Two million eyes, one million laughs – all at Stephen Harper’s expense.
A hilarious website with video spoofs, featuring the hardened Conservative warrior wearing a fuzzy sweater and snuggling an adorable kitten, launched and crashed Wednesday within hours due to overwhelming popularity.
The incongruous image – originally a photograph arguably crafted with keen attention to political optics – served as inspiration for a crew of Vancouver comedians and digital artists who launched www.shitharperdid.com that reached the viral milestone of one million hits.
“It was a half-cooked way to become relatable to this entire nation,” said site programmer Cam Dales, a new Vancouverite whose parents live in Harper’s Calgary riding. “It was just so crazy to see this photo (of Harper snuggling a kitten). We figured we would draw that thing and stick it up.”
Six months of planning, almost 1,000 volunteers and four takes amounted to one viral video that has attracted more than 400,000 views since being posted on YouTube Friday.
University of B.C. students Andrew Cohen and Bijan Ahmadian masterminded the lip-dub video where a roving camera follows the lead of singing and dancing students through a massive air-band performance to songs by Marianas Trench and Pink around the Vancouver campus.
The performance follows the University of Victoria’s video set to Michael Buble’s Haven’t Met You Yet that has drawn more than 219,000 views since its September release.
“Just saying UVic had 900 people come out definitely helped us with our numbers,” Cohen explained Monday. “It’s definitely a friendly rivalry … well, not a rivalry necessarily, but definitely, a little brotherly competition never hurt anybody.”
Breakdowns in the province’s healthcare system are putting hospital emergency rooms on life support, according to a B.C. Nurses Union official.
“If emergency wards are functioning properly the patients come in, get assessed, and treated then triaged to the units or the proper wards where they can be looked after,” said Janice Buchanan, the union’s vice-president. “They’re not meant to have admitted patients languishing in their hallways.”
Buchanan’s comments came Monday outside New Westminster’s Royal Columbian Hospital where a month earlier the Tim Hortons outlet in the institution was used as a sickbay to treat four patients for 90 minutes. At the time, then health minister Colin Hansen defended the use of the coffee shop.
Since then, the provincial government has broken ground for new developments at Surrey Memorial Hospital and B.C. Children’s and Women’s Hospitals in Vancouver.
Vancouver Coun. Suzanne Anton will take Gregor Robertson to task when city council next convenes over a growing perception city staff is bending to whims of the mayor’s financial backers.
Donor Joel Solomon urged non-partisan city staffer Sadhu Johnston to lure to Vancouver, Salt Spring Coffee – financed by his firm Renewal Partners, according to emails obtained by QMI.
When informed of the correspondence, Anton chastised Robertson for installing a new system at city hall “where there’s less distinction between the political and the staff.”
“I think it is completely inappropriate for the mayor’s largest backer to have what seems to be an intimate access to staff,” she said. “There is a very close relationship here between the funders and their man in City Hall, Mayor Robertson.”
They arrived anxious and hungry.
“We had prepped for hour and hours and when Saturday rolled around at 10 a.m. eight people showed up and we fed them,” Malloreigh Hamilton recalled of that January morning. “Then at 11 a.m. another eight people showed up and we fed them.”
But the opening wasn’t for a restaurant. Rather, the 25-year-old converted her modest 400-square-foot East Vancouver apartment into the city’s latest underground eatery, collecting a $10 donation per plate.
It’s a growing enterprise that has caught the eye of health officials and raised a debate about whether inspectors belong in the personal dining rooms of the people like Hamilton.
The "F--k Yoga" button had to go before Transit Police would allow Jean Wharf to board a SkyTrain home.
The 21-year-old barista was stopped at Nanaimo Station for fare evasion on a January night. When Wharf returned to the westbound platform after purchasing a ticket, the same officer asked her to remove the anti-yoga pin. She said no, and was yanked by the arm off the train.
"This wasn't about the fare," Wharf told QMI. "This wasn't about the pin. This was about an exercise of power and I'm not going to be anybody's rag doll to throw around."
Wharf found no satisfaction when the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner rejected her grievance against the officer, as the body found he acted within TransLink policy, which prevents the use of obnoxious behaviour or language on public transit.
