At the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, A New Cultural World Order Emerged

A & E, Arts Friday, Cinema, Essay, Film Festivals, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Boulevard De La Croisette at the Palais des Festivals, during the 79th annual Cannes Film Festival  

The Cannes Film Festival has never been the Oscars.

For most of its history, Cannes existed in a parallel cinematic universe: a place where auteurs were celebrated, formal experimentation rewarded, and films destined for repertory cinemas received standing ovations from critics long before mainstream audiences had even heard of them. Winning the Palme d’Or once meant prestige rather than popularity.

Yet the gap between Cannes and Hollywood continues to narrow.

The 79th Cannes Film Festival was, at first glance, a quieter edition than many in recent years. There were fewer major studio titles, fewer headline-grabbing celebrities, and a competition lineup that lacked the immediate excitement of some previous festivals. But beneath that apparent calm, Cannes once again demonstrated its ability to identify the artistic, cultural, and commercial currents that will shape cinema over the coming year.

Three themes emerged from the Croisette in 2026: the continued rise of LGBTQ+ storytelling, the growing strength of Japanese cinema, and the enduring vitality of Spanish-language filmmaking.

Queer cinema was unquestionably the dominant force at this year’s festival.

The most discussed films in competition centered on LGBTQ+ characters and experiences, reflecting an industry increasingly willing to place queer stories at the centre rather than the margins of contemporary filmmaking.

Among the standouts was Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love, starring Rami Malek as a gay performance artist navigating New York’s AIDS crisis during the 1980s. The film earned one of the festival’s most enthusiastic receptions and immediately positioned Malek as a potential awards-season contender. Rather than revisiting familiar tragedy, Sachs crafts an intimate story on love, creativity, desire, and mortality.

Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont continued his remarkable ascent with Coward, a World War I drama exploring forbidden love amid the horrors of trench warfare. Following the success of Girl and Close, Dhont delivered another emotionally devastating examination of identity and human connection.

Perhaps no film generated more passion than La Bola Negra from Spanish directing duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. Spanning generations of queer men from the Spanish Civil War to the present day, the film received the festival’s longest standing ovation, emerging as one of the festival’s most acclaimed titles.

The prominence of these films suggests something larger than a passing trend. Queer stories are no longer being treated as niche programming. They have become central to contemporary cinema’s understanding of history, memory, identity, and social change.

Equally notable was the extraordinary presence of Japanese cinema.

Few national film industries are currently operating with the artistic confidence and commercial momentum found in Japan. The country’s box office revenues reached record levels in 2025, while production volume climbed to historic highs. That energy was clearly visible at Cannes.

Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda returned to competition with Sheep in the Box, another nuanced exploration of family relationships.

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, whose Drive My Car became a global phenomenon, presented All of a Sudden, a thoughtful examination of friendship and emotional intimacy.

Meanwhile, Koji Fukada competed with Nagi Notes, continuing his reputation as one of Japan’s most perceptive contemporary directors.

Although stylistically distinct, all three films explored themes of family, loneliness, companionship, and human connection. Their collective presence underscored Japan’s position as one of the most important creative centres in world cinema.

Three Films in Competition, a Thriving Box Office and the Envy of Europe: Spain Is Having Its Moment

Spanish cinema also enjoyed an exceptionally strong year.

From Almodóvar to a new generation of auteurs, Spain arrived at Cannes 2026 in historic fashion — and the industry behind it has never been in better shape: “Spanish cinema is in a very exceptional situation right now.”

Beyond the acclaim received by La Bola Negra, Spanish-language filmmaking demonstrated a remarkable ability to combine artistic ambition with emotional accessibility. The result was a slate of films that connected with critics while remaining accessible to broader audiences.

Director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s new film, The Beloved (El Ser Querido), joined Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad) and Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s La Bola Negra in an unprecedented three-film representation of Spain in this year’s Official Competition at Cannes.

That balance increasingly defines the modern Cannes success story.

The Cannes Film Festival is no longer merely a launching pad for challenging art-house films. It has become a marketplace where prestige, commercial potential, and awards-season momentum intersect.

Several titles emerged from Cannes as serious Oscar contenders.

