass he then attached to a line and had hauled up at the same time he surfaced to the no doubt considerable surprise of his co-workers.

To the editor: Re: “Vision weakened by the 2014 election,” Dec. 19. Allen Garr’s column credits the pushback of rezoning the majority of Marpole to Janet Fraser and her website Marpole Matters. Not so. It was Marpole residents who formed Marpole Residents Coalition (MRC) to push back on the City of Vancouver’s blanket rezoning of their community, residents who, in one summer, stood up for themselves, formed a group, found a leader and pounded 1,900 lawn signs into the ground to buy more time to look at a community plan that was a shock to people who had attended the city’s open houses. This had nothing to do with the website, Marpole Matters, that Janet Fraser LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters may be edited by the Courier for reasons of legality, taste, brevity and clarity. Send to: 303 West Fifth Ave., Vancouver V5Y-1J6 or email letters@vancourier.com

Lt.-Gov. names island after teen singer

Jan. 10, 1861: Richard Moody, the first Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, names an island near the mouth of the Fraser River “Lulu Island” after 16-year-old actress Lulu Sweet, a member of a San Francisco theatre troupe brought to New Westminster to entertain the Royal Engineers building the area’s first infrastructure. The story goes that Moody accompanied the girl on her departure voyage to Victoria and, after while passing the island that eventually became the City of Richmond, she asked him what it was called. Moody reportedly pledged on the spot to name it in her honour.

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was operating as a communications service to residents. MRC took Janet Fraser by surprise as well. We do not want Janet to be branded with the same NIMBY label MRC got from the press. MRC did not form to push back on density. The same amount of density the city planned to bring to Marpole was in the end achieved — over 52 per cent increase in population for the community, 75 per cent of which will be land along the Cambie Corridor, not the Granville High Street. Only the city did not, by Brian Jackson’s own admission, need to re-zone the majority of homes and duplexes to do this. In the end, the city created a strong community in Marpole and got Janet Fraser as a school board trustee — but those two things are independent of each other. Mike Burdick, MRC spokesperson Vancouver

have your say online...

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COURIER STORY: “Aboriginal carving pavilion nears completion,” Jan. 2. Leigh McCracken: What a great way to showcase our uniquely B.C. First Nation worldrenowned artwork while encouraging young carvers to have pride in their heritage. COURIER COLUMN: “City needs better plans for New Year’s,” Jan. 7. Daniel Oong @DanielOong: Makes a good point. The NPO needs some sponsors. Surprised how low fundraising amount is. Heather @604Heather: Agreed! I was home with mimosas and movies. Greg Weir: Indoors is the only place to go for a winter party in Vancouver. A house party with live music is really the best way to work around the inevitable rain. COURIER VIDEO: “General Gordon elementary school demolition,” online only. Ugabug @MaryPChipman: Another sad day for heritage in Vancouver. Gus Karvelis @hcvgus: Sad day. Went to school there and so did my kids. Lots of great memories, especially of the big red slide. Larry MacDonald @WC_Larry: Boo! That was my first school! themsteri @teririch: Very sad. It was a beautiful structure. Maria Rantanen @HaneyInkslinger: There goes my seventh grade classroom and the library! Anyone remember the giant slide on this side? Sniff! Eight years of memories in that building. Anyone remember Miss Addison. Mrs. Staples, Mr. Niamath? Miss Henry? Dr. John Carter @drjohncart: General Gordon was a GREAT school! Excellent teachers, parents and staff. Sad to see demise. Patti Bacchus @pattibacchus: Will continue to be a great school — in a new, seismically safe building!

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5

Community

UBC education lecturer Hart Banack hopes the upcoming Wild About Vancouver Outdoor Education Festival will give Vancouverites a chance to get outside: “You’re just connected to this majesty of being that’s beyond words.” PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

Heeding the call of nature

B.C. residents gain spiritual beneﬁts from being outdoors

PACIFIC SPIRIT Pat Johnson

paciﬁcspiritpj@gmail.com

There are a few reasons why British Columbians are the least religiously affiliated people in Canada, and among the least affiliated in the world. My theory is that a lot of people come here to escape their past — their roots, their relatives and their religion. There’s also the weather and the natural beauty of the great outdoors. And here is not a coincidence, I think, but a confluence. Studies of human responses to being outdoors mirror somewhat studies of the effect of

religious observance on mental health and physical well-being. (One standout in the literature is that getting outdoors is seen to aid attention spans, something I’m not sure is the case with most church services.) Could it be that some British Columbians are replacing formal religious observance with experiential interaction with creation? British Columbians spend a lot of time outdoors. It is not rocket science to understand why. The weather is more permissive than elsewhere in Canada, the natural surroundings are attractive and people have come here speciﬁcally so they can hang out outside. British Columbians certainly spend more Sundays in nature than in religious services. Instead of heading to church, we head for the Grouse Grind. In another time and place, outsiders view-

ing the stream of people climbing that mountain would assume there was a majestic temple or bleeding tree at the top. While health-conscious Wet Coasters are getting outdoors for their physical health, there is no doubt they are also beneﬁting from the spiritual well-being that comes from being in nature. My friend Hart Banack has thought a lot about these issues. He’s a lecturer in the faculty of education at UBC and the chair of the steering committee for Wild About Vancouver Outdoor Education Festival. The inaugural April event will feature opportunities for Vancouverites to get outdoors and will give businesses and non-proﬁts that offer outdoor experiences a showcase to share their offerings. (I’m on a committee helping the festival in a very small way.) For Banack, who was raised Jewish back east, the connection between

spirit and the outdoors is patently obvious, if not easily articulated. “It’s beyond words,” he says. “You’re just connected to this majesty of being that’s beyond words.” Still, he likes to play with language to underscore the reality that we humans are animals and the outdoors is a natural place for us to be. “There is a spirit that lives inside of us,” he says, noting the root of the word spirit is related to animus, which is related to breath, which animates. Banack directed me to some interesting projects taking place in the city. The Vancouver park board is “Rewilding Vancouver,” aiming to protect things like coyote crossings, “and the other sounds, smells, and sights of wilder nature,” so that urban folks like us can still experience wild nature in its genuine forms. The park board is also doing interesting things

with ﬁeldhouses throughout the city. These buildings, many of which were caretakers’ residences or used for team equipment storage, are being reimagined for educational opportunities that allow Vancouverites to better understand the world around us. But Banack shuts down my analogy between churches and ﬁeldhouses as places where we go to understand the world around us. The problem with my (stretched) comparison is that the outdoors are not replacing the constructed space of churches, he suggests. It is the churches that tried to bring indoors what had far earlier been nature-based theology. All the ancient religions centred on what was happening in the natural world. “It’s connected to the outdoors, like the star patterns or when this [event] happens in the heavens

— this is all outdoors,” he says. “The church came later. The church was built after. The first connections were in nature. The ancient stories and religions, they’re all outdoors.” And yet, while some British Columbians may be swapping sacred spaces for ski hills and pews for playing fields, plenty are combining the two. Banack also happens to be a past-president of the B.C. Camping Association. Of the membercamps in the organization, Banack estimates 85 to 90 percent are faith-based. “Being outdoors is significantly considered valuable by these faith organizations,” he says. With religious observance and hanging out in the outdoors both proven determinants of good health and mental wellbeing, these faith-based campers have got to be healthy, happy British Columbians. twitter.com/pat604johnson

F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

A13

News

Pipeline opponents set up new camp

Pipeline opponents have vacated Burnaby Mountain but are now camping out at the entrance to Kinder Morgan’s Westridge Marine Terminal. A handful of anti-pipeline activist have been staying in a tent just a stone’s throw from the terminal gates in Burnaby. “We’re here to observe and bear witness to what’s happening,” said Victoria resident Sergei Van Hardeveld. Van Hardeveld, who was part of the original Kinder Morgan protests on Burnaby Mountain, said people have been at the new camp 24 hours a day for a couple of weeks. Their large tent is stocked with food and bedding and has crudely fashioned windows with views of the Burrard Inlet. The campers say they will stay till Kinder Morgan drops its plan to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline, which the National Energy Board is currently reviewing. — Jennifer Moreau

The City is holding a number of sub-area workshops as part of the Grandview-Woodland planning process. Come and discuss community issues, review proposed neighbourhood policy options, and help plan the future of the following areas: 1 Grandview (east of Commercial Drive, bounded Hastings Street, Grandview Highway/East 8th and Garden Drive): Saturday, January 10, 10 am - 4 pm 2 Nanaimo Street (between Garden Drive and Kamloops, Pender Street to Broadway): Saturday, January 17, 10 am - 4 pm East Hastings Street

Venables Street

East 1st Avenue

East Broadway

Kamloops Street

Nanaimo Street

Domestic travellers who use Vancouver International Airport (YVR) will soon have new retail, food, beverage and business lounge options. Suitcase-retailer Tumi, candy store Lick and women’s apparel seller Marshall Rousso are among the retailers that have been readying to open in a new three-storey building that connects Pier A with Pier B in YVR’s domestic terminal. Those stores and several others are expected to be open on Jan. 13, when the Vancouver Airport Authority hosts its ofﬁcial launch of the connector building. VAA launched a 10year plan in 2011, when it committed to spend $1.8 billion on various upgrades to stay ahead of competition and improve the customer experience. YVR’s airport improvement fee has helped fund the improvements. The VAA raised that fee by $5 to $20 in May 2012, for travellers to destinations outside B.C. Those who travel within the province pay a $5 airport improvement fee. — Glen Korstrom

We want to hear from you. Help us to get the plan right!

