Mark Hasiuk

Vancouver pro-drug lobby doesn’t deserve taxpayer dollars

(Vancouver Courier, February 15, 2012)

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

That’s how much Vancouver Coastal Health, your public health authority, gave VANDU, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, last year. This year, according to VCH officials, VANDU will receive another $250,000 from taxpayers, continuing a provincial funding scheme established in 1999.

Most Vancouverites don’t know VANDU. Headquartered in a brick building at 380 East Hastings in the Downtown Eastside, it’s a non-profit hangout conforming to neighbourhood drug culture. Folks gather outside on the sidewalk and inside the lobby. Traffic seems to have increased since December when VANDU began distributing free crack pipes to addicts, part of a VCH crack pipe giveaway. But mainly, thanks to longtime leader Ann Livingston, VANDU exists for activism.

Wherever police move against drugs, VANDU is there. Whenever Insite stages a street-level show of support, VANDU, which according to the city’s website offers cash “stipends” for "VANDU work," shows up. Livingston and company crash city hall, chiding council for police sins like the ticketing of illegal street vendors. Last week, following a four-year legal battle, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal dismissed a complaint from VANDU and the Pivot Legal Society who claimed the Downtown Ambassadors, a private security firm, discriminated against the homeless. Not even the tribunal, which relies on frivolous cases and flimsy evidence, could justify VANDU’s complaints.

Under the radar, VANDU provides “public speakers” and “research and consultation” to anyone interested in the VANDU point of view. Before booking a VANDU expert, you must call for a “free consultation.” Any additional fees are unknown. Livingston did not return calls for this column. But in 2009, she told the Courier that VANDU employs three paid staff members who help organize group meetings and “counselling” sessions at 380 East Hastings.

Of course, counselling is subjective, depending largely on the goal. According to VANDU’s “manifesto for a Drug User Liberation Movement” available on its website, folks have the “right to obtain, prepare, and ingest drugs, and to be intoxicated on drugs.” It continues: “We might take drugs to deal with psychological trauma or physical pain, or for pleasure or fun… our drug use is a response to our experiences of poverty, inequality, colonization, forced migration, workplace injury and inadequate access to pain relief.”

This is the VANDU gospel. Enablement on steroids. Victimization, stamped and validated. Music to the ears of the addict who organizes life around shunned responsibility. Every school of addiction treatment recognizes past trauma and the desire to self-medicate. That’s what addiction is. While sober minds can debate drug policy and decriminalization, the realities of addiction remain constant. Addicts want more. In response, VANDU celebrates drug abuse. Its 1,089-word manifesto excludes the words “addiction” and “addict,” calling drug abusers “oppressed people.”

Here’s why. According to the VANDU website, only “a person who has formerly, or is presently using illicit drugs” can become a voting member of the organization. To be clear. Addicts are people. Our friends, our family, our brothers and sisters. They deserve love and respect among, what Christ called, the “weary and burdened.” But until they recover, addicts place their addictions first. Any edict born from a group of addicts, under the influence of radical ideologues, will promote more enablement, more denial. Yet in a neighbourhood steeped in addiction, where treatment and prevention remains an afterthought, our provincial government funds this madness.

Why? Where’s the benefit? VANDU’s message helps fuel drug culture in the Downtown Eastside and a never-ending bill of housing, welfare, medical, policing and court costs.

But that’s not all. In addition to cash from Victoria, VANDU received $20,000 from city hall last year and will receive another $20,000 in 2012. Moreover, since 2006, VANDU headquarters has operated without a development permit. Back in 2009, Livingston said she was “negotiating” with the city. Apparently, negotiations have stalled.

VANDU is a cancer in a neighbourhood struggling to breathe. Its public funding is obscene. No government, at any level, has received a mandate from voters to prop up a pro-dope lobby.

Vancouver street epitomizes housing market dysfunction, community decline

(Vancouver Courier, February 6)

Lovely green West 38th Avenue.

Between Dunbar and Collingwood streets, a short stretch of asphalt (perfect for street hockey) runs through narrow sidewalks and lawns shaded by pine and birch. It’s suburbia in the city, west of Kerrisdale’s shops and restaurants, amid blocks of what speculators call “detached housing stock.”

Others call it home.

“Growing up in the ’80s and ’90s our neighbourhood was vibrant and alive with kids playing on front lawns, moms and dads walking their kids to school,” remembers Mikael Bingham, a pretty 29-year-old with an easy smile. “My siblings and I forged friendships with kids that have endured for decades. We were lucky to have lived that way.”

Mikael grew up on West 38th in the yellow two-storey with the signature red door. Her parents moved in 31 years ago after her grandparents bought the place. “We think the house is about 80 years old,” says Mikael, one of five Bingham children.

