MtPleaseAunt - Views of the hood

Strata Properties Act

2012-02-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

One of the most popular posts on this blog has been the Strata Warning we published in 2007. http://mtpleaseaunt.blogspot.com/2007/09/strata-warning.html?showComment=1328977060937#c8167787538068464884

This article from the Vancouver Courier Feb. 10 2012 explains changes made by the Province in Bill 8, the Strata Property Amendments Act. http://www.vancourier.com/travel/Strata+Properties+explained/6131926/story.html

Basically it says that every 3 years the strata needs to have a professional assessment of upkeep needs, file a report on it, and choose a plan for how to pay for the work. If actually carried out properly, that could help eliminate or ease the worst of the ugly financial surprises that new buyers or current owners may suddenly face.

It still doesn't change the fact that when you buy a strata you are buying into the infrastructure and not getting much of a share in the land. Land appreciates; infrastructure tends to depreciate. Upkeep will definitely help, however, in retaining the value of your strata apartment for longer.

Missed Garbage Pickups - Old Problem, New Hassle

2011-09-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

Previously, if your garbage was not picked up you could call directly to the responsible department. They would send a truck that afternoon or in the morning. Now, however, with the city's implementation of the "convenient" 3-1-1 number, things have gotten inconvenient.

Here's what the city says about this situation on its web site:

My garbage (or recycling) wasn't picked up on my regular collection day - who should I call? Call 3-1-1 (or 604.873.7000 from outside Vancouver) to report any missed pickups. Please provide your address, a daytime phone number, what time your recycling was set out, and whether it was just your home or the entire block that was missed.

That is the information we've always been asked, and seems completely reasonable. However, the website doesn't mention that the 311 operators will also interrogate you intensely and try to give you a scolding.

On August 31, the garbage was not picked up on our block, when we got home it was too late to call. The morning of September 1, I gave the man who answered the 311 line my name, address, phone number, and the information that I had set my garbage out the night before the pickup date and that it was the whole block that was skipped - seven cans. He then asked me if the lid of my can was closed, if it was overfilled, and if there a metre (3 feet) of space on each side of my cans. I went out to look at the can placement, and when I came back he asked me if there was also a meter in front and in back of the can. I said that there were cans all up and down the block placed just as they were every week and that nobody's can had been picked up - wasn't that enough information already? He said no, it wasn't. I said I was sorry, but I couldn't answer any more questions, that I had to go to work now. The garbage on the block wasn't picked up that day, and when I called back the next morning the woman who answered said there was no record of his ever having put in my request.

She asked me the questions again, and at last told me that I couldn't expect the garbage to be picked up that day or the next, because the city had three working days from the date the report was filed to pick up missed collections. Because of the statutory holiday coming up, three working days from the date she accepted the request would have been six days from the date it should have been picked up.

This is no small inconvenience, I explained, because our block doesn't have back laneways, the cans sit on the other side of parked cars, in the middle of the street, where they are vulnerable to being hit by speeders and have to be moved for people to park and to drive away. She said that possibly the city might pick up the garbage sooner, but it might not, that they had three working days, so we should keep putting the cans out every day that was not a holiday, just in case.

I talked to other neighbours and at least two of them also called 311. One of them was told that the garbage "might" be picked up the next morning (only two days late). It was.

This incident would have been way less frustrating if 311 operators were not standing in the way of our discussion with someone actually at the responsible department. Our block often gets skipped for garbage pickup for some reason, and the dispatchers at the department certainly know that. In the past, they were always able to give us a specific pickup time for correcting that mistake. Loading the 311 operators up with the mandate to teach a catechism and a rigid attitude about it is not helpful - it just feels like giving the ratepayers a hard time. According to one auntie, "Nowadays, they are always making everything be your fault."

Mattress, TV and Computer Dumping

2011-09-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

The laneways in Mt. Pleasant have become chronic dumping sites for old televisions, mattresses, other electronics, and broken furniture and clothes.

The city has washed its hands of picking up bulky items from residents, so there's currently no help there. Personally, I think the health and environmental needs of the city would warrant having these large and fairly dangerous items picked up as part of city service. Having regular pickup dates by the city would also be the most efficient way to deal with them. However, if we want that kind of service restored, it will presumably require a householders' campaign directed at city council.

At present, there is a patchwork of drop-off points where we are supposed to take different kinds of items. For mattresses, the city has now imposed a $20 per mattress drop-off fee. According to Vancouver's solid waste website:

The City will NOT pick up your old mattress or appliance. Vancouver residents can drop off a maximum of 4 mattresses and boxsprings at the Vancouver Transfer Station at 377 West Kent Avenue North. A $20 per unit piece applies to cover the cost of recycling. Residents may also drop off up to 8 mattresses and box spring at the Vancouver Landfill in Delta, where the same $20 per piece fee applies.

Dropping off mattresses will of course require use of a truck - something not too many people have these days. This has opened up a private sector recycling opportunity for people who do have trucks. Canadian Mattress Recycling on Annacis Island in Delta only charges $12 per mattress recycling fee, but they charge $60 pickup in the lower mainland. The pickup fee covers up to ten mattresses at a time.

If you'd like to keep a mattress that is suspected to have bedbugs instead of throwing it in the lane, you can buy a bedbug-proof mattress cover. In Mt. Pleasant, Parker's Mattress Factory Store sells both the bug-proof covers and new mattresses.

Televisions are an especially obnoxious thing to find in the lane. Often after they sit there a week or more, someone will find it irresistible to kick or batter them to pieces, leaving not only glass debris but also Electronic circuit boards, batteries and color cathode ray tubes (CRTs) that can contain lead, mercury, and hexavalent chromium. If properly recycled, they can yield a harvest of plastic, steel, glass, and even precious metals.

In Mt. Pleasant, our nearest electronics recycling location for both televisions and all kinds of computers and computer accessories is the Salvation Army's 12th Avenue Thrift Store: 261 E. 12th Avenue. http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=261+e+12th+ave+vancouver+bc&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x548673e241b15faf:0x5c46504036992150,261+E+12th+Ave,+Vancouver,+BC+V5T+3L1&gl=ca&ei=XxtlTrCRAs7diALo3PTKCg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ8gEwAA

This Salvation Army Thrift Store electronics recycling centre is tricky to get to - it's actually behind the Vancouver Recovery Club, and you have to go through the laneway north of 12th to get to the drop-off location.

However, the good news is that you can drive a vehicle into a paved area inside the fence, so it's not far to carry your items. There is a separate bay for electronics recycling drop-off, and the caretaker there tends to be irritable if you don't put your own drop-off items in the correct pile or bin. TVs were going into a bin when I was there last time.

Why aren't we getting our mail?

2011-08-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

For weeks, our block in Mt. Pleasant has had almost no mail delivery. Last week, we only got mail one day. The week before, we got mail two days. The week before that, we got a stack of letters, some of which had been mailed weeks before.

I thought Canada Post must have followed through on a plan to cut mail delivery to two or three times a week. However, on Tuesday at Trout Lake Park posties from Victoria were practicing driving mail trucks, and I asked one if deliveries had been cut. He said that Canada Post still does five day a week delivery.

Today, I had a chance to talk with a postal insider, who gave me more information. He says our postal depot is called Mountain View, that the Mountain View depot has reduced its workforce by about nine carrier positions, that the mail delivery for those positions is being laid on the shoulders of the remaining carriers, that the carriers tell management they don't have time to finish their whole route in the workday, and the management says to leave it for tomorrow. But when tomorrow comes, the amount of mail that couldn't be delivered doubles.

Among the items due weeks ago that have never been delivered was my credit card statement. This resulted in my owing late fees and interest charges.

I phoned in a complaint to Canada Post at 1-800-267-1177. The fellow who answered said he didn't believe that these carrier cuts had happened, or that mail was piling up, and asserted that Canada Post does everything they can to insure prompt delivery of the mail. However, he said an inquiry would be sent to the depot.

If you live in Mt. Pleasant and are not getting regular mail service, please voice your complaint now. If this is a common problem in our neighbourhood, more squeaky wheels might help us get this situation improved.

Broadway/Kingsway Rezoning - Workshop Venue Change

2011-03-15T23:13:00.000-07:00

Broadway/Kingsway Rezoning - Workshop Venue Change

Dear Registrant:
Thank you for your interest in and registration for the Community Workshop being held on Sunday, March 20, 11:30 am to 4:30 pm, to discuss the Rize Alliance rezoning application for the site at Main, Broadway, Kingsway, and Watson St.

Please note that due to the tremendous public response to this workshop - we currently have 136 people registered and registration is not yet closed - we have had to change venue. The workshop will now be held at:

The Salt Building
85 West 1st Ave. (at Manitoba)
Parking is available along 1st Ave. A light lunch will be provided for participants. Please find attached a map setting out the location of the Salt Building.

Also, please find attached the Community Workshop agenda and a description of the workshop objectives and group process. We remind everyone that the doors to the Salt Building will open at 11:30 AM so you can preview the presentation materials and talk with the proposal proponents and City staff. This will be followed by brief presentations and then group discussion.

I am also including a link to the Mount Pleasant Community Plan http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/cpp/mountpleasant/pdf/MPcommunityplan.pdf which will inform much of the discussion on Sunday. Of particular importance are the 'Overarching Principles" and the sections on the 'Uptown Shopping Area' and the 'Rize Alliance Development site".

Thanks so much for your interest in this event, and I'm looking forward to seeing you on Sunday.
Yours truly,
Peter Burch
Planner
Mount Pleasant Community Planning Program
Community Planning Division
Vancouver Planning Department
604.873.7486 (phone)
604.873.7898 (fax)
peter.burch@vancouver.ca

Nancy Wormald
Planning Analyst
Planning Department
City of Vancouver
604.873.7388

26-Story Building aimed at Broadway at Kingsway - Have your say

2011-03-04T22:07:00.000-08:00

The aunties have been saying ever since they happened in late 2009 that the two three-alarm fires at Broadway and Main and Broadway and Kingsway seemed to be property-owner arson to clear the lots for development. Now one of those properties is being proposed for a 26-story building!

"The City of Vancouver has received an application from Acton Ostry Architects Inc. to rezone the block bounded by Broadway, Kingsway, 10th Avenue, and Watson Street from C-3A (Commercial) District to a CD-1 "

Quite apart from the question of whether these owners are arsonists who should not profit from their crimes, such a building would be quite a travesty on that corner, since the next tallest building anywhere near there is only nine stories. It would grossly overshadow and shade the neighbourhood. It would cram a huge amount of mostly wealthy single and childless people into what is still basically a working-class family neighbourhood, and the people in the tower will be literally looking down on everyone and tend to be socially disconnected from the rest of the community. Plus, they will all be trying to find parking places on the street (and at Kingsgate Mall).

Yes, property owners will be supposed to provide a quota of parking spaces; however, conversations with property managers, people who live in apartments, and their neighbours reveal that apartment dwellers in Vancouver prefer not to pay the stall rent and the very considerable tax on such spaces, preferring to drive around and around poaching places wherever they can. In most cases there are not nearly enough spaces for all the cars anyway.

A further objection to a 26-story building is that if one tower is allowed to be built then the zoning will be broken in for additional towers of that magnitude. That will throw the longtime Mt. Pleasant Community Plan the city and neighbourhood have been developing - featuring three-to-six-story dwellings above stores - into the ashcan. Chinatown just went through a battle to prevent this invasion of the giants there, and now Mt. Pleasant will have to fend them off with our activism if we don't want them.

Here's what the Mt. Pleasant Community Plan says about what's supposed to happen to Main street - just to the west of this corner:

5.1 Uptown Shopping Area
Overall Concept Plan
• Retain the existing scale and character of Main Street (from 7th to
11th Avenue).
• Ensure that Main Street be kept more local in scale with smaller
frontages. Retain the ‘high and low’ rhythm of building heights
along Main Street. Retain older more affordable housing (e.g., 3
storey walk-ups) for low income families and individuals.
• Create an improved pedestrian environment linking important sites
along Main (e.g., IGA site, Heritage Hall).
• Allow additional density and height for mixed-use buildings of up
to 6 storeys to increase housing opportunities along South Main

One nearby precedent for neighbours resisting height was the change in plan for Broadway and Fraser, where the city intends to build a building for the hard-to-house. Through a series of planning and zoning hearings, those plans were reduced from 12 stories to 11 stories to finally 9 stories. The proposed 26-story building sits right in between Broaday and Fraser and Broadway and Main - how long can we keep heights in human scale around there if we allow the first oversized erection?

Now the city planning department has just announced "community workshops" to test the waters about the zoning hearing on the Broadway and Kingsway location. Here's the text of the letter they sent out to parties who had registered as interested (sans the pictures - :

COMMUNITY SERVICES GROUP Planning
Current Planning - RezoningMar

March 4, 2011

NOTICE OF REZONING APPLICATION AND INVITATION TO COMMUNITY WORKSHOP

Dear Sir and/or Madam:

RE: Proposed Rezoning of 228, 236 and 246 East Broadway and 180 Kingsway
(Broadway, Kingsway, 10th Avenue and Watson Street - See Map on Reverse)

The City of Vancouver has received an application from Acton Ostry Architects Inc. to rezone the block bounded by Broadway, Kingsway, 10th Avenue, and Watson Street from C-3A (Commercial) District to a CD-
1 (Comprehensive Development) District to allow development with a mixed-use commercial and residential project, including the following components:

• a 6- and 7-storey base with retail and commercial uses at grade on the Broadway, Watson Street, and
Kingsway frontages and residential units above;
• a 26-storey residential tower at the 10th Avenue and Kingsway corner;
• 62 rental dwelling units and 206 market dwelling units (total 268 units);
• a 9,200 sq. ft. artist production space at the 10th Avenue and Watson Street corner;
• 6,600 sq. ft. of additional public open space at street level through additional sidewalk widths;
• 362 bicycle parking stalls;
• three levels of underground parking for 319 vehicles; and
• access to parking and loading facilities on the Watson Street frontage.

A facilitated Community Workshop will be held to discuss the project. The details are as follows:

Date: March 20, 2011
Time: 12:00 Noon – 4:30 p.m.
(Doors open at 11:30 for viewing the proposal)
Place: Native Education College, 285 East 5th Avenue

RSVP REQUIRED – Please contact us as soon as you can to confirm your attendance at the Workshop. We need to know the number of participants in order to properly plan the event. RSVP to:

Nancy Wormald - (604) 873-7388 nancy.wormald@vancouver.ca

The workshop will begin with brief presentations regarding the City’s rezoning process, an overview of the recently approved Mount Pleasant Community Plan as it relates specifically to this site, and a description of the rezoning application that has been submitted. During the workshop we intend to collect neighbourhood input on several different aspects of the project through small group discussions and reporting out.

A follow-up Open House event is planned for April 12 at Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street. This will be a drop-in event so that the community can view the response made by the project design team to the input provided at the March 20th workshop, and provide additional comments. The Open House will run from
4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

If you are unable to attend the March 20th workshop, please consider sharing your comments via letter, email or online at vancouver.ca/rezapps. The drawings and information about the project are posted there.

All community input will be taken into account in our analysis of the application and ultimately staff’s recommendations to City Council. Council will consider policies, the public interest and staff recommendations when making its decision to approve or deny the rezoning application.

If you would like to view the plans which have been submitted with the application, please enquire at the Planning Department reception desk on the Third Floor, in the East Wing of City Hall, at 2675 Yukon Street. For additional information you can also contact the applicant, Alan Davies, Acton Ostry Architects Inc. at
604.739.3344.

The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act deems any response to this notification to be public information. If you have contracted to sell or lease all or part of your property to any person, firm, or corporation, we strongly urge you to deliver this courtesy notification letter, as soon as possible, to the prospective buyer or tenant.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss the application, please call me at 604.873.7727. You may also send written comments to me at the address below, by fax to 604.873.7060, by E-mail to alison.higginson@vancouver.ca, or online through www.vancouver.ca/rezapps.

Yours truly,

Alison Higginson Rezoning Planner alison.higginson@vancouver.ca Phone: 604.873.7727

AH/ws

F:\VanDocs Offline Records\Offline Records (VP)\236 E ~ Land Administration and Planning - Rezoning - Rezoning Case Files\236 E Broadway - Notification
& Community Workshop - March 5th - 2011-02-23.DOC(09 IA)
City Hall 453 West 12th Avenue Vancouver BC V5Y 1V4 vancouver.ca
Current Planning - Rezoning tel: 604.873.7038 fax: 604.873.7060

The plan is artfully written to include six stories on one side, as if that would hide the tower looming over it. It also includes an artist's studio space - perhaps a tribute to the artist whose studio burned at that site and who lost 500 paintings, though she might not be able to afford this one. And it includes a larger than average number of rental units. However, how often have we seen these amenities peeled off one by one as the developers run crying to the city that they hadn't foreseen the inevitable cost overruns?

-FW

Shaw Snoops on Subscribers to Sell

2010-11-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

Shaw Cable told one of the aunties that they have 17 "auditors" going around town right now looking to see if anyone has renters living with them in their homes. They send people around to snoop on your property and talk to unsuspecting people who are at your house. If they think that you are not just a single-family unit, Shaw will leave you a note signed by a "technician," threatening to disconnect the cable to that part of the house the very next day unless you sign up for a whole second subscription. According to offers they are sending out in the mail right now, the introductory offer on a subscription is about $75 a month.

When you call Shaw up to dispute the disconnect order, they say that you have to let them send an "auditor" into your house to "inspect" who is living in there. One man who answered the phone in the residential department that takes new and changed subscriptions at Shaw said that "legally" you have to have a separate subscription if you take any money from anyone who lives in your house, even if you rent out a room temporarily.

The auntie advises not to let anyone from Shaw inspect your house, as this is a company getting waaay too intrusive into their customers' lives!

The company may be getting desperate as so many people are watching TV on the internet instead of getting premium cable subscriptions. But what is happening is that they are getting formerly satisfied, regular-paying customers in an uproar and now starting to look around for other options for not only their cable television but also their phone and internet services.

Red-light District Proposed by Council

2010-10-08T10:10:00.001-07:00

Actually, this was in the Flashback column in the BC section of today's Globe & Mail - an article about something that happened in October 1985. It says that the Harcourt-led Vancouver City Council created a red light district in response to complaints about "rampant prostitution" in Mt. Pleasant. The council spent $36,000 on street lighting and wooden barricades in the area between Alberta and Ontario on the west and east and Second and Fifth avenues on the north and south. This designation of an old warehouse district as "red light" was supposed to keep prostitution activity off the streets of Mt. Pleasant, where residents were complaining. The article quotes Marie Arrington, from the Alliance for the Safety of Prostitutes, as saying that the designated area was too deserted and that the lights wouldn't make it safe.

Now that that Main between 2nd and 5th is being subjected to a city development project, those 12 square blocks are likely to be more in demand and much less deserted soon. I wonder if it is still officially on the books as a Red Light Area.

One of the things not mentioned in the Globe piece is that 1985 was also the year that Federal Bill C-49 "expanded the definition of soliciting to include the act of stopping or attempting to stop a person to communicate for the purpose of engaging in prostitution." ( http://www.statcan.gc.ca/kits-trousses/justice/8104309-eng.pdf )

According to the Rape Relief Files on prostitution, "On April 10, 1986, because a prostitute challenged the new law, a Vancouver provincial court judge ruled that C-49 was unconstitutional. The police put 67 cases on hold; women continued to work the streets." However, they add that

May 7, 1986. The B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the law was not unconstitutional and overturned a lower court ruling. Since then, 341 arrests have been made. The police are back at the entrapment, harassment and brutal treatment of prostitutes and so are the courts. The convictions since the Supreme Court ruling in May now include probation restrictions to stay out of particular named areas of cities, and one woman was confined to her home between the hours of 6 pm and 6 am. The courts have been forced by women's necessity and women's defiance to use the injunction tactic again, in addition to fining and holding without trial.

http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/herstory/rr_files86.html

The Statscan page I cited earlier http://www.statcan.gc.ca/kits-trousses/justice/8104309-eng.pdf graphs reported prostitution-related "incidents" between 1981 and 1997. Among the comments on the page is a note that reporting varies with trends in police enforcement practices, and that as of 1997, 89% of the incidents were about communication - only a few about pimping or bawdyhouses.

The Rape Relief prostitution pages document that after C-49 passed the numbers of "escort services" and "massage parlours" openly advertising increased dramatically. Also that police charged to arrest men beating women generally failed to arrest if the woman was a prostitute.

So one might infer that pretty much from day one, the federal anti-prostitution law was used primarily against street prostitution, not against pimps, bawdyhouses, and prostitution outcall services "living off the avails."

On September 28, 2010, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that all three provisions of the federal anti-prostitution law violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and called on parliament to write new legislation to prevent the proliferation of "unlicensed brothels." http://jurist.org/paperchase/2010/09/ontario-court-strikes-down-anti-prostitution-laws.php

If that were to happen, perhaps Vancouver's Red Light District (or another so designated) might become a site of licensed sex trade. It should be noted that both major strains of feminist opinion on prostitution/sex work support some form of decriminalization and neither has shown support for licensed brothels. For more on this split, I refer you to my previous post: http://mtpleaseaunt.blogspot.com/2008/10/libby-davies-work-on-sex-worker-issues.html

What's being built by the VCC Clark Skytrain Station

2010-09-08T22:11:00.000-07:00

Remember the very active volleyball area that used to be right beside the VCC Clark Skytrain station? As you came down the escalator you could watch a bunch of games going on at once. Then nearly a year ago the games left and construction started. For months, we were treated to the noise of pile drivers from early in the morning until evening. I was hoping that this might be construction of a link between the two sky train lines, Millennium and Expo, which come so close to each other at this point you could almost sail a paper airplane across.

But no. Today, looking from the top of North China Park to where the yellow crane was towering, I could see the skeleton of a building coming up there. As someone sensitive to the loss of public views, I feared another Hong Kong style skyscraper could be rising between the park and the mountains; so I walked the dogs down the hill and along the sidewalk between the fish plant and the Shaw service truck parking-lot, to see if there was any identifying sign. (The dogs loved the whiff of rotten fish.)