One of the festival’s biggest acquisitions came when independent distributor A24 purchased Club Kid for a reported $17 million. Directed by and starring Jordan Firstman, the film follows a gay nightclub promoter who unexpectedly discovers he has a son. What might have sounded like a modest independent comedy became one of the festival’s biggest crowd-pleasers, demonstrating once again that audiences remain hungry for character-driven storytelling.


Scenes from James Gray’s Paper Tiger, starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller

Scarlett Johansson generated strong reviews for James Gray’s Paper Tiger, while Léa Seydoux enjoyed a particularly successful festival with appearances in both The Unknown and Gentle Monster. Each performance strengthened their standing as potential awards-season players.

Elsewhere, veteran auteurs returned with films that may finally bridge the gap between Cannes prestige and Academy recognition.


Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes last month. Certain to feature in the upcoming Oscar race.

Romanian director Cristian Mungiu captured the Palme d’Or with Fjord, a provocative examination of religious intolerance featuring acclaimed performances from Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve.

Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev earned the Grand Prix for Minotaur, while Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski returned with Fatherland, a postwar road movie featuring another standout performance from Sandra Hüller.

Together, these films reinforced Cannes’ unique role in the cinematic ecosystem. The festival remains a place where future Oscar nominees are discovered, where international auteurs launch their next projects, and where global film culture takes stock of itself.

As the lights dimmed along the Croisette and the crowds drifted away from the Palais, what lingered was not the memory of celebrity sightings or red-carpet spectacle. It was the sense of cinema looking outward once again — toward different cultures, different identities, different ways of seeing the world.

The strongest films at Cannes this year were united not by style or genre, but by curiosity. They crossed borders of language, history, sexuality, and geography in search of common human experience.

And perhaps that is the enduring lesson of Cannes.

Every May, the festival gathers stories from every corner of the world and projects them onto a single screen facing the Mediterranean Sea.

For a brief moment, cinema becomes a conversation between strangers. Japanese families, Spanish lovers, queer artists, wartime dreamers, and lonely souls all share the same flickering light. The waves continue to lap against the shoreline, the projectors fall silent, and the stars eventually depart.

But the stories remain, carried home across oceans and continents, waiting for audiences everywhere to discover them.

#VanPoli | 2026 Vancouver Mayoral Candidates | We Take No Prisoners | Part 2

#VanElxn 2026, #VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, canadian politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2026, , , ,

Stephanie Allen. Along with Kareem Allam, by far our favourite candidate for Mayor of Vancouver, a boots on the ground visionary, a fiscally responsible, well schooled, non-pedantic knows her stuff politico, who possesses much — perhaps unparalleled — insight into how government functions (although we would say she may have met her match in Kareem Allam), and after years of working in British Columbia’s provincial government knows how to implement true change for the better — the real deal Zohran Mamdami running in the current 2026 Vancouver civic election — COPE scored a major coup in landing the absolutely tremendous Stephanie Allen as the municipal party’s standard bearer in the 2026 Vancouver civic election (thank you Shawn Vulliez, COPE’s absolutely brilliant campaign manager, for convincing Ms. Allen to run for the office of Vancouver Mayor)!

Now, you may know Stephanie Allen from her critically important role as Vice-President of BC Housing, or — following the untimely death (from cancer) of VanRamblings’ friend and neighbour, Brenda Prosken, who we first met and worked with at Vancouver City Hall in her role as General Manager of Community Services — when Stephanie Allen stepped up to the plate in 2020 / 2021 to find housing and homes for those who were resident in the Strathcona Park encampment (following on Brenda’s work on the decampment of Oppenheimer Park, when she located housing for all of the encampment’s residents), but there’s more …


A re-imagining of Hogan’s Alley, Vancouver’s first enclave for some of the Vancouver’s early Black Canadian immigrants, located within a T-shaped intersection at what is now the easternmost end of the Dunsmuir and Georgia viaducts — immediately south of Chinatown | Stephanie ALLEN.

Hogan’s Alley, the early 1900s community in and around the Strathcona neighbourhood — framed today by Main Street to the west, Union Street to the north, Jackson Avenue to the east, and Prior Street to the south — where it eventually became the cultural hub of the community, the former neighbourhood known for being home to Nora Hendrix, the grandmother of rock legend Jimi Hendrix, and a cook at Vie’s Chicken and Steak House, a Hogan’s Alley’s culinary institution.

