Downtown Vancouver park closed to the public Friday for 'Squamish Nation event'

PENTICTON — The Vancouver Park Board will close "sθəqəlxenəm ts'exwts'áxwi7," the downtown playground better known as Rainbow Park, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday for what it's calling a, "Squamish Nation community event.".A Park Board-branded A-frame at Smithe and Richards streets, photographed Thursday and posted by OneBC Delta South candidate Jim McMurtry, reads: “NOTICE OF CLOSURE: FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 04 9:30AM – 3:30PM. "sθəqəlxenəm ts'exwts'áxwi7 (Rainbow) Park will be closed for a Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation), Community Event. Thank you for your understanding. Supported by the Vancouver Park Board," the sign further reads.OneBC member, potential future candidate, and former schoolteacher Jim McMurtry wrote that the park “is closed tomorrow to the non-indigenous who pay the taxes to maintain it,” and asked how staff will check “the ancestry of the joggers or dog-walkers or children wanting to play in the water park or the elderly who need to use the washrooms.”.The sign does not spell out if an actual indigenous ancestry or DNA test is required. It does, however, close a public park, on a weekday, for a named First Nation gathering. The same park has already been reserved that way. Downtown Van posted in August that Rainbow Park would be “closed to the public” on August 13 for a "Musqueam Community Day" on the same 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. window. Musqueam’s own 2022 invitation for an earlier gathering at the site said the park would be “closed to the public for Musqueam to enjoy the playground and park.”Rainbow Park is 0.8 acres at 860 Richards St., a former parking lot that opened April 29, 2022. It was the first new downtown park in a decade. Daily Hive reported the build cost $14.5 million, paid largely from the community amenity contribution on the nearby TELUS Garden tower. The site has a climbing playground, a splash pad that doubles as a plaza, public washrooms, a Kafka’s café lease, and a pedestrian bridge. City material says more than 25,000 people live or work within a five-minute walk.The Park Board is the only elected parks body in Canada. Seven commissioners sit at large. .The city’s 2025 statement of financial information put chair Laura Christensen at $26,186 in remuneration and $3,119 in expenses. The other six commissioners — Brennan Bastyovanszky, Tom Digby, Angela Haer, Marie-Claire Howard, Scott Jensen and Jas Virdi — were paid $21,157 each, except Bastyovanszky at $21,416. Combined commissioner pay and expenses last year were $163,243.That is the elected board. The staff side is larger — and a lot more expensive. General manager Steve Jackson, a chartered accountant who took the job permanently in 2023, received $310,706 in 2025, according to the Vancouver Sun’s reading of the same civic salary dump. In 2024 his remuneration was $298,689.The board’s approved 2026 operating budget is $191.96 million in expenditures and transfers. User fees, parking, leases and other revenues are budgeted at $97.0 million. Tax-based operating funds cover the other $95.0 million. City funding is down $6.3 million, or 3.6%, from 2025 after Mayor Ken Sim’s zero-percent property-tax instruction. The park is scheduled to reopen to anyone, including non-indigenous people, at 3:30 p.m.

Downtown Vancouver park closed to the public Friday for 'Squamish Nation event'

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