Thanks to Harper's obsession with signage on federally-funded projects, there certainly is a sign. Two signs, actually - one of the infamous ones about your federal dollars creating economic stimulus, and one that states simply "Police Property Office and Forensic Storage Facility." I repeated that all the way home until I could make a note of it and check the internet.

Search result: despite the sign touting federal money, the project is actually being funded with $10 million from the fed, $10 million from the province, and $10.3 million from the city for a total of $30.3 million. Of course, all three are our tax dollars. Ottawa has said it will only pay invoices for work completed by March 31, 2011. Since the province and city also have funds in this project, hopefully they are presenting Ottawa with the first $10 million (probably just about enough to cover the rebar already in place). Since the other levels are capping their contributions at $10 million each, if there are cost overruns, the city will presumably end up paying that bill.

The scope of this project, as found in a backgrounder online is that it will be a new, consolidated facility of 65,000 square feet "for receiving, storage and safekeeping of found and seized property and evidence, and the construction of vehicle forensic laboratories and associated storage." While "forensic" sounds like a morgue, I don't see any evidence that people bodies will be there - just auto bodies. I wonder if the proximity to the railroad tracks is intended to be useful for bringing vehicles in and out.

Given the square footage listed and the dimensions of the building, I think that the steel skeleton you can see now is likely pretty close to its full height - so, not a view-blocker. And there may yet be room in that railroad corridor to join the two Skytrain lines, giving a direct way from VCC Clark to downtown.

Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House AGM & Bylaw Changes

2010-07-14T20:48:00.000-07:00

Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood house held their AGM today. It has now been moved from October to July. Despite summer doldrums, about 50 people were in attendance.

The chair explained that while the neighbourhood houses are required to hold individual AGMs they are not in fact autonomous legal entities but are actually branches of the Association of Neighbourhood Houses of British Columbia. The chair emphasized several times that this was not a "legal meeting."

Highlights of the event: A new website has just been rolled out. It's mpnh.org

The daycare has a waiting list of about 50 children, an increase because of the closure of other daycares in the neighbourhood.

Repairs and upgrades were dwelt on lovingly with before and after pictures. Most changes related to new flooring and more environmentally efficient lightbulbs and appliances.

Sad news: Broadway Connection has had its funds eliminated by Coastal Health and the program may end in October unless reinstated. It's a therapeutic peer to peer self-help group for disabled adults that has been funded by Vancouver Coastal Health for twenty-five years. The previous beneficiaries mounted a publicity campaign but have so far been unable to get those funds restored.

Bylaws* changes that had been decided by the board were ratified by those assembled.
A major change allows persons to serve on the Community Board [formerly called the Board of Managers] who do not live in the neighbourhood.

There were several changes around membership. One was that those who take out a family membership will only be allowed to have one adult vote per family at the AGM, unless they take out an additional adult membership. (Adult memberships are now $4 and family memberships $6. Not including a now-voluntary $2 ANHBC membership.) The most surprising change was that free memberships will be given to children 12 to 18 and that these will be voting memberships.

As the meetings are conducted, however, voting doesn't mean very much. In the interim between the previous AGM last October and this one, the board and staff made their own decision about filling all but 2 of the previously vacant board seats. They presented a "slate" nominee at this AGM for one of the remaining seats and announced that unlike in the past there would be no nominations from the floor. They say they are holding the last open seat vacant for a youth member.

Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House's activities are primarily aimed at programs for low-income and immigrant residents of this neighbourhood area, so it's rather a contrast to see who is on their now-self-appointing community board. The new board member - approved, of course - is a nurse with a masters in public health. Nearly every other member of the board also has a master's degree, and/or is a business owner or an administrator.

With such a highly educated and well-connected board, one would hope for some high-powered fundraising. This past year, donations and fundraising accounted for only $34,000 of the more than $1.5 million dollars in revenue - an increase over previous years of about $11,000. A "business fundraiser" was described as having been "controversial" and therefore a financial failure. There was no time allowed for questions to clear up what this meant. Fundraisers initiated by members were not mentioned.

For fiscal year 2009-10 (which ended March 31) there was about $200,000 more income than the previous year, but MPNH still ended up more than $63,000 in the hole. The treasurer said staff hours have now been cut. (Salaries & benefits had increased by about $200,000, to $1,249,645. The number of staff this covered was not reported.)

If you want to know more about Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House, it's at the corner of Prince Albert & Broadway. Check it out.

------------------------
*One change was to rename the house's Operating Guide to the Bylaws. As MPNH is not in itself a legal entity, there is some question about whether these are legally binding bylaws; and some of the things in the bylaws, such as who may drive the house's cars, seem more appropriate for Rules and Procedures than for bylaws.

Willow Blight in Area

2010-07-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

On a trip today to Trout Lake, we observed many weeping willows looking seriously blighted on both sides of the lake. A similar blight seems to have affected a curly willow in our yard. Leaves blacken, curl up and die. The stems look as if burnt.

I googled "willow blight" to read more about this disease, and apparently it has been moving steadily from the East Coast for decades, and had been observed in Vancouver as early as the late 1970s. It's fungal - actually, a combination of two fungi - and there really is no treatment, as the fungus hides inside the tree. According to one article, the blight flourishes during wet summers, and not only rain but also mist or fog can worsen it. Planting trees too close together also helps it spread.

Trout lake has a great many willows that add a lot to its beauty - I'm sad to see that we may be losing so many. The large willows that are farther away from the lake and on higher ground seemed to be healthy, but most of the trees that are closer, and close to the other undergrowth, are not. The new growth on the recently constructed willow fence looks fine, so far.

Daylighting Mount Pleasant's Stream: A Conversation on June 6

2010-05-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

This looks really interesting!

From: Rita Wong [mailto:rwong@ecuad.ca]
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 11:43 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: Daylighting Mount Pleasant's Stream: A Conversation on June 6

Please forward this invitation to people who might be interested in participating. Thanks!

Daylighting Mount Pleasant’s Streams: A Conversation
Native Education College
285 East 5th Ave
Vancouver/Coast Salish territories
Sunday, June 6, 1 to 4 pm

Have you heard water gurgling under the manhole covers as you walk around Mount Pleasant? Maybe you heard Brewery Creek, St. George Creek, and China Creek, which flowed into False Creek when its water used to reach all the way to Clark Drive.

Many streams have been paved over.

Why and how would we bring them back to daylight?

We invite you to join Bruce Macdonald and Bryn Davidson for a conversation about daylighting neighbourhood streams. We will begin with an opening song led by Russell Wallace, in honour of the neighbourhood streams. The conversation will be facilitated by writer and Mount Pleasant resident, Rita Wong.

Bruce Macdonald is the author of Vancouver: A Visual History and worked closely with the Brewery Creek Historical Society.

Bryn Davidson is a Mount Pleasant resident, and a designer and sustainability consultant who has proposed a plan to daylight St. George Creek.

Russell Wallace is a composer and musician who sings with the groups Tzo’kam and Tiqilap (whose first CD will be launched at the NEC on June 18).

This event is free. It is organized by Mount Pleasant residents. Anyone who cares about Mount Pleasant and its streams is invited to participate.

All are welcome. Please email rwong@ecuad.ca to RSVP so we have a sense of how many people to bring snacks for.

We would like to acknowledge the support of the Neighbourhood Small Grants Project and the Vancouver Foundation.

April 21-29: Last chances to comment on Mt. Pleasant planning draft

2010-04-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

The Mount Pleasant Community Planning Program is nearing completion. Over the last two years residents and City staff have worked together top develop a new Community Plan for Mount Pleasant. Come to an open house to comment on draft policy for Mount Pleasant's shopping areas (Uptown, Broadway East, Broadway West and Main from 2nd to 7th Avenues) and residential neighbourhoods (topics include housing, parks and open spaces, heritage, culture, transportation, safety, services, laneways, and character).

There are five open houses scheduled for you to drop in, view the proposals, talk to staff and to complete a comment form. Cantonese Mandarin, Tagalog and Vietnamese speaking volunteers will be available to assist in the translation of the presentation materials. Child minding is available while you are at the open house.

Please pass the word around, forward to your friends, neighbours, colleagues. Thank you in advance.

Wednesday, April 21, 4 - 8 pm
Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House
800 E. Broadway

Thursday, April 22, 4 - 8 pm
Tenth Church, 11 W. 10th Avenue
(access from Ontario Street)

Saturday, April 24, 11 am - 4 pm
Kingsgate Mall, 370 E. Broadway

Tuesday, April 27, 4 - 8 pm
Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street

Thursday, April 29, 4 - 8 pm
Native Education College, 285 E. 5th Avenue

Beverly Chew
City of Vancouver
Community Planning Department
604-871-6683
beverly.chew@vancouver.ca

Giant Cross Is Gang Symbol

2010-01-30T22:02:00.000-08:00

Researching online for other views about the giant cross at VCC Clark Sky Train, I found out that it is copied from a gang symbol that guys in the neighbourhood used to write on walls and get tattooed on their arms back before tattoos were chic. You can read the article at this site, written by someone who approves of it - but also, read the comments below it:

http://www.citycaucus.com/2010/01/east-van-no-rules

Apparently there was an article about the plan for this cross last November in the Vancouver Sun.

I looked up the guy who designed it, Ken Lum - here he is on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Lum

He has tons of honors and has done tons of public art projects previously, but some of his other projects have also been "controversial."

The Wikipedia article says he was born in 1956 and grew up in Strathcona, and that "his art is conceptually oriented, and generally concerned with issues of identity."

Perhaps he has put this gang symbol up in East Van as a way of claiming it for the gang-bangers (probably some other term was used back then) of his generation. I wonder if he was a member, or a wanna-be. At the time this mark was invented, it must have been intended to create a sense of belonging for some and strike fear into those who didn't belong. It's still doing it.

I don't like it. But if it could scare off the yuppies...

The Crucifixion of East Van

2010-01-29T01:15:00.000-08:00

If you would like to complain about the giant cross now dominating the VCC-Clark Skytrain station, I think this could be a good place to do it. http://tripplanning.translink.ca/hiwire?.a=cCustomerComplaint

Here's what I posted.

Incident: Please quickly remove the giant cross with "East Van" written on the back that has suddenly appeared towering over the VCC-Clark Skytrain station. I gather that this is intended to be a work of public art, however, to me it is distressing and offensive. Having spoken to other residents of this neighbourhood, I believe this to be a general sentiment. There was no consultation to my knowledge, and if there had been, the opinion would surely have been against it. We are a highly multicultural neighbourhood, and this monstrous secular installation of a symbol sacred to one religion is insulting to non-Christians and Christians alike. I think we would be happier with some nice flowers on this spot, but if we have to have art, please give us the giant raindrop that was removed from another stop at the behest of TV crews. Unlike the Cross, rain is a universal symbol for Vancouverites.

-FW

Petition for Off-Leash Area in Guelph Park

2010-01-26T23:37:00.000-08:00

Message received:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Hi,
>
> We really need an off leash area for dogs in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed:
>
> "Petition for OFF LEASH Dog Area in Guelph Park"
> http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/offleash/
>
> I really think this is an important cause, and I'd like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It's free and takes just a few seconds of your time.
>
> Thanks for your support !
> ------------------------------

Dope-growers must be homeowners?

2009-12-24T02:36:00.001-08:00

While I was on the bus last week I met a man who is an immigrant from the US who said he loves Canada. I asked why, and he said he loves it because he has a license to grow medical marijuana here. He uses the stuff for arthritis pain and his contract with the government allows him to grow for himself and for compassion clubs.

I didn't ask him if he owns his own home, but according to an article by Matthew Burrows in the Georgia Straight recently, the Conservatives' new Bill C-15 will criminalize tenants who grow the weed, even for legitimate purposes. Here's the link: http://www.straight.com/article-276202/vancouver/bill-c15-nails-tenants-growing-medicinal-pot

I went to look for the bill to see if Burrows' conclusion might be correct, and I'm still not entirely sure if he's right or not. I was reading the Legislative Summary and I have to admit it made me crosseyed because there are so many variables, but it looks as if, depending on some of the variables, a person could get up to 14 years in jail for growing cannabis in someone else's property (I suppose this is where renting comes in), compared with only 7 or maybe even 5 years maximum if that and some other qualifiers are avoided. Sounds like a lot until you realize that the bill provides a maximum of life in prison for dealing in other drugs.

Here's the section about mandatory minimum sentences, from the Lebislative Summary of the bill written last January, 2009 (the summary has a disclaimer saying it doesn't assert that it is really accurate about the content of the bill itself - it's not ). I put sections that seemed relevant to marihuana sentencing in bold, in case you want to try to unravel it yourself.

A. Clauses 1 to 3: Mandatory Minimum Sentences
Sections 5 to 7 of the CDSA deal with, respectively, the offences of trafficking in a controlled substance, importing and exporting such a substance, and the production of a controlled substance. Clauses 1 to 3 of Bill C-15 amend each of these sections.

The current section 5(3)(a) of the CDSA makes trafficking in a substance included in Schedule I or II an indictable offence. The maximum punishment for this offence is imprisonment for life. This measure reflects the seriousness with which these substances are viewed, particularly the opiates and coca and its derivatives found in Schedule I. One exception is found in section 5(4) of the Act and concerns trafficking in Schedule II substances, mainly cannabis and its derivatives. Should the amount trafficked not exceed the amounts set out in Schedule VII to the Act (3 kg of cannabis resin or cannabis [marihuana]), the maximum possible punishment is imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years less a day.

Clause 1 of Bill C-15 amends section 5(3)(a) of the CDSA to provide in certain circumstances for mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment for the offence of trafficking in a substance included in Schedule I or in Schedule II if the amount of the Schedule II substance exceeds the amount for that substance set out in Schedule VII. There will be a minimum punishment of imprisonment for one year if certain aggravating factors apply: the offence was committed for a criminal organization, as that term is defined in section 467.1(1) of the Criminal Code (a group of three or more people whose purpose is to commit serious offences for material benefit); there was the use or threat of the use of violence in the commission of the offence; a weapon was carried, used or threatened to be used in the commission of the offence; or the offender was convicted of a designated substance offence, or had served a term of imprisonment for a designated substance offence, within the previous 10 years. A “designated substance offence” is defined in section 2 of the CDSA to mean any of the offences in sections 4 to 10 of the CDSA, except the offence of possession of a substance found in Schedule I, II, or III to the Act, as set out in subsection 4(1).

Clause 1 amends the CDSA to impose a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of two years if certain other aggravating factors apply, including that the offence was committed in or near a school, on or near school grounds, or in or near any other public place usually frequented by persons under the age of 18 years. Defining such places may prove to be difficult. The use of the term “community centre” in former subsection 810.1(3)(b) as a restriction on the movements of those who may commit a sexual offence against a child was found to be overly broad and, therefore, a violation of section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.(59) The minimum two-year punishment will also be imposed if the offender used the services of a person who is under 18 years of age, or involved such a person, in committing the offence or committed the offence in a prison, or on its grounds. The term “prison” is defined in section 2 of the Criminal Code to include a penitentiary, common jail, public or reformatory prison, lock-up, guard-room or other place in which persons who are charged with or convicted of offences are usually kept in custody.

New section 5(3)(a.1) of the CDSA reenacts the current section 5(4) of the CDSA and imposes a maximum punishment of imprisonment for five years less a day if the trafficking offence is for a small amount of cannabis or its derivatives, as listed in Schedule II.

The current section 6(3)(a) of the CDSA makes the importing into Canada or exporting from Canada of a substance included in Schedule I or II of the Act or the possession of such a substance for the purpose of exporting it from Canada an indictable offence. The maximum punishment for this offence is imprisonment for life. Lesser maximum punishments apply if the offence is committed in relation to substances in the other schedules.

Clause 2 of Bill C-15 imposes a mandatory minimum punishment of imprisonment for one year if the offence is committed for the purpose of trafficking and the substance involved is included in Schedule I and is in an amount that does not exceed one kilogram, or is listed in Schedule II. The minimum punishment will also apply if the offender, while committing the offence, abused a position of trust or authority or had access to an area that is restricted to authorized persons (such as in an airport) and used that access to commit the offence.(60) As in clauses 1 and 3, the maximum punishment of imprisonment for life is retained. Under new section 6(3)(a.1), the mandatory minimum punishment increases to two years’ imprisonment if the Schedule I substance that is trafficked is in an amount that exceeds one kilogram.

The current section 7(2)(a) of the CDSA makes the production of a substance included in Schedule I or II of the Act, other than cannabis (marihuana), an indictable offence with a maximum punishment of imprisonment for life. Subsection 7(2)(b) of the CDSA makes the production of cannabis (marihuana) an indictable offence with a maximum punishment of seven years’ imprisonment.

Clause 3 of Bill C-15 imposes a mandatory minimum punishment of imprisonment for two years if the subject matter of the production offence is a substance included in Schedule I, with a maximum punishment of imprisonment for life. The mandatory minimum punishment is increased to three years if any of the health and safety factors listed in new section 7(3) apply. These health and safety factors are:

■the offender used real property that belongs to a third party to commit the offence;
■the production constituted a potential security, health or safety hazard to persons under the age of 18 years who were in the location where the offence was committed or in the immediate area;
■the production constituted a potential public safety hazard in a residential area; or
■the accused placed or set a trap that is likely to cause death or bodily harm to another person in the location where the offence was committed.

If the substance produced is one listed in Schedule II, other than cannabis (marihuana), new section 7(2)(a.1) imposes a mandatory minimum punishment of imprisonment for one year if the production is for the purpose of trafficking, or for a term of 18 months if the production is for the purpose of trafficking and any of the health and safety factors listed above apply. If the subject matter of the production offence is cannabis (marihuana), subsection 7(2)(b) will double the maximum possible term of imprisonment from 7 to 14 years.

Mandatory minimum punishments will also be introduced for the production of cannabis (marihuana), with their length depending upon the number of marihuana plants produced. The term of imprisonment will be at least six months if the number of plants produced is more than 5(61) and fewer than 201 and the production is for the purpose of trafficking. The minimum penalty increases to nine months where the number of plants produced is fewer than 201, the production is for the purpose of trafficking, and any of the health and safety factors also apply. If the number of plants produced is more than 200 and fewer than 501, the minimum term of imprisonment is one year, which increases to 18 months if any of the health and safety factors apply. The minimum term of imprisonment will be two years if the number of plants produced is more than 500, which will increase to three years if any of the health and safety factors apply. There is no mention of the production being for the purposes of trafficking when the number of plants is more than 200.

You can read more about this bill at: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/LEGISINFO/index.asp?List=ls&Query=5739&Session=22&Language=e#aclauses1to3 The summary includes some things about the debate over mandatory minimum sentences, and yet it also refers to the establishment of Drug Treatment Courts.

Don't rely on any of this as legal advice. I'm not a lawyer and am only skimming the surface in looking at this bill.

All of the bill except sections 10 and 11 are apparently awaiting a date announcement about when they go into force. [There is no description of any section 10 or 11 in the legislative summary, so perhaps they are sections expunged in previous revisions].

There was one section of the summary that suggested that growers of medical marijuana are being limited by law to growing only enough for themselves and one other patient. Here's that section:

In addition, the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations(23) allow for authorizations to possess marihuana to be issued to those persons who can prove a medical need for it. A holder of a personal-use production licence is also authorized to produce and keep marihuana for the medical purpose of the holder.(24) A specific limitation on the lawful source of supply of dried marihuana was declared invalid as contrary to section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 2008.(25) The one-grower-to-one-user ratio was held to unjustifiably limit the ability of authorized persons to access their marihuana for medical purposes. This decision was confirmed by the Federal Court of Appeal.(26) In response, the government published in the Canada Gazette on 27 May 2009 Regulations Amending the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations.(27) These proposed changes will double the current ratio, making it one grower to two users. The explanation accompanying the proposed amendments states that a full review of the access to medical marihuana is required given that the program was never intended to facilitate the widespread, potentially large-scale production of marihuana for medical purposes.

New Mt. Pleasant Library Now Open

2009-12-23T01:09:00.000-08:00

After some delay past the announced date, the new Mt. Pleasant Branch libary at the new Mt. Pleasant Community Centre is finally open. The address is 1 Kingsway. Here's the web page that has the hours, buses that stop there, etc., on it. http://www.vpl.vancouver.bc.ca/branches/details/mount_pleasant_branch

Unlike when the branch was in Kingsgate Mall, it's now going to be open 7 days a week, 9-9. except 9-6 on Sunday. However, it will be closed Dec. 24-26, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day.

After a few trips just looking into the windows(including on the announced opening date when it didn't actually open), I finally went inside.

It seemed to me quite an oddly shaped space and a pretty tight fit to maneuver in some areas. The entranceway is narrow and the checkout desk is right by the door. This would theoretically allow the librarian there to stop anyone who set off the alarm at the entranceway, but I noticed that with long lines and only one checkout clerk they didn't actually have enough staff behind the desk to enforce that.

There are a LOT of computer terminals there, in more than one room, and most of them were busy when I went, not just with people looking up books but also doing other kinds of communication.

I suspect it may not actually have more shelf space than the original Mt. Pleasant Library in Kingsgate Mall had - but of course it has more shelves than the temporary, transitional library in the mall (except paperback racks, which seem to be fewer and are also way in the back). They also don't yet have any racks of used books for sale there. I had brought a bagful of paperbacks to donate, so I hope they will be able to put them out soon.

One of the aunties thought it very convenient that there is a display of new books and fast reads face-out just at the entrance. The face-out shelves should help them make the most of the few new books they can afford in this era of library cuts.

One of the strangest things in this library is a gas-burning fake fireplace, in the back where there are also a few comfortable chairs for sitting in to read. Although the fireplace is completely enclosed in glass, seeing actual flames in a room full of paper seems a bit disturbing.

There are a lot of large windows in the library, but one of the aunties commented she thought it seemed rather dark inside. It will be even darker after the multi-storey condo developments planned for the surrounding properties go up.

The landscaping around the outside is not finished yet. One of the aunties commented that the city must have spent several thousand dollars apiece for the tall trees with root-balls they bought to plant alongside. Some medium-sized trees with root-balls were left on the ground unplanted and unguarded over a weekend and we noticed they had gotten damaged by someone or something.

