Housing first or housing last?

Every election, I consider whether I’m voting for a candidate — or against one. My dream is to hopefully fill in the bubble beside the name of someone exciting. Instead, I often find myself drearily choosing someone okay (I guess) to block someone I can’t stand. The upcoming Toronto mayoral election is a case in point. The two front-runners each have a caricaturish portrait of the city. The incumbent, Olivia Chow, lives in a shimmery mirage where Care Bear stares transform traffic jams into affordable homes. Her challenger, Brad Bradford, lives in an apocalyptic hellhole where rats keep trying to gnaw his leg off. The rest of us watch as this once-shiny city dulls, made sticky by a spiderweb of problems. We need sophisticated, strategic ideas, and have been given a choice between cops and school lunches.

The B. C. Conservatives went into this snap election trying to sell voters on a more moderate version of their party under interim leader Lorne Doerkson. But far-right ideas have still popped up on the campaign trail and provided fuel for the NDP to mount attacks.

Actor Jacob Woike is this year’s hero in East Van Panto: Hercules. East Van’s wackiest, joyfully subversive and family-friendly tradition returns for its 14th year! The Cultch presents Theatre Replacement’s East Van Panto: Hercules at the York Theatre from Nov. 18 to Jan. 10.