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July 25, 2003
Honeymoon not over yet
Mayor Larry Campbell soothes Jews, says bubkes.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Last week, Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell was buoyed by a public
opinion poll indicating his approval rating was close to 80 per
cent. And on Tuesday, when he spoke to a lunch group at a fund-raiser
for the local branch of the Jewish National Fund, it became doubly
clear the honeymoon was far from over.
The mayor charmed the audience with humor and even a bit of yiddishkeit,
demonstrating his ability to salve potential sore spots. The JNF
lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel attracted about 50 people, largely
business owners and executives who might, under normal circumstances,
not be amenable to the words of a mayor elected in a left-wing sweep.
Add to this the general perception in Canada that the left is becoming
stridently anti-Israel and the fact that two members of Campbell's
council last year signed a pro-Palestinian petition that irked many
in the Jewish community, the reception might have been less than
cordial.
But the mayor defused any potential friction off the top, with his
assurance that, whatever negative remarks some members of his council
have made about Israel, he does not share their views. Councillors
are free to disagree with each other, he said, and voters are free
to make their choices.
"There's a ballot box that speaks quite loudly when the time
comes, and I think I'll just leave it at that," he said.
The mayor spoke of his introduction to the Jewish rituals surrounding
death when he was a coroner. Campbell was coroner in the city of
Vancouver, then went on to lead the provincial coroner's service.
In 1981, he said, Rabbi Yitzchak Wineberg met with him and explained
the sacred processes that the Jewish tradition proscribes for treatment
of the deceased. Speeding up the process in the coroner's office
so that a body could be released in time for burial, according to
Jewish law, became the rule under Campbell, he said. It also marked
the beginning of a long friendship with Wineberg, who offered prayers
at Campbell's swearing in last January.
"I think the low point of our relationship," Campbell
said of Wineberg, "was when I met his wife and shook her hand
and the room let out a collective 'oy vay.' "
He also noted the contributions of the Jewish community to the development
and growth of the city and added his appreciation for the vividness
of the Yiddish language.
"You gave me terms like bubkes which I use a lot at
city hall," he said.
Campbell spoke of the excitement around the awarding of the Olympics
to Vancouver-Whistler in 2010 and acknowledged that he did not expect
as close a race as transpired in Prague.
The mayor laid out his vision for the city, frankly acknowledging
some of the failures.
"We do not have good buses. We do not have good transit. We
have too many cars," he said. "We need to get people from
Point A to Point B in a way that is environmentally friendly."
The public must be involved in decision-making, he said, and the
city must resist developing a "poor me" attitude when
economic conditions are poor. Things turn around, he said.
Campbell, who was propelled to office in part by his stated determination
to confront the disasters that exist in the Downtown Eastside, told
the JNF audience that the area remains his top priority.
"We're going into the Downtown Eastside," he said. "If
I do nothing else in three years, when I walk out of here, there
will be a change in the Downtown Eastside."
A primary step, he said, was getting an agreement to purchase the
old Woodward's department store building from the provincial government
well below market value, attached to a promise of funding for social
housing.
Responding to questions from the audience, Campbell denied his council
is intimidated from running a transit line down the Arbutus corridor
by the wealthy neighbors who oppose such a line.
"I'd drive it through Shaughnessy in a Texas second,"
he quipped to laughter from the audience. "They never voted
for me."
But it is not an economically feasible proposal, he claimed, noting
that mass transit thrives on population density, which doesn't exist
in sufficient numbers in the far west of the city. Moreover, such
a plan would require a new bridge to Richmond and double-tracking
of the line, which is currently a single rail track.
The lunch was the last to be attended by Ran Bagg, the Jerusalem
emissary to Vancouver, who returns to Israel in two weeks.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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