Despite my minor complaints, I expect to walk over there often. My next request will be for hitching posts where you can tie up your dogs while you go in.

The #99 bus now stops at Fraser

2009-12-23T00:56:00.000-08:00

At long last, the #99 express bus to UBC is making stops at Broadway & Fraser. Previously it went straight from Clark to Main (and vice versa).

The first time I rode the 99 to that stop, last week, I commented to the bus driver that a lot of us had been trying for years to get that stop added to the route. He said that the new stop was creating havoc in the schedule, because it added three minutes to the route but the extra time had not been added in to the schedule. (One stop doesn't really take 3 minutes, but there was another new stop added to the route as well, farther west, and of course each stop occurs in each direction.)

One of the aunties raised the issue of the #99 bus not stopping at Fraser at one of the city planning consultations, where they were talking about development of the two blocks of Broadway just west of Fraser. Wanting the 99 to stop there was one suggestion everybody at the meeting strongly favoured. The planner told us that maybe getting the 99 to stop there would be the tradeoff for accepting 12-story building development along that stretch of Broadway.

Winter Homeless Shelter in Mt. Pleasant Open House Jan 13

2009-12-22T17:34:00.000-08:00

A temporary winter homeless shelter was announced today - its opening day - in Mt. Pleasant at 677 East Broadway. It is scheduled to be open until "no later than April 2010."

The shelter will be holding an open house on January 13, from 5 to 7 pm, if you want to see inside.

The shelter is one of several being provincially funded just from now until April 2010.

City staff was ordered to issue permits "on an expedited basis."

The location is the same piece of city property where the 12-story building for homesless and "hard to house" is being planned. It's right by the westbound Broadway & Fraser bus stop where the #9, #8, and now also the #99 buses stop.

I post below the letter I received in email from city housing planner Andrea.Gillman@vancouver.ca . The letter came with two attachments, but as they are in .pdf I can't post them to the blog. Email her if you want to receive them.

One attachment states that city staff has been ordered to issue permits on an expedited basis so that provincial funds can be spent for temporary winter shelters around the city. The one is Mt. Pleasant is listed as 677 East Broadway - development permit #DE413544.

Here's the letter:

The Mount Pleasant Community Planning Team wishes to advise you of the following:
The City of Vancouver and the Province of BC are working with local non-profit operators in implementing a Winter Response to provide additional shelter capacity during the winter months. All shelters will be in neighbourhoods that have been identified as having a substantial homeless population but lacking adequate shelter resources. Shelter locations may include Mount Pleasant, Kitsilano, Downtown and Grandview-Woodlands.

On December 15th, council allocated $500,000 towards the Winter Response. Together with a $1.2 million contribution from the Province, funds will be used for renovations and shelter operations. All shelters opened as part of the 2010 Winter Response will operate for the winter months, closing no later than April 30th, 2010.
The first of these shelters will open tonight in the Mount Pleasant area at 677 East Broadway. The shelter will provide space for up to 40 homeless individuals each night. The shelter will be open 24/7 and will be operated by Raincity Housing and Support Society. An Open House will take place at the shelter on Wednesday January 13th, 2010 from 5 PM - 7 PM.

Please find attached a copy of the information letter sent out to neighbours of the shelter in addition to the Operations Management Plan provided by Raincity Housing. For more information please contact me via email or phone (noted below). You can also contact the shelter operator directly, contact information is provided in the attached letter.

<> <>

Thank you,
Andrea Gillman
Andrea Gillman
Housing Planner
City of Vancouver
phone: 604-873-7542
fax: 604-871-6488

Nov 18 - Dec 9, Mt. Pleasant Planning Workshops

2009-11-09T14:51:00.000-08:00

Upcoming Mt. Pleasant Planning workshops:
Date Topic
November 18, 2009 Mt Pleasant Heritage and Character Workshop
November 25, 2009 Housing Addressing local and city-wide housing needs
December 2, 2009 Culture Promoting culture and addressing artists’ needs
December 9, 2009 Transportation Increasing pedestrian safety, promoting walking and biking, and addressing transit issues

I went to one of these planning workshops recently. The sandwiches were excellent, and people's ideas were excellent. However, we got the impression that the city planner has already made up her mind or had had her mind made up for her that zoning will be changed to allow and encourage not only one building but multiple buildings of up to 12 stories along the Fraser part of the Broadway corridor. The intention seems to be to use the one city building planned for the hard-to-house as the thin edge of the wedge for massive development. It was also shocking to see that several people who had had intentions to locate businesses along this part of Broadway had been turned down for zoning variances - a doctor's office and a restaurant, for example, were turned down on grounds that they didn't have a parking plan. This while buildings in our area have been allowed to sit vacant for months and years. What most people seemed to be saying, but not really listened to, is that there is not enough green space in our area to support this increase in density, and that we want to keep the neighbourhood a sound working-class neighbourhood. Also, almost everyone wanted the 99 bus to stop at Broadway & Fraser. I guess we'll get to talk about that again on December 9.

Here's a release about the next workshop:

from "Chew, Beverly"

dateMon, Nov 9, 2009 at 11:51 AM
subject Mt. Pleasant Heritage and Character Workshop

Greetings,

The next Residential Area Workshop for the Mount Pleasant Planning Program will be on Heritage and Character on NOVEMBER 18, 6-9pm. This workshop will focus on preserving buildings and enhancing heritage and character area in Mount Pleasant.
Please call me or reply to this e-mail to register for this important workshop. Feedback from the workshops will lead to the drafting of policies and plans for the residential areas in Mount Pleasant.

Feel free to forward this e-mail to your neighbours, and network or distribution list. Also, the Mount Pleasant Planning program is on FACEBOOK and TWITTER. Sign up for updates through facebook or twitter at http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/cpp/mountpleasant/index.htm - just click on the links on our homepage.

Sandwiches and snacks will be provided. Childcare is available upon request.
Upcoming workshops:
Date Topic
November 25, 2009 Housing Addressing local and city-wide housing needs
December 2, 2009 Culture Promoting culture and addressing artists’ needs
December 9, 2009 Transportation Increasing pedestrian safety, promoting walking and biking, and addressing transit issues

Cheers,
Beverly
Beverly Chew
City of Vancouver
Community Planning Department
604-871-6683
beverly.chew@vancouver.ca

Have your say on Green Space in Mt. Pleasant

2009-10-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

fromChew, Beverly
to
dateFri, Oct 9, 2009 at 2:59 PM
subjectMount Pleasant Residential Area Workshops

hide details Oct 9 (1 day ago)

<> Greetings,
Fall is underway, and the best part about this season is the lovely crisp weather, just the right weather for coming out to a community workshop. The Mount Pleasant Planning Program is nearing it's final stages in the planning process, and we would like to invite you to a series of Residential Area Workshops, starting October 21, 2009. The first workshop will be on Parks and Open Space. This workshop will address issues related to parks, outdoor pools and playgrounds, greening streets and lanes, daylighting streams, and adding more community gardens and park space.

Mark this date on your calendar now. I've also included dates for the following workshops. Please feel free to contact me if you need additional information about the workshops or the planning program.

All workshops will be held at the Native Education Centre, 285 E. 5th Ave (at Scotia) from 6:00 - 9:00pm on Wednesdays.

A light dinner and refreshments will be provided.
October 21 - Parks and Open Space
October 28 - Safety, City Services, and Culture
November 18 - Heritage and Character
November 25 - Housing
December 9 - Transportation

Looking forward to seeing you at one of the workshops,
Beverly

Beverly Chew
City of Vancouver
Community Planning Department
604-871-6683
beverly.chew@vancouver.ca

Translink draws idiotic conclusion from survey!

2009-09-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

Some months after answering an online survey from Translink, I received the following in email. I think their reasoning that $637 million was lost to the economy because people chose not to take single-occupancy-vehicle trips is truly insane.

Just because people don't take trips all alone in their cars doesn't mean they don't spend the money they want to spend! One, they might be spending it closer to home instead of driving into downtown - that would be great for their neighbourhoods. Two, they might be postponing their shopping until they can do more things in one trip, maybe a trip taken with someone else in the car.

I think we should be grateful that people are not taking so many trips alone in their cars to distant locations in the city. Keeping those cars from being used in a wasteful manner should be viewed as a goal, not a tragedy! There are places to shop all over the city, we don't need people getting into cars and driving like Zombies to any particular location without reflection.

Boo to Translink's rhetoric, and yay to sensible people in the Metro Vancouver area!

The Cost of Congestion to the Environment and the Economy

Dear Panelists,

Here is what you had to say about trips you don’t take by private vehicle because it’s too difficult to get there. We’ve made a calculation of the impact of this on the economy. Being stuck in traffic also impacts the environment, which this study indicates you highly value. The link to the full report in the Members’ Library is found at the bottom of this report.

Best Regards,

The Team at TransLink Listens

***

Metro Vancouver residents value both a healthy economy and a healthy environment. Their responses to a February, 2009, survey indicate that a transportation network in need of investment is costing us all. Although the Canada Line and Golden Ears Bridge have been opened since the time of the research, an efficient transportation network will continue to be a challenge, in part due to the large numbers of people forecast to move to Metro Vancouver.

NRG Research Group estimates that, based on results of an online survey completed by 2,621 Metro Vancouver residents in February, 2009,10.6 million single occupant vehicle trips were not made during the preceding year, 2008, due to congestion and lack of a simple, direct route. People choose simply not to make the trip because it’s too difficult to get there.

This resulted in residents not inputting an estimated $637 million into Metro Vancouver’s economy, largely in the retail, food and entertainment sectors.

NRG state that, “regardless of the accuracy of participants’ estimates, one thing is clear: Many Metro Vancouver residents believe that traffic congestion and routing problems are seriously impacting their ability to get around in a vehicle, and their purchasing in the area. Considering the size of BC’s economy, participants’ estimates suggest that they did not contribute what could have amounted to 4% of the relevant industries’ GDPs.”

In addition to simply not making some trips, drivers are driving alone less--mainly to save money (81%), but also to save time (60%), and due to environmental concerns (47%).

People are finding the following ways to save time and money on their single occupant vehicle travel:

#1 Combining SOV trips (56%)
#2 Switching SOV to transit, cycling, ride-share (41%)
#3 Changing the time of day for SOV trips (30%)
#4 Choosing a closer destination (29%)
#5 Replacing SOV with online solutions (28%)

In addition, more than half of drivers (58%) say they are being more diligent in their vehicle maintenance.

Attitudes toward the environment were explored in the same study. Close to 9 in 10 local residents (88%) are very or somewhat concerned about the environment and global warming.

The most effective solution to global warming, according to local residents is “governments worldwide taking unified action” (88%), followed by “planting more trees” (87%), “using renewable fuels” (83%) and “educating those unaware of the impact of their activities” (81%).

Although residents point to light cars and trucks as being the #2 source of global warming, they clearly want leadership and unified action on the environment.

“People want to make sure that their own individual actions to protect the environment are not offset by the actions of others who may not know what environmental damage they are doing.” says Richard Elias, Senior Researcher at NRG, who was responsible for the analysis in this report. “We think that’s part of the reason why ‘educating others [who are] unaware of the impact of their activities’ was seen as effective by four out of five local residents completing the study”.

Dr. Adam Di Paula, Senior Vice President of NRG, added:

“We are seeing unified action on the global economy. Perhaps now is the time for unified action on the environment. Better yet, maybe we could create economic solutions that also benefit the environment.”

This study underestimates the true value of congestion costs, as it focuses on the cost of lost passenger trips only, and not the cost of delays in goods movement and the cost of delays in people getting to places.

In the 2006 Transport Canada report, the costs associated with congestion in Vancouver (2003 numbers quoted in 2002 dollars) were estimated at three different thresholds of congestion (50%, 60% and 70%) and ranged from $403 Million to $629 million. The biggest component of this -- 93% of the total costs-- was the costs associated with being delayed. Other costs included the cost (at the 70% level) of 98 million litres of fuel and 243 thousand tonnes of GHG emissions. **

While the costs cited by Transport Canada can be quite substantial, they typically do not take into account the vehicle operating costs (beyond the cost of fuel), costs associated with increased emissions, costs associated with increased noise, costs associated with freight transportation, off-peak congestion costs, and congestion caused by non-recurrent events (bad weather, accidents, blockages, etc.). **

**Transport Canada: Environmental Affairs (March 2006 – Revised July 2007) The Cost of Urban Congestion in Canada.

This report is found on TransLink’s website at http://www.translink.ca/. It is also published in the Members’ Library available to people who sign up to become on-line advisors to TransLink at http://www.translinklistens.ca/. NRG caution that it is difficult to assess the accuracy of residents’ estimates in an online survey. Actually keeping a diary of single occupant vehicle trips made and those that would have been made, if there were an easy way to get there, may be a more accurate method.

Mt.Pleasant Community Planning Meeting

2009-09-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

The Mt. Pleasant Community Planning Program will have a meeting September 20, 2009, called "Shopping Area Workshop #4." It will be a continuation of planning to develop Mt. Pleasant's shopping areas.

Workshop #4 will be about the future of Broadway West, UpTown, and Broadway & Fraser shopping areas, and the Main 2nd to 7th Avenues Commercial/Light Industrial Area.

The subject will be locations where change should occur, areas to be served by rapid transit [maybe we can get the 99 to stop at Broadway & Fraser!], sites for building more affordable housing [an SRO is going to be proposed for Broadway and Fraser - will there be enough supportive services to make that work?], or places in need of revitalization.

"Feedback from this workshop will lead to the drafting of design principles and policy plans for the shopping areas in Mt. Pleasant."

Sunday, Sept. 20, 2009
noon to 5 pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Registration required in order to arrange for food and seating. Call 604-829-2004 or email erin.hutcherson@vancouver.ca

For more info, visit vancouver.ca/mountpleasant

The release came from Peter Burch, Planner, Mt. Pleasant Community Planning Program.

Participatory Theatre about Women's Lives

2009-09-03T23:47:00.001-07:00

Dear family, friends, allies, and supporters,
Vancouver Status of Women
is excited to present

Ignite:
A Theatre of the Oppressed Workshop for WomenFacilitated by Carmen Aguirre

Application Deadline: September 25th 2009
Application Form ... [email womencentre@vsw.ca for a copy]

About the workshop:
Ignite is a workshop that seeks to create a space of dialogue where participants can explore their life experiences through theatre. Carmen Aguirre will guide the group through theatre games and exercises that lead participants into the gradual creation of scenes from the stories of their lives. Using these theatre tools participants can explore the challenges and possible avenues for action for their communities around issues such as race, class, gender, land, motherhood, immigration, religion, sexuality etc.

This is a FREE program. Food, bus passes, and on-site childcare will be provided. A small honorarium will also be granted to participants with full completion of the workshop.

Who can apply?
Women interested in using theatre to explore the challenges and possible avenues for change for their lives and the lives of their communities. No theatre experience necessary!

Women living with systemic barriers are especially encouraged to apply. This may include but it not limited to barriers around race, age, poverty, queer/lesbian/two-spirited/trans-identity, disability, single motherhood, displacement. Indigenous women and women of colour especially encouraged to apply. VSW if a trans inclusive organization and trans folks are especially encouraged to apply.

About Theatre of the Oppressed:
Created in Brazil in the 1960s by theatre practitioner Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed uses theatre as a tool to explore issues in a community. Using theatre games and exercises, the community creates a play based on their own stories, which they themselves perform. Theatre of the Oppressed has been practiced all over the world in the last forty years and is considered an important tool for healing and action in communities ranging from survivors of British Columbia's First Nations residential schools to youth struggling with addictions in the downtown eastside.

About Carmen Aguirre:
Carmen is an award-winning theatre artist who has written and co-written fifteen plays, including Chile Con Carne, The Trigger, and The Refugee Hotel. She is currently working on her one-woman show Blue Box, commissioned by Toronto's Nightswimming Theatre. As an actor, Carmen has sixty film, tv, and stage acting credits. She has been directing for the last sixteen years, most recently Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters at Studio 58, which landed on The Vancouver Courier's Top Ten Plays of 2007 list. She is currently directing the world premiere of The Refugee Hotel in Toronto. Carmen was the founder and director of Vancouver's The Latino Theatre Group, which ran from 1994 to 2002. The Latino Theatre Group created and performed twenty-five Forum Theatre plays on themes ranging from racism to safe sex, inter-generational conflict, exile, family violence, police violence, sexual abuse, homophobia, and sexism. The group also created and performed two full-length plays, ?QUE PASA with LA RAZA, eh? and Spics n' Span at The Firehall Arts Centre. Carmen trained as a Theatre of the Oppressed/Forum Theatre facilitator with Headlines Theatre Company and with Victoria's Puente Theatre from 1992 to 1996. Further training with the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal, happened in Brazil in 1993 and Seattle in 1997. As a freelance Theatre of the Oppressed facilitator, Carmen has worked with: The Vancouver School Board, Fort Nelson First Nations, Seton Lake Indian Band, The Boys' and Girls' Club of Greater Vancouver, OXFAM, Kitsilano Community Centre, Neworld Theatre, The Purple Thistle Centre, No One Is Illegal, Theatre Terrific, Theatrix, The Vancouver Playhouse, The Environmental Youth Alliance, The Anti-Racism Neighbourhood Network, YouthCo, and Studio 58. Carmen is a graduate of Studio 58. More about Carmen Aguirre at: http://www.abcbookworld.com/view_author.php?id=9467

Workshop dates/time: Seven Monday evenings, 6pm-9pm:
Monday October 5
Monday October 12 (note: this is a holiday)
Monday October 19
Monday November 2
Monday November 9
Monday November 16
Monday November 23

Workshop location:
Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House
800 East Broadway, at Prince Albert Street
Vancouver – Coast Salish Territory
*Please note that Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House is wheelchair accessible*

How to apply?
Fill out the application form attached and send your completed form to
María Escolán at 604-255-7508 (fax) or womencentre@vsw.ca

VOLUNTEERING?
Ignite will also need a few volunteers for logistical support. Please let us know if you want to be a volunteer/participant by emailing María Escolán at womencentre@vsw.ca

Maria Escolan
Women's Centre Coordinator
Vancouver Status of Women
2652 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC V5K 1Z6
Phone 604-255-6554 Fax 604-255-7508

Skunk Season! %#@

2009-08-20T04:44:00.000-07:00

There seem to be an unusually large number of skunks in the hood this summer. They also seem to be very nervous and spray at the slightest disturbance. Almost every night one of them lets off in the vicinity of our home and the smell comes in the window. They usually do this around 3 to 4 am, and the smell wakes me up.

Tonight I made the mistake of letting the dogs out when they barked and they caught a skunk full in the face. This is the second time it's happened in 3 years. This time I didn't let them back in the house for more than a second. Still, the smell is suffocating. Here's the recipe that seems the most vouched for for skunk smell. I can hardly wait til the drugstore opens and I can try to buy a gallon of peroxide!

Whatever you do, don't bring a freshly skunked pooch into the house! The dog will rub on things and tranfer the smell, then the whole house will smell like a skunk. If you must bring him in, wrap him in something washable until you get to the bathtub.

Skunk Smell Remover
1 quart 3% Hydrogen Peroxide
1/4 cup Baking Soda
2 tbsp Dish Detergent. The stuff for washing dishes in the sink, not something for dishwashers.
Mix the ingredients in a large bowl, because it will boil up like Vesuvius. We are, after all, making an oxygen generator. Wash the dog with this while it is still foaming, because it is the oxygen which reacts with the thiols in the skunk stink to neutralize the odor. If it sits around, it will loose it's efficacy because the oxygen boils off. Don't try to store it in an airtight container, because it will blow up. The brew also works for clothes, humans and unlucky cats.

Sometimes being chased by a dog is not enough to scare a polecat off the property, in which case, mothballs will do the trick.

Current State of Community Television in Metro Vancouver

2009-08-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

Vancouver used to be among the best of the world's cities in terms of having public access to community television. There were local facilities very near if not actually in Mt. Pleasant back then. Now, many parts of the world, including in Asia, the US, and Latin America, have passed us as we went backwards. Here's the story from one who was there. - FW

Current State of Community Television in Metro Vancouver

By Sid Chow Tan, August 13, 2009

A dozen years ago, government regulators and cable companies delivered a near lethal blow to community television. The government ruling and self-serving interpretation by dominant cable operators Rogers and Shaw led to the dismantling of community television thousands strong volunteer networks and local office infrastructure and resources in Metro Vancouver. This near death scenario continues, seemingly with government and corporate collusion, and begs for a judicial review. As well, the Auditor General should review the $800-million in public money handed to cable companies across Canada on behalf of community television the past ten years. That’s $60-million to Rogers and Shaw in Metro Vancouver the last ten years. In 2003, a Senate (the Lincoln) report stated its “frustration” and “dismay” that no information exists on what happens to cable company expenditures on behalf of community television. There’s no way to find out if citizens got their money’s worth!

In Public Broadcasting Notice 1997-25:131, the government regulator - the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) - handed community television to cable companies. It boldly and trustingly states: “This policy reflects the Commission's belief that opportunities for local expression would continue to be provided in the absence of a regulatory requirement. In the Commission's view, after more than twenty-five years of operation, the community channel has achieved a level of maturity and success such that it no longer needs to be mandated. Apart from its benefits to the public through local reflection, the community channel provides cable operators with a highly effective medium to establish a local presence and to promote a positive corporate image for themselves.”

The Commission’s boldness was mistaken and its trust misplaced. On November 19, 1996, more than three months before the new policy announcement, Rogers began shutting down its neighbourhood television offices, beginning with 1010 Commercial Drive. Thousands of volunteers and dozens of staff worked in this and another sixteen or so community television studios and offices throughout Metro Vancouver. In Vancouver alone, there was a full studio along with four neighbourhood community television offices – two in Kitsilano, one in the West End and the Commercial Drive location. Volunteer community-based productions such as Complaint Department, Production Parade, Metro Magazine, Chinatown Today, Global Justice, Pressure Point and East Side Story dominated the then Rogers cable community channel. The programming opportunities, production training in local offices, mentorship and extensive volunteer networks are all but gone from Shaw, now the dominant cable operator in the region through a swap of assets with Rogers in 2001.

