Redeye

As municipal and provincial elections approach, BC’s biggest, most expensive cities aren’t doing enough to help solve the current housing crisis. So says Alex Hemingway in a recent opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun. He argues that the BC government allowed cities to do an end-run around provincial zoning reforms, with the result that people continue to be pushed out of their communities. Alex Hemingway is a senior economist and public finance policy analyst with BC Policy Solutions.

In the run-up to Vancouver’s municipal election, Women Transforming Cities consulted widely to see what policies people want City Council to focus on. Now WTC is calling on all candidates for Mayor and Council to take the Our City Hall Pledge and commit to implementing six policy asks if they are elected.  We speak with Clara Prager of Women Transforming Cities.

On October 19, Albertans will vote on ten referendum questions put forth by Premier Danielle Smith and her UCP government. Five out of the ten questions in the referendum are directly related to immigration.  A new report, published by the Parkland Foundation seeks to answer two questions: Why immigration? And why now, when immigration and temporary resident numbers have declined in both Alberta and Canada? We speak with Bronwyn Bragg, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Lethbridge.

In 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 departed Tehran carrying 176 passengers and crew. Minutes after takeoff, the aircraft was struck by two surface-to-air missiles, killing everyone on board.  Director Soran Mardookhi’s feature documentary The Flight, produced by the NFB, follows the lives of family members left behind in their pursuit of truth, justice and accountability. The Flight has its world premiere at VIFF Oct 8.

Municipal elections on Saturday, October 17 are just 2 weeks away. With us to talk about some of the Metro Vancouver races is Redeye collective member Ian Mass with his City Beat report for October 3.

There is growing evidence that phone use and social media are harming youth, and having a negative impact on their learning and their mental health. Concern about the impacts is driving cell phone bans in both primary and high schools. The question is, are these policies effective? And what makes them succeed or fail? New research with Toronto area teachers set out to discover some answers. We speak with Sachin Maharaj of the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa.

In June this year, hundreds of people took to the streets in Vancouver to oppose the construction of two new AI data centres in the city. Vancouver city council has shunted the decision for a Telus-Westbank data centre in Mount Pleasant until after the municipal election but there are many more coming down the pipe across Canada. We speak with Anne Pasek, associate professor at Trent University and one of the authors of the toolkit Resisting Data Centre Development in Canada.

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its Final Report and showed Canadians the evidence of how residential schools constituted genocide. Despite six volumes of historical documents and survivor testimony, some Canadians chose to deny and disparage these findings. A new book published this month by the University of Manitoba Press tackles this denialism head-on.  We speak with Niigaan Sinclair and Sean Carleton of the University of Manitoba. They are co-editors of Truth Before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism.

Systemic racism and historical displacement have created profound  disparities in housing outcomes across British Columbia. Indigenous and racialized communities are significantly less likely to own a home,  and they are also more likely to face core housing need, evictions and homelessness.  In a new report, the BC Society for Policy Solutions says BC has a racial housing gap that colour-blind policy will never close. We talk with Véronique Sioufi.

For years, Independent Jewish Voices Canada alongside the Global Justice Coalition and Palestinian groups have been organizing for meaningful sanctions on Israel and its illegal settlements. On September 8, that pressure helped bring about an important development, as Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and nine other nations announced trade restrictions and sanctions targeting illegal settlements in the West Bank. We speak with Corey Balsam, National Coordinator of IJV Canada.

People across British Columbia will be voting in municipal elections on October 17th. In today’s edition of City Beat, Ian Mass talks about who’s running in Vancouver and what their chances are for occupying the mayor’s seat for the next 4 years.

If you have never been homeless, you probably have a lot of misconceptions about what it means to live on the street. Street Medicine 101 is a series of short videos that aims to dispel them. It features Dr Jill Wiwcharuk, known to her patients as Street Doctor Jill. She is a Victoria-based family and ER physician, specializing in addictions, inner city family medicine and emergency medicine. We speak with Street Doctor Jill in today’s episode.

As Israel and the US carry out devastating attacks on Iran, the Canadian oil industry and some politicians are seeing it as an opportunity to expand fossil fuel production.  Nick Gottlieb argues the fossil fuel industry is replaying its 2022 playbook, when they used Russia’s war in Ukraine to effectively destroy the Western climate movement. Nick Gottlieb is a climate writer and author of the newsletter Sacred Headwaters. We spoke with him in March from Terrace, BC.

First Nations across the country are reporting a  major loss of funding for children’s programs after the federal government changed Jordan’s Principle rules last February. Mis­sissaugas of the Credit First Nation have been at a hearing at the Cana­dian Human Rights Tribunal since October, accusing Ott­awa of sys­tem­at­ic­ally under­fund­ing on-reserve child and family services in Canada. We spoke with law­yer Kent Elson in January.

True North tells the story of the 1969 protest against racism at Sir George Williams University, now Concordia. Following the occupation of the university, 97 students were arrested or faced deportation. The film includes recent interviews with activists who were involved in the uprising. In making the documentary, director Michèle Stephenson draws on her Haitian and Panamanian heritage, and experience as a social justice lawyer. We speak with Michèle Stephenson in this episode.

Following recent court decisions around Indigenous rights and Aboriginal title in BC, public discourse is full of conflicting assertions. Premier David Eby has criticized the court and called their decisions overreaching and unhelpful. RAVEN works to support Indigenous Nations upholding their rights in court. It published an article to clarify some of the confusion, comparing what they are hearing to what they know to be true. We spoke with Jamie-Leigh Gonzales of RAVEN in February.

In his new book If You Want to Win, You’ve Got to Fight, transportation activist Carter Lavin shares strategies about how to create the change we want to see in our communities. Whether it’s more protected bike lanes, improved bus service, or safer streets for pedestrians, Carter provides a comprehensive toolbox of campaign tactics and advocacy tips. He is co-founder of the TransBay Coalition and has helped lead and study over a hundred advocacy campaigns across the United States. Carter Lavin joined us this episode, recorded in February.

A new report, co-authored by Lorne Foster and Lesley Jacobs, examines consumer racial profiling of Indigenous people in Canada. The report says it is likely that racial profiling in retail environments is the most frequent form of racism experienced by Indigenous communities. The Heiltsuk Nation released the report as part of its filings for a BC Human Rights Tribunal complaint that will be heard in October. We spoke with Lesley Jacobs in September.

In 2021, Betty Baxter was inducted into the Volleyball BC Hall of Fame.   But as a lesbian athlete and coach, the journey to that recognition was far from smooth. Baxter competed in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and helped found Canadian Women & Sport. She was the first woman coach of a national team, and was then fired from that job because of her sexual orientation. She went on to many new roles in advocacy, activism, education and politics, and was a key force in organizing the 1990 Vancouver Gay Games and cultural celebration. We spoke with Betty Baxter in March.

On December 2, the OneBC party released its documentary Making a Killing: Reconciliation, genocide and plunder in Canada. Since then, the writer and producer of the film Tim Thielmann, has been fired along with two other senior staff.  MLA Dallas Brodie has herself been removed as interim party leader.  But the documentary lives on, with Dallas Brodie voicing Thielmann’s script and interviewing all the guests. We talked about the film with Sean Carleton, professor of history and Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba in December.