VREP #497 | Vancouver's Brand Crisis with Miro Cernetig.
Episode Transcript
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the Vancouver Weather State podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And welcome back to Vancouver, I'll stay podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Adam Sclina.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm your host, Matt Sclina.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Matt should say host, but also realtors with Oakland Realty and downtown Vancouver.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very excited to have Miro Cernetig today on the program.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a veteran journalist.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the owner of city age.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's an urban affairs expert all around really, really bright guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a great conversation today about the city we love.
[SPEAKER_02]: The city we love Adam, it's also about observing that they commissioned about the Vancouver brand.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And no spoiler alerts here, but two or three people think the Vancouver brand is in the client.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that a surprise to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a surprise because I think when I think of old brands, I think about like your suit brands like Joe fresh or whatever isn't it is a Joe fresh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here's I don't really think about cities and how they're branded.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is it's very interesting not only talking about how why a city should have a brand, but also.
[SPEAKER_01]: what it can actually do for a city and I think this was a lot of the poll that he created this poll where he was trying to get a general sense of how residents felt about the Vancouver brand and spoiler alert two out of three Matt were feeling like we're on the decline.
[SPEAKER_02]: that's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think you hit on it though.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why we need a brand?
[SPEAKER_02]: How important a city's brand is?
[SPEAKER_02]: Both for how residents feel, how the world perceives you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what comes of it, what you can, you can gain, because as you know, Adam, we are only the stories we tell ourselves [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, we should, yeah, we should move along because this one is a fantastic conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoyed this.
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matt, before we get to that, of course, we've got the segment that remains nameless.
[SPEAKER_02]: We do the segment that remains nameless.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm throwing a [SPEAKER_02]: And it's kind of related to today's topic.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the question for you, Adam, is what city created the most successful branding campaign in urban history?
[SPEAKER_02]: One so strong people still wear it 50 years later.
[SPEAKER_02]: What city created the most successful branding campaign in urban history?
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[SPEAKER_02]: So let's get back to this quiz question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, quiz question.
[SPEAKER_01]: So basically the most effective branding exercise that a city went through, is that what you're asking?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that is it like a presumably, while it's a city.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, don't give me don't give me any hints.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm saying this is a, this is the most arguably, I guess, because who could say, but I would say this is the most successful brand in campaign and urban history.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's the eye-hard New York shirt cup brand that, you know, was on everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love New York, is exactly it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of other successful branding.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think that's what Mirror was really talking about today when you talk about branding.
[SPEAKER_02]: Talking about more gent, more of a wholeistic idea about what a city means and why it's important.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Adam, here's what's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I left the conversation with Mirror with thinking about city branding and I immediately was thinking about I love New York.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let me just tell you a little story.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went to Chatchee PT just to confirm what I thought that I love New York was the most successful branding campaign a city's ever went through.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was launched in 19 set.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what Chatchee PT tells me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Chatchee PT, by the way, also knows that we host the Vancouver Real Estate podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it has a bit of a slant to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It says, launched in [SPEAKER_02]: And it has cross-generational staying power.
[SPEAKER_02]: But here's what's the interesting part.
[SPEAKER_02]: What this means for Vancouver?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what ChatGPT said.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're thinking about Vancouver's brand, I said nothing about Vancouver's brand, mind you.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're thinking about Vancouver's brand, New York City's brand was strengthened by a simple optimistic message at a moment of deep urban pessimism.
[SPEAKER_02]: Vancouver is entering a similar moment, a vibe of malays, affordability, angst political fragmentation and declining civil confidence, or civic consciousness, I should say.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is precisely when brand narratives matter most.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when bold, simple, reframing can have real impact.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is interesting that Chatchee B.T., who I didn't mention anything about mural, branding of Vancouver, or anything else, came up with basically the topic of our conversation today.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I guess what I'm trying to tell you, Adam, is I hit it out of the park with the quiz question.
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe we should cut to our talk with Mirro Cernitek [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, before we get there, what was the, what year was that?
[SPEAKER_01]: 1977.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know what, what actually, it's funny because I had this, I maybe, you know, you always, it's funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: We talked about on this episode, you know, rolling up our sleeves and getting down to work and calling things out and, you know, being honest with yourself a little bit, [SPEAKER_02]: And I brought up my experience at the bank this morning, and of course suddenly I feel a little bit anxious about about doing that, but why I was thinking about the I love New York is because I had heard at some point in the past about this this slogan being at a time where [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there was it was impossible to write the subway.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was too dangerous.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's graffiti everywhere and just rampant kind of petty crime.
[SPEAKER_02]: The city was in entire streets and you know, I'm thinking about this morning when I'm literally walking over a guy passed out in the middle of a bank and nobody's doing anything and it put me in mind of New York and the 70s when I wasn't even alive, but that's what it put me in mind of and that's where this question came from.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, maybe for listeners, Miro, can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I live in Vancouver.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've lived here quite a while, quite on and off since 86, but I've been in and out, and my background was primarily journalism.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I worked at the global mill for many years in national bureaus, covered the last, the Arctic, and I was a Vancouver bureau chief, did Alberta as well, and then on an endspend book four and a half years in Beijing, and then [SPEAKER_00]: another tour in after 9.11 in New York, and I came back and went to Montreal for a bit, and then I came back here and I think it was 2007, and the sun made me, that found me a job in Victoria, because I wanted to come back to the coast, and then eventually I got it, they gave me a call them for a few years, and then in 2010 it all changed because I left journalism full time and I started a branding company and I started to see the age, with a partner.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I kind of do a blend of all of those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But most of my work is actually in city agent and branding now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's interesting to meet at the conversation today where we're hoping to talk about is branding and city branding and Vancouver's brand.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just curious, Miro, like you've been around the world, worked around the world across Canada.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you see Vancouver as a city in relation to kind of the year global travels?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think every city is different.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's hard to, to the digital city cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they're all different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they all have different rhythms.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, Vancouver is a midsize city on a beautiful, and a beautiful spot in the world in a really stable country.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it punches the bus above its weight and many ways because of its geography and beauty and it's and also because it's, you know, we don't have to feed a snow ever winter.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that I think that makes Vancouver pretty special and I think it's kind of, you know, I think people see Vancouver as [SPEAKER_00]: You know, a place that's really connected to nature and, you know, and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a very few people come here and don't think well, it's a good city, but where I think we overestimated perhaps internally is, there's not as much going on here as people think there is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of a lot of from our economy is based on real estate as you both know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And development.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's changing a bit, but things happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think Vancouver's.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a global brand for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably even more so than Toronto in some ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can we talk a bit about that brand?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, actually, before we talk about Vancouver's brand, I'm kind of interested in Adam and I talked about this before we went live, but the idea of branding cities, like cities having a brand, can you talk about the importance of a brand [SPEAKER_02]: like an advertising kind of term, right, or a company building term, being used for cities.