Shortly after Rogers announced the closure of the Commercial Drive office, the volunteers there hastily constituted a not-for-profit society to weather the anticipated corporate assault on community television. Rogers, taking flak for the closures, agreed to support the volunteers for two years while Community Media Education Society was organised to safeguard the spirit and legacy of community television. Two workgroups developed. One to work on regulatory and public education efforts and the other to continued the production of community television programs. The production workgroup begat three not-for-profit community television corporations. First came Independent Community Television Co-operative, then Vancouver Community Television Association and ACCESS TV (Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality and Solidarity Society), which initiated and helps produce FearlessTV and Saltwater City Television. Along with the Slim Evans Society, best known for its Working TV. All now have regular timeslots on Shaw’s local cable community channel. None receives any financial support from the public funds collected by Shaw - an estimated $6-million annually in Metro Vancouver.

Now Shaw’s cable community channel is called Shaw TV and its community television in Metro Vancouver is directed from the Shaw tower at Coal Harbour. Ironically, with a studio there, volunteers from Vancouver need to go to Surrey for studio production. Volunteers from Port Moody need to come to downtown Vancouver to pick up a camera to do a shoot in Port Moody and then return the gear. Shaw’s appreciation of community-based volunteers is underscored by their miserly ways towards them. Volunteers and non-profit groups pay for all transportation, parking, refreshment and tape expenses for their productions. Yet Shaw has the public money to provide the same to its production personnel, including company vehicles. More miserly and destructive was the shutdown of local offices and studios and laying off production staff over the past eight years. Shaw continues to believe and explain community television is better after cuts to local offices and staff and loss of the volunteer network. These are dastardly deeds and show Shaw’s corporate greed trumping community need.

A judicial review is in order. The Broadcasting Act clearly states the Canadian broadcast system is comprised of public, private and community elements providing a public service essential to the maintenance and enhancement of national identity and cultural sovereignty. Yet the CRTC, our broadcast regulator mandated to uphold the Broadcasting Act, believes the community element no longer needs to be a regulatory requirement for cable operators. The resultant confusion allowed cable companies such as Shaw to refuse broadcast of programs produced by not-for-profits. This was a clear violation of CRTC rules and the spirit of community television. A judicial review may explain why cable companies receive and control the entire cable community channel levy, leaving not-for-profit groups to fundraise for their community television needs. There is no logic when community programming produced by volunteers is only available by subscribing to a corporate service. Unbelievably, the CRTC says Vancouver cannot have a low power community television is because there is no room on the broadcast spectrum. There’s room for public and private broadcasters but none for a community broadcaster, one of three elements in the Canadian broadcasting system. How is that fair?

Canada has played a central role in the development of community television and is considered by many to be the birthplace of community broadcasting. The community element was developed to provide local groups with training to access the broadcasting system. Community broadcasting, which is local, volunteer-based and largely not-for-profit, is often able to broadcast a diverse range of voices, alternative points of view, and innovative programming ideas. In January 2008, CRTC Broadcasting Public Notice 2008-4 announced a comprehensive review of its policies with respect to community-based radio and television. The objective of this review will be to ensure that the Commission’s regulatory policy supports the development of a healthy community broadcasting sector. Over two months have passed and there is still no information available on when the review will begin.

Given the community television carnage wrought by Shaw and Rogers in Metro Vancouver, one could say the CRTC’s review is too little to late. It would be better to have a judicial review of the current state of community television. At the least, the Auditor General should let citizens know what happened to the $800-million in public money given to cable companies. The worrisome lesson here is that the federal government can hand the public trust of community television to cable companies, who want citizens to be passive consumers and not active makers of media.

For more on community television, go to www.crtc.gc.ca and see CRTC Broadcasting Public Notices 1991-59, 1997-25 and 2002-61. You can email cmes @ vcn.bc.ca if you want to get involved in community television.

n.

Sid Chow Tan has been a community television volunteer for over twenty years. He help found and has been or currently is a director of Community Media Education Society, Independent Community Television Co-operative (Vancouver and Victoria), ACCESS TV (Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality and Solidarity Society), W2 Community Media Arts Society and Slim Evans Society, which produces workingTV.

Your Help Needed to Reinstate Community TV in Vancouver

2009-08-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I met Sid Chow Tan, who is one of the elders of community media in Vancouver. He told me more about what excellent community TV access Vancouver used to have, and about the many groups that are coalescing to ask to have this service restored. Here's a website and a letter he forwarded to me - I'll also blog his history of the Vancouver community TV:

http://cactus.independentmedia.ca/node/11

Dear Friends of community-access TV:

CACTUS needs your help to prepare for the review of the community TV
sector. The hearings are scheduled for Feb. 1st, and the call for
comments is likely to be posted in late September.

We need your help now, to contact and ask support from many
organizations and individuals across the country. We'd like to
familiarize them with CACTUS' position before the call for comments is
published, and are asking for help for members willing to make phone
calls during the last week of August and September.

In a nutshell, CACTUS is asking that:

1) a new production fund be established to which independent community
production groups can apply to set up their own community-access
channels.

2) that these channels will be multi-platform access centres that may
hold a radio and television license simultaneously, broadcast over the
air, teach web design and webstream programming, and share resources
with other community organizations that specialize in communications;
for example, community newspapers, libraries, theatres. The idea is
that the community should be able to "one-stop-shop" if they have a
project that they want to get the message out about. We envision that
this model will leverage existing infrastructure, be efficient, is
flexible enough to evolve in the future, and will enhance the
understanding of media literacy in the community. It is becoming more
and more common around the world.

3) We will ask that the programming produced have must-carry status
on cable, Telcos, and any other distributors that serve the area so
that the signal will be truly accessible to all.

Here are some of the groups that we want to contact during the next 6
weeks. If you have a particular interest or already have good
contacts with any of these groups and are willing to spend time on the
phone, please contact Cathy Edwards ASAP:

- video and filmmaking co-operatives, including IFVA, the Independent
Film and Video Alliance
- municipalities and town councils
- university closed circuit television channels
- well-known people who got their start on community TV (e.g. Mike
Meyers, Dan Ackroyd, Tom Green, Guy Madden)
- other organizations that have intervened at recent hearings in
support of community media and diversity; for example, Friends of
Canadian Broadcasting, the Canadian Conference on the Arts, guilds and
professional associations whose members historically received training
at community-access channels.
- MPs
- community service organizations, non-profits, etc. that benefit from
exposure on community TV
- organizations that promote media literacy, equal access to IT,
Internet access, etc.
- others that you can think of

What would help is if you are willing to take on one category to
contact. We will help prepare you with the phone script, sample
letters of support that the contactees might send in, etc. Aside from
helping out the sector now that we've finally got a committed hearing,
it's an opportunity for you to network with like-minded individuals.

If you can help, please call Cathy at (819) 772-2862.

The CACTUS Team.
www.cactus.independentmedia.ca

front porch farmers' markets

2009-08-05T23:18:00.000-07:00

CO-OP EXPANDS FARMERS' REACH WITH FRONT PORCH FARMERS' MARKETS

A farmer's life is feast or famine. During the long hot days of summer, crops are flourishing and farmers' markets gathering twice a week to sell the bounty. Any harvest a farm can't sell now, will go to waste, or if another few hours can be found at the end of a 16hr day, maybe a few surplus raspberries will get frozen for winter sale. Come winter though, farmers markets dwindle and local fresh food becomes less abundant—what a farmer makes in the summer better carry the cost of farm and family through the rest of the year.

Front porches all over Greater Vancouver are joining a movement to smooth out the feast and the famine farmers experience by becoming 'mini farmers markets' every week. Yes, that's right, front porches--and car ports and even play houses are being converted for a few hours every week into pick-up spots for those ordering their foods through an on-line farmers market. Established by a group of loyal local foodies and farmers market groupies, NOWBC Co-op (Neighbours Organic Weekly) has organized this on-line farmers market and neighbourhood delivery system. By scooping the summer's excess and bringing farmers' bounty to any neighbourhood in the city where it is wanted, when the feast is on, the co-op can help farmers reach more people and get all of their food sold.

“There is no farmers market here, the closest is Kits, but with the kids and busy weekends, I just don't get there.” says Joanna Michal of Dunbar, who gets food through NOWBC. Now it doesn't matter whether there's a farmers market near a person, or if a person is available during the hours a market is open, they can still get food from these small local farms through a front porch near them. And it doesn't stop at the end of the summer. When the feast is over, the on-line farmers market continues running year round--because farmers keep farming, even in winter here. “We're getting ready to to transplant our fall and winter crops of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards and brussels sprouts” Christopher Bodnar of Glen Valley Organic Farm reports. Though winter crops may be less plentiful, there is still harvest, just very few places to sell it. “One of the challenges for small-scale farms is finding appropriate outlets to market their products.” says Bodnar.

NOWBC Co-op is a 50% volunteer run co-op interested in sustainable foods, the 100 mile diet and supporting our local organic growers. There are currently 25 of these pick-up spots around and about the city, and the number is growing. Front porches have been volunteered in Mt Pleasant, Riley Park, North Van, Dunbar, UBC, Fairview, Renfrew Heights, Commercial Drive, Coquitlam, New West—you name it. To check-out the on-line market and look for one of these farmers market drop-offs, or start one in your own neighbourhood, go to www.nowbc.ca or email joannam@nowbc.ca.

PHOTO CAPTION:
Meg O'Shea orders food from NOWBC's on-line farmers market, “I choose to buy through NOWBC because I know the organization has done my homework for me, selecting farmers and producers who supply local, organic, REAL food.”

For more information contact:

Joanna Michal - 604-222-0262
NOWBC Co-op Community Outreach

Ask Shaw for Community TV Channel(s)

2009-07-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

Shaw Cable/Telephone/Internet Broadband company is one of the businesses located in Mt. Pleasant. You can see a building with their name of it on Great Northern Way near the VCC Clark Sky Train Station.

Shaw is really pushing to get subscribers for the digital service. I looked at what they offer, but all I saw was more and more channels of the same to me irrelevant stuff. I decided to call their number and put in my request for community TV channels. The place to talk about this turns out to be by calling their 1-800-950-7429 and choosing the options for cable service and change or order new service. A woman on the line took my request, said she'd pass it on, and said if enough people asked for that, they might offer it. Here's what I asked for:

Community TV channels.

As someone who is very interested in local events and issues, I have long wished that Vancouver was like other major cities in having dedicated cable channels for community TV programming. Years ago Vancouver had a community TV production facility and at least one dedicated cable channel, but subsequent cable company owners dumped that service in the interest of using those channels to make more money. There is some "community" programming on Shaw Channel 4, because community program access is mandated by the CRTC, but very little of it comes from the community video production companies (Vancouver now has 6 of them, I've heard), and it's only half an hour at a time, and editorially controlled by Shaw.

Now that digital TV is coming in, there is the possibility to offer way more channels than anybody could ever watch. What this means is that "narrowcasting" - content for smaller segments of the audience, is going to be much more important. If you have some of those hundreds of channels for community programming, you can have a meaningful share of the audience for a skilled amateur production about iris gardening or speeches from a conference or storytelling or bicycle repair.

Shaw Channel 4 is supposedly a community channel - they have some shows of their own that cover people in the community, and because of a court case they also now allow little half-hour blocks scattered here and there for the work of local community TV production groups that are not part of Shaw. You will see Shaw's disclaimer before each of these segments airs, saying that they are forced by the CRTC to offer this time.

But there are at least six well-established independent television production companies in this town. They go to all sorts of events and videotape them, and I really love to watch these things. Right now, I have to watch online or go to a special screening if I want to watch, for example, the keynote speakers from the Canadian Federation of Nurses Convention, or panelists from the Where's the Money in the Media? event held at Vivo in May (both recorded by Working TV). I would like to be able to turn on the TV any time of day and see local community events and ideas.

In a related trend, community video groups have joined up with the W2 project and will be putting a multimedia centre into the old Woodwards building on Hastings Street, downtown, where members of the public will be able to video events and get production training.

What is most lacking is to get the channel space for community people to air their work.

Why don't you phone up Shaw, too, and ask for some community TV channels? You dial 1-800-950-7429 and press 1 for English (or choose Chinese), 1 for residential service, and then 1 to order or change your service. Tell them what you want, and let's see if we can get it.

A look beneath the surface

2009-07-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

Marcus Bingham of the Forest Science Department, University of British Columbia, was telling me about the role of fungi in linking the roots of different kinds of plants under the surface of the soil, and actually transferring carbon from one kind of plant to another. He sent me this link, from which the photo below was taken: http://sarcozona.org/tag/mycorrhizae/ He says it's an "ectomycorrhizal (‘ecto’ is a particular classification of mycorrhiza) root system of a conifer seedling."

Mycorrhizae. ALBERTON, O., & KUYPER, T. (2009). Ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with seedlings respond differently to increased carbon and nitrogen availability: implications for ecosystem responses to global change. Global Change Biology, 15 (1), 166-175 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01714.x

The site at the link also has interesting things to say about how excess carbon affects the relationship of plants to each other. For example, an excess proportionally of carbon turns into excess sugar in plants and reduces the percentage of nitrogen in their diet (nitrogen, which builds protein). So, the more carbon we put into the environment, the more we put the plants (and ourselves, as plant-eaters, as well as the plant-eaters we eat) into sugar shock and protein deficiency.

Time to stop driving and start walking!

Here's another link related to the problem of excess carbon in the atmosphere - it's a radio program and you can download it by right-clicking your mouse on the link and choosing save-as. Play it in your ipod while you're walking, eh?

WINGS #12-09 The Atmosphere Trust Time: 28:40. Protecting the atmosphere is a trust for future generations.
http://wings.org/ftp/WINGS%20shows%202009%20series/wings12-09MaryWood-Climate-28_40-128kbps.mp3

Translink Survey on Funding Closes June 30

2009-06-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

This is their consultation. - FW

Important Choices - Transportation Projects and Funding - Survey Closes June 30

from support@translinklistens.ca

Dear TransLink Listens Advisor,

You are cordially invited to participate in TransLink's "It's Your Move" on-line public consultation exercise (which takes about 15 minutes or more) and then complete a short survey about the transportation plan for the next 10 years.

This is your opportunity to tell us what you think regional transportation planning priorities should be over the next ten years and how you think we should pay for them.

As an added incentive to participate - those who participate in the exercise and complete the survey by June 30, 2009 will be entered into a contest to win one of five cash prizes:

- Two prizes of $500 cash
- Three prizes of $100 cash

We are increasing the prizes to acknowledge panelists' time in becoming familiar with Transport 2040, the 30-year vision for the region. In addition, TransLink Listens provides significant research cost savings.

The proposed 10-year Plan, and ways to pay for it, is just the start. Your decisions will be instrumental in setting the course for the liveability of the Region, and we hope that providing this information will assist you in making informed decisions. The results of this consultation will be reported to TransLink's Board of Directors.

Watch for the most important survey in TransLink's history, on TransLink Listens July 3, 2009. We hope you'll be a part of it.

CLICK HERE TO BEGIN: https://join.translinklistens.ca/R.aspx?r=ITuvB1BOMEiYtOAoAosVwg&m=600000173

Sincerely

The TransLink Listens Team

Neighbourhoods Pissed at Translink Planning

2009-06-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

Copies of this letter are circulating in email. It challenges the notion that public "consultation" means giving the public time to hear and object but not any time to get their heads together and to effectively raise alternatives. Maybe with Kevin Falcon moving from the Transportation Ministry to Health, his heavy-handed style will be lifted from Transportation? (But moved to Health? - shudder) -FW:

Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver

June 24, 2009

TransLink Board of Directors
1600 - 4720 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC V5H 4N2

Attention: Mr. Tom Prendergast, CEO

Re: TransLink’s Transport 2040 - Consultation on the 10 yr. Funding Plan
Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver is a City of Vancouver wide organization of neighbourhood groups that includes about 30 residents' associations, CityPlan Vision implementation committees, ratepayers associations and community groups. We are commenting on the current and proposed TransLink funding models. Since TransLink's Transport 2040 and Metro Vancouver's 2040 Regional Growth Strategy were drafted in parallel, we are also including some of our comments on Metro's 2040 proposal which is interrelated with TransLink. Please consider this letter as part of our comments to TransLink under your consultation process.

Our concerns are mainly related to TransLink using real estate development, rezoning and land speculation to fund transit. The substantial change to use real estate to fund transit was done without public consultation and we adamantly oppose this direction. We support TransLink having a stable source of funding from Provincial and Federal taxation sources and abandoning the use of real estate speculation.

Our comments to date for TransLink funding sources are as follows:

1) Do not use property taxes or real estate development - Transit is a responsibility of the Provincial and Federal governments, so the funding sources
should be from those senior level sources of taxation not from the few civic sources of taxation. Therefore, property taxes and real estate development / rezoning / land lift should all be off the table as they are sources for civic fund raising for civic amenities. If these sources are used to fund transit then the Province is downloading onto the municipalities. There is a systemic conflict of interest for Translink to be both a regulator of land use policy and a real estate speculator / developer. There has been no public consultation to date to justify this direction or to having an unelected appointed Board of Directors.

2) Transit funding should be based on polluter-pay rather than user-pay principals[sic]- Transit fares should be lowered to encourage transit ridership. Those who pollute should pay more for transit through increased gas taxes, carbon taxes, variable vehicle levies, road user fees, parking fees, goods movement fees, or other polluter based charges.

3) The balance of funds should come from Provincial and Federal taxation sources-The municipalities only collect 10% of taxes while Provincial and Federal governments collect the remaining 90%. Senior governments must stop downloading onto municipalities as described above in #1. Any shortfall in funding should be provided by the Province and the Feds.

4) Increase and improve TransLink’s public consultation process -
There has not been broad public consultation on TransLink’s direction or funding. We think that one rather confused workshop for the whole City of Vancouver is not adequate. Most residents do not know what the options are or that TransLink is proposing to use real estate development as the future main Transit funding source based on a Honk Kong model. This has never been publicly debated.

The main comments we have on TransLink's involvement in the Metro Regional Growth Strategy are as follows:

Our concerns with this proposal are mainly related to a substantial change of governance for municipal planning process, lack of clarity in the Metro proposal, and using the Regional Growth Strategy to give TransLink, which is now in the land development business, undo influence in municipal planning.

1) We oppose Metro, Provincial and TransLink regulation of municipal Official Community Plans (OCP): Unlike previous regional growth plans, this draft proposes shifting the authority over land use decisions. The Regional Context Statements and the Official Community Plans (OCP) would require Metro Board approval for compliance to the Regional Growth Strategy; TransLink approval of the OCP and large developments for implications to the regional transportation system; and
Provincial approval for developments along highways. This is an attack on the principle of subsidiarity; it would make municipal officials less accountable and public involvement in planning virtually meaningless. Municipalities should retain control over land use planning and approvals within their boundaries.

If Metro's intent is to protect green zones and industrial areas, then any regional authority should be restricted to absolute protection for green zones and qualified protection for industrial areas and only these should be required to be shown on a map. Metro should have no authority over or formal input into land use policy other than green zones and industrial areas. We do not support the City of Vancouver's motion amendment D that proposes regional land use 'input' for Urban Centres and Frequent Transit Development Corridors, as the wording is ambiguous and could be
construed as adoption of policies or plans that have not been subject to local area planning and Community Vision implementation under City Plan. Also, because of TransLink’s real estate development conflict of interest, TransLink should be allowed to review and comment only, without any authority over land use policy.

2) TransLink's conflicted roll [sic] as both planning regulator and developer: Land lift is a municipal asset that is used to provide amenities such as community centers, parks, and facilities. TransLink has been given a mandate to raise funds through real estate speculation, rezoning and land lift to pay for transit which is primarily a provincial responsibility. We strongly oppose this downloading onto municipal governments. It appears that the Province is using the Metro Vancouver Regional Growth Strategy to facilitate TransLink real estate dealings by giving this unelected board authority over land use decisions that could override municipalities. Since TransLink and their private development partners would have a financial stake in those decisions, conflicts of interest would be systemic.

3) Regional growth strategies are too prescriptive: The details outlined on pages 16-18 of the draft report are overly prescriptive in regard to density bonus provisions, variable development cost charges, reduced parking and other financial incentives for development. Although municipalities may choose to use such incentives from time to time, they involve significant trade-offs, and should not be prescribed in the Metro plan as they would be routinely used to fund transit and possibly other provincial responsibilities in place of amenities. The prescription for 'Large-scale, high density commercial office and retail uses' in the
Metro Core ignores and could conflict with the imperative to retain an adequate supply of old but functional buildings - essential for maintaining commercial diversity and affordable spaces for new ideas and enterprises.

4) Frequent Transit Development Corridors are too broad: The Frequent Transit Development Corridors as shown on Map 2 are described on Figure 2 (page 18) as 400 to 800 metres on both sides of the corridor for medium and high density development. In some municipal locations this may be reasonable if they have a generally large lot layout and only a few transit corridors. However, in Vancouver, 400 to 800 metres would result in mass upzoning of the entire city! The Metro plan should generally describe transit oriented development to be close to transit without specifying where it should be located. Detailed community planning
within municipal boundaries should be under the sole jurisdiction of the municipality.

5) Provincial control of developments along highways: Developments impacting highways should also be under municipal control. It is a concern that
requirements for provincial reviews of developments along highways could be a way for the Province to use land lift and rezoning to fund highway improvements. Again, this would constitute down-loading. While such authority might ostensibly be a check on car-dependant sprawl, it could actually facilitate environmentally destructive highway-oriented residential, commercial or industrial development.

6) Green zones would be more vulnerable: Under this proposal green zones would be more easily removed from protection, which would make them subject to horse-trading between municipalities, a practice we oppose. Exemptions from Green Zones should require unanimous support of the Metro Board, not just 2/3 support as
proposed. Also, some green zones are shown within Urban Containment boundaries and should be excluded so they cannot be developed (e.g. UBC Endowment Lands and the North Shore).

