Redeye

In mid-April, Germany’s highest court ruled that a rent cap imposed by the Berlin state government is illegal. German federal court overturned the law, saying lawmakers in the state had no right to instigate it. We speak about rent control and the Berlin rent cap with Alexander Vasudevan, associate professor in human geography and fellow at Christ Church at the University of Oxford. He and David Madden co-authored a recent piece in the Guardian arguing that the Berlin law, though defeated in court, shows how to cool overheated markets.

In 2017, El Salvador became the first country in the world to pass a comprehensive law banning on metals mining nationwide. The vote was the result of a 12-year struggle by small farmers and their allies to protect the waters of the Lempa River from the impact of gold mining. Robin Broad and John Cavanagh tell this incredible story in their new book The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved A Country From Corporate Greed. We speak with John Cavanagh.

A group of Xinka people in Guatemala opposes the development of the Escobal mine, owned by Vancouver based Pan American Silver. Members of the Peaceful Resistance of Santa Rosa, Jalapa, and Jutiapa have been shot at and received death threats in response to requests for a consultative process, a request which has been upheld in court. Jen Moore is an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies. She joins us from Mexico City to discuss the mine and the resistance to it.

Over-representation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system is an ongoing crisis in Canada. In B.C., the First Nations Justice Council is implementing a strategy to bring down the number of people who become involved with the criminal justice system. Mitch Walker is with the First Nations Justice Council and he joins us today to talk about this strategy and more specifically, Gladue reports, which can play a pivotal role in this new approach.

On April 23, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized the existence of the Sinixt people in south-eastern BC, 65 years after they were declared extinct by the federal government. The ruling is the end of a long legal battle for the Sinixt and for Richard Desautel of Washington State who, in 2010, shot and killed an elk in the traditional territory of the Sinixt to challenge the extinction claim. We talk with the lawyer for the Sinixt, Mark Underhill.

128 speakers have signed up this week to talk to Vancouver city council about upzoning and densifying much of Vancouver for social housing. Council was also considering support for prioritizing Commercial Drive as a pedestrian-first street, patents on Covid-19 vaccines, accessible washrooms at Skytrain stations and an apology for a decision made 107 years ago. Ian Mass joins us with his City Beat report.

Later this month the city of Vancouver will submit its application to Health Canada for permission to decriminalize simple possession of illicit drugs. The application defined a threshold limit for possession without consulting with drug users. They say this limit is far too low. Caitlin Shane is a staff lawyer with the Pivot Legal Society, working on drug policy. She spoke with James Mainguy last week.

The scale of the Israeli attack on Gaza is the most intense since the 7-week Israeli war on Gaza in 2014. To find out more about the reasons behind the current escalation, we speak with Yara Shoufani. She is a Palestinian organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement (Toronto Chapter). Yara Shoufani has a masters in Political Science with research focused on colonization and gentrification in Palestine. We spoke on Friday May 14.

On April 27, the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Health Coalition held an online day of action calling on the federal government to create national standards for long-term care in Canada, instead of handing the job off to an accreditation industry with no power to enforce standards. In this podcast, we hear from John Cartwright, Pam Beattie and Pat Armstrong. We’d like to thank the Council of Canadians and Canadian Health Coalition for making the recording of the event available to us.

In April, over 100 Canadians staged a hunger strike to raise awareness of the federal government’s plan to purchase 88 new advanced fighter jets for a total cost of over $76 billion. Dr. Brendan Martin is a member of the Vancouver chapter of the organization, World BEYOND War. He finished a two-week fast on April 23 as part of the No New Fighter Jets Coalition and joins us to talk about the campaign.

The 2021 Federal Budget promised to support people living in Indigenous communities, and allocate over $18 billion over the next five years to improve the quality of life and create new opportunities. Riley Yesno says as “historic and unprecedented” as this Budget may be, that does not mean it is sufficient. Riley Yesno is a queer Anishinaabe writer, researcher, and public speaker from Eabametoong First Nation. She is currently a Canadian Journalism Foundation Fellow, and a Yellowhead Institute Research Fellow.

In July 2020, Vancouver City Council passed a motion to decriminalize poverty. Council heard about a variety of impacts, including the intersecting impacts of poverty, gender, and racism on interactions with police. A report on the implementation of this task came to Council last week and Ian Mass, our City Beat reporter, joins us to tell us about the outcome. Plus a social housing update and a new 3-day car race proposed for Vancouver.

On April 26, the Vancouver School Board voted to end its school liaison officer program. Meenakshi Mannoe is Criminalization & Policing Campaigner at Pivot Legal Society and was involved in the fight to remove police from school. She joins us to talk about her concerns with the motion the Vancouver School Board passed and what’s next for the campaign to remove police from schools.

All Mountain caribou in Canada are at risk of extinction, and none more so than the southern Mountain Caribou of BC and Alberta. Herds have been in decline for over three decades. In March, the federal government rejected an emergency order under the Species at Risk Act to protect the threatened caribou. We speak with Charlotte Dawe, Conservation and Policy Campaigner for the Wilderness Committee.

Holborn Properties bought 224 Little Mountain social housing units in 2007 with a promise to rebuild. Fourteen years later, the lot still sits empty. Activists are fighting to see the sales agreement that the BC Liberal government signed with Holborn. A government arbitrator ordered BC Housing to release the contract but Holborn continues to fight to keep it private. We catch up on what’s happening with David Chudnovsky of Community Advocates for Little Mountain.

Yellow Objects is part digital experience and part theatrical installation. The work is inspired by the democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and created by Derek Chan, co-artistic director of Rice & Beans Theatre. Derek Chan grew up in Hong Kong and is a playwright, director, performer and translator. We speak with him about how the work came about and how he adapted it once the pandemic made live theatre productions impossible.

Someone Like Me, premiering at Toronto’s Hot Docs this month, documents what happens when a group of strangers from Vancouver’s queer community sponsor Drake, a gay asylum seeker from Uganda. With the help of Rainbow Refugee, they embark on a year-long quest for personal freedom. We speak with filmmakers Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams.

The 360 Riot Walk is a multilingual interactive tour which invites participants to trace a layered history of labour politics, anti-Asian racism, and community resistance in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The tour has 13 stops between Gassy Jack and Oppenheimer Park. We speak with artist Henry Tsang, creator of the 360 Riot Walk.

The Canadian and Ontario governments recently announced they are giving $470 million to Sonofi Pasteur, a French vaccine maker, to build a new plant to manufacture vaccines for influenza. In December we talked with Colleen Fuller about how the Mulroney government sold off Canada’s Connaught Labs and their research and production capacity. We’ve connected with her again to get her take on Canada’s role in the provision of affordable vaccines, here and abroad.

It is clear that the Covid-19 pandemic has drastically reduced transit ridership, and that rebuilding rider confidence will be challenging. Councillor Jean Swanson has a motion before Vancouver City Council specifically focused on preserving bus ridership, which makes up over 60% of transit trips in Metro Vancouver. Redeye collective member and City Beat commentator Ian Mass joins us to talk about all the goings on at Vancouver City Hall and beyond.