The latter half of the 1960s marked the neighbourhood’s demise, when city blocks of homes and businesses that formed Hogan’s Alley were demolished for the replacement Georgia Viaduct, which itself is set to be demolished later this decade.

And, gosh, who do you think it was who developed the concept of a renewed Hogan’s Alley? Could it be Stephanie ALLEN, COPE’s absolutely tremendous candidate for Mayor of the City of Vancouver? Yep, yep, we believe that is the case.

Time to introduce you to another high profile candidate for Mayor of Our City

William Azaroff. Running for Mayor of Vancouver under the banner of OneCity Vancouver, VanRamblings first met Mr. Azaroff in June 2019 soon after he was appointed CEO of the Brightside Community Homes Foundation (a prominent non-profit in Metro Vancouver), where he leads a team that manages 26 buildings encompassing over 1,100 affordable homes for seniors, families, and persons with disabilities across the Metro Vancouver region.

Recently, the Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC) endorsed Mr. Azaroff for Mayor in this year’s Vancouver municipal election, announcing its endorsement on May 20, 2026, while simultaneously urging the Green Party and COPE to reconsider their Mayoral campaigns to consolidate the so-called “progressive” vote.

That night, COPE’s very able (and, dare we say, brilliant) campaign manager, Shawn Vulliez posted a message to VanRamblings in which he averred, “There’s a secret meeting going on tonight where, I’m told, One City Vancouver and the VDLC are going to jettison the co-operative agreement reached by OneCity, the Greens and COPE that would have us work together, as we have in the past, where the VDLC is going to formally endorse OneCity.”

As British statesman Benjamin Disraeli observed “in politics, as in love, there is no honour,” pointing to a world where strategy, leverage, and party alignment often take precedence over unbending morality.

As renowned philosopher Hannah Arendt once observed …

“In matters of the heart, the adage “all is fair in love” suggests that strong passions can lead to irrational choices, which I would argue in politics is fundamentally incompatible with logical, rational reasoning. Love requires vulnerability and deep personal investment, while politics often demands strict detachment or ideological pragmatism. When the two collide, devotion to political figures or ideologies can sometimes overshadow the love and respect shared between partners, be they political or lovers.”

VanRamblings is here to say two things …

  • We absolutely and definitively will not support nor endorse William Azaroff as Vancouver’s next Mayor. We believe Mr. Azaroff is Ken Sim redux in casual wear, a bully, a sort of ne’er-do-well, and although better informed and more accomplished than Mayor Ken Sim, in practice is a kind of despicable, self-serving politico, a non-collaborative fellow, with the potential to be an intimidating and coercive oppressor who will bring to Vancouver City Council the same sort of dysfunction and disunity that has proved to be Ken Sim’s stock-in-trade. Read more on our rationale below.
  • At reading the paragraph above, we believe VDLC President Stephen (pronounced “Stefan”) von Zychowski — who we like and respect — will be apoplectic. Soon, we will ask for Mr. von Zychowski’s permission to reprint the statement he has made on social media as to the rationale of the VDLC in choosing to support William Azaroff as our next Mayor, as well as his OneCity Vancouver civic party. Fair’s fair, after all.

On February 12th, Mr. Azaroff defeated First United Church Executive Director Amanda Burrows in OneCity Vancouver’s Mayoral nomination race, securing 1329 votes or 60% of the vote total, with Ms. Burrows coming in second with 929 votes, or 40% of the vote. Nomination battles are always a numbers game.

Upon winning the OneCity Mayoral nomination, did Mr. Azaroff reach out to Ms. Burrows and say …

“You ran a good race, a great race. I learned so much from you as we both sought to secure the OneCity Vancouver Mayoral nomination. I think the success of OneCity in this year’s election demands candidates of quality, discernment and accomplishment, all of which you embody. I believe going forward it is critical you remain on the OneCity team, and that you secure a nomination for Council, which I will heartily endorse. Working together, there is so much good that we can accomplish.”