7) Timelines for public consultations are inadequate: We agree with the conclusions under 'Public input to date' in the CoV staff report. There has not
been enough time for the public or their elected representatives to understand the issues and to respond. We implore Council to insist on an extension of the Metro public consultation. The deadline for all input by May 22, 2009 is not acceptable.
These and other concerns raised at during the May 20th Metro public forum at the Wosk Centre confirmed that more work and substantive changes are required for the Regional Growth Strategy and Translink funding models. To this end we support a better opportunity for public participation in both the TransLink Transport 2040 funding proposals and the Metro Vancouver 2040 Regional Growth Strategy.

Regards,
Ned Jacobs
On behalf of the Steering Committee
Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver
Group contact email: nsvancouver@hotmail.com

Vote Clerking at Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House

2009-05-31T15:24:00.000-07:00

Voting personnel in the May 12 Provincial election had to work about a 14 hour or more day. There were about 8 voting boxes at the Mt. Pleaseant Neighbourhood House, and each one had a table with officials at it. There was also a table for people to register if they were not on the rolls at all, and another table for people to vote absentee if they were not at their own polling place.

There was a voter book for each voting box, and if people had voted in advance polling that was already marked into the book, so they couldn't vote a second time.

I was just a voting clerk, at the table for Box 100. People came into the room and were met by one of two very young and smiling women who stood on their feet the whole time the polls were open, greeting people and directing them to the right table. Box 100 had the most traffic of any of the boxes, or so it seemed. My job was to look at people's i.d.'s, find their names on the voting list, have them sign beside their names, affirming that they had the right to vote and were only voting once; and then I gave their voter number to the person sitting next to me. She was the boss of our table. She had to write the voter number on each of two stubs for each of the two ballots (the election ballot and the referendum ballot). One stub stayed in the book and the other stub was torn off along with the ballot.

People took their ballots and went behind a screen at the end of the table and marked them. If they asked us questions about what was on the ballots, we weren't allowed to tell them anything, except that they should mark one X or check on each ballot, and if they didn't want to mark the ballot they didn't have to. If they had questions, all we could do was refer them to information posted on the wall, which included the text of the referendum in a number of languages.

Judging by the names and conversations, there were people from a very large variety of ethnic groups voting in our location.

When the people brought their ballots back to the voting captain at our table, she tore off the numbered stub from each ballot and gave them back to the voter to put their now-anonymous ballots into the ballot box. Some people were in a hurry and left us to put the ballots in, but most did it themselves. Most people were friendly and fairly patient. The lines never got terribly long - people arrived in waves, starting with early-birds before work and the people who had just dropped their kids off at daycare, and peaking again at lunchtime, picking up again around 3 when shiftworkers got off, and then another big rush right near 8 pm when the polls closed. Of course most of the people who arrived at the very last minute had problems to solve, like needing name changes or address changes. This was very hard on the people at the table that handled that, and they started making mistakes that will probably come back to haunt at the next provincial election, in the form of incorrect voting cards getting mailed out. But five years from now a lot of more people will have changed their names and moved.

There were a lot of steps to the ritual, especially in the case of new or changed registrations, that could throw the voting clerks off. I myself made two mistakes, that I caught later. One was not realizing that a voter had failed to sign the book. The other one was not noticing the last newly-registered voter's sign-in on the next page, and so giving an incorrect total for the ballot count. Eventually, when the number of ballots didn't match up the count, we kept going over it until I found my mistake. This made our table the last to finish. Luckily we had assistance from a young man who had really studied the system carefully and had experience of a previous election. We were all very patient and good-natured. If you follow all the steps during the counting process, the procedure is designed to be sure you catch all the mistakes.

Less than half the number of voters registered for Box 100 actually voted. There were about 173 on the voter list, and about 11 new registrants on voting day, but only 82 actually voted.

When we did the count, we first had to separate the election ballots from the referendum ballots. We had a set of grids to mark down the votes for each candidate, then we separated each candidate's votes into a separate pile. Each time it looked as if a candidate had 25 votes, we rubber-banded that pile of ballots, and re-counted that group to be sure we had marked them correctly. Jenny Kwan had far and away the majority of the ballots. The Liberal candidate had about half as many, the Green candidate had only 16, and in our box the Communist candidate got none. No other parties were running candidates in Vancouver-Mt. Pleasant. Of those who actually marked their ballots for the referendum, BC-STV passed in our box by 62%.

Each party is allowed to have a scrutineer at each ballot box. We ended up with only one, I'm not even sure what party she was from. There are processes for scrutineers who are there at the start of the day to see that the ballot box starts out empty before it is sealed, and is fully emptied at the end of the election. Ours didn't arrive til our count had started, and she watched us do the count. We didn't have any ballots that were strangely marked in our box, but if we had, there wss a list for us to use to decide if it was possible to ascertain the intent of the voter or not.

The count done at the actual box is reported to the head of the polling place and that's the first information that goes to the press. Then we had to take our box to the polling headquarters downtown, where the ballots would be re-counted. The absentee votes cast at each polling place are not counted on the spot, but they are counted about a week later. In some districts, this can mean a change of the final result.

Having seen how the votes were counted, and how difficult it is and what failsafes are in place, I have to admit that a changeover to a system like BC-STV would have meant a lot of work figuring out, learning and teaching a new ballot-counting method. Instead of getting finished at 10 pm, counts might well have gone into the wee hours. My experience showed me how easy it is to make mistakes even in a simple system. Back when I was promoting STV, I remember one older women from the neighbourhood telling me she was against it "because I think they would screw it up." Maybe that's a realistic assessment.

What I would still support in the way of election reform for BC would be instant runoff voting. This is where people's first choices are counted and if there is no winner that has a majority then there is a runoff among the top two candidates. Anyone who didn't vote for one of the top two, their ballot then goes towards their second choice. This would eliminate the problem of vote-splitting by third and fourth parties resulting in a government formed by a party that never received a majority of the votes. I think that would be not too difficult a modification of our current system, and maybe only add an hour or so to the counting job.

For my actually 15 hours of work on voting day, plus my two hours of training time, I received about $270 in pay. That's about $15.88 an hour, which is almost twice the minimum wage.

I did enjoy the experience of being part of the process and getting to see my neighbours performing their civic duty. I don't know how much the Neighbourhood House made off the deal. They were very nice to us, including I got a free carton of chocolate soymilk that was there for giveaway.

--FW

You can vote anywhere in provincial election May 12

2009-05-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

Unlike the Federal election, for the May 12 provincial election you can vote at any polling place in the province on election day. So, if there's a polling place across from your house or your workplace, for example, that is not your assigned location, you can vote there. Be sure to bring an official i.d. that shows your address, like a driver's license - or, one picture i.d. and one thing like a utility bill, for example, that shows your residential address. Persons lacking such things can bring a letter of attestation from a facilities manager, such as a shelter manager. Work on getting those letters has been underway on the Downtown East Side already.

The provincial electoral commission is nonpartisan, and they seem to be really working to help as many people to vote as possible. Poll workers have been instructed to err in favour of the voter - unlike the Federal election, where people were sent home. If you forgot your proper i.d., a neighbour can vouch for you - but a voter can only vouch for one other person.

There will be two ballots this time. One to vote for your choice for a Member of the Legislative Assembly, and one to vote on the Referendum.

The Referendum is asking if you agree to changing our voting system, or if you want to keep First Past the Post. As mentioned, I support the change to Single Transferable Vote. That will allow you to, for example, vote for the Green candidate first and the NDP second, so that if your first choice candidate doesn't win you haven't inadvertently helped the Liberals get a majority. Because adjacent ridings will be merged, you'll have more choices of candidates, so you can help elect more MLAs, but in the end the number of MLAs will be exactly the same. [The opposition is implying that there will be fewer MLAs under BC-STV. Not so!]

The STV is heavily supported by young people, and I don't think we should disappoint them. A review after three elections has been recommended by the Citizens Assembly; and the legislature is still allowed to change the system at any time.

Kingsgate Mall Sold?

2009-05-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

This is just gossip at present, from one of the aunties whose nephew works in construction. She says he said that Kingsgate Mall has finally been sold, that the buyer is Jimmy Pattison, and that he is going to change the Buy-Low there to a Save-on-Foods.

My research online shows that that Pattison group includes both Buy-Low and Save-On-Foods, as well as several other named chains. Their site says that they put different stores in different locations, depending on which best suits the conditions in the neighbourhood. So, why would Buy-Low be switched over to Save-On? Maybe the demographic of the neighbourhood going up has something to do with it. Buy-Low has already added a deli section, which is not at all cheap, and a few other hi-end items. Their prices are also higher than the smaller local stores for fruits and vegetables. [They also compete with the downstairs Shoppers Drug for loss-leader grocery items (be sure to check ice cream prices in both stores before deciding where to buy).] I'm wondering if Save-On-Foods is designed for a richer demographic than Buy-Low.

At least it's not an IGA!

Saturday Tai Chi at Mt. Pleasant School

2009-05-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

Dr. Lyla Yip's Tai Chi class is meeting outdoors at the Mt. Pleasant School on Saturdays now at 1 pm. We're still working on Chi Gong exercises, plus the Yang style 24 steps, plus have recently started following along and getting idea of a Chen style 24 steps that has larger, looser movements. We are mostly older women, and we have a very pleasant and relaxed time while improving our balance, limberness, strength and grace. Come join! We are each giving Lyla $10 a month.

Bus service "improvement" for whom?

2009-05-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

Translink kindly puts out a tiny newsletter for bus riders. The headline for the April 10 edition, the last I picked up, says "Better bus service starts April 20." The article begins with "Bus service is getting better ... All over Metro Vancouver we'll be making improvements to bus routes and service for the summer. Read on to find out what bus services will be improved in your area."

So, reading on I find that service on the 9, the 84, and the 99-B, which serve our area, are among 14 routes on which "services will be adjusted to reflect lower summer ridership." In other words, bus service will be reduced!

No details on how long we'll have to wait for the bus now.

Why I'm Voting for BC-STV May 12 - NUANCES

2009-05-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

Of all the reasons given for supporting the proposed new electoral system for British Columbia, I haven't heard much at all about my favourite. It is voter self-expression.

Under First Past the Post (our current system), you get to vote for one choice for an MLA, and if you want to be a strategic voter, then you are always honour bound to vote for the candidate you think can beat the candidate you fear or mistrust the most. So, say you don't want the Liberals to get in again, you think well I have to vote for the NDP because if I vote for a weaker party, I'll be throwing away my vote.

If you're not a strategic voter, under first past the post, you can express that you really resonate to the message of the Work Less Party, for example, and devil-take the results. But if you're one of only maybe 300 people who vote for that party, you'll feel really marginalized - you'll have no way to know how many voters love the idea of reducing the work week and spreading the jobs around more. And neither will any of the political parties.

Strategic or unstrategic, in either case, you're going to have some cognitive dissonance; and to resolve that, you basically have one choice - to become more cynical. Because you have to choose between voting your feelings and being "practical." And being practical means you have to choose a party you are not very enthusiastic about just at the moment, to keep a party you dislike from getting in.

If you get cynical enough, then you have one more choice. You can stay home from the polls altogether, and a lot of people do that. And then everyone says "look, the public doesn't even care who gets chosen - they're not interested in politics."

But say we actually pass the BC-STV. Opponents say that in countries where it's used, the major parties still win just about all the seats all the time, so it doesn't make any difference. But what they're not looking at is the information that the voters can pass on to the people who do get elected, and to each other, through the voting process.

If you were to choose a Workless Party candidate first, and a Marijuana Party candidate second, and an NDP candidate third and the Green Party candidate 4th, for example, you'd be contributing to a statistical record with nuances. It could could show if there's a public inclination towards cutting the work week and legalising pot; yet, because neither of those candidates would get elected (not soon, anyway), your vote would still roll over to support organised labour against the free-traders. You could even vote for most or all the NDP candidates running in your riding and if the NDP got more than enough votes to elect their candidates then part of your vote would still be left over to help elect the first Green to the provincial legislature. Strategic voting would be really strategic then, in more ways than one.

Tai Chi classes on Saturdays, 1 pm

2009-04-11T19:52:00.001-07:00

Dr. Lyla Yip is teaching Tai Chi classes at Mt. Pleasant School now that it's spring, outdoors under the overhang. Several of the aunties are attending - try it, you'll like it. It's very good for improving balance and flexibility and strength, in a gentle manner. Drop-ins welcome. Generally we do some chi gong exercises and the 24-step version of the Yang style, and now she has started showing us how to do a short form of the Chen style, too, which has larger and more fluid movements than the Yang. Here's Lyla's web page: http://www.dr-lyla-yip.com/

Warning about Shoppers Drug Seniors Day Coupons

2009-04-11T19:48:00.000-07:00

On the last Thursday in March, I bought $50 worth of goods at Shoppers in order to get the 20% senior discount. They also gave me a coupon worth $10 they said could be used "on your next visit." When I tried to pay with this coupon on my next visit, they told me the coupon was expired. The fine print showed that it had expired on March 29, only three days after it was issued.

The Fencewalker

2009-04-11T12:51:00.001-07:00

At North China Park one can often see the fencewalker these days. The man drives a black car up to the Great Northern Way side of the park, gets out, and hops up onto the chainlink fence. He squate while he gets his balance, and practices balancing on one foot and letting his other leg swing loose. Then he gradually works up to standing and walking. If he missteps and has to come down, he starts over. He is moderately good at this, but clearly aims to perfect it.

Dangerous Dog Balls found in Mt. Pleasant

2009-01-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

Doctor Lyla Yip forwarded me an email about a kind of rubber ball that is soft-skinned, bumpy, and has only one hole in it. There were some gruesome pictures of a dog that lost its tongue because the suction created by this type of ball sucked its tongue into the hole, and the tongue swelled. Apparently there are a lot of cases of this kind of disaster.

Suzette and I found one of these balls on the ground while we were walking the dogs. It's true, it does create a powerful suction through the one hole. However, I did an experiment and my hypothesis was correct: The thing to do if you find one of these is to poke another hole in the ball - preferably before your dog's tongue gets caught. I used a screwdriver to poke a hole in the other side of the ball we found, and it now no longer creates suction. It also doesn't hold its shape so rigidly if squeezed, but, hey, you can't have everything. Physics rules.

City Thinking about Snow Now

2009-01-06T23:47:00.000-08:00

I was pleased to see one of the older garbage trucks come down our street this morning, with one guy driving and one behind putting the cans onto the truck attachment for dumping and then putting them back on the side of the road. They were working both sides of the street at the same time. That's the technology that was abandoned for the fancy new automatic can-dumpers that can be driven by one person with nobody working the back of them, but apparently the older trucks are still around for emergencies. A few days ago, a workman told me that garbage trucks were out trying to pick up but got stuck in snow.

Lifting the cans is hard work, and the guy handling them looked tired, but I cheered him as they took our trash. It's been a long time. Now, if the recycling truck would just come by....

Meanwhile, City Hall is waking up to the fact that this sort of thing can happen and looking at making some plans. Cope Councillor Ellen Woodsworth called for some creative solutions, which would not be amiss.

It would have been helpful if we'd had some coordination. By the time we got out looking for snow shovels, salt and sand, none was to be had in our local neighbourhood stores. People like me shoveling snow with garden spades would have been happy for a place to borrow a proper snow shovel and maybe someone with a snow blower would rent it out if we knew how to get in touch. It's true our neighbours across the street were generous with their snow shovel, but they were often using it themselves.

In a related story, I heard that the Bus Riders Union is pointing out that there are Translink buses trying to drive in the snow with bald summer tires and drivers are frightened about it. Supposedly nobody makes proper winter tires for the buses?

Here's that release - any aunties or uncles with ideas for the next storm should contact Ellen Woodsworth's office, I guess:

Immediate Release: January 6, 2009

Councilor Woodsworth calls for creative solutions to Vancouver snow

Councilor Woodsworth met with city staff today to explore ways that the city can better deal with snow on Vancouver sidewalks.

According to Woodsworth, "we need to do more to alleviate the hardships faced by seniors, people with disabilities, working people who can't get to work because sidewalks are blocked by snow and ice, transit users, homeless, and all the others who have suffered during the harsh weather. Many have even been housebound."

While this year's winter has been an anomaly - and she acknowledges the work of city staff and residents - Woodsworth believes it's important for Vancouver to have more plans in place.

At the next council meeting, she will ask staff to explore the possibility of working with community centres and/or local non-profit agencies about the possibility of partnering on programs that would allow them to coordinate the dispersal of shovels, salt, etc. to central locations, and mobilize volunteers, or hire staff to clear sidewalks for those with limited mobility during snow emergencies. This could be accomplished by establishing and publicizing a "snow helpline " coordinated through a non-profit or community centre.

She will also be calling for the city to distribute a pamphlet to all residents - in multiple languages - acknowledging what they have endured, explaining existing by-laws and legal liability, the responsibilities of business and residential property owners, and encouraging residents to be good neighbours and remove snow and ice from the sidewalks adjacent to their property in future snow or ice events.

-- 30 --

Media Contact
Rachel Marcuse
COPE Executive Director
604-312-9057

Rachel Marcuse
Executive Director
Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE)
________________________________
Rachel@cope.bc.ca
604-255-0400 (office)
604-312-9057 (cell)
==================================
Web: www.cope.bc.ca/donate
Help create a Vancouver for everyone.
==================================

Hideous Garbage Disaster and Dogs

2009-01-02T19:50:00.000-08:00

I saw a private garbage truck today - one of those big ones that lifts up the dumpster and mechanically dumps it into a truck. And I thought, "I wonder if there is anybody on that truck who will get out and pick up all the boxes and bags and debris from broken bags and nasty items that have been piled up for more than two weeks all around those dumpsters."

Well, as it turned out the garbage truck was just turning around in the laneway. They never even went in and dumped the dumpster. All the dumpsters are from different companies anyway, and most of them don't have their trucks out at all.

Neither does the city. We have not had garbage or recycling pickup on our street since before the first big snow fall. Our cans are full, and our houses and porches are now also filling up with bags and boxes of garbage and recycling both.

You might think we'd be glad that the snow and ice keep the garbage from smelling. But that isn't really the case. We humans may not be able to smell it, but other animals can. Tonight I saw raccoon tracks in a shallow patch of snow around one overflowing dumpster. I've also seen dogs stick their heads down under the snow to sniff, and then wrestle to the surface and wolf down frozen whole slices of white bread some kind-hearted people thought they were leaving for the birds.

Under ordinary conditions, we'd just walk the dogs on leashes past the temptations, or go a different direction where we don't get close to the mess they love. But on slippery snow and ice, a dog on a leash can easily pull a person down - it's not safe.

When the snow was new, there were no cars moving, and we turned the dogs loose and walked with them through beautifuly white yards, lanes, and parks. It was lovely, and all the dogs and their people were out being amiable. But now, cars are driving through the ruts in the side-street slush; the snow over walking places is terribly uneven, ranging from crunchy to hard to slurpy to slick. The all-but-invisible "black ice" is slicker than greased glass. I walk baby steps while the dogs have the stability of four legs. I call them to come, but KFC leavings are stronger than their master's voice. When I catch up, we have contests of wills among the garbage heaps and have to go home early, with me hoarse from yelling, them reluctant to leave their plunder, and all of us in a bad mood.

One man we met suggested hitching the dogs to a sled. If we ever get the car dug out, I'll shop for one. A sled ride from the house to the dumpster might be fun.

-FW

The Meat of the Matter

2008-12-31T09:15:00.000-08:00

On a very short bus ride on the #9 from Broadway and Windsor to Commercial Drive, a white man maybe in his 70s or so told me a very interesting story. He was from Newfoundland, as best I recall, and he grew up having only one kind of meat, and that was moose that they hunted themselves. He said he used to hunt moose on a bicycle. "You don't really hunt them, there were so many around, you just picked out the one you wanted." He said that there was no such thing as tough moose meat, that no matter how old the moose was, the meat was always tender, and that it was the best meat in the world because it not only didn't clog the arteries, it cleaned them. He said if you ate only moose all your life, you could be 80 and have the arteries of a 20 year old. The only time you couldn't eat moose was in the mating season, "because they get so wild" and the meat was not fit at that time. He said he didn't blame them because it was such a short mating season, their only chance all year long, they got frantic and they would attack anything. He said the only other meat that was as good for you as moose was maybe kangaroo meat, and maybe ostrich. I mentioned that I had only eaten ostrich once and turned out I was allergic to it, I broke out in hives. And he told me that was certainly possible, because "every kind of meat has at least one enzyme that is not in any other meat."

It is always lovely to meet neighbourhood experts. I thank the uncle for the little lesson in about 8 blocks.

Vote November 15 - the information you need

2008-11-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

Voting is from 8 am to 8 pm only.

You can find your voting place with this handy Voting Place Search Tool:
http://vanmapp2.vancouver.ca/vps2008/voteMain.cfm

You can only vote in the correct place for your address. (The City was supposed to have sent out cards telling registered voters where to vote, but at least some of the aunties say they never received them.)

If you're on the Provincial voting list, you're also registered in the City. If not, you can register on election day, but be sure to bring two pieces of identification - you have to prove your address and at least one i.d. has to have your signature. (Non-resident property electors* have to show more proof and have to get that information from the City clerk's office.) Here are some examples of i.d. you can use:

• B.C. Driver’s Licence
• B.C. ID card from Motor Vehicle Branch
• ICBC Owner’s Certifi cate of Insurance and Vehicle Licence
• B.C. Care Card
• Social Insurance Card
• Citizenship Card
• Property Tax Notice
• credit card or debit card
• utility bill
• Ministry of Housing and Social Development
(formerly Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance)
Monthly Report/Request for Continued Assistance (HSD 081)

You can't count on voting at the same place you did in previous elections, nor can you be sure the polling place is in your voting area. Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House, which is on the South side of Broadway at Prince Albert, is being used for voting by people who all reside on the north side of Broadway. There is a pedestrian light you can use to get across that busy street.

The city has a .pdf Voters' Guide here:

http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/election2008/pdf/2008VancouverVotersGuide-web.pdf

The map on this document is too small and ill-marked, use the Voting Place Search Tool - but there is other information including the profiles of ALL the candidates.

In this election, you get to choose:

• 1 Mayor
• 10 Councillors
• 7 Park Commissioners
• 9 School Trustees

All offices are held for a three-year term.