A lot has changed on West 38th and across Vancouver. Once a city with many working-class neighbourhoods, Vancouver’s gone cosmopolitan, attaining “most livable city” status on the international scene. Mass immigration has altered city culture and our inflated housing market, buoyed by speculation and investment from China and elsewhere, continues to stir.

In British Columbia, there are no restrictions on foreign ownership of real estate. Anyone from anywhere can buy on your street and mothball the house for future sale, decreasing supply and upping prices. Of course, there are benefits. Folks, including retirees, may sell their homes for huge profit. But who takes their place? What happens when the Jones move away? In some neighbourhoods, the answers grate.

While strolling West 38th with Mikael and younger sister Rachael, the effects of real estate investment loom large. Next door to the Bingham house sits a grey three-storey. Originally a bungalow, it was bought before the Olympics, transformed and then mothballed. According to Prudential United Realty, the 3,529-square-foot, five bathroom, five-bedroom pad is yours for $2,089,000.

Two doors east of the Binghams, sits a black and grey chalet-style house with sloping peaks. It rose from the ruins of a demolished bungalow, and according to Mikael, has been empty for years. Across the street, a boxy two-storey sits empty, although the yard remains trim and green thanks to regular visits from a landscaper. Conversely, in the adjacent lot, grass grows brown outside a beige stucco bungalow, its address spraypainted in yellow across the front door. Empty, of course, awaiting its owner’s next move.

“We’ve watched the neighbourhood turn into something of a ghost town,” nods Mikael. “And we've seen perfectly functional and beautiful houses torn down to be replaced with developer's specials that sit empty for months, sometimes years.”

Yes, the neighbourhood’s changing. Gone are the Lyles, the Jinxes, the Hodgsons, the families and kids who walked to nearby Kerrisdale elementary and Point Grey secondary.

Rachael, a blond and blue-eyed 27-year-old, recently moved back into the family home. “We don’t know our neighbours anymore,” she says. “Halloween is the most depressing. My mom still carves seven pumpkins and stills buys a lot of candy but no kids come around. This street is sad.”

Sometime soon, the Bingham house and its red door, home to Christmas dinners and sleepovers, will be bulldozed. The Bingham parents, both still working, rent from the grandparents who must sell to support their golden years. Everyone wants the grandparents to receive market value—at least $1.7 million. According to the realtor, who measured the Bingham house last Friday, it will be demolished shortly after sale. That’s the trend on West 38th Avenue.

Upstairs, Mikael’s old bedroom sits empty. Underneath the slanted ceiling, she looks up toward the skylight. “Our house was sort of a neighbourhood hub where our friends would hang out. We all recognize that we were really blessed to have stayed in the same place growing up, but that makes it harder, I guess.”

A consultant currently working with a law firm, Mikael lives with her husband in a rented apartment on the East Side. They’ll likely stay in Vancouver, it’s a great place to live. But the old neighbourhood is dead.

 

Vision Vancouver continues campaign finance reform charade

(Vancouver Courier, February 1, 2012)

It’s predictable. Like Groundhog Day or Adams River sockeye.

After every civic election, city council says the same thing. There’s too much money in Vancouver politics and we, your elected officials, want campaign finance reform. But Victoria, or more specifically, provincially mandated city charters, regulate civic elections in British Columbia and unless provincial officials change the rules for all municipalities (which they won’t), we’re stuck.

In March 2010, 17 months after Vision Vancouver shattered fundraising records to win the mayor’s chair and majorities on city council, school board and park board, council unanimously “endorsed” reform “recommendations,” which were forwarded to the province before all three parties—Vision, COPE and the NPA—resumed their fundraising fests.

And yesterday in council chambers, less than three months after Vision’s repeat election victory Nov. 19, Vision Coun. Andrea Reimer continued the charade. Her motion, which passed unanimously, will mail another letter to Victoria, asking (again) for local control of campaign finance rules. Reimer, like others before her, talks about banning union and corporation donations, and setting contribution and spending limits. But like others before her, she’s just talking.

Vision is the money party. It relies on big bags of cash from rich Americans (i.e. Drummond Pike, founder of the Tides Foundation), condo developers (i.e. Terry Hui, CEO of Concord Pacific) and green politicos (i.e. Bob Penner, CEO of Strategic Communications). In 2008, Vision spent at least $1.9 million, the most ever by one party for a Vancouver election. We don’t yet know last election’s price tag because Vision, like the NPA and COPE, hasn’t disclosed 2011 campaign finance records. But it will surely soar into the millions. 

Mayor Gregor Robertson is made of money, and more importantly, money made Mayor Gregor Robertson. He was raised in wealth (son of a corporate lawyer, stepson of a rich San Francisco businessman) and handpicked by Joel Solomon, the progeny of wealthy mall developers from Tennessee, who introduced Robertson to an international web of millionaires and foundations. Folks like Rubbermaid heiress Carol Newell, who’ve helped finance Vision’s election war chest and secure a stranglehold on Vancouver politics. In a press release last week, Robertson praised Reimer’s reform proposals, claiming they would “increase the fairness and transparency” of Vancouver elections.