Victoria Drive

YVR expansion to open next week

Grandview-Woodland Community Plan Events

Commercial Drive

A non-profit society is asking the Federal Court to stop the planned sinking of a former Canadian navy vessel in a protected marine park near Vancouver. The Save Halkett Bay Marine Park Society filed court documents Jan. 6 seeking an injunction to stop the sinking the decommissioned, 110-metrelong HMCS Annapolis in Halkett Bay Marine Park. A spokesman for the group said it had a paint sample from the ship tested by an independent laboratory, which found highly toxic compounds called tributyltins. “We don’t understand why the government isn’t forcing the proponents to prove the ship is clean instead of being dragged into court to make it uphold the law,” said spokesperson Gary MacDonald in a prepared statement. At issue is the claim by the diving group attempting to sink the former HMCS Annapolis as an artificial reef that the ship is clean of contaminants and toxic chemicals. The group — the Artificial Reef Society of B.C. (ARSBC) — is supported by the scuba diving industry, which believes sinking the ship will increase diving tourism. The ship is set to be towed to Halkett Bay off Gambier Island, just a short boat ride from Vancouver, and sunk in order to be used as an artificial reef and site for divers. MacDonald’s group has called for a third-party review of the permit issued by Environment Canada. The group claim inspectors did not properly test whether toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, also known as PCBs, that were earlier found in the ship had been cleaned up. “It’s hard not to think that the federal environment minister and the Harper government is indulging in make-believe,” MacDonald added. ARSBC president Howard Robbins disputes the notion the cleaning process has been inadequate. “We follow Environment Canada’s rules,” Robbins told the North Shore News. “They’re the ones that set the standards and they’re the ones that have certified the ship as ready to go and clean for the environment,” he said. The remaining opposition

is simply NIMBYism masking itself as environmentalism.” —Andrew Fleming

Clark Street

Non-profit files injunction to stop battleship sinking

Both workshops are free but you will need to register to attend. A few days before each workshop there will also be an optional walking tour of the sub-area. To sign up for one or more of the sessions and for details on the walking tour, visit vancouver.ca/gw.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: vancouver.ca/gw grandviewplan@vancouver.ca or phone 3-1-1

Grandview-Woodland Community Plan

Volunteers Needed for Vancouver’s Civic Agencies The City of Vancouver is seeking volunteers from the general public for positions on the following civic agencies: • Active Transportation Policy Council • Arts and Culture Policy Council • Children, Youth and Families Advisory Committee • Chinatown Historic Area Planning Committee • Civic Asset Naming Committee • Cultural Communities Advisory Committee • Development Permit Board Advisory Panel • First Shaughnessy Advisory Design Panel • Gastown Historic Area Planning Committee • LGBTQ2+ Advisory Committee • Persons with Disabilities Advisory Committee • Public Art Committee • Renters Advisory Committee • Seniors’ Advisory Committee • Urban Aboriginal Peoples’ Advisory Committee • Urban Design Panel • Vancouver City Planning Commission • Vancouver Civic Theatres Board • Vancouver Food Policy Council • Vancouver Heritage Commission • Women’s Advisory Committee

NOTICE: City of Vancouver Updates to Building Grade Application Process The City is making changes to the building grade process to reduce processing time for most applicants and help expedite the development process. From 2012 through 2014, the City designed all building grades, but required the applicant to provide their own survey information. Starting January 1, 2015, the survey and design of building grades will now be completed by the applicant and submitted for City review and approval. The City may provide road design and building grades only in select cases.

How it works: STEP ONE: Submit application for building grade and pay the review fee. STEP TWO: The City reviews the application to determine if any of the building grade design is already complete and whether City support is required. STEP THREE: Applicant is notiﬁed as to whether they need to design all of the building grades and submit their survey and design for review, or if the City will be completing a design and building grades for some or all of the roads around their site. If the City will be completing a design for the building grade application, the applicant will need to pay an additional fee. For buildings requiring the services of an architect, building grade designs will be required to be completed by a professional engineer or architect registered in BC. For other buildings, the building grade design can be prepared by the building’s designer. FOR MORE INFORMATION: vancouver.ca/buildinggrades or phone 3-1-1 Visit: Engineering Services at 507 West Broadway, Vancouver

Development Permit Board Meeting: January 12 The Development Permit Board and Advisory Panel will meet: Monday, January 12, 2015 at 3 pm Vancouver City Hall, 453 West 12th Avenue Ground Floor, Town Hall Meeting Room to consider these development permit applications: 1600 Harwood Street: To construct inﬁll rental housing adjacent to existing towers, plus amenity space.

Detailed descriptions of the civic agencies, including terms of reference, eligibility requirements and time commitment, as well as the online application and instructions are available online at: vancouver.ca/volunteer

1625 Harwood Street: To construct an inﬁll rental housing consisting of four townhouse buildings containing a number of dwelling units.

You must complete an online application form to apply. The deadline to submit an application is 5 pm on Friday, January 30, 2015.

Please contact City Hall Security (ground ﬂoor) if your vehicle may be parked at City Hall for more than two hours.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: civicagenciesinfo@vancouver.ca or phone 3-1-1

TO SPEAK ON THIS ITEM: 604-873-7469 or lorna.harvey@vancouver.ca

Visit: vancouver.ca Phone: 3-1-1 TTY: 7-1-1

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5

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The new year is a time for new beginnings. For gardeners this can be new plantings, new designs or sometimes figuring out how to undo a not-so-new planting you wish you’d never done in the first place. For instance trees usually come with labels indicating how tall they’ll get. But you’re not always told how wide they’ll become. Some species produce low branches that block driveways and paths, leading to complaints from neighbours and difficulties in gardening under it. But if you clue-in early to approaching trouble, you can go out with loppers in fall or winter and high-limb those offending lower branches right back to the trunk. The trunk will grow and carry the remaining branches out of harm’s way. Hydro lines are another issue. Tree-loving gardeners may who think ahead may decide they prefer to settle on the other side of the street. Also rural gardeners need to remember that squirrels plant black walnuts, hazels and acorns wherever they want. Some of us love the look of Virginia Creeper

winding its scarlet leaves high up in an evergreen tree, but it also puts out runners that extend to the ground and become quite a nuisance because they root wherever they touch. You can avoid this by cutting the main roots of Virginia Creeper to the ground every few years. They regrow fast and by the second year the fiery leaves are up in the tree again. Allowing Clematis Montana or tall climbing roses to climb up a tree is also problematic. Both scoot up their tree and flower higher than you can see or pick. Both favour the sunny side. The shorter climbers are much more manageable. Slopes are another issue. Terracing is by far the best approach, but it’s a lot of heavy work and even the shorter slopes may need to be handled by a professional. Installing proper drainage is a big issue with slopes. Even so, the longer, steeper slopes may tend to slip especially in heavy rain. To help prevent this, some plants with deep and tenacious roots should be planted on slopes. Native shrubs such as salal, red-stem dogwood, Pacific ninebark and Indian Plum have very deep roots. Ground-covers are also

helpful on slopes because they stabilize at least the top layers of soil. But when they’re first planted, they do need weeding, though less so as they get older and denser. Many perennials make good ground-covers, especially the epimediums and the cranesbills. Ivy does not. It has fairly shallow roots, climbs trees and becomes uncontrollable very fast. People planning new raised vegetable beds need to be careful in figuring out the width of paths. Ones destined to be grass need to be at least the width of the lawnmower. It helps if the longer paths can accommodate a wheelbarrow. Very narrow paths are great space-savers but best paved. Many vegetables grow fine in 30 cm (12”) of soil, but if you’re going to grow deep-rooted crops (such as parsnips) a raised bed 40 cm (18”) deep gives you more flexibility. Now as we each face our own new beginnings in 2015, I wish you all a happy, healthy New Year — and joyous gardening. Anne Marrison is happy to answer garden questions. Send them via amarrison@ shaw.ca. It helps if you add the name of your town or region.

