What really goes on behind Vancouver's pricey Coal Harbour condominium closed doors?

The cast from “The 21st Floor” at the after-party following a performance. – photo Todd Wong

Michèle Lonsdale Smith has written The 21st Floor.  It is a voyeurist look into the mundane, sordid lives of Vancouver condo dwellers who don't know their neighbors on the same floor of until something happens.  We discover what brings them together and keeps them apart.  It's ironic that people can live so close together but never know their neighbors.  Smith explores this and gives the performers the freedom to creatively explore their emotional and physical ranges each night.

The set is lucious.  It opens into windows that reveal the surrounding Coal Harbour buildings.  You can actually look into the rooms of surrounding condos.  But the real action takes place in each of the 8 little rooms surrounding the PAL theatre space.

Each character represents typical but exotic stereotypes of Vancouver condo dwellers: The yuppie developer's son; the cold yuppie lawyer; the drug user model; the hick from Alberta; the podcaster; the gay couple; the sexaholic.

Stir and mix… taste the results.  Tangy.  Sweet.  Bitter.

Staged by Presented by Lyric Stage Project Nov 11-22, PAL theatre, Coal Harbour www.the21stfloor.ca

Check out these links:

The 21st Floor naively explores urban alienation | Straight.com

The 21st Floor / PAL Theatre / Nov 19th, 08 / 2016

The 21st Floor at the PAL Theatre | Placeblogger

Theatre review – “The 21st Floor” at PAL Theatre (Coal Harbour …

It's Douglas Day in BC.

BC's first governor Sir James Douglas was raised in Scotland, after
being born in British Guyana to a Scottish father and a Creole mother. 
And then there are rivers named after Scottish-Canadian explores
Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser.

I think I will go visit the event to ensure a Chinese presence…. hee hee… there was no head tax or exclusion act in effect back in 1858.  2008 is also the 120th anniversary of the arrival in Canada of Rev. Chan Sing Kai who came to help start the Chinese Methodist Church.  Hi younger brother, my great-great-grandfather Rev. Chan Yu Tan followed in 1896.  CBC made a television documentary in 2007 titled Generations: The Chan Legacy

For more information on the provincial celebration, including evening concert details, visit the BC 150 website.

Douglas Day
Wednesday, November 19th
from 10:00 am – 8:30pm

James Douglas
© Parks Canada

Our big day! BC turns 150 years old today, and it all started right
here. On November 19th, 1858 Governor James Douglas read a proclamation
in Fort Langley’s Big House declaring the territory a British Colony.
Parks Canada is offering free admission for the day, so celebrate the
birth of British Columbia at Fort Langley. Enjoy the BC 150 theatre
presentation, tours, and more! Our costumed staff and volunteers will
be out in force providing activities and fun for the whole family.

• Photograph yourself into history: bring your camera, don
  one of our costumes and have your picture taken with the mural
  depicting the famous moment
• Sign a certificate with a fountain pen stating you were at BC's birthplace ON the big day! (150 years later)
• Visit the theatre to “Build” British Columbia with a huge soft-sculpture map of the province
• Ongoing blacksmithing and barrel-making demonstrations
• Kids can try their hand stringing cranberries, rolling a barrel or tackling an obstacle course!

Be a part of your provincial history on November 19th at Fort Langley NHS!

For more information on the provincial celebration, including evening concert details, visit the BC 150 website.

120 years ago in 1888, Rev. Chan Sing Kai arrived in Canada.  He was later followed by his younger brother Rev. Chan Yu Tan in 1896.  Their sisters Phoebe and Naomi followed afterwards.  The family helped to found and support the Chinese Methodist Church in BC, and also spread to the American states of Washington, Oregon, Nevada, California, Illinois and the Canadian Provinces of Ontario and Alberta.

Generations: The Chan Legacy aired all across Canada on CBC Newsworld on July 4th, 2007 and repeated throughout July and August as the lead episode in a 7 part series of Canadian families called Generations.

Halya happily holds up her award for “Best Picture” – photo Todd WongNOVEMBER 16th
SUNDAY

11am – 1pm

Floata Seafood Chinese Restaurant

#400 – 180 Keefer St.

Vancouver ChinatownHalya Kuchmij returned to Vancouver for the first time since filming for The Chan Legacy in October 2006, and members of the Rev. Chan Legacy committee agreed to:

1. Give Halya a gift of appreciation for the wonderful work that she did in creating
   and telling the story of Rev. Chan Yu Tan and his family descendants.
2. Have
   a family get together (not a reunion) to celebrate the television documentary
3. Celebrate
   120th anniversary of Rev. Chan Sing Kai’s arrival to Canada in 1888.

7
family members were interviewed for the documentary.

• Victor Wong WWII veteran
• Helen Lee – lived in Nanaimo as a child with Rev & Mrs. Chan Yu
  Tan
• Gary Lee – actor/singer
• Janice Wong  – artist and author of CHOW
• Todd Wong  – multicultural activist
• Tracy Hinder P
  – 2005 BC Canspell Champion
• Rhonda Larrabee  – Chief of Qayqayt First Nations

 

Halya Kuchmij, Todd Wong and Col. Howe Lee.  All have played roles in helping to tell the stories of pioneer Chinese-Canadians.