[SPEAKER_02]: So can you talk a little bit about the idea of a city brand?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I think brand looked to understand that you have to first understand where we are in big brands in the world today, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think branding is often seen as marketing.
[SPEAKER_00]: A logo and a flag that comes in.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what I would have brand is.
[SPEAKER_00]: A brand is really a story.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, people don't remember the CEO of Coca-Cola, but they're in the Coca-Cola, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Same with all these big companies, very few people who are like a Steve Jobs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Brexit brands are really the story of a city.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, [SPEAKER_00]: It really has taken off, I think, since the 50s, when it really started, I mean, people always talk about Chicago and New York and Rome, these were like story stories, right, and Hollywood did a lot of that, but what really happened in the 60s and 70s is that branding became much more prevalent in business.
[SPEAKER_00]: People realize that there's real value in it, but they still saw it as a marketing tool, I think, largely.
[SPEAKER_00]: not really as there were stories, so that everybody's watching Madman.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a review of one I understand branding.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great show to understand Madison Avenue, how these guys think about it and how it evolved and you see the main character in that evolved from being a guy who just does pitch boards to the guy who actually invents the coke commercial at the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's getting a very concept.
[SPEAKER_00]: So with cities, I think what's happened really it's really started I think in the 90s where [SPEAKER_00]: branding, let these livid these indexes of livid abilities start to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the economists was behind them, their others had hold.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I used to write about that when I was a child of Canada's friends, they were just country brands, and how they helped trade.
[SPEAKER_00]: A right story will get you what you need, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or get you into the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so countries have been branding for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cities that have picked it up to the 90s, I think, would what a city that really did it terrifically.
[SPEAKER_00]: with Sydney in 2000 at the Olympics.
[SPEAKER_00]: They basically, all of Australia did it because they had a national brand story that they adhered to.
[SPEAKER_00]: When what they really were doing was saying, we're not Crocodile, we'd be any more.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're like compliment politics and connect Sydney, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it really, not a Olympics that used that Olympics as basically a weighted vector out that new brand story.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's an example of city doing an out-of-country, and Sydney, and obviously, basically, Vancouver likes to see itself as Sydney, but it's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're small compared to Sydney.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not always doing it, or is this a national?
[SPEAKER_00]: But at that point, I think, cities started talking about brands, and we had mayors, you know, I think Gregor Robertson was very good at branding Vancouver.
[SPEAKER_00]: You really understood that, because, you know, he came from [SPEAKER_00]: He was like, he's a guy you know how to go brands and he's a brand himself I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think in the, as so around the 2000s, at 90, we start taking off in the 90s.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now it's a really big part of any city that doesn't have a brand strategy in a brand story is, you know, behind the game, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's when it started happening, why did it happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: It really happened because cities started to realize that they wanted to attract investment and invest in talent, you know, capital, human capital, and investment capital.
[SPEAKER_00]: they really had to have a powerful story, a story that differentiated them in the world, and that's what a good city brand does.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Vancouver's had that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Vancouver from the 60s was beginning to build that, you know, from the days of Greenpeace to, you know, but they're basically some of the progressive policies, you know, kind of not putting freeway down the middle of all around the city, all this stuff, slowly built our brand, and I think the Olympics in 2010 [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, and then we'd love to talk about the Olympics here.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm just thinking, like, is it mostly for the residents or is it for outsiders investing in the city?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, like, what, what, what is the purpose of the brand?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's a great question because it's both, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The people in the city have to like their story to be a happy city.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's actually, there's a guy I think I just he does thing called happy city.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it really is a fish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, [SPEAKER_00]: And he did, you know, a really good job of understanding that happiness was important to cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a happy for countries, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So a good brand story makes people happy and proud of their city.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think you see that in New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see that in many cities that are really on it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a very cyclical thing, because the story changes and, you know, economies change.
[SPEAKER_00]: But so, and then the other part of it is, it's really important in a crowded marketplace.
[SPEAKER_00]: whether it's in tourism or whether it's in, you know, attracting capital or foreign students to have a really good story that you tell the world because that's what makes people want to come here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the brand story is unbelievably important to a city.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and I think, well, do you underestimate it?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is in your mind the Vancouver's brand?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, is it like the elevator pitch of Vancouver's brand?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have one?
[SPEAKER_00]: it would be a sleepy little town on the west coast where you can connect to the Asia Pacific and nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be the brand I see right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always think beautiful, but boring.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was sleepy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we have this.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's people who could talk about [SPEAKER_00]: And I would actually, to that description, I would actually say a kind of troubled city, a troubled, sleepy city that's quite beautiful that you can live and have a good life and on the edge of cameras, West Coast.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think now there's a sense that there's a lot of not going right in Vancouver.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mirro, can we talk about it?