F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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Community

ROYAL BALL: More than 800 guests came out for Fairchild TV’s Miss Chinese Vancouver Pageant staged at the Vancouver Convention Centre days before the holidays. The beauty contest and Canadian Cancer Society fundraiser is one of the most hotly anticipated events on the Chinese community calendar, and the 20th edition was no different. Ten contestants vied for the coveted crown and opportunity to represent Vancouver on the world stage in Hong Kong later this month. Following competitions of beauty, poise and talent, Vancouver student Erica Chen won top honours, followed by Maggie Wu and Jessica Hsu. Chen was also deemed most photogenic. During her reign, Chen intends to raise greater awareness of hunger and homelessness in our community. The marathon evening televised to millions across Asia raised over $300,000 for cancer research. PARENTAL GUIDANCE: For Wendy and Sergio Lisogar-Cocchia, parents of a son with autism, Christmas came early for the local philanthropists and community leaders. For more than 10 years the couple has dreamed and championed a one-stop resource centre providing information and support to families of autistic kids. The couple, along with dignitaries and politicians, helped break ground for a new multi-million centre of excellence for autism. The Pacific Autism Family Centre, scheduled to open in 2016, will serve as a hub of knowledge and innovation supporting an online network and satellite offices located in more rural communities throughout B.C. David “Patch” Evans, founder and CEO of Good Life Fitness and parent of a daughter with autism, along with his partner, Olympian Silken Laumann, shared their story at the groundbreaking, along with a donation of $5 million towards the project. Autism now affects one in 68 children. GOOD ROCKIN’: Bif Naked helped blow out the birthday candle at Hard Rock Casino Vancouver’s first anniversary celebrations. The artist was among several heavy-hitters on hand to mark the milestone. Since reimagining its Boulevard Casino — a multi-million dollar makeover that included expanded facilities, dining venues and younger acts — the entertainment complex managed by Great Canadian Gaming Corp reported nearly two million visitors since its launch. Grammy Award-winner Everlast joined Naked for the festivities that included a sell-out concert and $10,000 cash draw. The biggest winner of the evening was the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, beneficiary of $15,000 from the celebratory bash.

email yvrflee@hotmail.com twitter @FredAboutTown

Fairchild Media’s Amy Fung, left, and Hong Kong singing sensation Thelma Leung were among attendees at the Miss Chinese Vancouver Pageant and fundraising dinner, which raised more than $300,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society.

Sergio and Wendy Lisogar-Cocchia, parents of a son with autism, helped break ground on the $33-million Pacific Autism Family Centre, scheduled to open in 2016. The centre of excellence will be a one-stop resource facility providing information and support to B.C. families of autistic kids.

From left, Miss Chinese Vancouver winners: Maggie Wu, first runner-up, reigning beauty queen Erica Chen and Jessica Hsu, second runner-up. Chen will compete at the World Competitions in Hong Kong later this month.

Bif Naked headlined Raj Mutti’s Hard Rock Casino Vancouver’s first anniversary celebrations. Nearly two million guests have visited the gaming and entertainment complex since its multi-million makeover.

David “Patch” Evans, founder and CEO of Good Life Fitness, and parent of a daughter on the autism spectrum, donated $5 million to the cause. Evans, along with his partner, Olympian Silken Laumann, shared their personal story at the groundbreaking and reception.

From left, Louise Witt, Dione Costanzo and Jodie Wickens, parents of children with autism, welcome news of Canada’s foremost centre for the study and detection of autism.

Great Canadian Gaming Corporation’s Chuck Keeling presented Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CEO Wendy Slavin with a birthday gift, a $15,000 cheque, as part of Hard Rock’s birthday celebrations.

Past pageant winners Jamie Gao, left, and last year’s Miss Chinese Vancouver winner Cindy Zhong greeted gala-goers at the 20th edition staged at the Convention Centre. Zhong was first runner-up at this year’s world competition.

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5

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Arts&Entertainment

A17

GOT ARTS? 604.738.1411 or events@vancourier.com

Jan. 9 to 13, 2015 1. It’s been a long, agonizing wait, but we couldn’t be more stoked about the release of Inherent Vice. Filmmaker extraordinaire Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood) takes on Thomas Pynchon’s hazy novel set in 1970 Los Angeles about a drug-fueled private detective investigating the disappearance of a former girlfriend. Of course, with Pynchon and P.T. Anderson, it’s about so much more than that. Helping deliver the goods is an all star cast that includes Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Benicio Del Toro, Reese Witherspoon and Joanna Newsom, among others. Inherent Vice opens Jan. 9 at International Village and Fifth Avenue Cinemas. 2. Vancity Theatre hosts the second annual Italian Film Festival celebrating the glories of Italian cinema past and present Jan. 9 to 15. Highlights include the 1964 classic Marriage Italian Style starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, Federico Fellini’s 8½, musical comedy Song of Napoli and wine doc Barolo Boys. Details and show times at viff.org. 3. Local rapper, co-founder of Swollen Members and avowed T-shirt opponent Madchild brings the heavy rhymes to Venue Jan. 9. He’ll share the stage with Demrick. Tickets at Zulu, Beat Street, Red Cat and Dipt. 4. Fronted by former Nation of Ulysses and the Make-Up dude Ian Svenonius, Chain & the Gang brings its soulful, deviant, garage rock swagger to the Electric Owl Jan. 11, 8 p.m. in support of the group’s latest album Minimum Rock ‘n’ Roll. Local act the Courtneys open. Tickets at Red Cat, Zulu and ticketweb.ca.

A18

THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5

Arts&Entertainment KUDOS & KVETCHES Hey, Girl Scouts…

Besides the ﬁrst day of spring and the latest topless protest video Charlie Smith posts on the Georgia Straight’s website, few things get our bellies jiggling in anticipation as much as the yearly arrival and subsequent shame of Girl Scout Cookies. But our bellies are also decidedly old school, so

we were not exactly stoked when North America’s petulant scarf-wearing cookie pushers announced Monday that they had three new ﬂavours up their doughy sleeves for 2015. As a few humourless crumb catchers on the web have astutely pointed out, we have Girl Guides in Canada, not Girl Scouts, and their cookie lines are decidedly different. That said, it would be foolish to think we are impervious to the

long arm of our American sisters, who undoubtedly are patiently waiting for our borders to soften, allowing their considerable confectionery inﬂuence to seep into our collective consciousness like a tray of cookie dough into a warm oven. As part of K&K’s tireless effort to speak truth to power, here’s what you need to know about the new Girl Scout Cookies before you blindly support this irresponsible ﬂight of fancy.

• Toffee-tastic First off, horrible name. Are you just going to make up words now, Girl Scouts? And since when has toffee ever been considered “fantastic.” Perhaps in Dickensian England, but not in the 21st century. Toffeemeh, more like it. Or even Toffee-super-annoying-cuz-

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• Trios What’s more annoying than a peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie that makes the bold claim of also containing “whole grain oats”? A peanut butter, chocolate chip, whole grain oat cookie that also caters to the increasingly insufferable group of eaters who insist on going gluten-free. Here’s a Trio of words for you, Girl Scouts: suck it up. Cookies are a treat, not some allinclusive exercise in eating. Give us gluten, or give us death… or at least uncomfortable and sometimes embarrassing digestion problems if you have the misfortune of being celiac.

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it-keeps-getting-caught-inmy-braces-that-my-stupidmom-made-me-get-cuz-shewants-to-ruin-my-life. On top of that, the toffee bits are delivered in a butter cookie. What is a butter cookie, anyway? Oh yeah, it’ll be your nickname after you eat a few boxes of these abominations.

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• Rah-Rah Raisins Seriously... rah? Is there anyone on this planet besides starving people and drooling two-year-olds who’ve ever been the least bit excited about the prospect of shoving raisins in their mouths? And that’s not the worst of it. These oatmeal raisin bland-strosities for some reason include Greek yogurt-flavoured chunks. If there are four words more disturbing than “Greek yogurt-flavoured chunks,” we’d like to know. Surprise, surprise, they’re also glutenfree. Maybe next year the Girl Scouts can pander to even more dietary trends and release a vegan cookie, a craft beer flavoured cookie and a Paleo diet-friendly cookie, which would probably just be a piece of elk meat. Seriously, can’t we just stick to the tried and true chocolate and vanilla Girl Scout Cookies? And don’t get us started on those blights on the cookie landscape known as Thin Mints. If we wanted to taste mint in our cookies we’d make out with a leprechaun. Which we only did once because we were drunk and it was St. Patrick’s Day, so why don’t you shut the hell up.

