Patrick Britten: Vancouver could be frolicking naked

Mayoral candidate Patrick Britten (Nude Garden Party) on his plans for the future of Vancouver
 

Soon you will be choosing a new government to run your city, Vancouver. You will find Pat Britten for the Nude Garden Party at the top of the mayoral ballot on November 15. Put your X there and feel free.

Material truth, freedom, integrity, and justice tendered by compassion are close to my heart and mind and should be more in tune with the universal.

We 450-odd thousand and surrounding three million have gathered here at the mouth of the Fraser on the northwest American shore, to pursue our dreams. Let’s seize the day! If not now!

We could be one family of the human flesh, hot at the centre, cool in the neighbourhoods, frolicking naked on the beaches, and dancing the night away. If not now!

If mayor, I would move heaven and earth to give us a day in the spring/summer of 2009 in a public place/places to gather naked, a Friday. Full spectrum participation and consultation with all relevant health care agencies and the police leading to an international congress on naked humanity. If not now!

To develop a fully civil society that provides shelter for everybody, you need bricks and mortar. Let our bodies, hearts and minds be the bricks, and love and consultation be the mortar. If not now!

On the auspicious occasion of the Winter Olympics, we can give the world our exercise in unleashed personal, social, and business evolution. Vancouver as host of these guests and for ourselves, needs to attend to some physical plant issues. We should be heading up the systematic purging of bedbugs and cockroaches, with industrial sized portable microwave technology. We, old summer of ’69, Habitat 76, World Symposium on Humanity 78, Expo 86, Globe 92, World Urban Forum 2006, Olympians visualize Vancouver as a clearinghouse on design technologies for future global development. Let’s practice what we preach. Now!

I also have a dream. Nanjing in China in November will host the follow up to the conference we had here on urban sustainability. In that city they planted several million trees. We must do that to the whole Earth.

Vancouver could be the economic sharp end of a B.C. recovery that utilizes pine beetle logs in diverse new Vancouver specials to fill every niche and fit every pocket book--integrated living smart villages for our dear hinterland and on offer to the rest of the world. Meanwhile generating plant materials to replace the pine. Vancouver could stand very tall and release us from the burdens of history. Vancouver we could be great history, or not to be?

If not now? When? Where? Lovers and friends and fellow citizens.

 
How would you reshape your municipality? The Georgia Straight is publishing articles on its Web site from mayoral candidates in Metro Vancouver. For more information, e-mail webeditor@straight.com.