Redeye

Next week Vancouver City Council will debate the first three redevelopment applications under the Broadway plan, at least two of which are meeting with significant neighbourhood opposition.  Council will also debate the use of fracked gas in new building construction, police body cameras and more. Redeye collective member Ian Mass joins us with his City Beat report.

Rights advocates in Canada are welcoming a new review and complaints body for the Canadian Border Services and the RCMP. A network of nine civil society organizations say the new commission is long overdue, but still falls short of what is needed. We talk with Tim McSorley, National Coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group.

During the BC election campaign, both the Conservatives and NDP put significant tax cuts on the table in their policy platforms.  While they were framed as a way of easing pressures on the cost of living, economist Alex Hemingway points out that tax cuts will do little to address the structural inequality underlying those cost pressures.   Alex Hemingway is a Senior Economist and Public Finance Policy Analyst at the CCPA’s BC Office.

A report released last week reveals that millions of dollars in Canadian charitable donations have been funneled to organizations implicated in supporting illegal Israeli settlements, violent settler groups, and military activities in the occupied Palestinian territories. Under the Guise of Charity was produced by Just Peace Advocates, Independent Jewish Voices Canada and Miles Howe. We speak with author Miles Howe.

For years, the Mitchikanibikok Inik First Nation community has fought to keep mining off of their territory. In an important ruling, the Superior Court of Québec has recognized that the Québec government failed for decades in its constitutional duty to consult the Mitchikanibikok Inik First Nation when mining claims were granted on its territory. Lawyers from Ecojustice  and the Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement argued that the Quebec mining act violated the constitution, and they won. We speak with Joshua Ginsberg, the lawyer for Ecojustice who represented Mitchikanibikok Inik First Nation in this case.

Next week Vancouver City Council will talk about the VPD and traffic cameras, earthquake-proofing rental properties, fracked gas heating in new construction and lots more. Redeye collective member Ian Mass joins us with his City Beat report.

On November 12 and 13, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear a case brought by two drivers of sex workers in Calgary who were charged with financially benefiting from sex work and procuring. The drivers claim the charges violate their Charter rights. We speak with Rosel Kim, a senior staff lawyer at LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, one of the intervenors in this case.

A local peace group Vancouver Peace Poppies, together with Vancouver Unitarians, is planning to host an alternative peace-focused ceremony marking November 11 called Let Peace be Their Memorial. This will be their ninth annual wreath ceremony to commemorate all victims of war. We speak with Teresa Gagné, co-founder of Vancouver Peace Poppies.

Sky-high rents, low vacancy rates and fierce competition for scarce homes have become the grim but familiar picture of housing in the Vancouver area. But this housing crisis does not affect us all equally. A new research project by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives will dig deep into how the crisis impacts immigrants, and racialized and Indigenous people. We speak with researcher Véronique Sioufi.

A new book examines the experiences of the women who faced the worst effects of the pandemic and the inequities it exposed. Conscripted to Care reveals how structural inequality placed women on the frontlines of the pandemic response, yet did not provide them with enough resources or a voice in decision-making. We speak with author Dr Julia Smith, assistant professor in Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.

Lawyers with Pivot Legal Society and the BC Civil Liberties Association have filed complaints against the Vancouver Police Department for excessive use of force, and for targeting and surveilling pro-Palestinian protestors. The complaints relate to a pro-Palestine protest on May 31 at CN Rails and the VPD use of drones and cell phone cameras at other protests. We speak with Meghan McDermott, staff counsel with the BC Civil Liberties Association.

Public health care was one of the issues that was top of mind for BC voters as they went to the polls over the past month. Election officials are conducting a final count this weekend. One thing we can be sure of is that the incoming provincial government will be tasked with resolving the issue of long wait times for surgeries like knee and hip replacements. Conservative Party leader John Rustad plans to outsource many more surgeries are likely to increase wait times dramatically, according to SFU health policy researcher Andrew Longhurst. We speak with him about the experiences of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec after they embraced surgical and hospital privatization.

In October, 800 senior leaders and industry experts from the aviation and energy industries met in Houston, Texas to discuss how to decarbonize the aviation industry. The current plan is to switch the fuel supplies of the global jet fleet to agricultural feedstocks. Darrin Qualman of the National Farmers Union was at the conference to speak about the grave dangers that will pose to the planet’s farmland base. Darrin Qualman is NFU Director of Climate Crisis Policy and Action.

Cottonwood Community Garden is a volunteer-managed community garden in East Vancouver. A new self-guided audio tour of the gardens is being launched this month, bringing an intimate sense of place to a piece of urban nature brimming with life and social connection. With the tour, you can walk through the garden, and listen to stories that bring the history and use of the garden to life. We talk with film and video artist Lorna Boschman, creator of the sound walk.

Green Party councillor Adrienne Carr asks Vancouver City Council to reconsider a snap decision they made last summer to allow natural gas to be used in new building construction. Council will also be looking at giving an international developer a sweetheart deal, and finally after 5 years of waiting, the City has launched a community engagement process addressing historical discrimination against people of South Asian Canadian descent. Mass joins us with his City Beat report.

Both the BC NDP and the Conservative Party of BC have pledged to expand involuntary care under the Mental Health Act for people who use drugs.  More than 17 organizations have condemned forced detention plans, including the BC Civil Liberties Association and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.  Meenakshi Mannoe is connected to anti-prison and anti-policing movements and has previously engaged in advocacy related to the expansion of involuntary care. We speak with her about this issue.

The First Call Child and Youth Advocacy Society has been producing election-focused materials for decades. With the BC provincial election just days away, First Call has created a toolkit focused on effective election advocacy for children and youth. Adrienne Montani joins us to talk about some of the issues facing children, youth and families in the province.

If you live in British Columbia, and you care about equality and social justice, you probably have many conversations in week about how unaffordable housing is becoming. Economists at the BC office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives have examined this issue and have come forward with a multi-pronged approach to tackle the problem. We speak with senior economist Marc Lee.

A recent review of forest trends shows clearcut logging of old growth forests is continuing at unsustainable levels. This is despite the rapid increase of forest area burned - and the fact that there’s a limited area of intact forests left. The review was produced by the Sierra Club BC. I speak with Senior Policy and Science Advisor Jens Wieting.

Today, Ian Mass tells us about a 10-year retrospective on reconciliation work at the municipal level in Vancouver. Plus two major non-market housing developments in the Downtown Eastside. All this and more on City Beat.