Rental squeeze

We have long accepted the fact that we will never own a home in Vancouver and will be renters for the foreseeable future. And we are OK with that, which is made easier by the fact we’ve lived in the same place for the past ﬁve years and have relatively inexpensive rent by Vancouver standards. Plus we use our savings to drink a lot, which eases the pain and feelings of inadequacy when envious of the back yards of our more responsible and mature friends. But that’s not the case for a lot of people. One of our siblings recently applied to rent the main ﬂoor of a house on a lovely beard-shaded street in Mount Pleasant. The next day she received a text from her prospective landlords telling her they had gone with a different applicant who had offered to pay above the asking price. It struck us as a bit obnoxious — essentially bribing a landlord — but within both the tenant and landlord’s rights. Who wouldn’t turn down more money than what was initially asked? But then we started to wonder why a landlord would actually admit that the only reason they picked a different tenant was because that tenant threw a bit more cash their way, instead of just saying, ‘Sorry, we went with another applicant”? And we’re guessing the reason is that the landlord was seeing if our sibling would give a counter offer. We’re aware that bidding wars are a reality of buying a home in Vancouver, but maybe we’re naïve in thinking it’s not a part of the rental market. Whatever the case, it doesn’t exactly bode well for Vancouver’s continued slide into douchiness and unaffordability. But hey, we’re a world class city.

New balance

It’s come to our attention that K&K has become weighted too heavily on the “kvetch” side of things with not enough “kudos” getting doled out like free Skittles to an overweight, diabetic 10-year-old. And for that we apologize. No one likes a perpetual downer. Except, maybe, Goths. Our goal for 2015 is to have a balance between sweet and sour, yin and yang, Captain and Tennille. So keep your eyes peeled for new positive items, such as “Our Greatest Regret,” “Best laid plans” and “Nanaimo... it’s more than just stonewash denim and white velcro runners.” twitter.com/KudosKvetches

F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

Arts&Entertainment

Voices carry in All That Fall Seldom-produced Beckett radio play easy to fall for

A19

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Although Lee Van Paassen is neither a septuagenarian nor “200 pounds of unhealthy fat,” she embraces, in every other respect, Samuel Beckett’s Maddy Rooney, a self-described “hysterical old hag.” Van Paassen is simply magnificent, Irish accent and all. Written originally in French for radio, All That Fall is a perfect, polished jewel of a play with an exquisite role for a woman “of a certain age.” Under Duncan Fraser’s direction for Blackbird Theatre, Van Paassen almost mesmerizes us as Mrs. Rooney drifts in and out from present to past and back. Broadcast on BBC in 1957, it’s Beckett’s first radio play, his most Irish and his funniest. That’s not to say it isn’t full of existential angst, but death and decline are treated with such wry humour that you laugh because if you didn’t, you might fall into despair. It’s also Beckett’s most plot-based work: Mrs. Rooney sets off from her home on a June afternoon to meet the train that brings blind husband Dan home from work. Huffing and puffing, she meets colourful locals along the way, ending up at the train station only to find the train has been delayed. Eventually she finds Dan and they walk back home to their country cottage — the obese leading the blind. Along the way, she asks about the delay but Dan is strangely closed-mouth about it. Granted, this doesn’t seem like much of a plot but a richer 70 minutes you

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VETTA CHAMBER MUSIC

William Samples and Lee Van Paassen lend their voices to Samuel Beckett’s funny and dark radio play All That Fall, at the Cultch until Jan. 24.

won’t find. Beckett was adamant that All That Fall be produced only for radio, but after his death the managers of his estate allowed a stage adaptation — but only if it was staged as a radio play. So Marti Wright’s set flashes with a red sign “ON AIR,” the actors are seated until they step up to the microphone and the sound effects — horses whinnying, chickens clucking, cars starting, trains arriving — are all produced by the performers on stage. Jeff Harrison’s lighting is moody and evocative, especially the light coming up from the lectern on Van Paassen’s face while the rest of the performers remain in shadow. Radio drama has been called “theatre between the ears” and you will be tempted to close your eyes, but Van Paassen’s physical presence is so seductive your eyes will fly open to watch her transform from coy and slightly flirtatious and, on

occasion, bawdy (wishing for “50 years of twice daily”) to despairing (“How can I go on? I cannot”). Punctuated with humour, All That Fall has melancholy echoes of Waiting for Godot. Van Paassen shares the stage with four others, equally superb: William Samples as Dan, a childhating old codger for whom counting is “one of the few satisfactions in life.” Samples is also Christy who tries to sell Maddy a load of “stydung.” Adam Henderson is gravel-voiced Mr. Barrell and Mr. Slocum, an old admirer of Mrs. Rooney’s. One of the best scenes in the play involves Mr. Slocum trying to hoist fat Mrs. Rooney into his limousine; Henderson puts his shoulder under Van Paassen’s butt and grunts and strains as she squeaks out “oh” and “oh” again. Gerard Plunkett is old Mr. Tyler who talks of his daughter’s operation during which they removed

“everything” and he’s also Tommy, the station porter who’s called up to extricate Mrs. Rooney from the limo. Leanna Brodie portrays the holier-than-thou Miss Fitt and Jerry, the young boy who ﬁnally tells Mrs. Rooney why the train was late. One mystery is solved; another one surfaces. Beckett believed theatre should reﬂect life: there’s always a beginning and an end. What happens in between is terrifyingly, sometimes joyously, random. It meanders — as does All That Fall. But so evocatively, so charmingly, so sweet-and-sourly does the play take its course, I wished it would never end. For more review, including the 2014 Year in Review, go to joledingham.ca. All That Fall runs until Jan. 24 at the Cultch. For tickets and details, call 604-251-1363 or go to thecultch.com.

2014 - 2015 29th Season

Joan Blackman Artistic Director

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Arts&Entertainment

Selma delivers powerful history lesson MOVIE REVIEW: Julie Crawford

jcrawfordﬁlm@gmail.com

Set for release a week before Martin Luther King Day in the United States, Selma is a grim and powerful reminder of the one-step-forward-two-stepsback path to racial equality in America. The film shows how much King achieved in his short life, but one look at the headlines debates how far we’ve actually come. Ava DuVernay’s film focuses on the post “I Have A Dream” era, specifically on a bloody three-month period in the south, 1965. A frustrated King (David Oyelowo) watches progress stall on his push for equal voting rights. The bill was shelved by President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) who had the Vietnam War on his hands, not to mention some angry white folks who thought that, between desegregated schools and

equal access to lunch counters, African-Americans had already gained more than enough ground, thank you. “This voting thing is just going to have to wait.” But as the film shows, people are dying while they are waiting. The opening scene is the first lesson in a history primer: It shows Annie Lee Cooper (producer Oprah Winfrey) trying to register to vote — again — after being asked a string of ludicrous questions veiled as a “literacy test.” Illuminating, the roadblocks that prevented African-Americans from voting: potential voters had to be vouched for by a registered voter (impossible, if you were from a county where there were no black citizens on the registry); next, you had to pay a poll tax (prohibitively expensive for the majority of black voters); finally, if you achieved all that, your name and address was published in the newspaper, which held the threat of intimidation in the form of eviction, firing, mob violence and lynchings. While the FBI listens

David Oyelowo plays Martin Luther King in the moving film Selma.

in on King’s phone calls, director J. Edgar Hoover (Dylan Baker) suggests a hit and the president tries to guess his next move, MLK carefully ups the ante by moving demonstrations into Selma, Ala., no random location. The activist’s nonviolent marches just weren’t gathering enough attention from the Johnson administration; Selma was ripe for an explosion of white frustration and front-page news coverage.

Englishman Tim Roth is somehow perfect to play slithery Alabama governor George Wallace, who famously announced, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever!” A good ol’ boy who refused to back down, he all but encouraged the violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7. Armed police mowed down 600 peaceful marchers with charging horses, tear gas and nightsticks bound with

barbed wire. All was caught on the evening news, which forced Johnson’s hand and resulted in the signing of the Equal Voting Rights act of 1965. “There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem,” the president declared. We’ve all seen the footage from the bridge and recent cable-news specials, but never from this vantage

point. We rarely see King’s domestic struggles (with Carmen Ejogo, excellent, as Coretta Scott King), the infighting among civil rights groups and the leader’s vices (MLK smoked?). The film succeeds because it isn’t simply a narrative leading up to one or two powerful events, but offers a string of potent smaller moments, too. One such scene is when MLK calls and asks Mahalia Jackson to sing him some gospel for solace. And a quiet scene at the coroner’s office between 82-yearold Cager Lee (Henry G. Sanders) and King may be the hardest of all to watch. “God was the first to cry for your boy,” King says. There are one or two too-generous scenes, which pushes the film’s running time to 2 hours 7 minutes, though it barely registers. Oyelowo is transformative, and happily the Oprah-led film that screamed Oscar from its inception is more than worthy of the hype. Selma opens Friday at International Village.