[SPEAKER_02]: The troubled part is that like I know I know that you guys and we'll get to this kind of poll that you you talk about about the Vancouver brand right now and a general kind of malaise as I think you put it but but is troubled something new or is that always been the case what what do you mean by that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it is new, I think some of the problems are really fundamentally different than they were in the past and troubled, I mean, I don't mean like we, and it's not a psychosis or anything, but we've got a lot of visions, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got like serious affordability issues, serious lack of a social escalator for many of the people coming here, there's a lot of isolation, I think going on, we've got serious congestion issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have real travel heaping companies, despite all the things that we've done.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if the streets are really unsafe, but there's a perception that they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's some horror stories, you know, people getting attacked with machetes and, you know, people getting shot in the face and downtown, and can't tap or spray.
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are not good things, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are, and so those are trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have, I call them troubles.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're really, I guess, challenges, but they're really serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the impact you're brand with how you tell your own story and how that people see your story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you see this as like in thinking about because we often talk about the show or on the show about kind of the postal impacts how exciting the city felt and how positive like residents felt people coming to visit Vancouver felt tourism felt.
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like there was like a real charge in like the call it.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, 20, 20.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, an energy 2011 to maybe 2017ish kind of period.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think the cause of like are we in some ways of victim are the current issues caused by the by successful branding like has that resulted in your mind in in some of this downgrade I guess of of the current state of the brand like I'm thinking about affordability and people coming here and wanting to be here or do you see like what is there is something that you see is like the catalyst for maybe the downgrade.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I don't think it's got a lot to do with the brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think the brand is attracted investment and [SPEAKER_00]: And people, obviously, and you know, a lot of the, a lot of that shot off now, because we didn't have, you know, we've changed the policies on investing in real estate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's changing and we're starting to see rents go down and the things are happening, not building, but I don't, I don't think it's that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's basically, I would say, not blaming anyone here because I think it's all, I think everybody's got a piece of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think we have policy failures.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like in terms of how we handle investment, how we handle taxes, how we handle development, how we handle mental illness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of there's a kind of a political correctness to Vancouver that I think, and maybe Canada, but Vancouver for sure, that paralyzes us from making hard choices, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of it's external and post-pandemic, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, I think all cities [SPEAKER_00]: spending was probably in many of the ways of misdirected from ways of well-directed, but the deficits are higher, the debt ratios are higher, and that's all because of the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're living, we're still living a post-pandemic world and I think we're seeing a lot of that, but I do, but other cities have don't have the same sort of issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of it is I think self-inflicted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's because, well, sometimes we look, we're kind of finger pointing all the time here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody else, instead of just sort of like, say, okay, here's some fundamental shifts we got to make.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's absolutely opinion.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when I see that, you know, in the city age, I travel all over the place to all these cities and all cities have challenges, but but this, that's a particular, I think, kind of culture here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: In the last, that's taking root in the last 10 years, 15 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you've kind of to me at least put your finger on a mirror, but like what is that culture?
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a political correctness.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of what an inability to take responsibility.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I said to Adam, and this is just, you know, this happened to me this morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I went to the TD Bank in East Vancouver, and I think this speaks to kind of this general sense of [SPEAKER_02]: everybody's turning a blind eye including myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: I literally, the bank was open.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was about 10 people waiting in line.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went to the ATM, which was in the bank.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was a man passed out on the floor in the middle of the bank.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the woman that walked in ahead of me said, like, hey, what's the story here?
[SPEAKER_02]: And they said, yeah, we've called somebody.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like it's [SPEAKER_02]: or walking over a guy's on the floor and you're like, something's fundamentally wrong here.
[SPEAKER_02]: This wouldn't happen everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: and especially it wouldn't happen where the guys probably been there since they opened at 830 and like no one does anything, no one knows what to do, but also they probably called somebody at 830 and nobody's there yet to sort this out.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's something like really corrupting about the kind of civic fab well when that's wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and again, I think a lot of that's policy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm pretty sure if you call 911 and said, here, there's a, there's some line on the floor here, they're not going to send a police probably, they might, they might send paramedics maybe and they're pretty, and then they're pretty good at that they're saving lives down there all the time, right, and that's all siren, but, but there is a certain like, what do you, what do you do, if it's a citizen, what could you call?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you don't see a lot of policemen walking, you know, the streets anymore, like they don't know, I guess there are some big cops, but mainly they're in their cars.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're not, they're not there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, and that's policy, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, you can have a policy saying that anytime someone in a public space passed out, that they have to be taken to an ER.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there is probably, that's probably a protocol, but I don't know whether it's enforced.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's actually in four ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, all that said, I think, you know, those paramedics, the people who are on the streets, they're, you know, dealing with a fentanyl crisis, are like, you know, really every day here, it was a month that sounds straight, but they really are.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a tough job that they do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, you know, we're lucky they do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Harder, but if it's part of our, like, you know, anytime I talk to anybody about Vancouver, they're shocked by what they see in the downtown [SPEAKER_00]: on Hastings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this was, this was even further east.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, this was like east of the NIMO.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not even like, okay, I was in the heart of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was, you know, it's just something that feels like we've gotten kind of used to in a way that seems, you know, specific to, to here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, and I think fentanyl, I was just talking to somebody yesterday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had a family that we're done, a fentanyl overdose, we shouldn't have, but did, so there's a lot of, you know, a lot of this is rooted in that, but we've had that before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, when I was hearing, when I took over the bureau in 93 for the globe, they had a note break of heroin deaths because someone was lacing heroin.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think probably the kind of fentanyl, right, and people thought it was heroin and they were, they were dying in, you know, one weekend, like 15 or 20 people died.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a big beginning of a taste of what could really go wrong when you don't get the drug problem under control.
