Mayor Gregor Robertson wants to end homelessness by 2015 and make Vancouver the greenest city in the world.

If his inauguration today (December 8) is anything to go by, he is more weighed down by his ceremonial mayoral chains than he is by those two issues.

“I’m going to have to get used to wearing this bling,” Robertson said, as he began his inaugural address following the mayor and council’s official swearing-in at Sunset Community Centre on Main Street in South Vancouver.

Provincial court judge Bill Yee, who was the city’s first elected councillor of Chinese descent in 1982, was on hand to perform the swearing-in. Sworn in alongside Vision Vancouver’s Robertson were his council caucus colleagues Andrea Reimer, Tim Stevenson, Raymond Louie, Kerry Jang, Heather Deal, George Chow, and Geoff Meggs. Also sworn in was COPE councillor Ellen Woodsworth and NPA councillor Suzanne Anton.

COPE councillor David Cadman, who was just re-elected to his third term, was absent and out of the country on city business at the United Nations climate-change conference in Poznan, Poland, according to COPE spokeperson Ivan Bulic

“I’m wearing the traditional Robertson tartan of my ancestors from the Highlands of Scotland,” Robertson said. “If that sparks a fashion craze, I’ll shoulder full responsibility. The diversity here today is no accident. Our families made a conscious choice, and a conscious effort, to come to Vancouver from every corner of the world. We’ve become one of the planet’s most culturally diverse cities, and that means we have a remarkable array of intelligence, creativity, and global connections.”

Around 400 people packed into the hall.