2012 Year in Review: B.C.

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      Our year-in-review special looks back at the wacky, weird, and wondrous stories of 2012.

      Name game blame

      “We don’t want to return to the days where park commissioners are naming parks after themselves, which is really what we saw with George Wainborn Park and Andy Livingstone [Park]—a bunch of commissioners sitting around deciding which park they were going to name after themselves.…It’s not like I’m saying, ‘I want to rename that Jasper Park over there.’ I’ve already got a park named after me in the Rockies. I think I’m taken care of.

      —Vision park board commissioner Aaron Jasper, on streamlining the process of naming Vancouver city parks. Jasper faced censure over his remarks

      Force feeding

      “If we’re going to eat, we might as well eat the most optimal things for ourselves and eat the most densely nutritious, most full of life-force food.…That’s the aspect of raw foods—the life force that it brings to us. We’re connecting directly with the Earth and its electrical force, I think, through not diminishing that. Maybe that’s a woo-woo answer.”

      —Gorilla Food owner Aaron Ash, on the merits of raw food

      Dog + pony = show

      “To me, it’s not consultation. It’s like going out for dinner and the waiter coming and saying, ‘Do you want red or white wine?’ Maybe they should ask if you want wine at all, and that was never a question. It was never ‘Do you think we should put a gondola through Stawamus Chief park?’ It was ‘So we’re putting a gondola up—no question about that. Do you want a red gondola or a blue gondola?’ ”

      —Friends of the Squamish Chief organizer Theresa Negreiff, on the B.C. government’s plan to put a gondola in Stawamus Chief Provincial Park

      Santa’s hit list

      The Abbotsford Police Department this year sent as many as 100 Christmas cards to criminals with multiple convictions, gang members, and people known to be involved in the drug trade. The picture shows a traditional red-suited and white-bearded Santa (with Abbotsford police chief Bob Rich’s face) decked out in helmet, bulletproof vest, and automatic assault rifle, with the words on the front: “Which list will you be on next year?” Inside, recipients were asked to “consider 2013 the year you choose a new and better life”. Police spokesperson Const. Ian MacDonald told Canadian Press the cards were an attempt to “reach out to some people and give them a different message”.

      Switch bitter

      “The Liberal government has failed the people of British Columbia and has squandered trust with the public on issues such as paying $6 million in legal fees for two convicted criminals (Basi and Virk) and the introduction of the HST shortly after the last election when they said it was not on the table.”

      —Former B.C. Conservative candidate John Martin, on the B.C. Liberals prior to the Chilliwack-Hope by-election on April 19 (in which he came last). On September 21, Martin announced he had quit the Conservative party in order to run as a B.C. Liberal nominee in Chilliwack

      Banana appeal

      “He is not Chinese; he is a banana.”

      —David Chung, spokesperson for the B.C. Asian Restaurant and Cafe Owners Association and owner of Jade Seafood Restaurant, on Vision Vancouver councillor Kerry Jang. The use of banana, a derogatory term for people of Asian descent who are seen as “too white”, was spurred by Jang’s support of a ban on shark-fin products in the city of Vancouver

      “At first I was pissed off. Then I thought, ‘I guess I really am [a banana].’ I should be reflecting all of Vancouver’s values, not just one particular group’s. So at the end of the day, I took it as kind of an offhand compliment, but it took some intellectual energy to get there.”

      —Kerry Jang, responding to David Chung

      Comments

      1 Comments

      Hans Goldberg

      Dec 27, 2012 at 11:17pm

      Kudos Mr. Jang, for standing up for your convictions and being a true representative of the people, who elected him.