[SPEAKER_00]: But so there's nothing really new.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the volume of it is what's new.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, and that's just kind of one.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of these, I mean, this general sense of disorder, you talked about affordability, social mobility or lack of social mobility, this kind of feeling of isolation and investments or companies not staying in Vancouver.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe just taking a step back, can we talk about the poll?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because this poll kind of speaks to this general sense of of malleys with the brand, but like, [SPEAKER_02]: Can we talk about why you took a poll, why now, and what you found?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so, I was pretty excited.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, city-age started after I left journalism in Egypt, certainly after the Olympics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I just, I basically could, cities were becoming really in prominent.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Vancouver was kind of at the top of its game.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought it'd be a good, interesting kind of journalism, almost platforms.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've done that and we've done was like 30,000 people have come to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all kind of leaders.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do them all over North America, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I go around.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm really always thinking about how cities kind of market themselves and tell their stories and I meet the people who do it, right, from all kinds of, all kinds of areas.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of just thought to myself, and I'm based here, [SPEAKER_00]: And as that, well, you know, I should really do something here from the city like that I think is interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we did a city edge called the next Vancouver and the Vancouver sun helped us do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they've been writing stories is still are about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the whole idea was the next Vancouver was to get about 150 liters.
[SPEAKER_00]: in a room and identify six or eight ideals that we're really good at.
[SPEAKER_00]: My idea was if the brand is not performing what do we need to do to make it better and without getting into politics or getting into hand-wraining, what are really practical areas.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that conference was really teased out a few ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the places where we're really performing tremendously while in Canada and reach in the province in the city that also is an export.
[SPEAKER_00]: things that we're known for that we can build technology and attract, basically export talent and technologies or services and also bring people in.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you go to that list, it gets pretty interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then what I came up with, and then I guess the sun with me was, you know, life sciences, they do say Paul's Providence Hospital, an amazing thing that's going to happen there, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're decorating a whole sector.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get to in the genomics and all the people not life science corridor that that's one of our really bright spots The other one is Ocean we actually people forget this, but they don't forget it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They see it, but they don't realize how much we are a global ocean hub You know, and that's really one of the exciting things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just gonna do another one in June Probably in North Vancouver and it shipyards.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope [SPEAKER_00]: that's called Green Blue Oceans, but we'll look at the premise that Vancouver really is a global ocean hobby.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to do more to claim that and attract that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something we can all unite around.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very unified.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other one I just quickly is innovation and mining.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have some of the best countries that we're all doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's all, there's other areas like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think even our relations with Indigenous and First Nations is actually a brand new model for the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's up to bounds and complexities to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's no doubt that it's something that's really happening there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, even the pipeline, people don't realize the LNG pipeline, the initial film, 51% of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they're true equity partners, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot going on over here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idea was, let's find these ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so part of that is we always had, or I always often worked with the Mastel group, we're really great coasters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've known Evie Mastel for decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was doing a poll.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, well, here we are, a few questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just about how do you feel about the Vancouver print?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wanted to see if I was right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Went to my perception, which is basically, [SPEAKER_00]: but just basically it's totally subjective was that the people, the Vancouver brand is in decline and that people here have feel it too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we pulled.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what was interesting about the poll, it was about 400 people I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's actually pretty good poll locally.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a margin of error plus or minus three or four percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: What it for, so what we did is we certainly had what Michelle did and the most algorithm did is they pulled people in Metro Vancouver.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we pulled ourselves about what we think about our brand and two out of three people said it was in decline.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is not good.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a hopeful sign, it should be the other way.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that proved the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what I take from that is, and I've written a few pieces on it, is we've got to understand that that's the case that their major challenges here, the people know it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And [SPEAKER_00]: And these are like, you know, that's a omnibus pose and that pull a average people, let's say, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you know, people, a spectrum of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the old one, so the solution is you got to figure out what are the areas that we can start building and investing in?
[SPEAKER_00]: That people are that work with the Vancouver brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my thesis, certainly.
[SPEAKER_02]: was it just literally that question?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like is the brand in decline?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes or no?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or were there a series of questions?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the polls online, so you can go see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the poll last things about like what, what, what, what worries you, you know what, and you know affordability came up, there was [SPEAKER_00]: street crime came up lack of government policy came up oddly enough and there's an I don't have an I don't have a friend of me, but yeah, there's a there's like you can dig down But it really is only a first, you know, if you really want to do this properly you do 1,000 people and You know spend 25,000 dollars on it, but it would probably be worth doing to really see what people are really people are really thinking about what they really want So it's not I wouldn't even call it a poll.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was more like survey [SPEAKER_00]: You know, to me polls are always like four against this is more like a survey and the survey was basically two out of three people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vancouver is into decline.
[SPEAKER_00]: And since then, you know, we lost the fireworks, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This thing that was huge and it just, it's still, it's just sort of, it could feel it drifting away, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like smoke and wind, but, you know, we pulled the plug.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's another sign that's something, and I don't blame it, it'd be particular for that, but there's a sign there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a sign.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to take the pulse of health in your civic life, that'd be another negative proper place.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in that light, do you think that we're kind of drifting into decline or do you see us as kind of sitting here on the edge of opportunity?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm on the edge of opportunity side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't want to come across like it's doom and gloom.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still think this is, I literally because this is a tremendous place to do a lot of things from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that hasn't changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so those are some of those things I talked about like life science oceans, mining, innovation, mining, [SPEAKER_00]: tourism, there's our embrace of nature and protecting it, you know, but making 25% of the problems and whatever number is now parkland is these are amazing things to go down for generations, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: My point is only that we've got to figure something out we really want to do together and go for it, maybe it's a few things, you know, and you know, every city has a cycle on us too, like you can't, you know, but you have these moments like LA had it, [SPEAKER_00]: We had that's boy D6, which was fun and then we changed the city forever, ended up to the Asia Pacific.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left the descent thing, I think, in a different way.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, what's next?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the next Vancouver is about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in just thinking about, like, so, and in, of course, we're going to get to that, how do you fix a, like, how do you approach fixing a brand that's in decline in the city?
