I feel your pain, Sy. I am originally from British Columbia, so a similar climate to yours and designated zone 8. Tells you how much the zone designations mean - very little. Here in Florida I am zone 9 and it's a whole different world.
Philip, you would leave the pups attached to the mother plant until they are a good size, or until the mother plant dies off completely. (but it gets a bit unsightly as it does this.) I haven't grow Vriesea specifically but my other broms just expand and multiply out in the garden for me, and I clean up the dead bodies of their parents as needed. For an indoor plant, you'd cut or pull off the leaves as they die to keep it looking ok. Then where you had one rosette of leaves, you will have 3 or 4 in the pot. Bromeliads are plants that feed through their leaves so as long as the pot they're in "contains" them reasonably displayed you can leave them growing in one pot for years. The roots mainly serve to hold the plant in place.