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F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

Ready, Set, VOTE!

Cast your votes in our Stars of Vancouver Readers’ Choice Awards and be in to win a ‘Best of Vancouver’ prize pack valued at over $2,000! Simply enter your favourites online at vancourier.com/STARS, or alternatively, mail your completed ballot to us at our new address 303 West 5th Ave, Vancouver, V5Y 1J6. Nominees must be located in the City of Vancouver. VOTING ENDS JANUARY 23, 2015

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5

START NOTHING: Before 3:57 a.m. Sunday, 1:46 a.m. to 3:44 p.m. Tuesday, 3:52 p.m. Thursday to midnight Friday, and after 11:25 a.m. Saturday. PREAMBLE: Remember when about a year ago I said there would be strong inflation or deflation in 2015/16, and that December/January (2014/15) would give us the clue? And that either would eventually wreck the stock markets? Well, perhaps the plunge in oil prices ($ 107 to $ 48 per barrel) is our clue…JUST IN: Europe is now officially in deflation — a 0.2 per cent drop in prices — or, as they like to call it, a -0.2 per cent inflation. High tech ages faster than slang. People still say “bummer,” “yeah, right,” “gotcha,” etc. — slang from the 1970’s and ‘80’s when personal computers, or desk-tops, were limited to 64,000 bytes, or “64 K” — a pinhead to present capacity. The slang lives on, while the tech of those days lies twenty feet down in the landfill.

The accent remains on ambition, status, interfacing with higher-ups. This week is normal, a mixture of good and bad. Relationships bless you Sunday and Monday, but problems arise between 2:30 and 7:30 a.m. Be co-operative, diplomatic. A mutual interest could boost you forward with someone suave, apparently slow but somehow quickly effective.

This is your last week of “down home” inﬂuences, Libra. Protect your home and those in it. Your romantic feelings have been heightened over the last few weeks, but toward someone who might not be the best mate. Now, romance becomes affectionate and talk-ﬁlled. Your work place will be a bit “heated” now to late February. Complete projects, or get them to a stable stage, as next week begins a period of confusion and delay.

Wisdom, higher learning, law, culture, issues, far travel, gentle love —these ﬁll your week. A Capricorn could play a key role. The stress and impatience you’ve felt from higher-ups for the last eight weeks dissolves now. It’s a new, more gentle year in prestige relations. Tackle chores Sunday/Monday; you’ll make great progress, except pre-dawn Monday, when stomach upsets or electrical, machinery glitches irk you.

Rest, lie low Sunday to Tuesday afternoon. Your energy’s depleted, and you need quiet time to gather your thoughts, find a calm balance. Examine where you’ve been, where you are going, then start to plan your future actions. The best plans, especially involving money and career, will come Monday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Caution flags fly pre-dawn Monday.

The focus remains on investments, debt, sexual intimacy, commitment and consequence, research and diagnosis (especially of a health problem). This is not a great investment year, nor a big change year for you, so keep any commitments light. Sunday to Tuesday brings a warm romantic breeze, but it hits a cold wall Monday morning, so act later this day.

From this month to the end of 2017, you will grow more serious and sober about life. You’ll begin to examine and reduce expenses; you’ll work quietly and astutely to increase your income. Take care of your teeth, gums, knees and skin. This week starts six of possible friction in your home: be gentle with spouse and kids. (You know your temper!) A tattered romantic connection will probably fall away.

Investments are mildly lucky for the week ahead. Strictly avoid lawsuits until Feb. 20. Try to wrap up projects, negotiations, relocation plans, partnership or investment projects this week as a slowdown begins soon. The general emphasis lies on relationships, partnerships and opportunities. Be ﬂexible, diplomatic, other-oriented. Your domestic situation glides smoothly Sunday to mid-afternoon Tuesday.

Your energy, charisma and clout remain at a yearly high. But don’t start a big new project, especially in money areas. Instead, wrap things up, put ongoing projects on stable footing,so they will still be viable after Feb. 11. Next week begins a period (to Feb. 11) of false starts, confusion, delays and mistakes. You’re going to be very busy now to late February, running errands, travelling, communicating, answering others.

The emphasis remains, for nine more days, on work, supporting dependents and health. Eat, dress sensibly. In the past month, even though drudgery prevailed, lots of excitement bubbled up with an assertive member of the opposite sex (same sex for gays). This “raw excitement” turns to sweet affection this week and next, and that “raw intensity” veers into private zones: intimacy, whispered agreements, sex.

Continue to lie low, rest, contemplate and plan. Remain in the background. Delegate tasks. Deal with civil servants, institutions. Get your tax records up to date. Wrap up projects rather than starting new ones, as a period of confusion and false starts arrives next week. You’ve been on ﬁre since early December. Now “peace” returns. Until late February, money will rush toward you – bank it or pay down debt – DON’T spend!

Romance builds to a climax of sorts next Sunday/ Monday. Ditto creativity, pleasure pursuits/vacation, adventure and speculation. The intense pace at work ends. In its place comes intensity in relationships, lasting to late February. For the nine days ahead, these overlap — romantic feelings and mature partnership intensity. You could end up helplessly in love or married — or simply knowing you’ve entered a new stage of relationships, a new decade of them.

Now to early April you might be obsessed with making extra money (and you will, late February to April) but make sure you’re also being ethical. If you sense even a hint of temptation, pie-in-sky, or “inexplicable delay,” turn around and go another route. You’re growing more assertive too, which helps you this week, as your popularity and social life are at a yearly high. Yet solitude is beginning to appeal, also.

Monday: Kirstie Alley (64). Tuesday: Rip Taylor (81). Wednesday: Dave Grohl (46). Thursday: Charo (64). Friday: Sade (56). Saturday: Betty White (93). Sunday: Mark Messier (54).

F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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Sports&Recreation

GOT SPORTS? 604.630.3549 or mstewart@vancourier.com

By Megan Stewart

Landers praised

Notre Dame quarterback Theo Landers competed with the U18 B.C. football team at the fourth annual Tanoa Bowl Classic in Auburn, Wash. Dec. 28 and while the team dropped a 21-6 decision to their southern state rivals, the Vancouver pivot drew praise from his coach. “Theo is such a great athlete,” said head coach Jay Prepchuk in a news release. “I hope he continues in football and I know he wants to. He’s the type of individual that can play a lot of positions — defensive back, strong safety, free safety, corner, receiver. I think that, as a quarterback, the one thing that really helps him is his athleticism. He’s a student of the game and really wants to improve as a football player. He’s really conscious about getting better.”

Seven set for ulti nationals Nearly half the teams at the 2015 Canadian High School Ultimate Championships will be from Vancouver. Seven teams competing at the 16-team tournament in Burnaby in May are from the city and three more are from the Lower Mainland. The teams include public secondary schools Eric Hamber, Killarney, Point Grey, Prince of Wales and Churchill plus private schools Stratford Hall and a team comprised of York House and St. George’s.

FYI: All about that bass

Co-workers Sadie Henschel (left) and Louise Kelaher will run with a relay team to complete the BMO Vancouver Marathon on May 3.

PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

Go the distance with inaugural Vancouver Marathon relay BMO Vancouver Marathon introduces relays for two to four runners Megan Stewart

mstewart@vancourier.com

Neil Wu, St. George’s; Jenna Quong and Alvina So, York House

There is such a thing as a power song. A research team at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business tested what athletes know intuitively: music jacks up conﬁdence and this can inﬂuence performance. The researchers asked how this happens. Their answer: bass. For the August paper titled “The Music of Power: Perceptual and Behavioral Consequences of Powerful Music,” researchers tested dozens of songs, including heavy metal, rap and hip-hop as well as original compositions to isolate what, exactly, were the key notes. They asked people to listen to the music and answer questions about how powerful they felt. The lead researcher determined that lower voices and bass stimulated a sense of power in the listener. From their tests, the three most powerful songs were Queen’s classic “We Will Rock You,” the 1991 Euro club hit “Get Ready for This” by 2 Unlimited, and 50 Cent’s head-banger “In Da Club.” Go, shorty.

worth the weight...