Did William Azaroff reach out to Amanda Burrows, congratulate her on a well-run campaign, and ask her to join his OneCity Vancouver team and seek a Council nomination, which he would heartily support? Nope, gentleman that he isn’t, he did not approach Amanda Burrows. Instead, he left Ms. Burrows to twist in the wind.

Note. Amanda Burrows did not seek a OneCity Council nomination.

COPE (the Coalition of Progressive Electors) made it clear from the outset that Vancouver’s second oldest political party would not support William Azaroff were he to secure the OneCity Mayoral nomination.

Why?

Many members of COPE have experienced mulish interactions with Mr. Azaroff, such that  he is considered by many COPE members to be the Evictor in Chief in the affordable housing sector, as he displaces vulnerable tenants from their homes.

VanRamblings has covered municipal, provincial and federal elections for 60 years.

In all that time, there is no Mayoral candidate or party leader — federally, provincially or municipally — who did not put his or her imprint on the party they lead, deciding who would constitute members of her or his team going into an election.

For instance, when Kirk LaPointe became the Mayoral nominee for the NPA in 2014, he dismissed all of the vetted candidates for Council, Park Board and School Board — this at the end of a long, arduous and thorough vetting process, when all of the successful candidates were in place, as he secured his own team to run as candidates at all three levels of civic governance, Council, Park Board and School Board.

Did William Azaroff put his imprint on OneCity Vancouver after winning the Mayoral nomination, indicate he believed their star candidate, longtime civic affairs journalist Frances Bula, must be a member of his team, that her nomination for Council would be a critical element in OneCity’s success at the polls in October?

No, he did not.

Can you imagine Mark Carney or David Eby lying back and taking no interest in who would be running for their respective parties in a coming election? In early 2020, longtime NDP Executive Director Raj Sihota had the support of the Vancouver-Hastings constituency executive and the members of the riding, and was their chosen candidate to represent the party in the upcoming election.

Next thing you know, Premier John Horgan — at the insistence of then NDP Attorney General, David Eby — parachuted in former Vancouver Park Board Chair, Niki Sharma, to seek the Vancouver-Hastings NDP nomination, with the full support of the provincial party. Next thing you know, Ms. Sharma secures the Vancouver-Hastings NDP nomination, emerges as the victor in the October 24, 2020 provincial election, shortly after which she was appointed our province’s Attorney-General, when David Eby took on the housing portfolio.

William Azaroff a leader? We think not.

Colleen Hardwick. Yep, she’s running for Mayor again, and doesn’t have a hope in hell of winning. Think: lost cause.

VanRamblings has written kindly and lovingly about our longtime friend.

But no more.

At a recent luncheon with a weathered confidante of the esteemed Ms. Hardwick, VanRamblings offered the comment …

“Colleen Hardwick can be difficult to get along with.” The rejoinder by our luncheon companion, said with a chuckle in his voice, “Raymond, Raymond, Colleen is not difficult to get along with, she is impossible to get along with.”

We continue to like Ms. Hardwick’s core message: neighbourhood empowerment, and community involvement in the development of new and updated neighbourhood community plans. That she is the only candidate to voice such policy, gets her no little support from us. Sadly, though, Colleen Hardwick is an imperfect messenger for her policy proposals. Speaking with friends we ran across while sauntering down West Broadway, our friend Helen — as we were speaking about the upcoming civic election — offered the following comment, unbidden …

“Colleen is sharp. And I don’t mean that in a kindly way. There is an edge to everything she says, almost an inherent meanness, an ‘I know better than you’ ethos that is off-putting, that causes me to think, ‘I kind of like what she has to say, but I don’t like at all how she goes about saying it’. For me, Colleen is an unpleasant character, and someone who I could not begin to support, no matter how much I like her message.”

Recently, Katie Hyslop, writing in The Tyee, published an article titled, Colleen Hardwick Is Running for Mayor Again. Midway through the article, Ms. Hyslop asked Colleen Hardwick a question about affordable housing, and homelessness.

Have you ever read such utter bullshit in your entire life?

Who, which voters, given a shit about “recovering balance” (whatever the fuck that means). Not to mention, who gives, which voters and where are they, give a flying fuck about “zone capacity” or the ” 2012 Coriolis report”? We mean, really?