Really? What does that mean? By noting a dearth of “fairness and transparency,” does Robertson indict his two election victories? What exactly wasn’t fair? His American sponsorship? The thousands donated by big developers who receive permits from city hall? Are you stepping down, Mr. Mayor? Was it all a scam?

Back to Reimer. Before the ’08 election, she trashed her Green Party membership card and joined the cash-flush Vision machine. Apparently, she had no problem with corporate and union donations back then. And if Reimer believes big money corrupts politics—literally through quid pro quo, or figuratively  through citizen skepticism—why didn’t she table yesterday’s motion before last November’s election campaign, when Vision dollars plastered her smiling face around the city in campaign signs and newspaper ads?

For the sake of argument, when taken at face value, Reimer’s proposals sound like admissions. When she says council requires campaign finance reform, she’s really saying council can’t be trusted. And her solution, banning things, would limit the freedom of Vancouverites to affect our democracy. Terry Hui likes dropping cash on Vision Vancouver, and he should retain that right. It’s his money. He earned it. And if he wants to spend it on politics, power to him. We don’t need campaign finance reform, we need councillors with spine who shun undue influence and defend their votes on principle.

But again, it’s a charade. We’ve heard it before and we’ll hear it again. Barring an overhaul of provincial regulations, Vancouver elections will remain expensive thanks to Vision, COPE and the NPA. 

In reality, Reimer could abandon fruitless motions towards Victoria and focus on party reform, pushing Vision and Team Robertson away from the money that built a political dynasty with no end in sight. But that’s likely a little too real.

 

Chinese ownership helps drive Vancouver's dysfunctional housing market

(Vancouver Courier, January 18, 2012)

Globalization. An idea etched in acronyms (EU, NAFTA, WTO) and reliant on transparent borders and common markets.

In Vancouver, globalization blooms on streets of overpriced bungalows and million-dollar split entries. It began in the 1980s, when waves of Hong Kong residents including members of the business elite, wary of communist China’s pending takeover, poured across the Pacific, gobbling up property with converted HKDs.

And they’re still coming and buying, from all over the world. In British Columbia, there are no restrictions on foreign ownership of real estate. Anyone from anywhere can buy on your street and a) live in the house b) rent the house or c) mothball the house for future sale. Option “c” decreases supply, increases demand and ups prices.

According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, last year the average price of a detached home in Metro Vancouver rose 11.2 per cent to $887,000. On the West Side, the average home price rose 20.7 per cent to $1.99 million. And according to a recent Re/Max report, the sale of Vancouver homes worth more than $2 million rose by 118 per cent in the first four months of 2011.

How much of it is tied to foreign buyers from China?

Nobody knows for sure. Because foreigners often use local addresses (their lawyer’s office, for example) when registering with the provincial land title office, the scope of the problem remains unknown. But whatever the scope, buyers mostly from China have upset the balance. Of course, capitalism requires competition, and free market principles should drive our housing market. But we no longer control that market. And despite growing evidence of market dysfunction, Premier Christy Clark, who could stiffen provincial regulation, and Mayor Gregor Robertson, who could increase taxes on foreign property owners, cede our land to foreign buyers.

Not so in Australia.

In recent years, Australian cities have experienced Vancouver-style real estate booms, with housing prices soaring from Sydney to Melbourne. Like here, buyers from China help drive Australia’s speculative real estate market. Faced with mounting public pressure, in 2010 the Kevin Rudd government introduced strict regulation aimed at foreign ownership. Under the new rules, the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) screens foreigners (including temporary residents and students) to determine their land purchase eligibility. Foreigners can’t buy existing properties and must build on vacant land within two years of purchase or face government-ordered sale. Scofflaws face capital gains confiscation. Finally, before foreign homeowners leave Australia, they must sell. No more overseas landlords Down Under.

According to FIRB documents, the new policy will “reduce the possibility of excess demand building up in the existing housing market” and “maintain greater stability of house prices and the affordability of housing for the benefit of Australian residents.”

Wow, what a concept. In Australia, they’re looking out for Australians.

Of course, among Vancouver’s real estate set, which includes brokers, land developers and their friends at city hall, such regulation would be tantamount to heresy. During last November’s civic election campaign, while Robertson and his rivals dodged the issue, independent council candidate Sandy Garossino talked about the “extreme situation” in Vancouver neighbourhoods dogged by foreign ownership, prompting outrage from Cam Good, president of The Key, a Vancouver-based real estate firm that caters to Asian buyers. “I find it small-minded and frustrating,” said Good, during an interview with the Province. “The challenges I have are with people who just whine and complain.”