Heavy

Team Canada winger and Canucks prospect Jake Virtanen, 18, when asked by the international press how the world junior championship gold medal felt around his neck after the Canadians defeated Russia 5-4 in Toronto on Jan. 5.

If 42.2 kilometres is twice, four or even eight times farther than you want to run, you don’t have to cover the full distance yourself to complete the BMO Vancouver Marathon. On May 3, for the first time in the 44year history of the annual road race, runners can sign up in relay teams of two, three or four. Race organizers have capped team entries at 250 and say they are pleased how quickly the relay is filling up. “It’s a team-building thing,” said Louise Kelaher, a receptionist at the Robert Lee YMCA who will run 12 kms for the second leg of the relay with a team of co-workers. “A lot of us have done different events at the BMO before. We were looking at the website to play out what we were going to do during the [2015] year and there was a marathon option. They all happened to be standing there at the same time. We wanted to try it.” For a four-person relay, each runner will cover different distances. The first and second legs are both 12 km, and those runners meet at the edge

of Pacific Spirit Park after the starting racer climbs 50 metres up Camosun Street in Dunbar. The third leg is five-km long and begins on the flats of Point Grey, east of Spanish Banks. The 13-km anchor leg begins before the Burrard Bridge. Runners will hand off a time chip in a designated transition zone, which will be separated from the race course to prevent congestion. A shuttle will transport racers to the end of the course where they can cheer for the teammate as she crosses the finish line. All racers get medals and individual swag. Full disclosure: I’ve signed up a Courier relay team. Since Kelaher, 44, started running four years ago, she has done as many half-marathons, including the BMO and Scotiabank races. But the 21.1-km distance takes its toll. “I always wind up hurting myself and end up not doing something for a long period of time,” she said. “Ten and eight Ks, those I can keep doing and keep training for longer.” In Canada, the BMO Vancouver Marathon is one of only three races that splits the marathon distance into shorter legs for multiple teammates. The other two are in Ottawa, both organized

by the Somersault Event Series. The Winterman Marathon, held each February in Canada’s capital to raise money for the Ottawa Volunteer Search and Rescue team, has included a relay since the race first began in 2009. Relay participation increased quickly and is stable at roughly 1,200 runners, according to race director Gerry Godsoe. “Participation grew during the early years when the event was getting established but then levelled off,” he said in an email. “The relays are popular because they allow groups of friends and colleagues to form teams and enjoy the challenge of doing longer distances.” In preparation for the inaugural Vancouver Marathon relay, Kelaher’s team at the YMCA will run together on occasion and make time to crosstrain. Sadie Henschel will run the five-km third leg through Kitsilano and Stephanie Burk will anchor the team on the final 13-km downtown leg. Erika Haraguchi will start the race, likely beside her sister who will run her first full marathon. Haraguchi, 28, is 36 weeks pregnant and her first child is due before the end of the month. “I can’t back out now,”

said Haraguchi, who ran her first half-marathon last year. “I found that, even when I finally committed to doing the half, that was definitely a driving force. I was committed to running three times a week and I enjoyed that motivation.” This time, she’s committed to more than the race. All four racers know they’re essential for the team to complete the marathon. “Am I really crazy to be signing up for a race in May when my baby is due at the end of January?” she asked. “But it’s nice motivation to have that goal. I have the support of my team.” Training to compete with a team means being accountable to more than just yourself. BMO Vancouver Marathon race director Charlene Krepiakevich said races around North America are beginning to add team events and relays. “Training, participating and fundraising as a group can add team spirit, competition, camaraderie and accountability,” she wrote in an email. “The BMO Vancouver Marathon Relay will create the same type of team dynamics. It will motivate runners to uphold their commitments — albeit time, dollars raised, fitness level or spirit.” twitter.com/MHStewart

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5

Sports&Recreation

I ride where it’s safe to learn MY BIKE

Kay Cahill

kay@sidecut.ca

Korin Knight Age: 35 Bike: Borrowed, rented or loaned Favourite Vancouver bikeroute: Point Grey Road Quote: I hate relying on my car.

Korin is a friend and adventurer from the U.K. who has recently found herself spending some time in Vancouver. As someone who came to cycling in adulthood and isn’t tremendously conﬁdent on a bike, she has a great take on the provisions Vancouver makes for cyclists and how our city contrasts to the more limited infrastructure available in Britain. It’s easy to take these things for granted when we use them every day. A fresh set of eyes is a good

Korin Knight (left) has borrowed columnist Kay Cahill‘s bicycle to gain confidence since learning how to cycle as an adult. PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER

reminder of how lucky we are here. Tell us a bit about your cycling (or not cycling) background. Korin Knight: Well, I never learned to ride a bike as a child. I had a few group lessons when I hit my 30s and got to the

point where I could physically make a bike go, but I was wobbly and there was no way I was going anywhere near a road. Do you have a favourite cycling experience? KK: The Burning Man festival in Nevada last year. It’s so big that you re-

ally need a bike, otherwise it would take forever to get from one side of the festival to the other. It was loads of fun, and the only trafﬁc was lots of other bikes and very slow-moving vehicles dressed up as all sorts of amazing creations. I think I developed new muscles just cycling round looking at the art...

Were there specific things that discouraged you from cycling in the U.K.? KK: Definitely the traffic. I knew so many people who’d been knocked off their bikes by careless drivers — and they were skilled, solid cyclists. The thought of riding on roads alongside huge steel death machines, while I still found going in a straight line challenging, made me sick with nerves. If there’d been more cycle paths and routes that kept me away from traffic where I lived, I’m sure I’d have given it more of a go. I hated relying on my car, and sometimes it took so long to walk. But the dedicated bike routes were non-continuous, and often involved cycling on very busy roads. As a newer cyclist, what aspects of cycling in Vancouver do you like? KK: Vancouver seems much more bike-friendly than London and Sheffield. More thought and care seems to have been put into the bike infrastructure, and there seems

to be a genuine attempt to encourage people to cycle. Cyclists are actually given space here, rather than having bike lanes carved out uncomfortably from existing, busy routes. The fact that you can cross the downtown area from end to end, separated from the trafﬁc is amazing.

Do you think investing in cycling infrastructure is a worthwhile? KK: I think these investments are very worthwhile. There are definitely more cyclists on the road here than Sheffield, and I don’t imagine that’s a coincidence. And more bike use leads to less pollution, reduced road maintenance and healthier people. The improvements also must make cycling a much safer activity. If I was going to stay here longer, I would definitely be investing in my own bike and make that my main mode of transport. Kay Cahill is a cyclist and librarian who believes bikes are for life, not just for commuting.

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today’sdrive 20 Acura RLX 15 Sport Hybrid BY DAVID CHAO

Acura has just released its most powerful and technologically advanced car ever built in a form of a full-size luxury sedan. Although the Acura RLX was just introduced last year and the standard model remains largely unchanged, the range-topping RLX Sport Hybrid joins Acura’s ﬂagship line-up as a true

Your journey starts here.

A technology achievement benchmark model. In the luxury sedan market, Acura tends to go unnoticed, particularly in the upper end of the spectrum. But customers who seek something different than your neighbour’s BMW 5 Series, Audi A6 or Cadillac CTS will ﬁnd a lot to like in the RLX.

Design

The most exciting new

feature of the RLX Sport Hybrid is its powertrain. This new hybrid system is similar to the one that will power the soon to be introduced, highly anticipated Acura NSX. On the surface, the RLX Sport Hybrid appears a lot like the standard luxury sedan. To set it apart, the grille has a dark chrome ﬁnish and “hybrid” badges adorn the front fenders. Also, Acura’s Jewel Eye

LED headlights are standard and both the fog lights and turn signals are also LEDs. The interior is also similar to the base model. However, the RLX Sport Hybrid is available with unique material ﬁnishes such as the exclusive chestnut wood grain trim.

Performance

The RLX Sport Hybrid’s key selling point is Acura’s

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claim that it is the most powerful car built by this brand — ever. Under the hood is the same 3.5-litre V6 found in the standard RLX. Output is rated at 310 hp and 272 lb-ft of torque. But that’s where the similarities end. Mated to the V6 is a new seven-speed dual clutch transmission with an integrated 35-kilowatt electric motor.

And Acura didn’t stop there. Two additional 27-kilowatt electric motors are mounted in the rear wheels. The three electric motors boost horsepower to 337 and torque to 377 lb-ft. Acura worked to ensure the system works seamlessly. The mechanical and electric power is constantly monitored and distributed to different wheels when they need it.

