No entire city anywhere is included in congestion charges … in Singapore the congestion zone is just 6 sq kilometers, in London its about 1.3% of the city. In Singapore passenger cars having multiple occupants, taxis, public buses and service vehicles are exempt. Its the bare minimum to make people consider other options, like public transit and also open the most congested areas of the city to commercial traffic.
No matter what your schedule it is possible to get to Whistler from Vancouver without going through Granville and Pender during rush hour.
That's true, but you have to have a road network that accommodates what you're talking about. London has a ring road for example. So if you're going to redirect traffic from YVR over to say the second narrows you're going to need a way to do that effectively. And my experience is that those approaches to the #1 are actually pretty congested as well. As it stands now, even during the peak of Vancouver traffic, the fastest route YVR-Whistler may still be straight through downtown.
I lived in London when the Congestion Charge came into effect and I can attest that it was effective at redirecting traffic. But you have to think a bit about what that really means.