Nobody likes whiners. But what’s good for Good and his clients in Beijing may not be good for you and your neighbourhood. Local ownership spawns healthy communities. If you own, you care. And through property taxes, invest in parks, schools and other amenities. Conversely, for foreign owners, property taxes represent investment fees while circumventing Vancouver’s tax code, which taxes residencies (4.2 per cent) and businesses (18 per cent) at separate rates. Isn’t speculative foreign investment a form of business?

Like the European Union, Vancouver is crumbling, not along ethnic lines, but among the owns and owns-not. Globalization, in the form of foreign investment, may help chase an entire generation of native-born residents from the city and deny other immigrants a chance at home ownership. Remedies are scarce. But returning property to people who live, work and raise families here seems like a good start.

 

Crack pipe giveaway drapes Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

(Vancouver Courier, January 9, 2012)

In the Downtown Eastside, crack cocaine is king. As the neighbourhood's most popular drug, it's used solely or with other drugs such as heroin or methadone. It's a symptom and cause of widespread misery.

All along Hasting Street, a gauntlet of crack dealers flog their wares. "Rock." "Base." "Best rock right here." According to locals, quality varies depending on the dealer and the price. A typical crack "rock" sells for $10. "But most of it's shit," said Allan Diplock, a short, fidgety 42-year-old with thick bifocals whom I met last Friday morning. Standing on a rain-soaked East Hastings street corner, Diplock represents the target demographic for the provincial government's latest harm reduction experiment in the Downtown Eastside.

Beginning last month, for at least the next eight months, Vancouver Coastal Health, through proxy locations around the neighbourhood, will give away crack pipe kits to anyone no matter their age or state of addiction. According to theory, fresh pipes limit the spread of disease such as hepatitis C. Give an addict a new pipe, they say, and you'll decrease infection rates. The project will cost $60,000 and include 60,000 pipes. Despite sections 462.1 and 462.2 of the Criminal Code, which prohibit the promotion of "instruments or literature for illicit drug use," it's the grandest crack pipe giveaway in Canadian history.

Last Friday, I visited three crack pipe distributors in the Downtown Eastside. First stop: the Lookout Downtown Hazelton Residence, a squat brick building on Alexander Street where Sarah, a smiley young redhead, stood behind the front counter.

"Can I have a crack pipe, please?"

"Sure," said Sarah, reaching into a plastic bin full of crack pipe kits. Each kit, packed in a Ziploc bag, includes a four-inch cylindrical glass pipe, 10 metal pipe screens, two plastic mouthpieces, eight alcohol swabs, two skinny wooden push sticks and a how-to manual boasting the VCH slogan "Promoting wellness. Ensuring care" alongside a 1-866 detox hotline. Although I never asked for extras, Sarah gave me two pipes and bade me farewell.

Next stop, 380 East Hastings, headquarters of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. A busy place with a constant stream of people flowing through VANDU's brick archway. Behind another front counter, Marlene, a First Nations women with a black ponytail and leather jacket, smiled at me.

"Can I have a crack pipe, please?"

"No problem."

Before leaving, I asked Marlene about drug treatment options. She referred me to her colleague-a tall, bearded thirtysomething in an L.A. Dodgers hat. "We're not expert on that," he said. "Our suggestion is to go to Insite." (Incidental footnote: During a letter to the Courier last September, Patricia Daly, VCH's chief medical health officer, said "health care providers" who are "professionals" would distribute crack pipes. Marlene and the L.A. Dodger may be nice, but they're not health care professionals.)

Outside on the sidewalk, Jennifer Gravelle, who also received a kit from Marlene, inspected her pipe. Now 30 years old, Gravelle's smoked crack for 10 years. The rain flattened her brown hair and left two circles of pink blush on each cheekbone. "I think it's awesome," she said, noting the many pipes she's received from VANDU over the past few weeks. "People sharing crack pipes is not a good idea." But has anyone from VANDU asked about your situation or recommended treatment options? "Nope. Never."

Last stop. The Washington Needle Depot at Main and Hastings. To find the depot, walk west on Hastings from Main Street, take your first left into an alley and enter the second door (slightly ajar) to meet Lawrence, a grey-haired deadringer of late comedian George Carlin.

"Can I have two crack pipes, please?"

"OK. But you can't come back today."

Lawrence didn't want me "back today" because crack pipes sell on the black market, although the market impact of government pipes remains unknown. However, back on the street: "I don't like it," said Allan Diplock while wiping raindrops off his bifocals. "Why buy a pipe on the street if you can get one for free?" To subsidize his crack habit, Diplock sells pipes on Hastings for a buck a piece. I showed him my five-pipe stash. He shook his head and smiled. "That's what I'm talking about. It doesn't make sense."