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AMG Performance Centre

1-855-554-9088 | vancouver.mercedes-benz.ca

Mercedes-Benz Vancouver | 550 Terminal Avenue, Vancouver | Open Sunday: 12pm - 5pm | D#6276 © 2015 Mercedes-Benz Canada Inc. Shown above is the 2015 C 400 4MATICTM Sedan with optional sports package. National MSRP of $51,400 is based on the 2015 C 400 4MATICTM Sedan. *Total price of $54,460 includes freight/PDI of $2,295, dealer admin fee of $595, air-conditioning levy of $100, PPSA up to $45.48 and a $25.00 fee covering EHF tires, filters and batteries. **Vehicle options, fees and taxes extra. Vehicle license, insurance, and registration are extra. Lease offer based on the 2015 C 400 4MATICTM Sedan. Available only through Mercedes-Benz Financial Services on approved credit for a limited time. 1 Lease example based on $498 (excluding taxes) per month for 39 months (STK#B1532658), due on delivery includes down payment or equivalent trade of $7,995, plus first month lease payment, security deposit, and applicable fees and taxes. Lease APR of 4.9% applies. Total cost of borrowing is $6,864. Total obligation is $31,574. 12,000/year allowance ($0.20/km for excess kilometres applies). Please note a credit has been applied/included in the calculation of the monthly lease payment, it is a one time credit for deals closed before January 31st, 2014. See in-store for full details. 2 Receive up to a $750 credit on Mercedes-Benz Financial Services protection products, available only through Mercedes-Benz Financial Services. Not all protection products are available in all provinces, on all vehicles or at all dealers. All products and services of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services and its affiliates are subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable governing agreements. Please contact your authorized Mercedes-Benz dealer for a full list of limitations and exclusions. Credit is only applicable on the lease or finance of a new 2015 B/C/CLA/GLA/GLK model and must be applied at the time of sale. No cash value. Dealer may lease or finance for less. Offers may change without notice and cannot be combined with any other offers. See your authorized Mercedes-Benz Vancouver dealer for details or call the Mercedes-Benz Vancouver Customer Care at 1-855-554-9088. Offer ends January 31st, 2015.

F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

A31

today’sdrive

Environment

Moving inside, the RLX Sport Hybrid is much more familiar. The cabin is welcoming with its standard leather seating surfaces, the front seats are comfortable and supportive and are both heated and cooled. The rear seats are equally as comfortable and provide adequate legroom. Rear side window sunshades are standard to make the ride as pleasant as possible. The redesigned centre console houses the new electronic gear selector. Steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters are also present to change gears when in manual mode. I was frustrated with the new electronic gear selector, however, as it was not intuitive and it felt odd every time I shifted from park to drive, or drive to reverse. Other controls found in the centre stack are operated through Acura’s twin screen interface. The top screen displays navigation and audio information and is controlled by the central mouse or voice command. The lower touchscreen controls the radio and a row of buttons below it adjust the temperature. While I can see the logical reason for doing this, it took a while to get used to having two screens that displayed different information. In some ways, I feel that Acura has made the whole system more complex than necessary.

Features

The RLX Sport Hybrid is the top-of-the-range model with prices starting at $72,164. Being the top model, it comes fully loaded with all available features as standard. Notable features include automatic climate control, heated steering wheel, heated rear seats, auto dimming rearview mirrors, surround view camera system, forward collision warning system, lane departure warning, blind spot monitoring, lane keeping assist, and adaptive cruise control. Fuel efﬁciency numbers (L/100km) are 6.8 city, 6.3 highway for 6.5 combined.

Thumbs Up

The hybrid system seems complicated but it operates smoothly and is virtually undetectable to the driver. The driving experience is superb.

Thumbs Down

The RLX Sport Hybrid doesn’t “look upscale” nor does it look more expensive than the cheaper TLX model.

The Bottom Line

The 2015 Acura RLX Sport Hybrid is a cuttingedge luxury sedan that provides superb ride and excellent road manners.

Competitors

BMW 5 Series The 5 Series have been in continuous production for several decades now, and each subsequent generation has improved on the latter. The 5 Series is the benchmark in this segment because of its ability to offer high levels of comfort, performance and practicality. Being the best comes at a price, and while a base 5 Series starts at $54,600, a fully loaded, top-of-the-line model is close to six ﬁgures. The handling is smooth but over-powered in some ways. Lexus GS It wasn’t that long ago that Lexus was criticized for being stale. Not anymore with the brand’s new restyling. The GS has an edgier appearance and a more luxurious interior, while the re-engineering makes the car more economical and more fun to drive. A base model GS 350 begins at $59,444.15, but the more comparable GS 450h starts at 77,544.15. Cadillac CTS The CTS comes with edgy styling and the heritage behind the Cadillac badge. The completely redesigned CTS sedan is signiﬁcantly lighter which gives it more sporting ability along with its traditional comfort. Starting prices for the CTS sedan begin at $52,695 and range up to $76,295.

The RLX Sport Hybrid’s key selling point is Acura’s claim that it is the most powerful car built by this brand — ever.

PLEASE READ THE FINE PRINT: Offers valid until February 2, 2015. See toyota.ca for complete details on all cash back offers. In the event of any discrepancy or inconsistency between Toyota prices, rates and/or other information contained on toyotabc.ca and that contained on toyota.ca, the latter shall prevail. Errors and omissions excepted. ¥Don’t Pay for 90 Days on Toyota Financial Service Finance Contracts (OAC) on all new 2014 and 2015 Toyota models. Offer valid from January 3 - February 2, 2015. Interest deferment on all finance contracts at no cost for at least 60 days. Interest will commence on the 61st day after the contract date. The first payment will be due 90 days from the contract date. Available with monthly or bi weekly payment frequency. Not available on lease. “The Freedom 40 Lease delivers a lower monthly payment by extending standard terms by four months without a rate increase and without a corresponding reduction in Lease-end Value”. As an example, standard term of 36 months can be stretched to 40 months. Freedom 40 Lease offer is valid until February 2, 2015. 2015 RAV4 FWD LE Automatic ZFREVT-A MSRP is $25,880 and includes $1,815 freight and pre-delivery inspection, tire levy and air conditioning charge. *Lease example: 2015 RAV4 FWD LE Automatic ZFREVT-A with a vehicle price of $25,880 includes $1,815 freight/PDI leased at 0.99% over 40 months with $1,950 down payment equals 80 semi-monthly payments of $135 with a total lease obligation of $12,780. Lease 40 mos. based on 60,000 km, excess km charge is $.10. **Finance example: 0.99% finance for 36 months, upon credit approval, available on 2015 RAV4 FWD LE Automatic ZFREVT-A. Applicable taxes are extra. 2015 Corolla CE 6M Manual BURCEM-A MSRP is $17,540 and includes $1,545 freight and pre-delivery inspection and tire levy. †Lease example: 2015 Corolla CE 6M with a vehicle price of $17,540, includes $1,545 freight/PDI leased at 0.99% over 40 months with $1,599 down payment equals 80 semi-monthly payments of $88 with a total lease obligation of $8,677. Lease 40 mos. based on 60,000 km, excess km charge is $.07. ††Finance example: 0.99% finance for 48 months, upon credit approval, available on 2015 Corolla CE 6M Manual BURCEM-A. Applicable taxes are extra. 2015 Tacoma Double Cab V6 5A SR5 Power Package 4x4 Automatic MU4FNA-A MSRP is $33,735 and includes $1,815 freight and y g , , km,, eexcess km charge g is $.10. ‡‡Finance example: 0.99% finance for 36 months, pre-delivery inspection, tire levy and air conditioning federal excise tax. ‡Lease example: 2015 Tacoma Double Cab V6 5A SR5 Standard Package 4x4 Automatic MU4FNA-A with a vehicle price of $33,735 includes $1,815 freight/PDI leased at 2.49% over 40 months with $2,995 down payment equals 80 semi-monthlyy ppayments of $$178 with a total lease obligation of $$17,256. Lease 40 mos. based on 60,000 upon credit approval, available on 2015 Tacoma Double Cab V6 5A Power Package 4x4 Automatic MU4FNA-A. Applicable taxes are extra. Applicable taxes are extra. Down payment, first semi-monthly payment and security deposit plus GST and PST on first payment and full down payment are due at lease inceptioon. A security deposit is not required on approval of credit. ‡‡‡Non-stackable Cash Back offers may not be combined with Toyota Financial Services (TFS) lease or finance rates. If you would like to lease or finance at standard TFS rates (not the above special rates), then you may be February 2, 2015. Cash incentives include taxes and are applied after taxes have been charged on the full amount of the negotiated price. See toyota.ca for complete details on all cash back offers. ¥¥Semi-monnthly lease offer available through Toyota Financial Services on approved credit to qualified retail customers on most 244, 28, 36, 40, 48, 52, 60 and 64 month leases of new and the First Payment Free and Encore offers. First Payment Free offer is valid for eligible TFS Lease Renewal cusstomers only. Toyota semi-monthly lease program based demonstrator Toyota vehicles. First semi-monthly payment due at lease inception and next monthly payment due approximately 15 days later and semi-monthly thereafter throughout the term. Toyota Financial Services will waive the final payment. Semi-monthly lease offer can be combined with most other offers excluding e on 24 payments per year, on a 40-month lease, equals 80 payments, with the final 80th payment waived by Toyota Financial Services. Not open to employees of Toyota Canada, Toyota Financial Services or TMMC/TMMC Vehicle Purchase Plan. Some conditions apply. See your Toyota dealer for complete details. Visit V your Toyota BC Dealer or www.toyotabc.ca for more details. Some conditions apply; offers are time limited and maay change without notice. Dealer may lease/sell for less.

