London Calling

The British are coming! The British are coming!

Well, at least the United Kingdom minister responsible for London 2012 Tessa Jowell and several businesspeople from Blighty.

Jowell arrives June 15 and stays until June 19 to tour 2010 venues in Vancouver and Whistler and meet with VANOC executives and politicians.

Public meetings on Britannia and life in 2010

June 11 at Britannia Centre. 6 p.m. The Britannia board meets again to discuss the controversial proposal to let VANOC use Britannia Arena for Olympic hockey practice in 2010. A vote is unlikely before a proposal from VANOC and the City of Vancouver is received and questions about costs and security are answered.

June 18 at Richmond city hall (6:30 p.m.), June 19 at Hastings Park community centre (6:30 p.m.) and June 24 at Riley Park community centre (6:30 p.m.) are stops on VANOC's Game Plan 2008 tour, which is supposed to be a preview of how the Games will impact citizens' lives in February 2010. 

All are open to the public. 

Come with questions. Demand to leave with answers. Or stay quiet now and complain to yourself in 2010. 

NDP takes aim at Kinsella, Jiles

B.C. NDP attorney general critic Leonard Krog and federal NDP Olympics critic Peter Julian have blown the whistle on two of Premier Gordon Campbell's closest allies. 

"When Washington State went looking for a piece of the Olympic pie, it hired none other than Gordon Campbell insiders, Patrick Kinsella and Mark Jiles, to lobby the federal minister (David Emerson)," Burnaby-New Westminster MP Peter Julian said in Question Period on June 9. "There is only one problem -- they are not registered to lobby, which means it is illegal for them to lobby." 

Kinsella masterminded B.C. Liberal election victories in 2001 and 2005. Jiles managed Campbell's successful Vancouver-Point Grey campaign in 2005. In 2006, their Progressive Group scored a gig with the State of Washington to lobby key Olympic decision-makers, including cabinet ministers and VANOC executives, and find Olympic-related contracts for Washington companies.

Jiles boasted in one document that Progressive had "an office in the heart of Vancouver, a hand in British Columbia's provincial capital of Victoria and a foot into the 2010 Organizing Committee." 

Julian asked federal lobbyists' registrar Michael Nelson to investigate. Krog did the same provincially with B.C.'s information and privacy commissioner David Loukidelis. Jiles told 24 hours Vancouver that Progressive's work was simply "sports marketing."

Read more about this, including the scandalous Washington State documents, on Victoria journalist Sean Holman's Public Eye blog.

 

VANOC associate on trial

The Crown's case against VANOC Four Host First Nations executive director Tewanee Joseph and his lacrosse buddy Bobby Bell began to unravel on June 6 when defence lawyer Greg McDade cross-examined key witness/complainant Susan Soloman. Proceedings in the mischief and
threats matter are supposed to conclude on June 12. Read all about it here.

Sully soaked in pour protest

A majority of NPA members raised a glass for Coun. Peter Ladner when he won the party's mayoral nomination on June 8. Someone poured a soft drink pitcher on lame-duck Mayor Sam Sullivan.
Undercover Vancouver Police officers arrested a woman at the Marriott Pinnacle Hotel nomination meeting, but the sleuths are apparently confused about the watery weapon.
A VPD news release on June 9 stated the pitcher contained "iced tea or coke."
C'mon fellas, you'll have to be more specific when 21-year-old Megan Craig of the notorious Anti-Poverty Committee appears in court on assault charges.
She was among those arrested during the sparsely attended Feb. 12, 2007 Omega countdown clock unveiling at Vancouver Art Gallery.

Hockey Night in Canada theme going to the Olympics

CTV made a substantial free agent signing June 9 after CBC failed to ink a new deal with the Hockey Night in Canada theme. 

The composition of ex-Vancouverite Dolores Claman was acquired in a Monday deal. CBC talks with Claman's agent John Ciccone broke down June 6. 

CTV now owns the 40-year-old instrumental, which will be heard on TSN and RDS coverage of National Hockey League games and during the 2010 Games' hockey tournament. CTV has Canadian rights to broadcast the 2010 Games. 

So long, Sully

Mayor Sam Sullivan has had his 15 minutes of Olympic fame. He won't be giving away the Olympic flag to the mayor of Sochi, Russia on Feb. 28, 2010. That's because Coun. Peter Ladner won the Non-Partisan Association mayoralty nomination on June 8, 1,066-986. (For non-Vancouverites, the NPA is the unparty. It's a coalition of provincial and federal Liberals and Conservatives.)

Early in Sullivan's term, he accepted the Olympic flag at the Torino 2006 closing ceremony and did a donut in his electric wheelchair on live international TV. 

It was a flawless performance, but the same couldn't be said for his mayoralty. Sullivan said he was concerned with the plight of the city's homeless, but did little to solve the blight that is the Downtown Eastside ghetto. Ultimately, it was his stubborn, "I won't blink first" stance that prolonged a civic workers' strike in summer and fall of 2007 that was the beginning of the end for Sullivan. 

With Sullivan rolling into the sunset, what will become of supporter Jeff Mooney's spot on the VANOC board of directors? 

Vancouverites go to the polls on Nov. 15. Ladner's main challenger from the left-of-centre Vision Vancouver Party will be either Coun. Raymond Louie or NDP MLA Gregor Robertson.