[SPEAKER_01]: And is it, is it kind of reconsidering the story around some of these, these things that [SPEAKER_01]: the oceans, the oceans, yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Life sciences, is it like repositioning the narrative of the city, or is it, do you see it more as like, is there low hanging fruit that we haven't kind of covered?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's easier said than done, acknowledge that, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't come from just a politician, it doesn't come from just a big billionaire businessman.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have to coalesce around something, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't even even agree on everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they have to coalesce around the big idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few big ideas in the city and what it stands for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say like 10 years ago, we could say what things we stood pretty clearly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, because we're so inward-looking, we don't really, I mean, I'm hard-pressed to say it about what we stand for.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we talked about affordable housing, but we don't have it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about equity but we don't have it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about building a high-tech AI hub.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have we had parts of it So a lot of that are platitudes, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think what they have to do is you have to sort of build sub stuff yourself So I think St.
Paul's for example, that is, you know, we needed to build it But that's a multi-billion dollar investment in the future [SPEAKER_00]: and people, right, not just in terms of their health, but in terms of the talent, the innovation, what that's going to be an innovation hub.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'll bet you that place will build unicorns eventually, because it's a place for people to come together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we have to do this summer's thing in the other areas, and I think, like for example, if you looked at, you know, my idea about ocean, [SPEAKER_00]: Green blotion green for technology blue for the blue economy ocean because it's all coasts rent blue notions very unit we all say account is an energy super part of the reality is we're up oceans super power and that's we have the longest coastline in the world I think so do we really embrace that I mean there's pieces of it but do you ever see anybody talking about something I do like that I don't know I see great people I'm a pieces of it [SPEAKER_00]: And I so I think it's a little bit self kind of corny, but I think you got to kind of build, you have to pick your ideas and you got to build a specific infrastructure around it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you really think about these events, you know, there's a lot of people love the Olympics, a lot of people don't like the Olympics, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's, you know, there's, you can weigh them in similar expeditions.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what they do is they do build an infrastructure around a big idea for 10 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it takes about 10 years to do one of these events when you start, like, when people don't realize, and I only know a little bit about it, but, you know, the idea of the Olympics probably started, yeah, I know this somewhere in my back in my head, but it started with a few people, right, he said, you know, why don't we do this, and then someone, I think, Jack, who was one of them, and then, you know, someone writes the down, and then they get people together, and then they get the government behind it, you know, and, uh, [SPEAKER_00]: That's how it happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: And suddenly you've got a network of people that essentially is a civic infrastructure that involves business and government and people and it parts of different parts of society who are actually united around a big idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Olympics are a billion dollar idea, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think you can do the same thing around these other ideas.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that makes sense to you, but I totally, it totally does and it makes me think of and at least in this, you know, I'm taking everything from a Vancouver Sun article.
[SPEAKER_02]: but they had a response from Ken Sam, who basically was saying like what are you talking about Vancouver's doing great, you know, FIFA's coming, the World Cup's coming, you know, cited a couple other things that we have going for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess it kind of makes me think how has this been received from your perspective, our people going [SPEAKER_02]: like yeah you're on to something here let's build out the next big idea or people going what do you talk like can sim seem to fundamentally just disagree with with the premise that Vancouver was generally in a malaise [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they definitely do, but you know, that's publicly, privately.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know the mayor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I usually don't get to meet them, but I haven't met them yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know a lot of people in the city in Hong Kong.
[SPEAKER_00]: So some of whom I think would agree with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, a mayor's job is to boost the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wouldn't expect him to mug, yeah, you know, count and say, yeah, we're going down.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's got to let me elect it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, I'm not saying it's going down the tubes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying the brand is difficult in decline, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, you know, the city's in the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got massive challenges, you know, you know, that they all do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing about FIFA, you know, and I love soccer and I love the world felt and sprayed that we're doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not specific infrastructure.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's an event you're paying for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you could say we'd pay for the Olympics, but you get a lot of Olympics, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like if you look at the Olympics and you catalyze the candle line, which change why VR, it catalyzed the sea of sky highway, which again, you know, catalyze that part of the world, that it's sea of safer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Squamish is exploding along a lot of those because of the highways is better and safer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, FIFA are like, it's like buying a museum and the museum [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll give an example of this, you know, I was really lucky that as a journalist, I had a really eclectic, so it'd be, I could do almost anything I wanted, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was, I was, you know, I was interested in things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I was a Victoria, in about 2008 or nine, I guess, the biggest collection of Pacific Northwest art came up for purchase.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was being sold, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's all from here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's all, and I think I wrote a story saying, like, we should buy this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what should go into the world museum, right, the very of it, what do we call it there?
[SPEAKER_00]: The world be seen museum.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the museum in Victoria, right on the waterfront, or gold one, take the biggest and greatest collection of Pacific Northwest indigenous art.
[SPEAKER_00]: and put it in a museum.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you've got something that you've built that will give back forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will attract tourism, middle-track, academics, middle-track artists, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So guess what happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys, do you know what it's doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, well, thanks so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody heard about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Thompson family bought the entire collection, and it's in Toronto.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do they call it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's all the names.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the music that's in Toronto about it, the Thompson's, you know, they're doing things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had some bad too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like they really care about history.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have to money to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they bought it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what the museum bought?
