Thanks for reading this blog. With a new year comes a new chapter in my career and I've started a new blog to chart it. Hope you'll continue to read my stuff at www.thecbennettblog.blogspot.com . -end-
My good friend and PR guru Tyler Wright sent me this - I had to post it. Pretty cool. You should vote for this guy, he could win it...
Trying to finish tons of client work before the holidays, don't worry, I'll be back, w/ some news about my plans for the new year and some political updates. Merry Christmas! -end-
PM Harper went to Rideau Hall this morning at 9:30am to see the GG. This was the photo outside of her home. My first thought was 'don't these people have somewhere else they should be?'. School, a job, maybe looking for a job...? 
Hey readers. I'm really getting into this twitter stuff. David Brodie over at Cossette gave me the bug a few months ago and i'm pretty much hooked (you have to follow his and check out his travel podcast - unreal). It's almost better than blogging. Almost. If you're interested, you can follow my political and business tweets at www.twitter.com/bennettweets. My wife Kate is even getting into it for her startup e-magazine www.bowzer.biz (www.twitter.com/bowzertweets - nice plug, eh honey?) Hope to see you on Twitter! -end-
Mark my words, Camille Labchuk will make a great Prime Minister one day. I met Camille while I was working w/ the Federal Green Party a few years back. She impressed me then, and she's impressed me ever since. She comes from good stock too, her Mom will remembered as a pioneer and powerful force in the Green Party/Environmental movement long from now, It's no surprise her daughter would be as extraordinary as Camille. She has plans to attend Law School soon enough, which is no surprise either.
In honor of the Mayor's luncheon today, here's a list of some of the great things Vancouver got done while Mayor Sullivan presided over City Hall. Not bad at all, Sam.
Gary Mason has a great column in this weekend's Globe. You can read it here. The Premier has stepped out front of the economic issue once again and has shown some thoughtful perspective on the realities of the downturn, and the unrealisitic chance that we'll ever get things 'back to normal'.
Carlito Pablo has a great story here about the coup that is widely considered to have destroyed the once mighty NPA. Some interesting ideas here, and the Straight isn't the only publication pushing this idea, it seems everyone is of the mindset that a seasoned campaign champion like Mayor Sullivan might have been the 'better way to travel'.
You can read Don Cayo's exclusive interview here. Right to the end, Sullivan has worked hard to help push the NPA (Ladner and others) towards another term. In the advance polls he publicly supported every NPA candidate on the slate. Despite the way things went down, I respect the class and poise he's shown here. As I've said many times before, they'll miss him when he's gone.... -end-
I'll let this article speak for itself, it's in today's National Post. Wow. Seriously, you should read this if you care at all about the Federal Green Party and what's next for our leader. A friend of mine bet me the other day that Karl Rove could get greens elected in Canada. I don't think it'll come to that, but it's definitely time to step up the campaign fight, that's for sure. -end-
I've known Ben West for a long time now, we're probably about as far apart on the green spectrum as you can get, but man, this guy is smart, and going places politically. He's always been on the cutting edge of e-politics and he understands how social media can transform a campaign by connecting him to the voters directly. Brilliant.