I have no idea how the CBC and other broadcasters get around the CRTC election regulations in not giving substantially equal hearing to all candidates. There are 15 candidates for Mayor, 32 candidates running for the 10 city council seats, 20 candidates for the 7 parks commission seats, and 19 candidates for the 9 school trustee seats.

Candidates backed by political parties will have the party name next to their name on the ballot. The NPA who currently hold the mayorship and a majority on all the boards are running a full slate. Vision Vancouver, COPE, and the Green Party are running a joint slate - so if you want to vote for mainstream progressives you can vote for all of those and don't have to vote against any of them. There are also candidates from the (federally-eligible) Work Less Party, and the lesser-known but intriguingly-named Nude Garden Party, plus a slough of independents.

Their profiles are all on that link I mentioned above, but there are also links to their "unedited nomination documents" on this page:

http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/election2008/candidate-profiles.htm

There will be people at many of the polling places handing out leaflets about the Single Transferable Vote referendum coming up in May. They are allowed to do this because STV is a Provincial referendum and not an issue in the civic election. If approved, this method would allow you to vote for more than one candidate to represent you provincially and to rank your choices from first choice to last. This can eliminate the dilemma of voting for someone you don't want in order to prevent someone you don't want even more from getting elected.

COPE (the Coalition of Progressive Electors) has its party HQ in a complex in Mt. Pleasant, on the Northwest corner of Broadway and Carolina (across from Mac's). They are recruiting volunteers to help get out the vote on election day. Getting out the vote theoretically does not favour a particular candidate, so it's not electioneering.

COPE had a policy conference of its members, and its platform draft is here:
http://www.cope.bc.ca/content/2008-draft-policy
Betty Krawczyk of the Workless Party has accused Ellen Woodsworth of COPE of supporting legalised brothels for the Olympics, but given what is in the platform and the known opinions of some of the names shown as having platform input to COPE, I doubt that. I have an email in to Ellen asking about it. One of the visible supporters of COPE is NDP MP for our area Libby Davies, whose opinions on this issue are discussed here

Voting is fun and exciting and will give you a sense of ownership over the politicians if people you voted for won. But no matter who wins, remembers, you're going to have to keep after them regularly between elections about the issues you really want to see actualized. Otherwise, it's just a shell game.

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*One thing you might not know is that people who can vote in this election must be Canadian citizens, but they don't have to be current residents of Vancouver. Anyone who formerly lived in BC for at least 6 months before registering to vote in Vancouver and who owns property in Vancouver can vote in Vancouver city election even if they don't live here. However, they

Really stinky dirt

2008-10-25T01:11:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, landscapers laid down some really stinky dirt around the Production Way/University Sky Train stop in Burnaby. It was mostly put down under an overhang where the rain couldn't get to it, and it smelled so bad for months it would make you gag while waiting for or getting off the bus. It is a uniform very dark brown in colour and smelled like a pig feedlot to me.

Now, the same kind of terrible-smelling dirt is being laid down around the VCC-Clark Skytrain station, at the foot of North China Park. I asked one of the workers what it was, and he said it was a mixture of cow manure and dirt. I said "that's not like any cow manure I ever smelled, smells like pig manure to me." He said "there's probably some of that in there, too. Also residue from mushroom farming." I said "mushroom farming, they use dangerous chemicals in that." He said "yes, when this stuff is dry you can set fire to it and it will blow up."

Now, he may have been exaggerating, but I really think someone from the new high-paid Translink Board should be made to come out there and actually walk around the Sky Train station for a change and get a whiff of it. Maybe they would change their dirt contractor.

I believe in recycling manure, but that smells strong enough to burn up anything alive. If you go look at the Production Way Sky Train station where it was laid down months ago, the smell has diminished but there's still nothing growing in it. That's not healthy dirt - something would be growing in good dirt by now. You can't just put stuff like that at full strength on the ground - you need it to be worked on by organisms, first bacteria and then after it loses some of its strength, by the right kind of worms.

There's some information about the use of worms to recycle manure from pig farms in this review of The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Worms.

Just this week, CBC's The National exposed illegal practices being done with recycling electronic waste from the Vancouver area. Wouldn't surprise me if this dirt we're seeing around the Sky Trains is also the result of some illegal recycling. If not illegal, the way it's being prepared should be illegal. Go walk by there and sniff if you don't believe me.

Sun. Nov. 9, Bus Riders Union Protest, Main St. Skytrain Station, 1-3 pm

2008-10-25T01:01:00.000-07:00

Event: On Sunday, November 9th: Speak out against privatization!
What: Protest
Host: Vancouver Bus Riders Union
Start Time: Sunday, November 9 at 1:00pm
End Time: Sunday, November 9 at 3:00pm
Where: Main Street Skytrain Station

To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=29786929423
(You have to be a Facebook user to log in to this, but you can apply for an account.)

I don't know what they're going to say, but I like the Bus Riders Union, it's a good concept and they work hard, both at the level of research and actually riding the buses and talking to folks.

Voting - good, bad, ugly

2008-10-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

I voted for the first time in Canada in this month's federal election. Some of the good things compared to the US included that I had no problem registering at the polling place on election day, that lines were very short when I went, and that the ballot was paper and was very simple to read (big type!) and to mark (big X).

Not everyone had it as smooth as I did, however. One senior auntie was upset because her polling place had been moved from the one closest to her house to one farther away. Another was sent home from the polls to get something with her address on it before she could vote. Always before she had been able to just show up and vote. This time, she had heard she would need i.d., but she didn't realize she would have to show two i.d.'s, at least one with her address on it. She also was not permitted to use her Care Card as i.d. - something that was not published anywhere. As she has no driver's license, she was told to bring a bill from home with her name on it. If she didn't have any bills in her own name, would she have been able to vote?

For people without all that proper i.d., a registered voter who knows the person is supposed to be able vouch for them. But an auntie told me she was only permitted to vouch for one person - a second person she knew who had the same problem was turned away without being able to vote.*

The requirement to show i.d. with your address was reported to have disenfranchised many homeless people in Vancouver, and I expect someone in the anti-poverty field may try to take this to court. But in general, I think Canadians are fairly unsuspecting about election rigging and this could be an early sign of it crossing the border from the U.S. Purging voters of a particular political leaning has gone very far in the U.S. recently. Among the films that document this is Stealing America: Vote by Vote, a new feature-length release by award-winning California documentarian Dorothy Fadiman. You can view that entire 90-minute film online here:

STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote from Concentric Media on Vimeo.

Another disturbing sign in Canada was reported in a Canadian TV news program I saw in the last year or so, which explained that the Conservative Party maintains a large and sophisticated database that includes answers people on the voter rolls have given to questions about their political opinions. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that homeless people are less likely than average to vote Conservative, but with such data it can be possible to target voter obstruction in a more sophisticated manner. Mt. Pleasant is in Libby Davies' Van East riding, and she won handily again.

Recently I interviewed the president of the Simon Fraser Student Society and we discussed the online voting system used for the first time in their last election. He pooh-pooed my concern that electronic voting is more subject to rigging than paper balloting, said voting electronically was modernization, and cited instances of known paper ballot rigging. I wish I had had this quote from the Fadiman film to tell him then: "It takes a long time to change 10,000 paper ballots by hand; it takes seconds to change 10,000 electronically."

At the conclusion of this film is a segment showing that the US state of New Mexico recently passed a law mandating a return to paper ballots statewide - the reason being, that with paper you have something to re-count. With electronic voting, the answer is only blowing in the wind.

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*Votes cast in 2008 in Van East were 41,369, with 270 being rejected ballots. In 2006 there were 42,494 ballots cast, with 200 being rejected ballots. In 2006, Libby Davies (NDP) won by 56.6%; in 2008, by 54.4%. This proves nothing, aside from the fact that it doesn't contradict a hypothesis that vote totals may have been diminished this year by people being turned away from the polls.

Surround City Hall for Housing Saturday Oct. 18

2008-10-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

Forwarded release from Stand for Housing:

Will you take one hour on Saturday, October 18 at 1:00 to surround our city hall?

A Call for Action
SURROUND CITY HALL
Oct 18 1-2 pm
This is a finale of a week long vigil and fast to end homelessness at City Hall
& Homeless Awareness Week (Oct 13-18)

Homeless action week has been amazing - a five day vigil and fast at city hall will culminate with our joint Vancouver wide housing stand on Saturday, Oct. 18.
Now we need a very large crowd to pressure the new city council. This action has widespread support from churches, unions and community groups but we need bodies on the street to demonstrate our determination to end homelessness and create affordable homes in Vancouver.

Please join us!

Analysis of Libby Davies' Work on Prostitution Issues and the Controversy Surrounding It

2008-10-09T23:35:00.000-07:00

Many of the aunties in our Vancouver East riding support Libby Davies of the NDP to be returned to Parliament, but some of the aunties have been saying they are concerned about her views on prostitution. An auntie who has been volunteering with Davies' campaign inquired about this and sends some information about what Davies' position is and has been.

In 2002, Libby made a Speech in Parliament: Time to Review Canada's Solicitation Laws She was supporting her private members motion to create a parliamentary committee to review solitication laws. She includes the fact that if women get a criminal record that makes it harder for them to leave prostitution. In 2003, Libby released a press statement saying all parties had agreed that the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights should review federal laws around solicitation, with a view to "recommend changes that would reduce the dangers facing sex trade workers and ensure safer and healthy communities." The report that came out in December 2006 is called THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE: A STUDY OF CANADA’S CRIMINAL PROSTITUTION LAWS. Libby discussed it in a January 2007 press release.

The government's 139-page report is interesting, among other reasons, because it shows that three parties in Parliament agreed that prostitution be viewed as a public health issue, while the Conservative party's dissenting section stated prostitution should be viewed as violence against women. This language, that prostitution is violence against women, is also used by the feminists who support abolition of prostitution; but clearly the Conservatives do not support the feminists' recommendations for a remedy, which includes a guaranteed livable income, housing, drug rehab availability, and other social services.

According to the auntie who volunteers on her campaign, Libby supports decriminalization but not legalization of prostitution, she wishes to reduce harm to women who are involved in the sex trade and reduce barriers to their being able to exit. The auntie said that even those who had some quarrels with Libby's position on prostitution would get farther towards their own goals keeping Libby, who is honest, works hard on the issue, and really cares about the prostituted women [even if she calls them "sex workers"]. She also said that Libby's positions are her own and not necessarily the same as those of the NDP platform. [I did not find prostitution mentioned in the NDP's platform, but here are sections of their platform on Women: Moving Forward on Equality and Building Strong Communities.]

Here are Libby's own words about prostitution from the 2007 release:

I will continue to call for law reform, immediate support for exit strategies, and the need for a public inquiry, to ensure that necessary changes are made at all levels of government, to best protect the rights and safety of sex workers and affected communities.

Current laws around prostitution make street level sex workers vulnerable to selective law enforcement as well as exploitation and violence. Survival sex workers are often poor and drug dependent, and are reluctant to seek protection under the law.

Cuts in social programs and spending, together with increasing poverty, particularly over the past decade, have forced more women into survival sex trade.

The Parliamentary Committee on Justice and Human Rights recently completed its report on prostitution laws, The Challenge of Change: a Study of Canada's Criminal Prostitution Laws. ... The report outlines the failure of the criminal code to protect sex workers and local communities. When sex workers are displaced to isolated areas as a result of the communicating law, they face greater risk for harm and death and become easier targets for predators.

There was near unanimous agreement from witnesses heard at the committee that the current status and regime of law enforcement pertaining to prostitution is unworkable, contradictory and unacceptable. It has created an environment of marginalization and violence, with negative impacts on both sex workers and affected local communities.

Sex workers are fearful to report violence, assault and coercion because of their illegal status. Their poor relationship with law enforcement authorities, contributes to the danger they face. Better training of law enforcement agencies is needed.

I believe the federal government must come to terms with the contradictions and impossibility of the status quo, and engage in a process of law reform that will lead to the decriminalization of laws pertaining to prostitution and focus criminal sanctions on harmful situations.

It is also critical for all levels of government to immediately improve the safety of sex workers and assist them to exit the sex trade if they are not there by choice, by providing significant resources for poverty alleviation and income support, education and training, and treatment for addictions.

In February 2002, I called on the Mayor of Vancouver, as Chair of the Vancouver Police Board, to support an inquiry into the police investigation of the missing women to determine what happened. This public inquiry still needs to happen.

In March 2008, the Workless Party hosted a forum titled "Should Prostitution Be Legalised Before the 2010 Olympics," organized and moderated by Carly Teng. This was recorded and produced as streaming video by Working TV. Among the participants, pretty much all wanted to remove the criminal penalty on women for "communicating" - i.e., offering to exchange sex for money - but there was a strong division over whether the johns, or purchasers of sex, should be criminalized (a.k.a. The Swedish Model - a law passed in Sweden in 1999 and emulated by a number of other countries, including Korea and Norway). It is significant that the success of Sweden's law has depended heavily on Sweden's survivable welfare rates and other supports to exiting both prostitution and drug addiction.

On legalization - which is not advocated by Davies - A recent report by Deutsche Welle, picked up by the Women's UN Report Network, is titled Europe Reconsiders Prostitution as Sex Trafficking Booms . Basically, legalized prostitution in Europe is creating a market and a cover for forced trafficking of women for sexual purposes.

Just as a footnote - from the same article:

In Britain, where paid sex is legal but prostitutes aren't allowed to solicit in public [like in Canada], a group of Labour MPs have advocated for replacing criminal penalties for street prostitutes with mandatory counseling programs to get them out of the business. "We don't criminalize people who sell kidneys, we criminalize the buyer," Labour MP Fiona MacTaggart told Reuters news agency.

I hasten to add that "mandatory counseling" is not part of Libby Davies' position, nor that of either the decriminalization or the abolition segments of Vancouver's activists on this issue.

Is someone poisoning animals?

2008-10-07T22:33:00.000-07:00

A neighbour says that she found her kitten dead with no apparent marks on her and blood coming out of her mouth. She thinks the kitten was poisoned. Both she and I have noticed a decrease in the number of squirrels in the neighbourhood. She wonders if someone puts out poison to kill squirrels and perhaps other animals are eating it as well. Reply if you know anything about this firsthand.

There has also been a theft of a small, curly black poodle in the neighbourhood. The owner of the dog has had it for 11 years and is putting up reward notices. She said the dog was picked up while it was urinating by a telephone pole a few feet away from her, and carried away by someone. A man who has a similar, but younger dog, told me a young, heavyset woman in her 20s picked up his dog while they were in Sahalli park and started to walk away with it.

John Graham case thrown out - back to grand jury

2008-10-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

According to Doc Yip, our neighbour John Graham, a Canadian first nations man who was extradited to the US to stand trial, is getting another chance. The judge in South Dakota threw out his indictment, because of errors in it. So now, it goes back to the Grand Jury - a panel of citizens who review the evidence and decide if there is enough of it to hold a trial. Doc says that the evidence is extremely shaky - basically the coerced statement of one man who appears drunk in the videotaped statement. She says the police were putting words in that man's mouth and he was just agreeing. So, it's possible Graham could be freed without a trial.

Bad planning for contracted paving

2008-10-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

A private contracting company is tearing up the brand new sidewalk on Great Northen Way, to the west of the VCC parking lot and across from the VCC Clark skytrain station. They say they are doing that to build a wider sidewalk. I have to question 1) why, if the City wanted a wider sidewalk there, they did't build it in the first place, and 2) why widen the sidewalk on that side of the street? Where it may need to be widened is between the Skytrain and the nearby Great Northern Way Campus. There is virtually no traffic on foot or bicycle on the side of the street where they are building, and they are narrowing the amount of nice green grass growing along there.

Who makes these decisions, and whom do they ask about actual conditions?

Working TV online

2008-10-01T03:16:00.000-07:00

I just want to pay tribute to the work of Working TV in Vancouver, headed by Julius Fisher. Sometimes you can see their work on Shaw Cable channel 4, but you can watch all kinds of local events on their website http://www.workingtv.com/, plus I just found some really good short video news clips of theirs on Facebook, including the Stand for Housing, the launch of the Walk for Justice, etc.

If anybody knows how to make direct video links that would play through a blog, please teach me!

Reward for return of recorder

2008-09-20T22:41:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Sept. 12, someone came up on my front porch at 7:30 in the morning and took my bag. The black handle-bag said What's the Word on it, and it also contained my new black fanny pack style leather purse, and also a cloth fanny pack with some audio recording equipment. The equipment was outdated, but I need it because I have discs recorded with it that won't play in other machines. Here are pictures of the recorder and the microphone:

If you have found or acquired any of this stuff, or have news of its whereabouts, please reply to this blog with a way to get in touch, to claim the reward. More info on request.

New Mural

2008-09-20T22:34:00.000-07:00

Catch the new wall painting on the northeast corner of Fraser and Broadway. It depicts a scene that is more or less patterned after the False Creek area looking north towards the Science World geodesic dome. I saw three women working on it a couple of weeks ago but did not have my camera with me. The colours are more pastel than the one a block away at Prince Albert and Broadway. I hope this one, too, will be respected by the local taggers. Anyone with a picture of this mural, please post a link in the comments section.

Plant symbiosis

2008-09-20T22:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I walk around the neighbourhood, I see what I call "plant friends" - plants that seem to have established a friendly symbiosis with each other. There's an example of this just east of the southern end of North China Park. A very big tree in front of that blue house with purple trim seems to be something like a locust tree, with long compound leaves, but growing right out of it are well developed limbs of both a maple and something that appears to be a cherry tree.

Tai Chi resumes at Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House

2008-09-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Tai Chi/Chi Gong classes resumed last week at the Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House (Broadway at Prince Albert - 1 block east of Fraser). They are weekly from 10:30 to 11:30 am. $3 per lesson, drop-in fee is extremely reasonable. Instructor is Lyla Yip, a well known Tai Chi practitioner in Vancouver and also a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Doc Yip is one of the models even for a tai chi sculpture group being planned for one of the Vancouver parks.

The basic version of Tai Chi taught in this class is "24 steps," a short form in the Yang style tradition. However, the class also includes a smattering of whatever will be good for our health or what Doc Yip is learning in her own Tai Chi studies - so, sometimes we work with fans, or sticks, or we "do the bear."

First time tai chi people are welcome as well as those with experience, and all ages can attend. I myself have studied off and on for about 8 years and while I am not by any means skillful, I've gotten a lot of enjoyment and much improved my balance, both physical and mental.

This class is one of the hidden treasures of Mt. Pleasant. It could use up to 3 or 4 more regulars before it becomes too full for the room, so please come on down.

Vitamin D you can get for free

2008-09-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

Recently someone told me you can't get your vitamin D from sunlight if the sun is coming through glass. I looked this up online, and according to this site only about 5% of the Vitamin-D-forming UV-B form of ultraviolet light makes it through a pane of glass.

UV-B is also filtered out by the angled sun slanting through more of the atmosphere, so that it's really only possible to make much vitamin D through sun exposure if you go out in the direct sun between 10 am and 2 pm. (The source didn't say if this was standard or daylight time!) You should also expose as much of your skin as you can on this walk, to give more of your skin a chance to do the job. If you expose 85% of your skin, basically, go out in a bathing suit, you can pick up about 4000 international units, which is good. The darker your skin, the more sun time you need. And the oilier your skin, the more D you make and absorb (so all this bathing probably really does weaken us).

So, the dogs are right when they nag me to go for a walk in the middle of the day. We should all be out taking the sun - like "Englishmen" - around lunchtime. Then, you can eat some D-bearing foods for lunch, like egg yolks, shellfish, oily fish, organ meats, menudo and insects (so, don't throw away the worm!).

Not getting enough Vitamin D can cause lots of problems, and is suspected as the reason that MS (multiple sclerosis) is so much more prevalent in northern latitudes than farther south.

See ya in the park! Wreck beach, anybody?

Alcohol addiction and nutrition

2008-08-31T15:53:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I studied with biochemist Roger Wiliams at The University of Texas. Williams was the discoverer of pantothenic acid, and already a respected professor emeritus in the 1970s. The course was called Biochemical and Physiological Bases of Individual Human Differences.

One of the things I learned was that people's need for various nutrients varies tremendously. Williams did experiments and discovered that rats deprived of nutrients would drink alcohol, but those that were fully nouristed lost interest. He developed a nutritional supplement to try to cover the nutritional bases of people who had unusually high requirements for nutrients.

He made two mistakes in promoting this discovery. The first was that he wrote a book stating that people who took this formula did not need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. AA attacked him with such a vengeance that he recalled the copies of his book, because, he said he had been too arrogant. He had looked only at the physiological and not the psychological side of alcoholism.

The other error Williams made was that he gave the formula for these vitamins away free to several pharmaceutical companies. What this meant was that no company had a unique stake in promoting it to the public.

Back in the 70s, the formula was available from General Nutrition Centers in the US. I had a friend who gave these vitamins to her elderly mother, a lifelong alcoholic, and she reported that her mother spontaneously stopped drinking for the last years of her life.

I also started buying the formula for my lover. She stopped drinking completely for years, and then began drinking occasionally socially without falling back into binging. When GNC stopped making the formula, she changed to other daily vitamins, and soon went back to binging severely on alcohol.

For about a decade after Roger Williams's death, the Clayton Foundation at The University of Texas promoted information about alcoholism and nutrition. Through them I found that the Bronson company was producing the vitamins under the name Insurance Formula. For a while they seemed to have stopped making it, but they are now making an "improved" formula that still credits Roger Williams:

http://www.bronsonvitamins.com/1B/vitamin-mineral-insurance

I gather there might be a supplement being produced by the Lilly company used in alcoholism recovery, including by the US military, but I haven't been able to get any details.

There's a tribute website about Williams by Donald R. Davis of the Biochemical Institute that is incomplete as to listings of Williams's work.

After much difficult searching online, I found this page that has a version of the Roger Williams formula that you can try yourself:

http://www.doctoryourself.com/alcoholism.html

The author tells an anecdote very similar to the ones I mentioned - of a woman who was able to stop drinking completely and then drink occasionally while on this kind of supplementation.

I am going to copy the relevant portion of the text below, in case that site shuts down.