[SPEAKER_00]: A spoon.
[SPEAKER_00]: One spoon.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, they had a traveling exhibit to get you bombs and seats, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And cell tickets.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it was either the Titanic or it was, you know, King Tuts wrote, you know, the one of these shows that rotate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you cell tickets temporarily and please the tourists and sometimes the locals.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you haven't built anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're renting.
[SPEAKER_00]: you're renting your interest, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas if you build your interest, you got it forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the difference between being a FIFA city and then being an Olympic city that really is a host city that you can claim forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like FIFA, like, and if also the FIFA thing, it's Bretton's 16 cities isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, like, how much, how much, how are you ganging that up?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm not saying we shouldn't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know about the economics and how it's going to spin off, but I think we should build things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think Vancouver, I think, look at the art gallery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there's the classic example of Vancouver, but I think you can measure the problems of Vancouver.
[SPEAKER_00]: in line and parallel with what's going on with that art gallery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Commandous amounts of money wasted, designs should have come and gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: They keep hiring Americans to run it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like Americans.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love Americans, but I think there's a Canadian, a Canadian [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, like a philanthropist has put a lot of money in there is matching money, you know, to do it, but they're in real trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing is happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a guy like Bob or any who's one of North America's top collectors of Kent and temporary art.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he's really interested in that, but most of it, he puts most of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't what Bob doesn't all of this stuff, but a lot of it's in the Canadian Museum.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in the...
[SPEAKER_00]: I got the museum names all around, but you know, in Ottawa, which is great, but it could be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't know if I would want to do that, but it could, it's a could be, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can't, if you don't, if you can't build building, and even if you want to build a building, or you can't build a building, maybe you should just rethink the building you have and put something in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is off here, that, you know, people that will attract people and build things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's fundamentally something that Canadian adventurer is not that great at.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, make your making me think I haven't really thought about it that way before, but it's, uh, it is interesting, so we'll renovate a building like the museum, but we don't, and we got, you know, we got totems in there and stuff like that, it's pretty cool, but [SPEAKER_00]: It's sort of like it's a museum, right, like it hasn't changed very much.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've had these traveling exhibits, but you miss, you have this, you know, this, that's an opportunity that was squandered in my mind, completely squandered.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, of course, they could probably rent it from the tops, from the Royal Interior Museum.
[SPEAKER_00]: I put it out as an exhibit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, she is.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's I really like the and for some reason I haven't thought about it the way you're positioning it like the difference between the Olympics.
[SPEAKER_02]: versus FIFA, you know, the world cup, like actually building the infrastructure and getting the lasting benefit from these kind of events as opposed to the one-offs that makes a lot of sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we've had, we've had some, and these things come and go and sometimes the private sector, but you know, I think one of the things that was built here, [SPEAKER_00]: was the globe conference.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you guys remember it was called globe and it really was about the business of the environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was really headed by a guy named John Weeb section by Amber.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he built it up with other people and the Canadian government was like it's really it was really incubated, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But it became that I don't know what it's like.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't think it's the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for a while, it was a world-renowned conference where world leaders came, [SPEAKER_00]: the Prime Minister came, the top CEOs came, and they talked about the business of the environment and climate, and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the perfect Vancouver conference for this place, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The talk, and that's sort of like dissipated now, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And in my mind, that's the kind of event that your Davens.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's your Davos by the sea and I think actually one of the things I'm trying to do with city Age in my own small ways do something that is that is off here that is that has an International following to some degree and but I do think you know we could do I don't I don't want to Maybe Davos is not the right analogy because it's got so bad press now, but it's a very interesting thing Davos is interesting [SPEAKER_00]: and but it's a success story and that is a piece of that is something of someone built that has become a piece of infrastructure like civic infrastructure for that place right and for a lot of other leaders get all the conspiracy theories, but the fact is is that it exists and it's brand that everybody knows and we should have something like that here and they'll might say oh we had Ted but no you bought Ted you're renting Ted [SPEAKER_02]: But this goes back to these ideas like this, the oceans idea, like I feel like that one to me is like, yeah, you said unifying.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like who couldn't get behind that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like such a of of here and and it seems like such an exciting kind of idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's an exciting thing to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think I think it's one of these one of these ideas [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, who can't get behind it?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's respectful too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think because it doesn't matter where you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to be the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can be on the island.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can be anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if there's a lot of amazing companies, like C-SPAN, isn't amazing company, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill's world class ships.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we do a lot of people like Robotic, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, they used to tie a lot of the early work in the Titanic, came out of here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've done a lot of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have a lot of film people here too, obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's another one where I think, you know, we could do that better.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do pretty well, but we're also kind of, we were in productions.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the ocean one is really interesting because I really got into it because I was always interested in salmon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Came from that Toronto where I grew up, came out here and I never seen the ocean.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't believe, I lived by those born skeletons, I'd seen the ocean by a never seen a motion and one's swimming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the, I came out here and I was by it that I covered salmon in the sand trees and I [SPEAKER_00]: that son, when I was a son, who were like experts on fishing and sand, and I was just, I just had such an iconic thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wrote a call of years later, like in 2010, where I found that I was writing about why sand should be, is the official fish of British Columbia.