I go to the DTES to hand out voting
pamphlets at Oppenheimer Park along
Hastings St. to Strathcona Community
Centre.

COPE victory party at COPE headquarters

Vision Vancouver party at Hotel
Vancouver

Gregor Robertson wins Mayor

Andy Miller, Stuart Mackinnon, Andrea Reimer and Kerry Jang – photo Todd Wong
Raymond Louie, Heather Deal, George
Chow, Kerry Jang, Andrea Reimer, Tim
Stevenson, David Cadman, Suzanne Anton,
Geoff Meggs and Ellen Woodworth are on
council

Stuart Mackinnon on Parks with
Constance Barnes, Aaron Jasper, Raj
Hundal, Sarah Blyth, Loretta Woodcock,
and Ian Robertson

Todd Wong (CUPE 391) Geoff Meggs councilor-elect, Sarah Blyth Parks Board-elect, Joe Smith Vancouver fire fighters)

Nov 15th 2008 Vancouver Civic…

“The NPA will not talk about the strike.  They refuse to talk about the issues we believe are important to Vancouverites,” said Andrea Reimer at last night's general meeting for Vancouver Library Workers CUPE 391.

CUPE 15 workers came down to the CUPE 391 Library Square strike line in a support of solidarity on August 17th.

Andrea Reimer –  Vision Vancouver council candidate, Loretta Woodcock – COPE incumbent parks commissioner, and Stuart Mackinnon – Green Party parks board candidate, all were special guests addressing civic issues for the Nov. 15th Vancouver civic election.

“The civic strike affected our parks, our community centres, our libraries.  It is an important issue.  But the NPA have not been addressing it.” said Stuart Mackinnon.  “It is important for our civic workers to be treated fairly.”

“The NPA has a total disrespect for unionized workers,” said Woodcock.  “I see that as a parks commissioner.”

“The City just made many managerial staff exempt staff, by re-classifiying them at a cost of about $10,000 increased salary for doing basically the same job,” said Woodcock  “They are doing this to strike-proof the city.  They state that unionized workers are getting a 4% increase, and exclude that managers are also getting the same 4% increase.”

The special guest speakers were clearly the highlight of the meeting.  Woodcock also discussed how NPA parks chair had put a motion forward to initiate a morale survey, but withdrew it once Woodcock had identified key issues to address.  These same issues had shown up on an in-house library culture survey, that showed that the morale at the Vancouver Library was poor before last year's strike action.  Everybody agrees the situations are worse post-strike.

I did ask them what they thought about Sam Sullivan's comments to Don Cayo's interview in the Vancouver Sun. Sullivan says 'I did everything I wanted do'  Sullivan admitted that one of his regrets during his 14 years of city hall including 3 years as mayor, was that the strike went on too long.  Sullivan said:

Everybody knew what the deal was — 17.5 per cent. We knew it the weekend the strike started. Everybody knew it.

So I suggested, “Why don't we just offer that?”

It
was, “Mayor, you don't understand negotiations. You have to offer less.
Then they ask for more. Then you offer more. And eventually you get to
the right number.”'

If this was truly the case, why didn't Mayor Sullivan step in to ensure that a strike never happened.  All the other municipalities saw the bargaining positions happening, and they were quickly able to avert forcing strike action.  Our CUPE 391 bargaining committee said they had never seen labour negotiations like the ones the city put them through in years of bargaining.  The GVRD labour relations bureau kept rejecting CUPE 391 proposals since January when the contract ran out, and never put forward a contract counter-offer until July when it was too late.  

Mayor Sullivan instead decided to table a “final offer” to Vancouver civic workers and then force them to vote on it which Vision Vancouver councilor Raymond Louie said “is dangerous bullying, and is more likely to provoke a strike than to end it.  It was actually Louie who proposed mediatio only two weeks into the strike, in an effort to bring it to a quick close.  Unfortunately the NPA rejected the mediation process…. and the strike dragged on and on.
http://www.fairnessforcivicworkers.ca/www/news/Vision_challenges_Su

The GVRD Labour Relations Bureau also had it set that they would not deal with the smaller CUPE 391 library workers, until it had finished negotiating with the larger CUPE 15 inside workers and CUPE 1004 outside workers.  So library workers were out of luck regardless.  This doesn't sound like a fair negotiating strategy that would ensure good labour relations for a city that has just been chosen as one of Canada’s Top 100
Employers for 2009 by Mediacorp Canada Ltd. 

It's actually an embarrassment.

Peter Ladner was not helpful in resolving the strike issues and actually helped to make them worse when he submitted “a vitriolic column in the Vancouver Sun
that regurgitates the City’s discredited propaganda and continues the
myth of a City council protecting residents from their city workers.”  http://www.fairnessforcivicworkers.ca/www/news/Ladners_Vancouver_Su