Who does Colleen Hardwick — running for Mayor again, don’tcha know — think her audience is, who are the voters — outside of pointy-headed, so called “intellectuals” at the universities in our region — is she attempting to communicate with, to garner their support, that she’s the right candidate to become the Mayor of Vancouver in 2026, that she can “recover balance” and change “zone capacity”?

Colleen Hardwick might well have said …

“Affordable housing must be addressed through the construction of housing co-operatives, where members pay no more than 30% of their income for their homes, where they are empowered to make decision-making on the Co-op’s finance, membership or maintenance committees. Where housing co-ops are built on a 99-year-leasehold basis, on city-owned land, or provincial or federal Crown land. Construction and materials are paid for through the Community Amenity Contributions made by developers building high rise condominiums. All this would be overseen by Thom Armstrong, who heads both the Co-operative Housing Federation of British Columbia, and the Community Land Trust. On top of that, the City would charge no development fees for the construction of this crucial affordable housing, saving millions.”

Or, in addressing the issue of homelessness, Ms. Hardwick could have reminded readers of the 2022 platform for TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, when she stated …

“There are 277 social agencies on the Downtown Eastside, located in the square mile around Hastings and Main. 277 very well-paid Executive Directors, Vice-Presidents, Directors of Human Resources, Property Managers, Directors of Supportive Housing, and more, staffed in each of these agencies, who engage in redundant work each and every day, putting money in their pocket at the expense of the vulnerable citizens they are charged to support. No wonder that for years, many in the community have called those who are employed by these agencies “poverty pimps”. Merge these agencies, leaving 40 agencies. TEAM wants to hire a “czar” — as David Eby has often said is the key to provide service to our city’s most vulnerable citizens, rather than line the pockets of the senior administrators. Billions of dollars could be saved, services rationalized, better service could be provided with savings applied to social housing construction.”

But did she say that, did she actually answer the question that was asked of her, in plain and simple language that all of us could understand? Could have been a great answer to a simple question. But Ms. Hardwick seems not capable of that.

Y’know, Ms. Hardwick, not every voter in this city has a PhD, as you do, or grew up with a silver spoon in their mouth, living in a home where their parents are a respected, tenured professor at the University of British Columbia, and their mother sat on the Vancouver Park Board as a multi-term Commissioner.

According to Statistics Canada, the “average level” of education in Vancouver-Point Grey / Vancouver Quadra is second year university. East of Main Street, the “average level” of education is Grade 8. There are 54 ethnic communities in Vancouver where the first language spoken in the home is neither French nor English. No wonder in Vancouver, there’s a paltry 36% turnout of eligible voters — if that — when a Vancouver City election is called every four years.

Fortunately, there’s a Mayoral candidate — and a couple of civic parties — in the current Vancouver City municipal election who are running a stealth campaign to get the vote out among people in those 54 under-represented communities who don’t go to the polls — but will in 2026 — when it comes time to cast their ballot for a new Mayor, a new and vibrant Vancouver City Council, and a grassroots, community-oriented Vancouver Park Board, and Vancouver Board of Education.

And we’re here to tell you, folks, that it ain’t Mayoral aspirant Colleen Hardwick, and her gang of well-meaning, yet woefully under qualified TEAM of misfits.

Muhammad Ahmad. VanRamblings predicts that Mr. Ahmad, and his recently created, AI generated (according to a friend of ours who has spoken with Mr. Ahmad) Bright Futures Vancouver municipal party will secure less than 2% of the vote come the evening of Saturday, October 17th. Chances are, though, that you are likely going to see Mr. Ahmad on at least some of the stages where Mayoral all-candidates meetings are being held, on various dates throughout September and October.

Part 1 of the column on current Vancouver Mayoral aspirants may be found here.
.