[SPEAKER_00]: I assumed it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wrote this call, and it became out of editorial board meeting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it sort of said, here's what Saman is.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are bald egos, la la la, some stuff like that, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of like, I don't think peace saying that's why Saman or official fish.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought that it checked that last part.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I looked, of course, it wasn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was kind of blown away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody thought it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I changed the last line.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I nominate Saman as the official fish.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: is this is the idea, this is an example, I'm not saying this is made by the way, but this is an example of an idea that people get around, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or like someone read that, the Pacific salmon foundation, read it, the Fraser-based and Council read it, first nations read it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote a couple more columns, and I actually told the editor, I said, you know, we're gonna make this the official fish, we'll just get these people right about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's the official fish, the Christy Clark finally did it, it took a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's an idea of how you build an idea and get people around it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a reason I brought that up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very similar to the ocean idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something that people in our DNA out here we get by.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what we got to do is a city that is a metropolitan area.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's 53 of British Columbia, but as you got to get your story, you got to get a story where you believe in the elements of it and they inspire you and they inspire you for your kids and your neighbors and then, you know, and that's positive.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can still have all these disagreements.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, you can, you could, you could embrace the ocean, still disagree about how many wars should be bought, how many, you know, how many mooring is there should be in the sunshine quotes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's going to always happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But bigger ideas at, [SPEAKER_00]: We're a global ocean city and we're a global life science into, you know, like, you know, there would be RNA stuff here.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, scenes on here was world class.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, we've got a few noble prize winners here like, well, you know, we, we, on these, there are these areas and others, I would also say, I think we've done that in architecture, and I think we've done it in design.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it goes up and down, but, you know, Vancouver was known for adventurous [SPEAKER_00]: And they came here and we're inspired by the place and the place nurtured, like look at Arthur X, Robson Square.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't think you could build that today.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd never give you an F.S.
[SPEAKER_00]: that, like, I mean, by the way, you know that, the law court is actually a skyscraper laid on its side, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the vision.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I didn't know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's the way you thought about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you talk about the role of the next Metro Vancouver campaign?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like how it ties into everything?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're doing that with a Vancouver son where he's still worked and they're great people and and they've still got great reporters and got fewer reporters, but they still got really good ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the idea is, as I think we're going to do it again, I haven't talked to the hero Monroe, the editor and chief there who actually say thank you to because he allowed that to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the idea is that we are going to keep doing [SPEAKER_00]: Another event, keep writing about stuff, and I'm going to do the ocean one, as I said, in June of 2026, trying to get about 200 people together, who are from here and abroad and around Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm working on that and we've got some support on that, which is nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the idea I think is we basically have either pieces or the campaign really is getting people together around some of these [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, um, because you know, you can't, you have to have a focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so you can't have seven ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody gets a result.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seven great ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to have the network.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of those ideas are two of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to take off.
[SPEAKER_00]: People are going to get around.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to be honest, [SPEAKER_00]: You could people are trying to do all sorts of things, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like giving them down to any side, revisit, re-invision, and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's an internal idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's something we need to do, and we should do.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're a bit, you know, making a fake, you know, help help the people need help there and rethink some of the policies and how we do things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you want a really big idea, it has to, it has to work locally and it has to work externally.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that starts narrowing you down quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta think bigger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, and we got, you know, another one we rented, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing because it was pretty great conference, but we have the website, which used to be collision, but they were in trouble for a certain number of years in Montreal, you know, and these are run by big corporations that rent out these conferences, right, they're they're subsidized.
[SPEAKER_00]: a weeklong thing that brought five or 10,000 people who were world leaders in business and innovation and government to this every year into the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't one of these conferences where you come in like it's all parties.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like it was a serious conference like people were [SPEAKER_02]: big ideas and the ability to actually move away from this kind of sense of paralysis almost and and roll up, roll up to sleeves and get to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, big ideas start with little ideas, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, the Olympics is literally if someone was sitting around having a drink or something and said, let's do the, we should get the Olympics to Vancouver for its time, because actually before 2010, the 2000 Vancouver had the same kind of malaise, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, like, all cities have these cycles.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's about 10 to 15 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's almost like a parabolic curve.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just, there's a natural, sort of, had been flowed to a city's, the power of cities branded.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it gets reinvented.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get things get added in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not necessarily in subtracting.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they get added and accentuated.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way to think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, so little things like, you know, a big little thing that, you know, we should fix the vicinity immediately, I'm not going to go into the social stuff because that's the hope, I mean, I should be done all the time, but something we should do is we should build or not build an art gallery and make a decision and do it and whatever we put in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It should be world-class, you know, and we should build and build a whole infrastructure around it, not infrastructure looks like artists and it gets, you know, Emily cars are really interesting, it's an example too, but gravel, and we do see the gravel island, but it was built cutting edge, but when I had to have seen that shipyards, same thing, these are, these are held up in development circles, it's incredible re-things of an urban area.
[SPEAKER_00]: or not, though, or decide not to build it and take the money and invest it in art and artists so that we have, you know, we got a lot here, great ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we should do the same with Grandma Lyle and like figure it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I read a lot and I don't hear much about after Emily Carleff, what's really going on down there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, is there something that we're building there that's [SPEAKER_00]: or they'll build more on to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those are, I call those big, big, little big ideas for the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not big international ideas, but they add to the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we kind of let these things link and like drag on for, in the art gallery, instead, but is that a 20-year-old story, no?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, just as maybe as a final point, it's interesting, because I wanted to get to this idea of being of kind of brands being cyclical.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in some ways, you know, it's just literally like time for a rethink.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's just, and probably 10, 15 years from now, we can, we might be in the same place, but hopefully incrementally kind of ahead of the game.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I [SPEAKER_02]: But in in some ways, it's just this is part of the kind of evolution of a city if I understand it right in your mind, mural.
[SPEAKER_00]: Evolution of a city.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think you have to pick a couple of big ideas or at least one and go for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you have a 10 year idea?
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 year idea like that and like I just closed one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people say all of the Olympics are bought to they're different than a FIFA.