Here's the "doctor yourself" formula info:

There is a proven nutritional treatment for alcoholism," I said. "Roger Williams, PhD, a chemistry professor at the University of Texas and former president of the American Chemical Society, has written extensively on the subject. His work dates from 1950 to the mid-seventies."
"What does he recommend?" Betty said.
"Megadoses of vitamins and an amino acid called L-glutamine." I stood up and walked over to a bookcase, pulled down a couple of references, and returned to my squeaky brown swivel desk chair.
"Here we go," I said. "You might want to write this down. Thousands of milligrams of vitamin C a day, in divided doses; all the B-vitamins, especially thiamin, in a B-complex supplement, five times a day; and about three grams of L-glutamine. This, a general good diet, with an avoidance of sugar, is essentially it. ...

There is some more about the formula later on the page:

vitamin B-1 supplements are essential. And to get maximum results, additional nutrients must also be provided in abundance through supplementation.
Which ones, specifically?
1. Vitamin C to saturation (on the order of 10,000 to 20,000 mg per day and more). ...

2. B-complex (comprising 50mg of each of the major B-vitamins, 6 times daily). Extra thiamin and extra niacin may be helpful. Unlike drugs, the B-vitamins work best together.
3. L-Glutamine, (about two or three thousand milligrams). Decreases physiological cravings for alcohol.
4. Lecithin (2 to 4 tablespoons daily). Provides inositol and choline, related to the B-complex. Lecithin also helps mobilize fats out of the liver.
5. Chromium (at least 200 to perhaps 400 mcg chromium polynicotinate daily). Chromium greatly reduces carbohydrate mis-metabolism, and greatly helps control blood sugar levels. Many, if not most, alcoholics are hypoglycemic.
6. A good high-potency multi-vitamin, multi-mineral supplement as well, containing magnesium (400 mg) and the antioxidants carotene and d-alpha tocopherol.

That site is by Andrew Saul,author of the books FIRE YOUR DOCTOR! How to be Independently Healthy and DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works.

Now, here is another item I found online and have lost the link for:

Vitamin supplements for alcohol withdrawel and anxiety

---------------------------------

I wish I would've had this information handy in my first 30 days! Be aware that many of these supplements are harmful to your liver when combined with booze!!

Many alcoholics are deficient in B vitamins, including vitamin B3. John Cleary, M.D., observed that some alcoholics spontaneously stopped drinking in association with taking niacin supplements (niacin is a form of vitamin B3). Cleary concluded that alcoholism might be a manifestation of niacin deficiency in some people and recommended that alcoholics consider supplementation with 500 mg of niacin per day. 4 Without specifying the amount of niacin used, Cleary's preliminary research findings suggested that niacin supplementation helped wean some alcoholics away from alcohol. 5 Activated vitamin B3 used intravenously has also helped alcoholics quit drinking. 6 Niacinamide-a safer form of the same vitamin-might have similar actions and has been reported to improve alcohol metabolism in animals. 7

Deficiencies of other B-complex vitamins are common with chronic alcohol use. 8 The situation is exacerbated by the fact that alcoholics have an increased need for B vitamins. 9 It is possible that successful treatment of B-complex vitamin deficiencies may actually reduce alcohol cravings, because animals crave alcohol when fed a B-complex-deficient diet. 10 Many doctors recommend 100 mg of B-complex vitamins per day.

Alcoholics may be deficient in a substance called prostaglandin E1 (PGE1) and in gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), a precursor to PGE1. 11 In a double-blind study of alcoholics who were in a detoxification program, supplementation with 4 grams per day of evening primrose oil (containing 360 mg of GLA) led to greater improvement than did placebo in some, but not all, parameters of liver function. 12

The daily combination of 3 grams of vitamin C, 3 grams of niacin, 600 mg of vitamin B6, and 600 IU of vitamin E has been used by researchers from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in an attempt to reduce anxiety and depression in alcoholics. 13 Although the effect of vitamin supplementation was no better than placebo in treating alcohol-associated depression, the vitamins did result in a significant drop in anxiety within three weeks of use. Because of possible side effects, anyone taking such high amounts of niacin and vitamin B6 must do so only under the care of a doctor.

Although the incidence of B-complex deficiencies is known to be high in alcoholics, the incidence of other vitamin deficiencies remains less clear. 14 Nonetheless, deficiencies of vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, and vitamin C are seen in many alcoholics. While some reports have suggested it may be safer for alcoholics to supplement with beta-carotene instead of vitamin A, 15 potential problems accompany the use of either vitamin A or beta-carotene in correcting the deficiency induced by alcoholism. 16 These problems result in part because the combinations of alcohol and vitamin A or alcohol and beta-carotene appear to increase potential damage to the liver. Thus, vitamin A-depleted alcoholics require a doctor's intervention, including supplementation with vitamin A and beta-carotene accompanied by assessment of liver function. Supplementing with vitamin C, on the other hand, appears to help the body rid itself of alcohol. 17 Some doctors recommend 1 to 3 grams per day of vitamin C.
Kenneth Blum and researchers at the University of Texas have examined neurotransmitter deficiencies in alcoholics. Neurotransmitters are the chemicals the body makes to allow nerve cells to pass messages (of pain, touch, thought, etc.) from cell to cell. Amino acids are the precursors of these neurotransmitters. In double-blind research, a group of alcoholics were treated with 1.5 grams of D,L-phenylalanine (DLPA), 900 mg of L-tyrosine, 300 mg of L-glutamine, and 400 mg of L-tryptophan (now available only by prescription) per day, plus a multivitamin-mineral supplement. 18 This nutritional supplement regimen led to a significant reduction in withdrawal symptoms and decreased stress in alcoholics compared to the effects of placebo.

The amino acid, L-glutamine, has also been used as an isolated supplement. Animal research has shown that glutamine supplementation reduces alcohol intake, a finding that has been confirmed in double-blind human research. 19 In that trial, 1 gram of glutamine per day given in divided portions with meals decreased both the desire to drink and anxiety levels.

It's raining food in Mt. Pleasant

2008-08-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

If you look around the neighbourhood, the last few weeks have been full of edible goodies on trees, shrubs, and vines, and it's not over yet. Fruit I have personally eaten in the last two weeks grown VERY locally includes apples, blackberries, plums, raspberries, and salal. I've been looking up to see if Mahonia (a.k.a. Oregon grape) is edible. It can be somewhat toxic unless fully ripe, from what I see here. Best to wait until after a frost or two.

While you're looking for wild food, note that the fall crop of dandelion leaves are very tender and only mildly bitter. I have added them and also the pretty abundant chickweed as ingredients in soup. There are also new, tender shoots of lemonbalm, which is a good tea or a nibble for your nervous system.

Mint is abundant, too, in places where runoff collects, but it's almost too strong this time of year. Nettle also loves damp places, and it's still around. Don't touch the green plant, harvest with gloves or tongs; then either cook it - makes a good soup green - or dry it in a paper bag and use for a nourishing tea throughout the year.

STAND for Housing on Saturdays

2008-03-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

There's a great video of Stand for Housing on Facebook, posted by Julius Fisher of Working TV: http://www.new.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=13692872503

Below is a list of locations around Vancouver of people who have committed to bear silent witness to the need for action on affordable housing in this city. Looks like it should be possible to organize another of these - or several - around Mt. Pleasant. If interested, contact the organizers and get on the list.

From: info@citywidehousingcoalition.org

CITYWIDE HOUSING COALITION

Immediate Release
6 March 2008
Vancouver, BC CANADA

STREET-CORNER "STANDS" FOR HOUSING
Continue this Saturday and next

Neighbourhood housing activists will again stand on Vancouver street
corners, Saturday March 8 for one hour, 1-2pm, with banners and
wearing vivid blue scarves. They'll be calling attention to federal
and provincial failures to build permanent social housing, and the
City of Vancouver's proposed abandonment of deals with Concord
Pacific for affordable housing in downtown condo towers.

STANDers will also be paying respects to the hundreds of dead and
dying homeless men, women, and children- victims of legislated
poverty and government neglect in BC and Canada. In Vancouver they
populate our streets and lanes, huddle in parks and encampments, burn
to death in doorways, are crushed in back alley garbage bins.

Ten "STAND for Housing-Homes for All!" sites have been confirmed for
this, the third of four weekly Stands:
- Main St. & 33rd Avenue (Kia Salomons and Community Advocates
for Little Mtn)
- Main St & King Edward (Ned Jacobs, Mary Ann Code, and CALM)
- Arbutus & King Edward (Homeless Nation and Random Acts Of
Kindness -RAOK)
- Broadway & McDonald (Candace Simmonds and Kitsilano CHC)
- Heather & 6th Ave (Rider Cooey and False Creek neighbours)
- Commercial & 1st Avenue (Anna Truong, Dave Diewert & Streams
of Justice)
- Cordova & Gore (Anne Kennedy and St James Social Gospel
Coordinating Group)
- Oak & W 49th Ave (Leslie Kemp and Unitarian Church Social
Justice Cttee)
- Commercial & Broadway (Lauren Gill, Homeless Nation and RAOK)
- Burrard & Nelson (Bobbie Phillips and the St Andrew's-Wesley
Homelessness & Mental Health Action Group)
- [Christ Church Cathedral, Georgia & Burrard, will resume next week.]

Some STANDs for Housing will pause over the Easter Break, Friday to
Monday March 21-24, then continue, calling for substantial funding to
be dedicated by federal, provincial, and municipal politicians to
building new, permanent, low- and welfare-rate housing. Using the
surplus billions in the prosperous economies of Canada and BC to
build the full spectrum of housing for all citizens is the primary
mechanism by which homelessness must be defeated.

The public and media are invited to join us at any of the above
locations. The idea of the STAND is based on the moving example of
the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, whose children were "disappeared"
by the military, 1976 to 1983. They stood every week in a city
square wearing white scarves until the generals capitulated. The
scarves became an international "brand" for protests against unjust
and inhumane governments.

--30--

Contact: Rider Cooey 604.872-1382
False Creek Organizer
Citywide Housing Coalition

Night Walkers

2008-01-26T00:04:00.001-08:00

It's a Friday night after 10 pm and I'm walking around with dogs, getting exercise on what may be the last dry night for a while. I notice quite a few groups of three or four tall white males in their late teens or early 20s. One group, in Sahalli Park, is standing around the table probably drinking beer and talking about things like girlfriends in polite tones. Another group are running down the sidewalk along Broadway doing mock kicks at things like bus stops and staggering a bit. With their long flailing legs and arms they look like people not to get close to, and the dogs and I stand back until they turn and head into the alley. It's not a full moon, that was last week. Maybe a preview of summer and who our neighbours have grown up to be.

Farewell to a Stunning View

2008-01-03T20:41:00.000-08:00

The new construction behind the Vancouver Community College on Broadway (the one for which the new VCC/Clark Skytrain stop was named) is blocking off half of what until recently was, from the terrace, one of the most sweeping and majestic views of the city publicly available. Chalk another one up in the unacknowledged costs column.

dogs & squirrels & crows

2007-11-28T10:31:00.000-08:00

Congrats, Mt. Pleasant Auntie! Training a 4-legger to find interest in us rather than a moving "toy" is not easy. Alta will chase any crow when she's unleashed (only at parks).

Rose & Buddy now know my voice when i ask them to be quiet. This happens when i walk my 2 big foster dogs around the corner early in the morn. i can't see them, but they know me now, so it's nice to hear them relax, as if saying "oh yeah, it's the crazy dog lady".

OK, here's my blurb about the sale this Sat. in my garage on the corner of St. C's & East 8th -

Big Heart Rescue's Midnight Madness Sale is this Sat., Dec. 1st from 9 to midnight. Get in the Christmas spirit with carols, hot apple cider, homebaked cookies & lots of glitter & glam.

There's tons of new donated goodies to help us raise funds to rescue more sweeties from reserves. Big Heart spnet over $55,000 last yr. on vet bills to help all the injured dogs & cats. All funds are donated, with no gov. financing. All staff are volunteers. We save critters one soul at a time.

So, come buy a Christmas tree, ornaments, a moose or shell clock, frames, jewelry, you name it. Most items are under $5. All $ goes to help resuce & rehabilitate our critters, who then find loving people with whom to spend the rest of their days.

Join the fun, meet more dog lovers & get a pic os yoour dog with Santa!

The squirrel show

2007-11-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

These two dogs came to Vancouver from Terrace, where they had a big yard. They loved to charge after squirrels and chase them - if we let them off leash they would even dash across a street to chase. Buddy would even try to chew down a tree to get at squirrels. Regular leash walks and a lot of correction and talking-to has changed their habits. Now, when they get close to a good squirrel tree, they just stop and look up. When they spot a squirrel they almost hold their breath, just sitting and watching like a kid glued to a cartoon video screen. But the squirrels are real and interactive. Yesterday, one squirrel made its way up the tree doing lively semaphores with its tail. Finally the squirrel it was talking to made a sudden appearance at the top of a topped-off evergreen, and then raced down to appear on the ground really close to us. Today, we were all three watching a black squirrel that was just sitting in a nearly leafless tree using its tail for an umbrella. Another black squirrel appeared on a nearby telephone pole and walked around it sideways with its head pointing down. When the squirrels were still, I started urging the dogs to come home - we were getting rained on - but they just stood there glassy-eyed, and when I would look back at the squirrels, I'd discover the squirrels had moved again while I wasn't watching. Finally, one of them sped away leaping on a telephone wire and that got us moving in the direction of home.

BC Care Providers Association advice on elder care

2007-11-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

MtPleaseAunt asked the Director of PR and Member Services about the question of how rules care facility rules had "changed to make it more difficult to admit patients" (as mentioned in the previous post). She had this response:

First and foremost, let me say, "Wow!" How does such misinformation find [its] way around this town?

Your neighbour should contact the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority's Home and Community Care division to arrange for a Needs Assessment. Here is the website with all contact info -

http://www.vch.ca/seniors/needs.htm

This assessment will be done by a health care professional who will visit your neighbour's mom at home and basically determine what sort of shape she is in and what type of supports she needs. The nurse may find that a home care support worker could be the best help for her needs, or the nurse may recommend she be placed into a care home or perhaps a day program of some sort. There are various options outlined at the link above.

The other possibility is for your neighbour to pursue private pay services if she can afford that sort of thing. Again, an assessment is probably a good idea and then the nurse who conducts the assessment can outline all available options. [...]

Kate Hildebrandt
Director of Public Relations + Member Services
BC Care Providers Association
#301 - 1338 West Broadway
Vancouver, BC V6H 1H2

Care Bed Catch-22

2007-11-06T11:36:00.000-08:00

One of the Mt. Pleasant aunties is trying to get her elderly and increasingly confused mother into a live-in care facility. She found an available bed in a facility in Burnaby, but she says they won't let her mother move in there unless she has a doctor. And not just any doctor, it has to be a doctor who will pay housecalls to the care facility. The auntie has already made eight calls to doctors and no one will take on a new elderly patient. One doctor said he would put her on a waiting list - he already has 100 elderly patients.

This auntie says that it's crazy to build more care spaces if they can't admit anyone. She says someone at the care facility told her that the rules have changed recently, making it more difficult to admit patients. She also recalls that a decision was made years ago by the Canadian government, to limit the number of students who could enter medical school. It is also extremely difficult for doctors who immigrate to get licensed to practice in Canada. I tried to get a friend of mine who's a doctor in the US to immigrate, but she said she couldn't practice here without going back to medical school. My dentist's assistant was a licensed medical doctor in Russia.

Having lived in the US, I hate to say anything good about that system, but they do have something in their private sector healthcare that would be very useful for a public sector health service to emulate. When I went to a clinic with a dogbite, it was treated by a physician's assistant. When I went for a pap test, it was done by a nurse practitioner. Our BC government has gone the other way, putting allopathic doctors in as a bottleneck for everything medical. And they removed coverage for all the other specialties that could help keep people from turning to allopathic doctors, including chiropractic, naturopathic medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, dentistry, and eye care.

What I also learned from living in the US is that when government is bent on privatisation of services against the public's will, they first do things to undermine the public service. One auntie in this neighbourhood almost fell for this trick around the recycling difficulties (see previous post on this blog). After she brought back in her recycling and then missed the pickup, she started cursing all levels of government and saying "we have too much government." But her next door neighbour said no, that we just need government that will do its job.

What We Have Here Is a Failure To Communicate

2007-11-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

The week the outdoor worker strike ended, we put out our garbage and recycling at the curb. As we were leaving the house we heard a city announcement on the radio saying that the recycling would not be picked up, not to leave it out, that it would be up to two weeks before recycling was picked up. But when we got home, it had been picked up.

The next announcement from the city we heard said that normal recycling pickup would resume, so to put it out the same day as your garbage. So the next week we put them both out - the garbage was picked up, but not the recycling.

This week, we had been assured by announcements that recycling pickup would be normal. We put it out alongside the garbage. Garbage was picked up, but not recycling. I called the Garbage/Recycling line after hours in the evening, and heard an announcement saying that if your recycling was not picked up on the correct day you should NOT leave it at the curb but should bring it in and put it out again on garbage day the following week. However, luckily we didn't get around to bringing ours in before we went to bed, because this morning I was wakened by the sound of recycling being picked up.

Halloween Fireworks

2007-11-02T12:59:00.000-07:00

To some extent there are fireworks going off in Mt. Pleasant year round. I even heard some the week after the Fortune Happiness shooting that I thought were shots when they first began. However, in the period around Halloween, suddenly big signs went up on the street shouting FIREWORKS! and the booming and popping had dogs hiding under beds (or under the covers, if their owners are tolerant) all over the hood. An auntie who lives at the edge of Mt. Pleasant wrote me this information:

It's legal to have fireworks at Halloween and only on the actual day of Halloween, I think they can sell them the week prior. It's only okay for over 19s to buy and set them off. I always save some though for Guy Fawkes day on the 5th. What a rebel! Chinese New Year or other ethnic holidays are another time when I think FWs can go to some extent. It's interesting.

Doc writes Minister of Justice on behalf of John Graham

2007-10-17T22:18:00.000-07:00

One of our most respected neighbours has sent this letter, in defense of another Mt. Pleasant neighbour, John Graham, who is in jail pending extradition to the United States. She reasons that the evidence on which he is being extradited is far from sufficient. Here is her letter, unedited:

To The Right Honourable Rob Nicholson
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
105 East Block, House of Commons
Ottawa, Ont, K1A 0A6

October 15, 2007

Dear RH Rob Nicholson;
Re: Extradition of John Graham
An Indigenous Canadian Citizen

I am writing this letter in protest of the United States extradition demand for John Graham (1).

Background
John Graham is a Tuchone Native Canadian born August 13 1955 in the Yukon. He is a residential school survivor. At the age of eighteen he went to the States in search of his sister, another residential school survivor. He did not find his sister at that time, instead found a friend in Anna Mae Aquash, another Canadian Native from Nova Scotia. Anna Mae introduced John to the American Indian Movement (AIM) and encouraged him to finish his high school education at the AIM ‘Little Red School House’ where she taught. When Anna Mae’s life was threatened in 1975 by FBI Agent Price, John helped her by accompanying her to an AIM ‘safe’ house. She was murdered within a year. In the 1990’s, the FBI went to the Yukon several times to coerce John to give them names of AIM leaders who ‘ordered’ her execution, otherwise they would charge him with her murder. In 2003, John was charged with her murder.

The unsolved murder of Anna Mae Aquash (2) remains a mystery. The hearsay accusations and other unreliable evidence presented in the Record of Case (3) by the United States Government against John Graham only compounds this tragedy and undermines the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Justice for John Graham
The principles of Justice in Canada and the United States are symbolized by the Statue of Lady Justice, blindfolded and holding scales and a sword.

The Scales of Justice symbolizes the impartiality with which justice should be served.
The Blindfold is to show that justice should not be subject to influence.
The Sword Lady Justice holds signifies the power held by those making the decision.

Justice Harry S. LaForme (4), the first Aboriginal to be appointed to sit on an appellate court in the history of Canada wrote an article in the Indigenous Law Journal, The Justice System in Canada: Does it Work for Aboriginal People? This letter will clearly show how the ‘justice system’ in both Canada and the United States of America has failed in the case of John Graham.

The Scales of Justice are NOT Impartial
COINTELPRO (5) was a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting ‘dissident political organizations’ within the United States of which the American Indian Movement (AIM) (6) was included. Methods of COINTELPRO included infiltration of an organization, psychological warfare using threats, harassment through the legal system, and extralegal force and violence have all been used to disrupt and fractionate the American Indian Movement (7).

There are numerous books and articles (8) about the American Indian Movement and the FBI’s involvement to infiltrate and destroy it using COINTELPRO methods. Attached is Bruce Ellison’s, (the AIM Attorney for Leonard Peltier), Congressional Briefing (9) which succinctly describes this tragic period of American history.

The COINTELPRO was so successful in its disruption and infiltration of the American Indian Movement, that even present day AIM members do not know who they can trust. Their influence and tactics of fabricating evidence have gone beyond international borders with the well know extradition case of Leonard Peltier ( 11),

It is with such COINTELPRO powers that the FBI are able to fabricate a ‘murder theory’ and create ‘evidence’ to implicate John Graham in Aquash’s tragic murder and thus tip the scales of ‘justice’ against John Graham.

The Blind Fold Should be Removed
In his judgment, Justice Donald writes ‘ If there was more that the appellant could have done to impeach the evidence in some effective way or if he left an argument unsaid, it was not brought to our attention’ (3)

The following points provide arguments to impeach the evidence provided in the Record of the Case against John Graham.

