Vancouver Hold'em

While Vancouver City Hall was besieged by anti-Densificationists, others opened the Globe to find Michael Audain considering the blow-moulded resort town of Whistler, B.C., as home for his substantial collection of B.C. art and artefact. How is it that the man who is spearheading the VAG's move from the former courthouse to Larwell Park (where presumably his collection will be housed in a new purpose-built building) is suddenly thinking Whistler?

This can only be a ruse, a response to Bob Rennie's earlier suggestion that the VAG consider "8 to 10" smaller galleries spread about the city. But why would Michael Audain fall prey to this, especially when the optics have him looking like he is abdicating his role of Moses to the VAG's Egyptian slaves? Is Michael Audain that egotistical that he can no longer refuse Bob Rennie's invitation to sit at the poker table and play Vancouver Hold 'em? The same Bob Rennie who already has the City, who is also at the table, beholden to him for saving its ass over Olympic Village? The same Bob Rennie who has made it his business to run VAG director Kathleen Bartels out of town? What is the great-great-grandson of the man who ran trade unionist Albert "Ginger" Goodwin off the planet thinking!

Enough! It is time these two half-billionaires stop treating Vancouver's cultural ecology as their own private casino and start living up to the standards they espouse when echoing their pals in the provincial Liberal government, who claim British Columbia to be the "best place on earth." Until then, I will return to this topic, and when I do I will bring to it every ounce of dirt these two turn over.