[SPEAKER_00]: A FIFA comes and they fill hotel rooms that get tourists in, and it's one off and they're gone, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The Olympics lingered because they touch because they're broad.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, I mean, there's a lot wrong with the Olympics, believe me, but there's a lot right about it, and that's why cities do them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're transformed with it, and they transform this city.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's going to be the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a difference between renting an idea and building an idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, let's pick a few ideas and build them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think Canada, I think we're in a middle of trying to do that in Canada too.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are big ideas?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the job of the Prime Minister, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, well, maybe we'll leave it there, Murrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we do have this quick segment, the five wire, five lighthearted questions that we end the show with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you stick around for that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Question number one, one book.
[SPEAKER_01]: that you've read recently, that you would recommend for our listeners.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read an old book quite old, but I read it recently as sapiens.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, and that's worth reading.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you really want to understand brand, that is the best book that explains how brands work in my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that was not I would never have thought of that way, but that's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, until I can talk about how people help people imagine stories and keep stories right into very interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the last few years, mural is our new belief behavior or habit that has improved your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I started, uh, yeah, I spoke two things when I moved to West Van so I just look at the ocean all day.
[SPEAKER_00]: That helps a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably why I'm thinking about ocean selection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I started, I started doing, um, this 168, uh, intermittent fasting thing and in the last, uh, hours already.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I find it very easy and, uh, I don't, I don't, I don't have some days on this, but generally do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I think that's a really good thing for you to [SPEAKER_00]: and a picture from over drinking and over getting, like, all that stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, that's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you could see the difference, but one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ha ha ha ha ha.
[SPEAKER_01]: A question number three, what have you been binge watching lately or a movie recommendation?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I watch, I watch way too much Netflix and TV.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, Boot Best Movie is Frankenstein.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the old Frankenstoke, we'll demo the terros.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's on Netflix.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the new version of Frank at signed done by Guelagno Del Toro.
[SPEAKER_00]: It did shape a water and pans vapor.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is an unbelievable film.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's done by it's for Netflix.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess it's a better way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really it's magical realism with the good the question is who we really is the monster, which is what Frank stands about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and it's a real, it's interesting, parable, uh, it's an interesting movie in the because of what's going on with AI as we invent new lifeforms, which is what Frankenstein's about.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's really an AI.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was, but it's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I would like, like, I'd watch it again and I don't, I don't know if I don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: The series of plurbius by the guy did, uh, breaking back.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a really interesting one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's on Apple, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's free though, yeah, if you have Apple, and it's a free watch of you, and it could be a count.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fantastic, favorite bands or music, something you're listening to lately.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of those people can't remember music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, but I'll tell you what I did watch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I watched YouTube, but one of them I've been really, but I got back into YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't realize how good it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until, because I never really liked things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's thing, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh uh, uh uh, uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I saw I was biking a year ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of it's not a pop up bar like little cafe on, you know, Adam, where's that along the sea wall right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I can be between science, we're all then kind of like Marina's batch.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they had a guy doing covers of you two and it's funny because I've never been a big fan.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I had a beer there, and I was like, this sounds unbelievable.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I went on a run, like literally just through the albums.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was, yeah, it's funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't realize how good that music is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had the same experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just watched the, the final tap.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you re-enate smoothly.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the bomb would bomb right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's pretty funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wednesday, it's good news, and then it's funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last but not least, Murrow, before we let you go, something that you've purchased for under $1,500 that's had a positive impact on your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you get anything with $1,550?
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got to increase the post-inflation.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot of questions to old.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really buy a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I know what I bought.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is going to sound per se.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I bought a new I-Mac.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because I was using a laptop, and it's just so the good mids change the way I work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you say, like, actually, that's like just the, you mean desktop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's just, yeah, it's been basically, which is like a powerhouse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, that's, that is a good one.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Mira, how can people learn more about what you're up to?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I guess, of course, you're writing and city city age, you're, you're writing everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that pretty much everything I do is a city [UNKNOWN]: You [SPEAKER_02]: So there you have it folks, our discussion with Myros Cernetig about the Vancouver brand of course, veteran journalist and owner of city age.
[SPEAKER_02]: Great guest.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really thoughtful guy and a lot of interesting ideas are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you know, we'd love to hear from you, the listener, how you feel the Vancouver brand is doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we talk about this a lot on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I question, I feel like I am on the, I'm in the camp, the two out of three that things that we've been on the decline.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I wonder out there if people feel differently.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyways, feel free to get in touch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matt, what else do we have before we cut for the day?
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing I wanted to mention, and this is nothing's confirmed, so maybe I'm speaking out of school, but we may get Brad West on the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Mayor of Hoco.
[SPEAKER_02]: That would be very interesting, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it's possible, but we're [SPEAKER_02]: We're in the early stages.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's that's exciting.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what else do we have before we cut for the day?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Adam, we have, well, first off, I think we're two episodes away from 500.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're also two episodes away from the end of 2025.
[SPEAKER_02]: So wow, that's going to be an episode for the ages.
[SPEAKER_02]: We also have of course Vancouver real estate podcast calm.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is where all things real estate really to live We have buyers resources.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have sellers resources.
[SPEAKER_02]: We also have a great real estate team That's all found at Vancouver real estate podcast calm and if you like this episode or any other episode And what we're asking people right now to do is share with a friend or family member or rate or review It helps us grow keep the lights on and we appreciate everybody that listens and I think that's it [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah man, and if someone wants to get in touch with you, how can they get a hold of you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and touch, I'm, uh, I'll be here all through the holiday season 7-7-8-8-4-7-8-5-4, or Matt at VancouverRealStayPodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you can try me at 7-7-8-8-6-6-4-5-7-4, or Adam at VancouverRealStayPodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: And of course, we have that Cocomoline info at VancouverRealStayPodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have a great week, and we're back here next week with another great episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your God will save you for radio.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You