 

Christmas gifts for Ryan Kesler, Occupy Vancouver, PETA and other naughty folk

(Vancouver Courier, December 19, 2011)

When magi visited the Christ child, they didn’t have this in mind. Christmas gifts, once symbols of praise, now represent corruption—mindless consumerism in a material age. Nevertheless, I’ve compiled a gift list for Vancouver’s naughty and not-so-nice. Merry Christmas.

A job: to Occupy Vancouver protesters who squatted for weeks outside the Vancouver Art Gallery before blocking truck access last week to the Port of Vancouver, angering longshoremen who, you know, work for a living. Get a job, any job, to occupy your time. Unfortunately, most hardcore Occupy Vancouverites prefer the easy life. It’s their Achilles heel. And so, if faced with a future Occupy squatter’s camp, city officials should erect an employment centre among the tents and tarps, then sit back and watch ’em scatter. Jobs are like kryptonite to Occupy protesters.

A soother: for Ryan Kesler, the Canucks six-packed stud who overacts to every slash, every hit, doubling over like he’s been shot. It’s part of what’s wrong with the game. Two weeks ago, following a clean hit from Ottawa Senator forward Nick Foligno, Kesler pouted during a post-game interview, claiming Foligno “deliberately targeted my head.” Boo hoo. You’re 6-foot-two, 200 pounds, making $5 million a year. Shut up and play hockey. But if you want something to complain about, how about your no goals and one assist during last spring’s Stanley Cup final.

A job description: for Constance Barnes, newly crowned chair of the park board, already flush with power after only three weeks on the job. During her first park board meeting as chair, Barnes called for the creation of 500 new childcare spaces in Vancouver. Meanwhile, grass grows wild in city parks, the Mount Pleasant pool disappears and wrecking balls loom over the Riley Park rink. If Barnes wants to expand the local childcare system, she should quit the park board and run for the provincial legislature.

A pink slip: for all seven commissioners at the Vancouver Park Board and a demolition permit for the park board building on Beach Avenue. Most cities in Canada don’t have a park board, for good reason. It remains an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy blowing taxpayer cash to justify its existence. For example, Beaver Lake, a glorified pond in Stanley Park. In July the board approved $500,000 for a Beaver Lake “restoration” plan, which will eventually cost millions. Barnes calls for childcare spaces. That’s great! Who’s going to pay for it?

Soap and water: to football fans at B.C. Place. Been to a Lions game lately? It’s like the Star Wars bar in denim. I know, I know. Due to the outrageous cost of Canuck games, the Lions are the live sporting event of choice for (what Nietzsche called) the “bungled and the botched.” But seriously folks, before busing in from Surrey, jump in the shower. Then, when raising your arms in celebration while spilling flat draft on your stretched and straining Lulay jersey, nearby fans won’t recoil in disgust. As much.

A calculator: For Patti Bacchus, chair of the Vision-dominated school board, who last week helped earmark $100,000 for a budget review by PricewaterhouseCoopers. In other words, to help cut costs, the school board will spend $100,000 in a district $14 million in the red. And here’s the kicker. Results of the review aren’t binding and may be ignored by Bacchus and friends. That sound you hear is hundreds of Vancouver parents stampeding to the nearest private school.

A medium rare porterhouse caked in demi-glace: to the five PETA members in white and black cow costumes who picketed before a crowd of one or two onlookers outside the Vancouver Convention Centre, home to this month’s B.C. dairy industry conference. Hayden Hamilton, local spokesperson for the animal rights group, spoke to the Georgia Straight, the paper of record for non-events. “Our herd of cows is here sticking up for cows on dairy farms who don’t have a chance to speak up for themselves.” That’s true. Cows can’t talk. Yet PETA spokespeople can. What bitter irony.

 

Refugees embody hope of Christmas

(Vancouver Courier, December 12, 2011)

Grinches and Christmas go hand in hand. But last Saturday night at John Knox Christian, a private school in Burnaby, dozens of refugees gathered in the gymnasium for an event more fantastic, more bursting with life, than any Dr. Seuss tale.

They came from everywhere. From Afghanistan, Colombia, North Korea and Kosovo. White, brown and black. Young and old. Christian, Muslim and Hindu. As guests of Journey Home, a Christian non-profit based in Burnaby, they ate pumpkin pie and sang Christmas carols in a cacophony of accents and broken English. With help from Journey Home staff and volunteers, the refugee children staged a nativity play based on Luke’s Gospel about a wayward family and a precious child. That story ended in salvation, the ultimate goal for refugees. Might they find it here? Perhaps. But there’s no guarantee. Canadian refugee claims are often denied. Citizenship may take years. And then, it’s merely the end of the beginning.

Every refugee knows by heart the date they landed. They can recite it like their birthday.

“April 27, 2009,” says Daniel, a stout middle-aged Mexican who, alongside his wife and extended family, fled the drug wars that have killed thousands in Mexico since 2006.