Provincial prison guards want the same tools as their federal counterparts and are calling on the government to arm them with pepper spray.
The demand by the union representing B.C. correctional officers was made this week and comes on the heels of a spate of attacks on guards.
"We play for keeps inside the jails, and you've got an overcrowded environment where inmates are vying for resources," said B.C. Government Employment Union spokesman Dean Purdy. "You get clustering, you get gang-type mentality and you get more violence and that just leads to inmate-on-staff violence."
Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Shirley Bond was not available for comment. Ex-solicitor general Rich Coleman in December agreed to tour North Fraser but was removed from the public safety portfolio in February's cabinet shuffle.
A man stood at the dairy display of a west-side grocery store and casually placed a brick of cheese into his basket - and then another, and another, and another.
In the blink of the eye, the basket was brimming with the orangey gold. Taking his pungent plunder to the vacant household goods isle, he quickly stuffed it into a rolling briefcase. With his stash secure, the man headed back for more. This time, however, a security guard stepped in to stop the bold caper.
Though it was unclear where the loot was bound, artisan cheese shop owner Allison Spurrell of Les Amis du Fromage had her suspicions. Apparently, cheese thievery is part of Vancouver's culture.
"I live in the Downtown Eastside and it's pretty common to see people hocking cheese all over the place," she said. "You used to be able to buy cheese at the American Hotel three or four years ago.
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A local model at the centre of a storm over sexy pics to promote Vancouver's soon-to-debut soccer team is baffled by the controversy.
Images of a body-painted Andrea Stefancikova began popping up in newspaper advertisements and on billboards to promote the Vancouver Whitecaps FC home opener Saturday, the team's MLS debut. An accompanying YouTube video detailing the photo shoot was released shortly after.
QMI received a letter from community advocate Sandy Garossino who said the campaign was an insult to women and sport.
"I understand people can agree or disagree, but every photo [or] advertisement or painting [or] artistic creation has to evoke some emotions," Stefancikova said. "That is the whole purpose.
"And I think it looks great - the fact that it is a bit racy is good because it's different and definitely very eye-catching."
Police investigators are backtracking on the version of events released Thursday morning by Surrey RCMP about one of its officers firing fatal shots to stop a suspect.
"I know there has been some information out there that there may have been an exchange of gunfire but I cannot confirm that. Our investigators have not confirmed that," Saanich police Sgt. Dean Jantzen said.
RCMP contacted Saanich Police to conduct an independent investigation.
At 11 p.m. Wednesday a Surrey Mountie conducting a traffic stop in the 15400 block of 16th Avenue noticed a firearm inside the suspect's vehicle, a white Chrysler 300 sedan, Jantzen confirmed.
Premier-designate Christy Clark juggled the responsibilities of a working mother her first day on the job.
"Work started today," British Columbia's premier mom said Sunday outside Trout Lake Rink where her son, Hamish, was the starting goalie for the Vancouver Thunderbirds in an Atom A4 playoff game. "I was up at 6 o'clock this morning."
Clark narrowly rose to power over rival Kevin Falcon one night earlier on the third ballot of the B.C. Liberal leadership vote, in which 60,000-plus members participated.
Between attending meetings and worship at church, the ex-deputy premier said she had already begun leafing through transition binders to prepare her for the position of premier.
The family of a murdered Delta teen had spent the past four months preparing to see the face of their daughter's alleged killer.
"We're expecting a big, black, dark, scary monster," said Rachael Szendrei, mother of 15-year-old victim Laura, outside Surrey provincial court where an 18-year-old male made his first appearance on first degree murder charges.
Instead, a young man, thin with dirty blonde hair, wearing a charcoal button-down shirt, stood in a prisoner's box at the corner of a high-security courtroom. With his head in his hands, Crown Counsel declared it would seek an adult sentence against the accused at the conclusion of the trial.
The Caucasian suspect cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act because he was 17 when he allegedly beat Szendrei within an inch of her life in broad daylight at Delta's Mackie Park Sept. 25. She died of severe head injuries the next day.