Now, we’re going to say this again and again: there is no more honourable activity than offering yourself for public office, as a serious and well-experienced candidate with a vision, and a more than passing familiarity with civic governance, and how our city is run, who the important administrative staff at Vancouver City Hall are and what it is they do, that you’ve attended a surfeit of Vancouver City Council meetings, or if you’re running to become one of the nine elected trustees on Vancouver’s Board of Education (who are elected to office every four years) that you are a regular attendee at School Board meetings and have been for years, or if you’re running to become a Vancouver Park Board Commissioner that you’ve done your homework, that you have a OneCard stuffed in your wallet, your purse, or your shirt or blouse pocket, and know almost everything there is to know not just about Park Board governance but about Vancouver’s many community centres — where it is critical that you are a member of your local community recreation centre and make regular use of the facility, which is kind of a second home for you.

See you back here tomorrow, when we write about the recently concluded 79th annual Cannes Film Festival, which for years has acted as a predictor as to which films will emerge as Oscar contenders the following January, as was the case with the Grand Prix winner at Cannes in 2025, Sentimental Value, or Best Actor Oscar contender Wagner Moura, who won the Best Actor award at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in 2025 for his role as a dissident on the run in the political thriller The Secret Agent (directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho), among a host of others, not the least of whom was the Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner, Stellan Skarsgård, for his role as an acclaimed filmmaker and absent father, in Sentimental Value.

#VanPoli | 2026 Vancouver Mayoral Candidates | We Take No Prisoners | Part 1

#VanElxn 2026, #VanPoli Civic Politics, Politics, Pop Culture, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2026

Kareem Allam. Who? You may not know the achingly bright Kareem Allam four months out today from the October 17th Vancouver municipal election. But by early October, when the advance polls open, you will, and we’re betting that you will cast your ballot for Kareem, and members of his Vancouver Liberals team. Kareem is the most well-schooled candidate to ever run for the Mayor’s office in the City of Vancouver, with the strongest and most well thought out and expansive policy platform of any of the candidates and parties seeking office in the 2026 Vancouver municipal election. In a word, Kareem is brilliant, Vancouver’s Zohran Mamdami, a charismatic and populist candidate, articulate, and collaborative.

In the coming months, VanRamblings will introduce you more thoroughly to this outstanding candidate for Mayor of our city, why it is we are enthusiastically supporting his candidacy, and why it is we believe far and away that he is the most qualified candidate for Mayor, seeking office in the 2026 Vancouver civic election.

Ken Sim. Not since the reign of error of Mayor Jack Volrich in the late 1970s, has Vancouver had a more inept, more morally corrupt, shambolic clusterfuck of a civic administration than has proved to be the case under the maladministration of the far too often absent and woefully under qualified Ken Sim, the occupant of the Mayor’s office in the City of Vancouver for most of the past four years.

Jettisoning the Fair Wage Programme at City Hall early on in his administration; shutting down the Rentals Office at City Hall; attempting to get rid of the City’s Integrity Commissioner even while he was under investigation; converting a Committee Room used by several of City Hall’s 33 Advisory Committees, in order that he could convert the meeting room into a personal gym for himself; shot gunning a flagon of beer from the stage at Khatsalano Days, which he attended early on in his administration, causing the children and parents who were present to recoil, aghast at Sim’s utter lack of judgement; attending meetings dressed in a T-shirt and sweat pants, when he bothered to turn up to vote at all (on the rare occasions when he deigned to participate in the decision-making at City Hall); vacationing with his billionaire friends at resort locales across the globe; championing gang and drug-related cryptocurrency to finance civic government; and perhaps worst of all — attacking City Councillors, as he filed one unfounded formal complaint after another on then OneCity Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle, now our province’s Minister of Municipal Affairs, while later on in his administration going on the attack in the most despicable manner possible against the honourable and incredibly hard working COPE City Councillor Sean Orr (who topped the polls in the 2025 Vancouver City by-election, who has emerged as the conscience of Vancouver’s civic administration), calling him a drug dealer in the Chinese press, for which untoward act he was officially sanctioned by the City of Vancouver’s Integrity Commissioner for his harmful and utterly spurious allegation.

The internal party polls conducted by various of Vancouver’s civic parties show Ken Sim and his ABC Vancouver administration languishing around the 10% mark. Ken Sim is on his way out, as are most of his lickspittle  ABC City Councillors.

For VanRamblings, that can’t happen soon enough.

