Redeye

Two media professionals filed a class action lawsuit against the RCMP this month for allegedly breaching their Charter rights, and the constitutional rights of hundreds of other individuals at Fairy Creek. Lawyers for the suit say it’s believed that most of the almost 1200 people arrested at Fairy Creek were released without charge. We speak with lawyer David Wu and film producer Kristy Morgan, one of the plaintiffs.

In March, police announced the bust of a major international labour trafficking ring in Ontario. Earlier this year, some of the workers had contacted the Toronto-based Workers’ Action Centre for help. The organization has been providing support since, alongside the Migrant Workers’ Alliance for Change. Some of the workers had been sent to work on farms, something that concerns the National Farmers Union. The NFU passed a resolution at their convention in November 2022, pledging to support migrant-led movements to win full and permanent immigration status for all migrants, including undocumented people. I speak with Jenn Pfenning, president of the NFU.

At the beginning of March, the annual wild salmon juvenile out-migration begins. At this moment in Clayoquot Sound, as the young fish head out to sea, they are under threat from a fish farm operated in their waters by the global corporation, Cermaq. There has been a long fight to close down offshore fish farms in BC, and recently there has been some success in closing them down. But the fight is not over, and the continued existence of wild salmon is at stake. We speak with Dan Lewis of Clayoquot Action.

Niall McNeil is an accomplished artist, a lifelong performer and a person with Down syndrome. Marie Clements is a renowned Canadian writer, director and producer. Niall and Marie collaborated on the new NFB documentary Lay Down Your Heart. The film is about Niall McNeil and his family and friends. Lay Down Your Heart airs at the inaugural Down Syndrome Film Festival on March 18 in Burnaby, BC. We spoke with Niall and Marie in early March.

The polluters must pay. That’s the message of a new campaign to hold the fossil fuel industry to account for the mounting costs of the climate crisis. Sue Big Oil was started by West Coast Environmental Law last year, and has since been taken up by a broad coalition of advocacy groups and British Columbians. We speak with David Ravensbergen of the Council of Canadians.

As B.C. continues to ramp up fracking for natural gas, we are seeing an increasing number of studies describing human health harms to those living close to this industry. Dr. Margaret McGregor is a family physician, health policy researcher and clinical associate professor with the Department of Family Practice at the University of British Columbia. She joins us today to talk about fracking and health.

BC’s first budget under Premier David Eby was released on Tuesday. It includes funding increases in housing, health care, income supports and cost of living tax credits, and allocates a record level of investment towards capital infrastructure. To discuss both the new spending and what’s missing from the budget, I’m joined by Alex Hemingway, senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC Office.

BC’s first budget under Premier David Eby included substantial funding increases in a number of areas that will benefit British Columbians. But following a series of announcements on biodiversity, old growth, and the environment in Eby’s first months, all eyes were on the budget to match talk with money. The result was mixed, but fell short in many areas for changing course on fossil fuels and the environment, and in protecting lands, waters, and species. We speak with Torrance Coste, national campaign director with the Wilderness Committee.

Ian Mass joins us with his City Beat report to talk about Vancouver city council debating a staff report proposing a 9.7% tax increase, an announcement that Vancouver is selling non-market housing sites back to a developer and how Burnaby wants to convert part of a park for industrial use.

Most people have the sense that health care in Canada is in crisis. Health care funding and responsibility is kicked around like a political football. Most recently, the federal-provincial health care deal put 48 billion dollars worth of new money on the table over the next 10 years. Yet the deal requires provinces to spend just 58 cents out of every new dollar on actual new health care programs while leaving the rest with no strings attached. We speak about the new deal and the crisis in health care with activist and health policy researcher Colleen Fuller.

An art exhibition in Grand Forks last summer showed gallery visitors images of Mexican temporary farm workers that don’t fit the stereotype. The men were in blue jeans, with bare torsos and holding and wearing objects that can best be described as regalia. The objects are the work of Rocio Graham, a Mexican-Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in Sinixt and Syilx territory, also known as Christina Lake, BC. Rocio Graham joins me to talk about how the exhibition came about and what she hoped to communicate with her images.

Vancouver City planners see their missing middle housing proposals as an important opportunity to fulfil ABC Vancouver’s housing promises. Abundant Housing Vancouver calls the proposals “an extraordinary disappointment … the smallest possible increment of change…”. We speak with Peter Waldkirch of Abundant Housing Vancouver, a non-partisan group of housing advocates.

Nicole Chan was a police officer employed by the Vancouver Police Department. She was 30 years old when she died by suicide in 2019. At the time of her death she had been on leave, awaiting the conclusion of an investigation into her complaint about fellow officers. Meenakshi Mannoe of Pivot Legal Society says the coroner’s inquest into Chan’s death puts a spotlight on the VPD, emergency psychiatric services in the city and the inadequate services available to survivors of sexualized violence and abuse in BC.

Ben Parfitt says that the pending closure of a pulp mill in Prince George and the loss of 300 high-paying jobs in the community is just the beginning of what promises to be a new and painful chapter in the province’s beleaguered forest industry. Ben Parfitt is a resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Starting January 31, the province of BC decriminalized the personal possession of certain types and amounts of drugs. But the policy does not cover some commonly used controlled substances and the amounts permitted are too small to have an impact, according to advocates and drug users. Pivot Legal and VANDU have collaborated on a Know Your Rights card to help people figure out if they are protected by the policy. I speak with Caitlin Shane, staff lawyer at Pivot Legal Society.

Colonialism and systemic racism are embedded in Vancouver’s bylaws. A motion before Vancouver Council wants to take a deep dive into these bylaws using an equity lens. Council will also consider a climate justice charter written by people with lived experiences of systemic inequities. Ian Mass joins us with this week’s episode of City Beat.

Despite the climate crisis, 80% of new vehicles sold in Canada in the last two years were SUVs and pickup trucks, up from 55% a decade ago. A research team at SFU says the Canadian obsession with SUVs is seriously disrupting our climate goals. We speak with Zoe Long from the Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team.

In a small Indian village, Ranjit wakes up to find that his 13-year-old daughter has not returned home from a family wedding. A few hours later, she’s found stumbling home. She had been dragged into the woods and raped by three men, all known to the family. Ranjit and his wife go to the police, and the men are arrested. The new documentary, To Kill a Tiger, follows Ranjit’s uphill battle to find justice for his child.

The 45-year old Vancouver Folk Music Festival is a much-loved event for music fans and an important showcase for musicians. So it came as a shock when the festival’s board announced two weeks ago that the 2023 festival had been cancelled and they wanted members to vote to dissolve the society. Following a groundswell of support, the board postponed the AGM and held an open meeting to discuss the festival’s future. Ian Mass was at the meeting and brings us a report.

We are probably all familiar with the letter-writing campaigns of Amnesty International. Now Amnesty Canada has a new podcast: Rights Back at You. The podcast aims to unravel the Canada you think you know and challenge the systems that hold back human rights. The podcast launched February 1 with an episode on facial recognition and policing protest. We talk with the host of Rights Back at You, Daniella Barreto.