In the News

Release from the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association

Mayor Sullivan and representatives of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) provided an update on the expansion of the Downtown Ambassador Program – now running 24/7.

The Downtown Ambassadors are funded primarily by the 8,000 businesses and property owners in the 90-blocks of the DVBIA’s area through a levy. They are trained in all aspects of interacting with the public and serve as proactive “eyes and ears” on our streets for businesses, residents and tourists.

Love him or hate him, he left a huge impression
Half-way up the mountain trail to the Great Wall of China, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan knew his engines were running low.
I’m not talking about the batteries in his electric wheelchair. I’m talking about the guys he hired to push him up to the iconic Chinese landmark.
“They were huffing and puffing,” Sullivan, just back from the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games, told me yesterday.

Paralympics shines spotlight on discrimination and neglect as Beijing launches ambitious program of improvements
GEOFFREY YORK
globeandmail.com
Li Xinjing, a blind 31-year-old masseur, has heard rumours of a new campaign to help disabled people. But he doesn’t dare venture outside to find out if it’s true. He considers it still too dangerous for a blind man to walk in Beijing’s streets.
“I’m afraid to go out alone,” he says. Instead, he sits in a one-room apartment that he shares with three roommates inside a massage centre – one of the few sources of employment for the 12 million blind people in China.
For blind and disabled people, China’s streets can be frightening. Most traffic lights have no audio signal. The official pebbled paths for blind people on the sidewalk are often obstructed. Mr. Li would love to have a guide dog, but he can’t afford one and has never met anyone who has one. Wheelchair access can be equally difficult.
As a result, China’s 83 million disabled people are almost invisible, rarely seen in public. They have endured decades of discrimination and neglect in a society that had little tolerance for them.

Beijing, China – As the Opening Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games concluded, members of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) and the City of Vancouver offered the following personal impressions on the evening’s incredible event (all were in attendance):

Sam Sullivan, Mayor of Vancouver

“Tonight’s Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Paralympic Summer Games was an electrifying tribute to the athletes that have gathered in Beijing from around the globe. These Games mark a turning point for China and the movement toward more inclusion for people with disabilities. It was an honour to be here to represent Vancouver and Canada. In 2010 we will maintain the momentum these Games have generated. We will have an opportunity to showcase Vancouver as the most accessible city in the world.”

Sullivan was mobbed by over 200 mostly Chinese media…he answered their questions in Mandarin
Jim Morris, THE CANADIAN PRESS
“This will be profound,” Sullivan, a quadriplegic, said after being part of the Paralympic torch relay Friday. “This will be the watershed moment where people with disabilities take their place in Chinese society.
“I’m really looking forward to the reverberations from this one event as it works its way through Chinese society over the next few years.”
Wang Wei, a senior official with the Beijing Olympic organizing committee, said the disabled in China still face many obstacles.
“In terms of tolerance and understanding, not everybody understands the need of people with disabilities,” Wang, executive vice-president and secretary general of the Beijing Olympic organizing committee, told a news conference.
“I think people need to build up the awareness . . . of what kind of help should be given.”

The Vancouver Courier covers the opening of 45 West, a new artist co-op occupying a previously abandoned Downtown East Side storefront. Earlier this year, Mayor Sullivan working with city staff…

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Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan reprises 2006 move to lead Canadians in torch relay
Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan did his trademark “Turin Twirl” Friday when he received the Paralympic torch as the first of 10 Canadians to participate in the 2008 Paralympic torch relay.
With thousands of people looking on, Sullivan took the torch in front of the China Millennium Monument in Beijing and swung it in a circle, just as he had done with the Olympic and Paralympic flags at the closing of the 2006 Turin Winter Games.
Sullivan led a procession of six Canadians who carried the torch as the city counted down the second to last day before the opening ceremony.

This week Mayor Sullivan reached out to Vancouver's taxi industry to expand service by the arrival of the 2010 Olympic & Paralympic Games. See the letter from Mayor Sullivan to…