It's confirmed, the Liberal party of Canada will be hosting their next leadership convention here in Vancouver, thanks to Mayor Sullivan's efforts. Not prepared to let it slip away to Ottawa, Toronto or Quebec, the Mayor lobbied hard to bring it here, in doing so, an estimated $10 Million + injection into our local economy. Nice work, Sam. This is good news. You can read about it here. See you in May. -end-
This story is already old, and not that exciting, but it's important. You can read more CBC.ca coverage on the contendors here. I'm sulking that John is out, since he's the reason I became involved in politics in the first place. I'm rethinking Ignatieff. I wasn't a fan a few years ago, but he's definitely growing on me. Oddly enough, he told a joke at a function the other night that made me laugh. Hey, people change, why can't I learn to love Ignatieff too? -end-
A good friend allerted me to this site. Osmosus is a unique online social community created to address the growing need for dialogue, learning and action related to the environment and sustainability. Osmosus enables us to come together and improve our communities, our world and ultimately ourselves. Basically it's like Facebook for Greenies. I was particularly impressed w/ the carbon footprint worksheet. The site is still in Beta, but if you're one of the millions of 'wired' greens out there, you'll love it. -end-
No story here, just my public support of an amazing council candidate. Vote for her on Saturday, she's worth it, and she's going to do great things for Vancouver. Trust me. -end-
Kim Capri is going to do great things in BC Politics, mark my words. Two years ago, she put partisanship aside w/ Mayor Sullivan, and lobbied hard on behalf of BC Greens to help us be recognized at the UBCM. We almost won the vote. A year later, she put an NPA motion forward at council to try again (putting partisanship aside once more) to give greens another push. This time, it worked. Greens made history because of an NPA motion that Kim Capri championed with Mayor Sullivan. She's intelligent, she's articulate and she works harder than any city councillor I've ever seen.
My newly elected MP, Andrew Saxton from North Vancouver, was recently appointed to the post of Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In this role he will assist Minister Toews, who oversees and the management of Government. 
I've spent the last few hours pouring over Gregor's (Vision Vancouver) campaign platform. Yes, I'm just getting to it now (I have a 4 month old that doesn't let me sleep much, sorry...). I'm not going to write a big long blog post here because I'm actually really impressed. It's good.
From The Mayor's Office: Last week, Vancouver City Council approved a series of recommendations to expand access to laneway housing across the City of Vancouver. The recommendations deliver on a key EcoDensity action items unanimously approved by Council in June. Laneway housing is generally a smaller house or cottage at the rear of the lot near the lane. The report we approved provides much more defined parameters of what laneway housing would be in the context of Vancouver single family areas. It covers close to 70,000 lots of varying sizes and shapes with a variety of existing houses and garage types.
The recommendations in the report include:
Expanding laneway housing across the City of Vancouver is a win-win-win for city. We are supporting more affordable housing choices, protecting the environment and stimulating the economy at the same time. Councillor Suzanne Anton deserves some big kudos for her tireless work on this file. EcoDensity is going to work and lead us towards a greener city.
We need to elect a Mayor and councillors who understand this and will continue the work Mayor Sullivan has started. -end-
In the true spirit of change, The Obama transition team has launched www.change.gov. Take a look and see for yourself, it's a clever opening move to signal a more impressive (if not effective and efficient) use of social media and online government communications. This Obama guy is good. -end-
As the twilight of his mayoral duties draws closer, Mayor Sullivan is still out there fighting for Vancouver. I really admire that about him. There's been rumors of the federal Liberal party moving their leadership convention out of Vancouver. Mayor Sullivan is fighting to ensure they'll keep it here. I appreciate that. BC Liberals should too, considering how well they did in the last election. You can read the story in the Georgia Straight here. -end-
My first love of politics came from speechwriting. I still love it, it's my singular favorite part of campaign politics. My understanding is that Jon Favreau was the principle author of the speech, though I can't verify that and I suspect Obama himself took pen to paper also. Well done, Johnny, what a great piece of work. As a political speechwriter, I can tell you that last night Obama did not disappoint. I'll let the President-Elect do the talking.
This month's WIRED Magazine has an extraordinary article about how student activists are changing politics in Egypt through Facebook. I was about to blog about the impact of Facebook on Mayor Sullivan's EcoDensity initiative (by the way, well done, Olga Orda! It's a great campaign) when I came across this story, and had to spread the word. I think it's amazing when social media is used to create social change. This story is proof of that. I was inspired by this story. On the eve of the US election, what could be more important than a reminder of those who are still struggling to bring democracy to their own country? -end-
I wrote last week about what seems to be a more appropriate tittle for our outgoing Mayor Sullivan: Statesman. The media's had a chance to look past the politics within the NPA for a while now since the leadership election, and as a result, he's looking more impressive than ever before. It seems the media isn't the only group of people taking another look at his leadership success, President Clinton had some kind words for him too.