As chief breadwinner, Daniel works nights at a Burnaby peanut factory (9 p.m. to 5:30 a.m) before punching in at a nearby office building for a janitorial shift (6 a.m. to 10 a.m.). He returns to a small house in Burnaby where the whole family lives. Denied refugee status, Daniel’s launched an appeal, yet despite looming deportation, considers himself lucky. “My family is safe at any time in the day. We are very happy to be safe.”

Safety is relative. What most Canadians take for granted, many newcomers cherish.

Paul and Rachel (not their real names) arrived in Vancouver on April 16, 2011, fleeing persecution in their native Iran. Why? Because Rachel converted from Islam to Christianity during a covert baptism in Tehran. According to Shariah law, that’s apostasy—a crime punishable by death. “They were following me,” says Rachel, a pretty 38-year-old. “They were going to kill me and maybe take away my daughter and hurt her.” Now living in Burnaby, the couple awaits a refugee hearing. Paul was recently baptized at Willingdon Church. Their daughter has made new friends. The mullahs could not be reached for comment.

Battered clichés notwithstanding, Saturday night’s event at John Knox Christian, like the many journeys over land and sea, was mainly about the children. In the tired eyes of refugee parents lies hope for their kids. So they might have a better life, parents sacrifice all.

Yet some come young, leaving parents and family behind.

On Aug. 13, 2010, Vani (and 491 other Tamil migrants) staggered off the Sun Sea cargo ship in Nanaimo after three months at sea. Now 20 years old, slight and short with deep brown eyes, Vani tells her story gently and with smiles. Born near Kilinochchi in northern Sri Lanka, her family suffered through years of war while government forces battled Tamil Tigers, a militant separatist movement. She lost an older brother, missing and presumed dead, and an older sister in an air raid. She eventually married and fled to Thailand where the Sun Sea was waiting. She now lives with her husband in a one-bedroom apartment in New Westminster. While he pumps gas at a Chevron, she works double-shifts at a Fresh Slice in East Vancouver making pizza at $9.50 an hour. “At the beginning, I liked pizza,” she laughs. “Then I was making the pizza, touching the pizza, smelling the pizza, serving the pizza. Now I don’t like it anymore. The pizza, not the job.” Each month Vani sends $120 to her family in Sri Lanka. With her refugee status pending, her English grows stronger every day. She plans to become a nurse and a Canadian citizen. “I’m going to be—how you say?—brave. I’m going to be brave. With God with us.”

Last Saturday night, many nations gathered in fellowship, a community of castaways and castoffs seeking shelter from the storm. Facing similar circumstances, Joseph led his family from Bethlehem to Egypt before settling in Nazareth bearing a child that changed the world. Folks like Daniel, Vani, Rachel and Paul aren’t trying to change the world, just their lives. Following their star to a promised land.

 

Explosion of 'disability' welfare crippling Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

 

(Vancouver Courier, November 28, 2011)

"The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern."—Proverbs 29:7

In Vancouver, we like our poor people contained. Away from our restaurants and mountain views, mainly in the Downtown Eastside. It's a welfare state in the literal sense.

According to the Ministry of Social Development, out of 16,590 neighbourhood residents, 7,841 (47 per cent) receive welfare cheques each month, not including folks on worker's compensation or unemployment insurance. The neighbourhood's reliance on welfare belies a province-wide decline in welfare cases. Since 1995, thanks to provincial reforms, the number of British Columbians on welfare has dropped every year from 367,387 to 180,921 in 2011. However, during that same 17-year span, welfare "disability" cases, folks deemed unemployable due to physical or mental maladies, increased every year from 22,167 to 94,986.

In the Downtown Eastside, the numbers loom larger. In 2000, only 1,720 neighbourhood residents received disability welfare compared to a whopping 4,255 in 2011. That's a 247 per cent increase in 11 years. Disability cases now comprise the majority of welfare recipients in the neighbourhood.

So what's the deal?

Like most issues in the Downtown Eastside, it depends on who you ask. Last week I talked to several neighbourhood residents who all receive some form of social assistance. Nobody spoke on record, fearing reprisal from provincial benefactors, but everyone agreed about disability welfare. If you're on it, you cherish it. If you're not, you aspire to it. Why? Because a single person on regular welfare receives $610 per month compared to $906 for singles on disability. A single parent with one child receives $946 on regular welfare compared to $1,242 for that same parent on disability. The maximum monthly amount for regular welfare ($1,221) falls far behind maximum disability welfare ($1,863). These maximum rates do include $35 bonuses for each additional dependent. And finally, disability welfare recipients aren't required to look for work and often receive monthly cheques for many years.