Pete Fry. Serving the public as a Vancouver City Councillor since first being elected to office under the Green Party of Vancouver banner on October 20 2018, Councillor Pete Fry has served the office with honour, integrity and distinction.

In a recent conversation with the distinguished Councillor Fry, our favourite City Councillor told VanRamblings how challenging this past term has proved to be under the bullying (VanRamblings’ word, not Pete’s) administration of Mayor Ken Sim. Vancouverites should thank our lucky stars that Pete Fry has emerged as an incredibly effective, if un-official, opposition to the morally bankrupt  ABC Vancouver civic administration under Mayor Ken Sim, as an empathetic and informed voice of reason, who has consistently well-represented the interests of not only those of us who twice elected him to office, but for all the citizens who call Vancouver home. On that front, Councillor Pete Fry is deserving of our support, and unending admiration for a necessary job well done. Thank you Councillor Fry!

Why, then, has VanRamblings chosen to support Kareem Allam as Vancouver’s next Mayor, over the accomplished and hard working Pete Fry? Well, partly because we believe Kareem Allam to be brilliant, and a gift to our city, with the potential to be the best Mayor our city has ever experienced. Kareem is well-funded, organized, experienced, has worked at the federal, provincial and civic levels of government, and is the best informed politico we have ever met, and interacted with. As we say, Pete Fry has consistently proved to be an admirable Vancouver City Councillor, deserving of our support — but, as a City Councillor (we believe that Pete will drop down to run for Council come early September), not Mayor.

Pete has said, on various stages, in the media, and on social platforms …

“It is the people of Vancouver, the citizens, the electorate, who will choose the next Mayor of Vancouver, and who will be elected to the next civic administration. Not me, not you, not any of the candidates seeking office in 2026 — but the citizens of our City who call Vancouver home. The wisdom of the citizens of Vancouver will carry the day. On Saturday, October 17th, on Election Night 2026, we will know which candidates have emerged as successful in their bid for civic office, who will form civic government, in keeping with the wishes, and the wisdom, of the electorate.”

And so it is, and so it will be. VanRamblings wishes Pete well in his endeavours.


The video is a year old, but at least it explicates Ms. Bligh’s intention to seek the Mayor’s chair

Rebecca Bligh. Running with her newly formed party, Vote Vancouver, Ms. Bligh was first elected to Vancouver City Council in 2018 under the banner of the Non-Partisan Association (NPA). Ms. Bligh and two of her NPA colleagues chose to leave the NPA following a right-wing takeover of Vancouver’s oldest civic party — formed in 1937 to oppose the CCF / the left-wing “progressive” forces.

In 2022, Ms. Bligh joined a new, nascent civic party, ABC Vancouver, where she sat as a Councillor before being expelled from that party on Valentine’s Day, 2025.

Now, we will say we really like Rebecca, and that her partner Laura is the first person in 50 years who has VanRamblings’ number — she keeps us in line — and is not about to let us get away with any nonsense. We love being called out by people we know care about us, as misguided as we may be from time to time.

Here’s a little of what Ms. Bligh’s LinkedIn profile has to say about the esteemed Councillor ..

“Since 2018, Rebecca Bligh has acted as a director for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, serving currently as Chair of Governance, as well as the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance with the City of Vancouver.

Outside of politics, Ms. Bligh is the founder of BLACKPiiN a consulting and facilitation practice providing leadership development to executives and teams, working with them to define, develop and implement strategies to enable success by uncovering how their leadership can achieve their desired results.

Passionate about giving back to her community, Rebecca has volunteered on boards and supported initiatives that give back to community; including recently established, Let’s Eat, and prior to 2018 the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation and Legado Initiatives, providing training and development in Ethiopia and Mozambique.”

In fact, Ms. Bligh served as President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) from late 2024, concluding her extended term (she was to have served only through June 2025) in late May of this year. During her tenure, Ms. Bligh functioned as the Chief National Advocate for Canadian municipalities, overseeing critical policy initiatives focused on the housing crisis, the poisoned drug epidemic, climate change, and community safety. All of which is to say that Ms. Bligh has the bona fides (and then some) to serve well as the City of Vancouver’s next Mayor.