Police confirmed Tuesday the woman found dead a day earlier in Burnaby's Warner Loat Park was a sex-trade worker.
Homicide investigators are now speaking to other sex workers along the same stroll 27-year-old Carla Marie Smith was known to frequent to learn if anyone had seen her in her final hours.
"It's an assumption we're taking," said Cpl. Dale Carr. "We want to firm up a time-line about when she was last on the street."
Coroners had yet to confirm how Smith, a woman with several run-ins with the law, died.
Foul play befell an adult found dead Monday in Burnaby at a wooded area near Winston Street and Piper Avenue.
"It's a homicide," declared Cpl. Dale Carr just hours after a passerby walking through a trail found the body lying in bushes.
Carr declined to identify the age or gender of the victim, who investigators believe died a short time before the grisly discovery.
The RCMP spokesman ruled out any connection between the latest body found to a case in North Vancouver where a woman in her 40s was found stuffed inside a garbage bag last Wednesday. He added there were no apparent signs the killing was the work of gangs or organized crime.
Falun Gong practitioners went to Vancouver City Hall Wednesday to file an application to have their protest hut restored outside the Chinese Embassy on Granville Street near West 16th Avenue.
An October B.C. Court of Appeal ruling found a city order to remove the makeshift enclosure and surrounding signs unconstitutional as it violated privileges of political protest and free speech guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"This is the first application for the use of structures to implement political expression," said Clive Ansley, attorney for the spiritual group.
The old structure prominently featured graphic images of alleged victims in the People's Republic of China who were tortured, then had their organs harvested. Falun Gong spokeswoman Sue Zhang said it was possible similar images would again be on display.
Homicide investigators have identified the charred body found in a ditch more than a week ago as Tara Lynn Westgarde, 34, of Surrey, B.C., RCMP said Wednesday.
Westgarde, who was found Nov. 13, was last seen two days earlier by a family member.
Investigators are now turning to the public to piece together the last hours of Westgarde's life.
"We are releasing a photo of the victim along with her description in hopes that someone will be able to provide us information to tighten the timeline from when she was last seen to her discovery," said Integrated Homicide Investigation Team spokesman Cpl. Dale Carr.
An advocacy group is rushing to the defence of a 14-year-old girl accused of recruiting other teens into the sex industry.
Vancouver-based Justice For Girls is demanding RCMP in Chilliwack drop pimping charges against the teen who allegedly recruited at least two other girls into prostitution, and who, police claim, posed as an 18-yearold when posting erotic ads on classifieds website Craigslist.
"By charging this young woman as a pimp, the police are violating a well established consensus [held] in Canada and internationally that teen girls in prostitution are victims of child sexual abuse and therefore should not be treated as criminals," said Justice For Girls spokeswoman Annabel Webb.
Webb asserted adult males, who she believes are responsible for commercial sexual abuse, should face the full force of the law.
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts took a pass on leading the B.C. Liberals.
In a statement released Sunday night, Watts cited family commitments to her two daughters and husband, the prospect of building a successful municipality, and a long-ruling B.C. Liberal government as her reasons not to enter provincial politics.
"As the B.C. Liberal Party seeks to renew and refresh their party and their government, they will go through an important period of self-examination and reflection that is naturally part of any leadership race," she said. "This process should, and I believe in many ways must, be an internal one."
Watts also questioned the quality of debate in a "polarized" political landscape in light of VANOC CEO John Furlong and ex-Finance Minister Carole Taylor refusing to enter politics.
The victim in a case of so-called mistaken identity plead for justice Wednesday at the conclusion of a nine-month Delta police investigation that exonerated two Vancouver police officers accused of using excessive force.
East Vancouver man Yao Wei Wu questioned the findings of Delta Chief Const. Jim Cessford who determined Consts. Nicholas Florkow and Bryan London acted within the rule of law when subduing Wu during a domestic violence call that came from a rental suite at the back of the victim's home on Jan. 21.
In the physical confrontation, Wu suffered a broken orbital bone when officers pulled him to the ground.
"Please tell me, from now on, if the police knocks at the door at midnight, should we open the door or not?" Wu asked through a translator. "For justice, and for vindication of myself, I will pursue this in court."