Of course, there are legitimate cases of disability in the neighbourhood, from arthritis to schizophrenia, and mental disorders born from tragic histories of abuse and addiction. But our increasingly self-obsessed culture, which assigns disease to every human condition, has lowered the bar. Mark Sieben, deputy minister of social development, defends the disability explosion, pointing to mood disorders and depression "which might affect somebody's ability to seek and remain in gainful employment."

Additionally, welfare reforms, which place greater onus on back-to-work measures, have seemingly inspired welfare workers who make final decisions on disability cases. Speaking anonymously to me, another ministry bureaucrat made the following observation: "Let's be frank, the frontline workers are amazing people, and if they see somebody applying for income assistance who they really feel should be applying for disability, which is more money and more security, they really pull out the stops to help get that done."

No doubt that's true. The majority of welfare workers, like the majority of advocates in the Downtown Eastside, act in good faith. Welfare, they say, alleviates poverty. But can they accurately make that claim? According to the latest Metro Vancouver homeless count, despite a 2007 welfare rate hike, homelessness increased by 314 people between March 2005 and March 2011. In the Downtown Eastside, anecdotal evidence-supported by police, advocates and residents-suggests daily decline. Far from lifting folks out of poverty, welfare cheques often seal their fate, helping fund drug addictions and an ever-expanding social housing scheme, which feeds the drug market and fuels the poverty machine.

In their controversial 1994 book The Bell Curve, Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray argue against perpetual welfare and a "high-tech and more lavish version of the Indian reservation" in urban areas. They also note the erosion of individual rights and freedoms of poor people "once it is accepted that a significant part of the population must be made permanent wards of the states."

Welfare is necessary, for the helpless. For everyone else, it should remain a temporary stop on the road to brighter days. Government-sanctioned "disability," when wrongly prescribed, epitomizes the soft bigotry of no expectations. It removes incentive, keeps poor people poor, dousing destinies with the stroke of a pen. Despite good intentions, there's nothing righteous about that.

 

 

Mayor Robertson bungles mean-spirited Occupy Vancouver protest

(Vancouver Courier, November 7, 2011)

It came at the worst moment. But the end is nigh.

The Occupy movement, spawned in New York and copied across the globe, landed Oct. 15 outside the Vancouver Art Gallery and into Vancouver's civic election campaign.

Before the protest, despite the Stanley Cup riot and his party's low public approval numbers, Mayor Gregor Robertson was cruising to reelection Nov. 19. Then a tale of two cities-Vancouver, home to 640,000 Vancouverites, and the tent city, a lawless zone of blue tarps, bongo drums and several dozen squatters-took centre stage.

In the beginning, Robertson blessed Occupy, saying protesters could remain camped outside the gallery forever. After all, Robertson's a global dude and former director of Tides Canada, an eco-activist war chest with international ties. If not for his current job title, Robertson would likely have frequented tent city during its opening days, making impromptu Al Gore-style appearances among the proletariat.

But as Occupy's UBC students lost interest, and the weather grew cool, the protest grew dark. Shouting protesters interrupted Sunday mass at Holy Rosary Cathedral where society's true villains, grandmothers in plastic pearls and Filipino immigrant families, came to pray. The protesters stormed a TD branch, scaring bank tellers whose only crime was sharing an industry with Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs. They flouted city bylaws and ignored fire marshals.

And the mayor watched from the sidelines like a six-year-old. Robertson's bungling of Occupy Vancouver reinforced his image as a man-child. At first, he was reckless. Then, as public sentiment turned and election day loomed, he sent mixed-messages before tragedy-the suspected fatal overdose Saturday of a 23-year-old women-provided the cover Robertson required. Past proclamations notwithstanding, he's now anti-tent city, albeit in a dithering way. "I have directed the city manager to expedite the appropriate steps to end the encampment as soon as possible," Robertson said Saturday, "with a safe resolution being absolutely critical to that."

Meanwhile, whatever its genesis, the Occupy Vancouver protest has lost all credibility. An angry "leadership," mainly young and white, spews venom daily while prohibiting rank-and-file protesters from talking to media. Despite Saturday's tragedy, most tent city inhabitants remain on site for selfish reasons. To be validated. To be the centre of attention. To eat. To sleep. To push dope or get high.

I visited the tent city several times over the past two weeks. Protester complaints mirrored a "list of demands" released by Occupy Vancouver online. Banks are evil. The minimum wage is too low, tuition too high. The media is corrupt. Criminals run the country.

Some of what they say is true. Capitalism is unfair. There are winners and losers. But capitalism, with its inherent flaws, offers opportunity to anyone willing to educate themselves and work hard. And because of that fact, it remains the best economic system within a democracy. Ironically, capitalist innovation created the social media and hand-held devices vital to Occupy protests. Moreover, protesters embrace the same hypocrisy they decry. While railing against inequality and double standards, they elevate their right to protest over the rights of others to work, worship and enjoy public space without fear of harassment.

