Vancouver officials have admitted that, after weeks of relentless, driving rain, the city has been exposed as the unremarkable mid-sized Canadian municipality it actually is.
"We've done our best to market the city as a sunny Pacific paradise where people ride bikes all year round, frolic on the beach or in outdoor pools, or laze the days away on café patios," said Mayor Gregor Robertson, hanging a pair of cycling shorts over the radiator. "But after the past few weeks of rain, even I have to admit we've all been living a lie. We're really nothing more than a wet Winnipeg with an exponentially more severe housing and affordability crisis."
Not only has November's constant rain clogged storm sewers, snarled traffic, and made life depressing and miserable for the population at large, it has tainted the city's reputation among visitors.
"We were told to expect a little rain," said Chicago resident Delores Keene, who along with her husband David was duped by Tourism Vancouver's website. "There's not a single picture on that site showing the city in the rain," she said. "Hardly a cloud in the sky," added David Keene, while awaiting treatment for trench foot.
The rain has not gone unnoticed by international agencies that rate the world's cities for livability. Vancouver, which normally tops the annual list along with such cities as Melbourne and Vienna, has tumbled to 131st, now positioned between Karachi, Pakistan and Ottawa.
Lars Hemnes, who compiles the annual list, explained the catastrophic drop in Vancouver's score by admitting that no one from his agency has ever actually visited Vancouver. "We were mostly looking at the tourism website and Instagram," he said from Melbourne, where it is sunny and 22 degrees. The agency's normally glowing review of the city has been replaced with the words, "Don't go there."
"It's no wonder we have so many absentee owners," said Terrence Brunt, the sole resident of a 23-storey, 131-unit condo tower in Coal Harbour. "I mean, people see Vancouver as an attractive investment, but they get here and it's like, yuck. Seriously man, who would live here if they didn't have to," he said, towelling off his dog.
Mr. Brunt has found a silver lining in all of the gloom, charging absentee owners to collect their mail, turn their lights on and off, run their dryers and make their suites looked lived in order to avoid paying the empty homes tax.
"Even if these people get caught and have to pay the tax, they'll just pay it," he said. "They'll pay just about anything to avoid coming here."
The persistent, virtually non-stop rain has also led psychologists to identify a new disorder dubbed "Vancouver Syndrome." In a peer-unreviewed study published in the journal Soaked, lead researcher Danny Fingers interviewed 357 Vancouver residents from Nov. 1 to 20. "We found some level of rain-induced anxiety among all 357 subjects," he said. "Most subjects expressed a deep fear that the rain will never stop. Others displayed high levels of anxiety about when their feet would dry," he said. Mr. Fingers also noted many subject had "umbrella separation issues."
"We knew the rain had a negative psychological impact on Vancouverites, but these results are off the charts," he said, wringing out his sweater.
Mr. Fingers notes that in a sample of this size at least 5 per cent of subjects interviewed would utter phrases like "at least we don't have to shovel it," or refer to the rain as "liquid sunshine."
"We didn't find a single subject who tried to put a positive spin on it," he said. "This indicates a level of resignation we have not encountered before."
Environment Canada forecasters say we can expect more oppressive, interminable rain in the coming days and weeks, eventually tapering off to showers.
"It's not looking good," said one forecaster who would only speak on the condition of anonymity. "We have no idea when this is going to end," she said, draining her purse.
Stephen Quinn is the host of On the Coast on CBC Radio One, 690 AM and 88.1 FM in Vancouver.