Whether it is Rebecca Bligh, Pete Fry or Kareem Allam who you choose to cast a ballot for come October of this year, each of these three individuals we write about today would make a fine Mayor of our beloved city by the ocean.

On Thursday, we will write about four more relatively high profile aspirants to become the next Mayor of Vancouver, only one of whom we will recommend.

 

VanRamblings Makes Its Triumphant Return

#VanElxn 2026, #VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Vancouver Votes 2026, VanRamblings, , , , , ,


Two year old Elliott, on my bed with Teague the dog
December 2025

Following 7½ months of excruciating pain subsequent to my radical prostatectomy (prostate cancer surgery) on October 31, 2025, after all these months the pain has lessened to the extent that I can sit in a chair, in front of my computer, for an extended period of time. Thus, the re-emergence of VanRamblings.

Given what is going on municipally — particularly in Vancouver, with a record number of high profile candidates seeking to become Mayor post October 17th — provincially (with the deepening problems for Premier David Eby, and the provincial New Democrats, not to mention the ascendance of a far right leader of the BC Conservative Party) and federally, with a decided move to the right by Prime Minister Mark Carney, and his federal Liberal Party, as has been the case for many months, I am desirous of weighing in on all things political.

Although I had thought that I might take a different tack on how VanRamblings would approach covering the upcoming municipal election, perhaps emerging as a kinder, more thoughtful force for good in the writing you’ll be reading daily on this 22-year-young blog, I have of late arrived at the opinion that such change is unlikely to occur, that VanRamblings will continue to be what it has always been: an honest, straight forward, brutally entertaining,  and engaging reportorial accounting on all the “people in the game”, which is to say, those persons who have chosen to enter the political fray by offering themselves for public office.

Monday to Thursday, you can expect to read my analysis of the political scene, Fridays will provide coverage of cinema, Saturdays will be given over to Stories of a Life — long a staple on VanRamblings — and Sundays to the music I love.

All that begins tomorrow.

A great family: the absolutely tremendous Alasdair, Fergus, Meaghan and Elliott

Central to my recovery — not yet complete, but progressing —has been the support of the four persons you see pictured above, rugby and (British) football phenom Alasdair, now 7-year-old Fergus who I cared for during the pandemic and beyond (along with my neighbour, Heather, who I will write about in the months to come) — when Fergus’ child care centre closed down and he required care while his parents were at work — and wife, mom, librarian and friend extraordinaire, Meaghan, whose very existence gives my life meaning, and  on the right, 3-year-old Elliott — her name given to her by her brother — who is nothing short of a delight, both Fergus and Elliott, the most zen children I have ever known.

Raymond and Fergus, on a post pandemic walk, when Meaghan asked for a selfie

In the photo at the top of today’s column, Elliott in the bottom left hand corner of my bed, and lying by my side, as he did for three months, Teague the dog. At the foot of the bed, and outside the frame of the photo, my friend and personal health saviour, Kelly Ryan, and the aforementioned Heather and Meaghan, all three of whom,  together, have provided care and kindness, working collectively to save my life over the course of the past 7½ unimaginably challenging months.

At one point, Elliott — mature and far beyond her maturational markers — turned to Kelly (with whom I share Teague), and said to Kelly …

“I have a cat. I want a dog. But I have a cat. I have asked my mom and dad for a dog, but they said, ‘Not right now. Some day.’

I have a cat. I like the cat, but I want a dog.”

And with that, Elliott turned to pet Teague, as Kelly, Heather and Meaghan resumed their conversation.

The old, Movable Type VanRamblings header (above) which Mike Klassen — VanRamblings’ webmaster, and current Vancouver City Councillor — sadly,  was unable to recreate when VanRamblings’ Movable Type platform collapsed. Working for 48 non-stop hours, the supremely skilled Mr. Klassen was able to convert this blog he first created in late 2003 leading to its February 2004 début into a WordPress blog

Tomorrow and Thursday, I will begin writing about politics, likely employing the 3rd person — mixing in the 1st person where it seems necessary and appropriate — focusing on the eight well-funded candidates for Mayor of the City of Vancouver, providing a somewhat brutal analysis of their respective candidacies.

Take my word for it, you won’t want to miss tomorrow’s and Thursday’s columns.