Yet during my visits to tent city, I was most struck by the lack of spirituality within the movement. It's mainly about money, or more accurately, the money they lack and others grub. Last Friday morning at tent city, a 20-something man in a half-beard and red poncho complained about banks and bailouts. "They buy the politicians and get paid. Where's my bailout?" When I asked why he, a young man in good health, needed government assistance, he told me to f--k off. Vancouver's iteration of the global Occupy movement is mean-spirited, narrow-minded, self-righteous and utterly devoid of humility. And that, more than any politically motivated mayor or overdose tragedy, seals its fate.

So, if you're young, healthy and want to change the world, get off your ass, tear down your tent and go forth. The world is rife with injustice that requires immediate attention, from African villages to First Nations reserves. Don't listen to the haters. Give, work and fundraise. Lobby, build bridges and volunteer. And do so with a glad heart. It may not get your face on the evening news, but the things worth doing rarely do.

 

Mayor Robertson's post-riot duplicity looms over Occupy Vancouver

(Vancouver Courier, October 31, 2011)

 

Remember the anarchists? It was all their fault.

On Monday, four months after the Stanley Cup riot, during a press conference at VPD headquarters, police recommended charges for 60 alleged rioters for crimes including mischief, break-and-enter and arson. And there'll be more. According to VPD Chief Jim Chu, the recommendations represent the beginning of the beginning. "We still expect hundreds of charges to be laid."

Fair enough. But what about the anarchists?

On June 15, as dusk fell and cars burned on Georgia Street, Mayor Gregor Robertson, fresh from his seat at Rogers Arena, held a sidewalk press conference two blocks from the riot epicentre. While television cameras rolled, with his eye on job security, Robertson made a choice. "We had a small number of hooligans," he said, "on the streets of Vancouver causing problems."

Damage control. Not for the city, with its shattered glass and looted businesses, but for Robertson, architect of the fan zones, which swelled beyond their flimsy blue fencing, spilling thousands of drunks across the downtown core.

Faced with millions in damages and mounting criticism, Robertson sharpened his message at a press conference the following day. It was the "anarchists," he said. The perfect foils. Faceless, underground, reviled. Anarchists are arbitrary. You can't pin them down. They remain hidden from view. Robertson, by contrast, can't escape the public record. He, alongside city manager Penny Ballem, lowballed Stanley Cup policing costs. He ignored police calls for more security guards. He failed to plan for what everyone else feared. And when it blew up, he blamed an enemy familiar to most Vancouverites. White punks in black hoodies. They trashed storefronts during the Olympics. And according to Robertson, they did it again.

Meanwhile, during a separate press conference June 16, VPD Chief Jim Chu picked up the script. He blamed the "anarchists." Why not? Chu had nothing to lose. He ignored the 1994 Cup riot report and deployed too few officers. Most damning, his "hands off" approach to crowd control handcuffed police until it was too late.

For several days post-riot, despite no proof of anarchist involvement, Chu and Robertson beat the anarchist drum, deflecting blame and fuelling a media narrative ablaze with righteous public anger. In August, a worthless riot report virtually ignored the duo who walked scot-free, hand-in-hand, from a multi-million dollar disaster largely of their making.

Of course, they had help. Several hundred rioters damaged people and property. Their selfishness, captured by cellphone cameras and YouTube, should guarantee many convictions. And that's great. But seriously, what about the anarchists? Presumably, they're still out there, free to threaten future public events such as the upcoming Grey Cup or the Santa Claus parade. Or Occupy Vancouver.

Robertson's actions during and after last June's riot eerily resemble his handling of the protest outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. On Oct. 14, in the beginning, Robertson endorsed the protest-a fan zone for leftists and layabouts-and three days later, said protesters can remain camped outside the gallery forever, barring any violence or public health issues. On Oct. 22, hundreds of protesters stormed the TD Bank on Georgia Street. According to a TD staff member I talked to, protesters shouted obscenities, unplugged electronics and danced on counter tops. Police watched but made no arrests. (Sound familiar?) Trauma counsellors visited the bank the following day to comfort shaken employees. Robertson said nothing. But public sentiment slowly turned.

Now, as the "tent city" and its cost to taxpayers ($500,000 and counting) takes centre stage in the Nov. 19 election campaign, Robertson's solidarity with the protesters has evaporated. Again, he's made a choice. "We do want to see the tents moved off," he said late last week. "It can't go on forever."

When police move in sometime before election day and violence erupts, Robertson will face the same questions posed last June. What was the pre-protest plan? How'd he lose control? What was he thinking?

Back then, he scrambled for a scapegoat. It was his first instinct. Facts didn't matter. Now, on election eve, he's cornered again. And if history is any guide, a few Occupy Vancouver protesters are destined for demonization. Better ditch your hoodies, boys. They make good targets.