The RLX Sport Hybrid comes standard with Acura’s Super Handling All-Wheel Drive and the system is calibrated to automatically bias the power to the outer wheels around a corner. This results in less understeer and more direct steering. Not only will the AWD system meter out power but it will also brake the inside wheel if needed. While braking, the hybrid system will regenerate some energy as well, though unlike some other hybrids, the regenerative braking is very smooth and the pedal feels completely natural. The RLX Sport Hybrid certainly lives up to its name and provides a surprisingly pleasant driving experience, but it’s also fuel-efﬁcient. Acura claims it is capable of V8-like acceleration with a fuel economy of a fourcylinder engine vehicle. Like other contemporary hybrid vehicles, the RLX Sport Hybrid is able to run in pure electric mode. And to make this Acura as efﬁcient as possible, start stop technology is standard.

S MODEL SHOWN

2015 COROLLA

2015 CE 6M $17,540 MSRP includes F+PDI

DCAB V6 MODEL SHOWN

2015 TACOMA OR FINANCE FROM ‡‡

semi-monthly/40 mos.

36 mos.

OR FINANCE FROM ††

0.99%

semi-monthly/40 mos.

2015 DCab V6 5A SR5 Power Package 4x4 $33,735 MSRP includes F+PDI

LEASE FROM ‡

LEASE FROM

†

48 mos.

178 0.99%

Don't pay for 90 days

XLE MODEL SHOWN

Do not pay for 90 days, on ALL ¥ new Toyota ﬁnance plans (OAC). Learn more at: ToyotaBC.ca

HURRY! ENDS FEB 2, 2015

FREEDOM

THE EVOLUTION OF LEASING

LE A SE

With our new Freedom 40 Lease you can ease into a brand new vehicle after just over 3 years, and enjoy lower monthly payments while doing it! Learn more at: ToyotaBC.ca

2015 RAV4

2015 FWD LE Auto $25,880 MSRP includes F+PDI

LEASE FROM *

OR FINANCE FROM **

semi-monthly/40 mos.

36 mos.

135 0.99%

¥¥

FINAL MONTH JIM PATTISON TOYOTA DOWNTOWN 1395 West Broadway (604) 682-8881 30692

JIM PATTISON TOYOTA NORTH SHORE 849 Auto Mall Drive (604) 985-0591

GRANVILLE TOYOTA VANCOUVER 8265 Fraser Street (604) 263-2711 6978

Toyot aBC .c a

18732

LANGLEY TOYOTATOWN LANGLEY 20622 Langley Bypass (604) 530-3156

JIM PATTISON TOYOTA SURREY 15389 Guildford Drive (604) 495-4100 6701

9497

OPENROAD TOYOTA RICHMOND Richmond Auto Mall (604) 273-3766

OPENROAD TOYOTA PORT MOODY 3166 St. John’s Street (604) 461-3656 7826

7825

DESTINATION TOYOTA BURNABY 4278 Lougheed Highway (604) 571-4350 9374

PEACE ARCH TOYOTA SOUTH SURREY 3174 King George Highway (604) 531-2916 30377

SUNRISE TOYOTA ABBOTSFORD Fraser Valley Auto Mall (604) 857-2657 5736

REGENCY TOYOTA VANCOUVER 401 Kingsway (604) 879-8411 8507

WEST COAST TOYOTA PITT MEADOWS 19950 Lougheed Highway (866) 910-9543 7662

VALLEY TOYOTA CHILLIWACK 8750 Young Road (604) 792-1167 8176

SQUAMISH TOYOTA SQUAMISH 39150 Queens Way (604) 567-8888 31003

WESTMINSTER TOYOTA NEW WESTMINSTER 210 - 12th Street (604) 520-3333 8531

A32

THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, JA N UA RY 9 , 2 0 1 5

WEEKLY SPECIALS Prices Effective January 8 to January 14, 2015.

While quantities last. Not all items available at all stores. We reserve the right to correct printing errors.

100% BC Owned and Operated PRODUCE

MEAT Organic California Grown Cara Cara Navel Oranges

Organic California Grown Red and Rainbow Chard

2.98lb/ 6.57kg

2/4.00

product of USA

Aspen Ridge Stewing Meat

Organic Whole Chicken

7.99lb/ 17.61kg

3.99lb/ 8.80kg

product of USA

Organic

Roaster Russet Potatoes

Juice Carrots from Fountainview Farm, Lillooet,BC

.98

19.98

2.27kg/5lb bag

11.3kg/25lb bag

product of BC, Canada

Organic Lean Ground Beef

Organic Chicken Bone in Breast or Thighs

value pack

6.99lb/ 15.41kg

8.99lb/ 19.82kg

GROCERY

HEALTHCARE

Dairyland Organic Milk

Elias Honey Liquid or Creamed

assorted varieties

SAVE

7.99

FROM

24%

4L product of Canada

L’Ancetre Organic Cheese

SAVE

24%

assorted varieties

6.99-7.99 500g product of Canada

Annie Chun’s Roasted Seaweed Snacks assorted varieties

assorted varieties

FROM

Liberté Classique Yogurt

SAVE 2/3.00

4.99-6.99

44%

200g product of Canada

10g

product of USA/Korea

SAVE 2/6.00

32%

with or without pulp

SAVE

SAVE FROM

27%

assorted varieties

FROM

31%

Maison Orphée Oil

2.19

SAVE FROM

36%

from 2/7.00 125-226g product of USA

SAVE

30%

regular retail price

Enerex Greens RX

2/7.00 600g

30.99 250g 52.99 400g

product of Canada

3.99

4.99-9.99

1L product of Canada

BULK

250 - 750ml product of Italy, Canada, Mexico, Argentina

Ecover Dishwasher Detergent assorted varieties and sizes

MacKellar Farms Frozen Edamame Shelled or Pods

2/5.00 150-160g • product of Canada

6.99 product of USA

2/6.00 400g • product of Canada

20% off regular retail price

xxx BAKERY

DELI

GLUTEN FREE

xxx • product of xxx

Organic Multigrain Bread

Tre Stelle or Dofino Cheese Slices

2/10.00 125-165g Ready to Eat Roasted Specialty Chickens

4.49

Raw Bars assorted flavours

2.49 110g

530g

Summer Fresh Hummus Toppers

11.99 6.99

9" Fruit Pies

assorted varieties

4.99

assorted varieties

9.99

300g

www.choicesmarkets.com

Rice select varieties, bags and bins

regular or no salt

half

25% off

assorted varieties

Raincoast Wild Pink Salmon

whole

assorted sizes

Dairyland Whipping Cream

assorted varieties

520ml +deposit +eco fee product of Thailand

Sukin Facial Care

assorted varieties

Pearl’s Frozen Perogies

2/5.00 40% 1Lfrom • product of Italy

SAVE

14.99

90 tablets

750g product of Canada

Popcorn Indiana Popcorn

Isola Bio Organic Non-Dairy Beverages

C2O Coconut Water

Sisu Ester-C 500mg

assorted varieties

/ChoicesMarkets

@ChoicesMarkets

Kitsilano

Cambie

Kerrisdale

Yaletown

Gluten Free Bakery

South Surrey

Burnaby Crest

Kelowna

Floral Shop

2627 W. 16th Ave. Vancouver

3493 Cambie St. Vancouver

1888 W. 57th Ave. Vancouver

1202 Richards St. Vancouver

2595 W. 16th Ave. Vancouver

3248 King George Blvd. South Surrey

8683 10th Ave. Burnaby

1937 Harvey Ave. Kelowna

2615 W. 16th Vancouver

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