The death and discovery of Aquash’s body
• Aquash told many friends, including Graham and Trudell that FBI Agent Price threaten she ‘may not live out the year’ if she did not co-operate with the FBI. (12) Agent Price had been reprimanded by Judge Nichol (13) in the Wounded Knee trials , for his misconduct and has never been investigated for the death of Aquash.
• Her identity and cause of death was told to Trudell by Dennis Bank before it was formally announced to the public (14).
• FBI documentation, recovered through the Freedom of Information Act, report NO evidence of foul play at the site where Aquash’s body was discovered (15)
• The ‘fence’ Arlo Looking Cloud mentions in his ‘confession’, was erected fifteen years after Aquash’s murder(16)
• The discovery of Aquash’s body and her two autopsy’s are accurately described in Hendrick’s book (15) with factual detail retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI’s first autopsy misses an obvious gunshot wound to the head and records her death as natural causes due to exposure. She is buried as a Jane Doe after her hands are severed and sent to an FBI lab for identification. (Since when does the FBI become involved with a Native Indian death due to ‘natural causes’ on a reservation?. At that time over sixty other deaths by violence had occurred at Pine Ridge and yet none of them have yet to be investigated.)
• It is only after Aquash’s family request a second autopsy which discovers an obvious gunshot wound to the head, that the FBI created their theory of murder to suggest Aquash was an FBI informer and that AIM leaders ordered her execution (15)

The FBI’s theory is inconceivable and improbable for numerous reasons:
• The heart of AIM is spirituality and to bring back the traditional native ways of the people (17). In Justice LaForme’s article he states ‘Aboriginal people believe justice is about restoration of peace and equilibrium within the community, and reconciling the wrongdoer with his or her own conscience and with the individual or family who has been wronged’(4).
• Even IF AIM suspected Aquash to be an informer, the penalty would not be an execution, but rather restore her back to the community (4)
• Even after thirty years, there is NO evidence to indicate that Aquash was ever an informant, instead her memory is honoured by the AIM community and even John Graham held a ten day International Survival Camp in 1985 in her honour (1)
• Even IF AIM ordered an execution, Why would they give such a task to John Graham, a young nineteen year old Canadian Native, NOT familiar with the AIM leaders, NOT familiar with the area of Pine Ridge, a Canadian friend of Aquash (also a Canadian and who was instrumental for John being there in the first place) (18)
• A known FBI informant, Douglas Durham, was discovered within AIM and yet NO execution order was given him (19).
The ‘Witnesses’ are Impeachable
John Graham is accused of murdering Aquash based on an improbable theory and hearsay ‘evidence’ of what Arlo Looking Cloud supposedly told John Trudell.

Who is John Trudell?
• John Trudell is a poet, writer, eloquent speaker and film maker who has contributed much to his native culture (20). However, he too has been suspected of being an FBI informant (21), perhaps unwillingly. In 1979 after not heeding threats to himself and his family, his wife, three children, and mother-in-law were killed in a suspicious house fire (22).
• At Leonard Peltier’s trial Trudell testified that Aquash told him that her life was threatened by FBI Agent Price (23). Within the year she was killed. It is not inconceivable considering the influence of COINTELPRO tactics and Trudell’s past history with the FBI, that John Trudell may be in FEAR for his life and/or the lives of his current family, believing the FBI will carry out their threats again.
• At Peltier’s trial Trudell also testified that Dennis Banks told him that the unidentified body discovered was that of Aquash and that she was shot in the back of the head (14). This information was NOT officially known or reported at the time.
• John Boy was an alias name given to John Graham by Aquash. Aside from Aquash, Trudell was the only other AIM member who knew him as John Graham. Over the years, Trudell visited Graham’s home in the Yukon on several occasions. To identify a picture of John Graham in 1975 and in 2003 was not difficult for John Trudell.
• Trudell’s hearsay evidence of what he claims Looking Cloud told him concerning the murder of Aquash is denied by Looking Cloud in an interview (24) where Looking Clouds says he was ‘set up’ by the FBI.

Who is Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud? (26)
In his judgment, Justice Donald writes as if Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud ‘actually’ provides evidence and states ‘Mr. Looking Cloud’s evidence is also sufficient to commit Mr. Graham for extradition’. But Mr. Looking cloud does not provide any evidence, but rather the US Government provides a summary of what ‘he is expected to testify’. (3)

In Arlo Looking Cloud’s controversial four day trial (18) he was convicted and found guilty of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. The ‘evidence’ against him was based on his ‘video taped confession’ in which he is obviously intoxicated, answering to leading questions by FBI Agent Ecoffey (25). A summary of the hearsay evidence against him and his controversial video taped ‘confession’ can be found in his court appeal (27). Looking Cloud received a life term in prison, which is the same John Graham will receive if extradited to the United States.

Arlo Looking Cloud was not allowed to speak soberly at his own defence. It is not likely the US Court will allow him to speak in John Graham’s defence. However, it is probable they will continue to use the ‘video taped confession’ of Arlo Looking Cloud against Graham.

FBI’s ‘Impeachable Evidence based on fabricated hearsay and intimidation:
In Judge Donald’s judgement he states:
‘Without his (John Trudell’s) evidence there would not be sufficient evidence to commit Mr. Graham for extradition. Given that hearsay evidence is admissible, Mr. Trudell’s evidence alone is sufficient to establish identification’. He also states: ‘As the extradition judge noted, there were deficiencies in the Record of the Case, but on the crucial issue of whether the person known as John Graham, also known as John Boy Patton, was the same person who committed the murder, …’ (3)

This statement implies that John Graham ‘committed the murder’, simply because John Trudell is able to identify a picture of John Boy Patton in 1975 and John Graham in 2003 as the same person.

Justice Donald also writes ‘even without Mr. Looking Cloud’s evidence, there is sufficient evidence of identification to commit Mr. Graham for extradition’. Is identification alone sufficient evidence to extradite someone for murder as indicated in Judge Donald’s judgment (3)? As mentioned above, Trudell knew John Graham well enough to visit his home several times over the years. Just because he is able to identify Graham, does that make him a ‘murderer’?

Logistically if:
(a) John Trudell’s hearsay evidence is based on what Trudell says Looking Cloud told him, and,
(b) Looking Cloud denies all accusations against him and John Graham (24), then
(c ) John Trudell’s hearsay evidence is impeached (28)

For the Canadian Government to turn a blind eye in John Graham’s case and to accept the Americans Record of the Case on ‘good faith’ would only be another travesty of justice.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom is OUR CANADIAN SWORD OF POWER.
I implore this Government to use its Power of Justice and protect Canadian citizens.
Protect John Graham’s rights as a Canadian and as an Indigenous Canadian.

Section 11 of the Charter states ‘Any person charged with an offence has the right
a. to be informed without unreasonable delay of the specific offence
They (the US government) have charged him for the murder of Anna Mae Aquash which happened in December 1975. John Graham was arrested December 1 2003.
c. not to be compelled to be a witness in proceedings against that person in respect of the offence
The FBI tried to coerce Mr. Graham several times by threatening to charge him with the murderer of Anna Mae Aquash unless he gave them names of AIM leaders. If he did not cooperate with them they would charge him with her murder.
d. to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal
The ‘evidence’ to extradite John Graham is based on the US government’s THEORY, RUMOURS, AND HEARSAY using COINTELPRO tactics and methods.

By finding Arlo Looking Cloud guilty, the US Government already presumes John Graham is guilty and he will NOT receive a fair trial in S. Dakota (as was the case for Leonard Peltier and Arlo Looking Cloud).

The appellant Judge states the ‘other elements of the offence are uncontroversial. As shown above, it is imperative the Canadian justice system remove its blindfold as this case is completely controversial.

e. not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause
Since his arrest in 2003 until BC Supreme Court rejected his appeal, John Graham was out on bail. Currently, Mr. Graham is in jail awaiting extradition.

Mr. Graham is a father of eight and also a grandfather. He is a leader in the Indigenous communities across western Canada. He was instrumental in the development of the first ‘Survival Schools’ and ‘Street Patrols’ to help Indigenous People who have suffered in Residential Schools, imprisonment, drug and alcohol abuse and homelessness. His programs promoted sobriety and were instrumental in reducing the arrest rate of Indigenous people to zero. John Graham is an educator and advocate, helping Indigenous people who find themselves in trouble with the law. He organized a ten day international gathering in N. Saskatchewan called ‘The Anna Mae Survival Camp”. He is also an environmentalist and International speaker concerning the toxic affects of uranium mining, especially in the Yukon. (17)

John Graham is a soft spoken intelligent, honest and respected person in the community. He has put his faith and trust in the Canadian judicial system, willingly surrendered himself to the court and poses no flight risk. He is without a criminal record. The only ‘record’ he has is for being an AIM member when he was nineteen years old.

Section 15.1 of the Charter states
‘Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and , in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.’

History has shown that Aboriginals in Canada and the USA have been treated unfairly by the Justice system in both countries. I conclude this letter with the following quotes:

Justice Fred Nichol, who was the Judge at the Wounded Knee trials wrote:
‘.I ended [the Wounded Knee Leadership] case with the firm conviction that the Government would go to any end ...in order to convict Mr. Banks... [T]he total disregard of truth and fairness in the Government's attempt to "get" Dennis Banks "by hook or crook" did not stop at the doorstep of the FBI. The U.S. Attorney's office was an active participant. The Court was intentionally deceived... The fact that both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office were active participants in this pollution of justice convinced me there was a systemic, in addition to an individual, desire to convict Mr. Banks by means well beyond those which were ethical and fair. After all, in other cases in my district I had both FBI agents and these attorneys before me regularly. But the willingness to lie and fabricate and withhold evidence was only exhibited against Mr. Banks and his AIM co-defendent. And it was exhibited with a vengeance. If my experience has taught me anything, it is that the past is a good indication of the future. The broad and pervasive nature of the FBI and prosecutors' misconduct in 1973 and 1974 reflected patterns and beliefs that were deeply held. I doubt they would be easily abandoned. (29)

Now re-read the paragraph and re-place John Graham’s name instead of Mr. Banks, and Arlo Looking Cloud’s name for ‘co-defendant’. History is repeating itself.

The following quote is taken from David Cole’s article ‘The New McCarthyism; Repeating History in the War on Terrorism’’;
‘It is understandable that in times of fear, we defer to authority and
close our eyes to the wrongs perpetrated in the name of our protection.
But history reveals that blind faith is wholly unwarranted. Now more
than ever it is critical that we remain true to our principles. There is nothing
wrong with prevention when it consists of protecting potential targets
of attack or stepping up security at borders, airports, and other vulnerable
points. But when prevention translates into the punishment of individuals
for what we suspect they may do, rather than for what they have done, it
cannot be justified in a democratic society. The safeguards of the criminal
process exist for a reason, and whenever we impose punishment or
deprive persons of their liberty without adhering to these safeguards, we
do more harm than good. The success of the war on terrorism, and indeed
of our democratic experiment, requires us to reconsider the shortcuts that
we have all too swiftly and predictably adopted.’ (30)

Justice Harry S. LaForme, himself a Canadian aboriginal, concludes his article The Justice System in Canada: Does it Work for Aboriginal People? with the following:
‘You now have some information to assist you, but it will be for you to answer
the question of whether the Canadian justice system works for Aboriginal people(in this case John Graham). More importantly, if your answer is what it ought to be, then the most important question becomes: What will you do about it?

I trust that you, the Minister of Justice, will do the morally right and just thing and stop the extradition of John Graham and
protect his rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom from the irrational fears created in this time of world
terrorism (31). Let the sovereign power of Canada protect its citizens and prevent another ‘Mahar Arar’ incident (32, 33).
Remember Leonard Peltier (11).

Sincerely,

Dr. Lyla M. Yip, MT,MSc,Dr. of TCM
203-2256 Brunswick St. Vancouver, BC, V5T 3L7

cc. all MP’s, all parties
cc. RH Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin
cc. major newspapers

Note: referenced linked pages can be downloaded from www.grahamdefence.org
Or request at doc_yip@telus.net

Linked References:
1. John Graham : http://www.grahamdefense.org/position1.htm
2. Biography of Anna Mae Aquash; The Anna Mae Pictou Aquash Story
http://www.wemoonsarmy.com/annaarch.html
http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com/category/nlakapamux-nation/
3. BC Supreme Court Judgement :
http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/ca/07/03/2007bcca0345.htm
4. The Justice System in Canada: Does it Work for Aboriginal People?
Author: Justice Harry S. LaForme
http://www.indigenouslawjournal.org/?q=node/62
5. COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program); COINTELPRO Revisited; COINTELPRO the Untold Story
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
http://www.dickshovel.com/coin.html
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/FBI/COINTELPRO_Untold_Story.html
6. History of AIM; History of AIM and the Governor of S.Dakota
http://www.aimovement.org/ggc/history.html
http://www.dlncoalition.org/dln_issues/strangecaseofjanklow.htm
7. COINTELPRO and AIM
http://ishgooda.org/peltier/copap7a.htm
Infiltration – Doug Durham was an FBI informant disguised as a Native
It was Aquash who discovered he was dyeing his hair black to look like a Native
Psychological warfare – Aquash’s life was threatened by Agent Price
- Trudell and his family were also threatened
Harassment through the legal system – John Graham was targeted by the RCMP
because of information given by the FBI
Extralegal force and violence – The BIA police or GOON’s with authority and
weapons provided from the FBI, evoked a ‘reign of terror’ at Pine Ridge
8. COINTELPRO PAPERS by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Hall
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=DFlIcxsGUEIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=eye+witness+for+the+defense+of+Leonard+Peltier+June+1976&ots=X6DxHR7_ia&sig=KngouZQ1N1zRDDL6TYRGRHnAY2Y#PPP1,M1
9. Bruce Ellison, AIM Attorney’s Congressional Briefing for Leonard Peltier, May 17 2000
http://www.freepeltier.org/ellison_transcript.htm
10. The United States Government War Against the American Indian Movement
http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/USvAIMbackground.html
11. Leonard Peltier’s Case is Debated in Canada’s House of Parliament Nov.2002
http://www.freepeltier.org/public_inquiry.htm
12. Aquash tells Aim Lawyers of threat by Agent Price
http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=141
13. Agent Price reprimanded by Judge Nichol for polluting waters of Justice
http://www.freepeltier.org/fbi_pineridge.htm
http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/law/pricevvikingpenguin881F2d1426.htm
14 Looking Cloud Transcripts, Trudell testifies Banks tells him of
Aquash’s Death before news is in media
http://www.jfamr.org/doc/trudell.html
http://web.telia.com/~u71502499/arlo/cloud_transcripts/371-385.htm (pg 385)
15 The Unquiet Grave (pg. 13) – Steve Hendricks
http://www.stevehendricks.org/writings/the_unquiet_grave_ch_1.pdf
16 Looking Cloud Transcripts, Amiotte testifies re fence, Pg.27
http://web.telia.com/~u71502499/arlo/cloud_transcripts/16-30.htm
17. John Graham: Organizer, Speaker, Advocate, Environmentist
http://www.grahamdefense.org/photoalbum2.htm
18 See Arlo’ Trial
http://web.telia.com/~u71502499/arlo/cloud_transcripts/index.htm
19 Review of ‘Unquiet Grave’ by R. Robideau
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/grave.pdf

20. John Trudell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Trudell
21. John Trudell-Informant
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/07/362371.shtml
22. John Trudell – suspects FBI murdered his family; FBI memorandum and FBI threat
to his family
http://www.dickshovel.com/JTT.html ; http://www.freepeltier.org/fbi_pineridge.htm#review_comm
23 John Trudell – witness at Peltier’s trial
http://www.wemoonsarmy.com/annaarch.html
24. Arlo’s Interview
http://www.dlncoalition.org/arlo_looking_cloud_interview.htm
25. Arlo’s Interview with Ecoffey and Alonzo
http://www.jfamr.org/doc/arlo.html
26. Looking Cloud’s Family Appeals for Help
http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/arlo.html
27. USA v. Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud - Appeal
http://web.telia.com/~u71502499/arlo/arlo-appellant20040817-042173_1br.pdf
28. Impeachment of Evidence
http://www.law-dictionary.org/IMPEACHMENT,+evidence.asp?q=IMPEACHMENT%2C+evidence
29. Letter from The Honorable Fred Nichol to Kenneth S. Stern,
November 17, 1987.]
http://homepages.peakpeak.com/~jking/current/current_banks.html (last para)
30. P.30 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review [Vol. 38
David Cole, The New McCarthyism;Repeating History in the War on Terrorism

http://www.umass.edu/legal/Benavides/Fall2005/397G/Readings%20Legal%20397%20G/12%20David%20Cole.pdf (last para)
31. The Assault on Reason, Al Gore, 2007, Penguin Press, NY
32. Maher Arar
http://www.ararcommission.ca/eng/window01.htm
33. Wrongful convictions in Canada
http://www.injusticebusters.com/04/Wrongful_Convictions04.shtml

Attachment
Congressional Briefing for Leonard Peltier
Washington D.C., May 17, 2000
Bruce Ellison, AIM Attorney
Introduction
Our final panelist is Bruce Ellison. Mr. Ellison is an attorney who has work with Leonard Peltier since his trial in 1977. He is a member of the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee, and witnessed the Reign of Terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation during the 70’s.
Bruce Ellison: Thank you. ... my name is Bruce Ellison. I have been a criminal defense lawyer based in Western South Dakota for some 25 years. On behalf of Leonard Peltier who is now a grandfather and on behalf of my own children I want to thank the members of the Human Rights Caucus and particularly Congressman John Porter for allowing for this briefing. You have done what the Senate Intelligence Committee under Senator Frank Church decided not to do, and what Congress has failed to do despite the strong recommendation of the necessity of such an inquiry by the Chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights and by Amnesty International.
I came to Western South Dakota to become an AIM lawyer with the Wounded Knee Defense Committee. I replaced a lawyer on the staff of WKLDOC by the name of Roger Finsel (sp) who Mr. McKiernan talked about who was attacked by the GOON Squad and was told that if he ever came back to the Pine Ridge Reservation the GOONs would kill him.
I came from an urban upbringing in the New York City area and Leonard Peltier became one of my early clients. I was raised to believe in our democracy and our fundamental rights to free speech, freedom of association, and freedom to seek redress of grievances. Educated as a lawyer, I was taught that our courts exist to promote and preserve justice, our Congress to enact responsible legislation, and our executive branch to enforce the laws of our country. What I have experienced since my move west has both shocked, amazed, and terrified me as a citizen of this country and more importantly as a father of young children and older children -- and I remain so today.
FBI documents and court records in the thousands together with eyewitness accounts show clearly that beginning in the late 1960’s the FBI began a campaign of infiltration and disruption of the treaty and human rights movement which called itself the American Indian Movement or AIM. FBI operations against AIM reached a magnitude which I submit threatens our democratic system and our way of life, especially if it remains uninvestigated and unexposed. Documents show the involvement as well during this period -- of agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and various departments of Military Intelligence Services.
After the 71-day Siege at Wounded Knee in 1973, our criminal justice system became an improper tool of the Domestic Security section of the intelligence division of the FBI -- under Richard Held who is an associate director in its efforts to destroy AIM.
Citing the case of Leonard Peltier, Amnesty International has urged an independent inquiry into the use of our criminal justice system for political purposes by the FBI. It has never occurred. The FBI concluded after many of the Wounded Knee prosecutions and I quote, “There are indications that the Indian militant problem in the area will not be resolved or discontinued with the prosecution of these insurgents.”
Most of the Wounded Knee criminal cases brought against hundreds of AIM members and supporters were eventually dismissed by various federal judges for the illegal use of the United States Military. The FBI then armed and equipped a group calling itself the GOON Squad on the Pine Ridge Reservation and more than 60 men, women, and children were killed in the political violence which followed. You have heard witnessed of some of this violence today. One woman who was talked about was a woman named Anna Mae Pictou. When her body was found, it was immediately examined at the behest of the FBI by a forensic pathologist; the FBI and the pathologist concluded that she had died of exposure. The FBI then -- as it was mentioned [earlier in the hearings] -- cut off her hands and sent them to Washington ostensibly to identify her. When she was identified, at the behest of the family, we sought an independent exhumation and forensic examination, and very quickly it was found her “death by exposure” was actually the placing of a pistol at the back of her head and pulling the trigger. The bullet was found within moments of the examination by chief medical examiner of Hennepin (sp) County which is Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Most of the violence perpetrated by the GOON Squad on the Pine Ridge Reservation against the Traditional People has never been investigated, despite the fact the FBI, through the Major Crimes Act, has asserted criminal jurisdiction over such matters on Indian reservations. I myself have been personally and directly threatened by agents of the FBI for my efforts to expose what the bureau did on the Pine Ridge Reservation and within the courts of our country.
One instance I personally witnessed was FBI agents and a BIA SWAT team escorting carloads of GOON Squad members and their weapons out of Wanblee, after a day and night of armed attacks on the community, which resulted in the ambush murder of a young AIM member and the burning and shooting up of several homes. One of the killers made a deal with the FBI and received a five year sentence -- for which he served far less -- and returned for his testimony that fellow GOON Squad members acted in self-defense against an unarmed victim and his friends. I investigated this murder at the request of tribal president elect and I was horrified by this deal. The killers were freed.
As US Court of Appeals Judge Gerald Heaney said after reviewing all of the evidence in this matter, “the United States Government overreacted at Wounded Knee. Instead of carefully considering the legitimate grievance of Native Americans, the response was essentially a military one which culminated in a deadly fire fight on June 26th, 1975 between the Native Americans and the FBI agents and the United States Marshals. While Judge Heaney believes that Native Americans had some culpability for the fire fight that day, he concluded “the United States must share the responsibility.” It never has. The FBI has never been held accountable or even publicly investigated for what one federal jury and Judge Heaney concluded was its complicity within the creation of a climate of fear and terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation which precipitated the fire fight that day and terrorized the community.
The FBI refers to the conflict that day as one in which only two young agents were killed. To the American Indian Movement members present that day, that tragic day, it has always been a day in which three young men were shot in the head and lost their lives -- the otherwise forgotten one being a young Native American father named Joseph Stuntz.
The government has used the incident to increase its disruptive campaign against the American Indian Movement. Noting Leonard Peltier’s regular presence and involvement in AIM activities, the FBI targeted Peltier for prosecution of the agents. According to the FBI documents, the Bureau was, within weeks of the fire fight, going to “develop information to lock Peltier into this case” and set out to do so. After Mr. Peltier’s co-defendants were acquitted on self-defense grounds by a federal jury in Cedar Rapids Iowa, the government decided to “put the full prosecutive weight of the Federal Government against Peltier”. The evidence shows the Government used now admittedly false eyewitness affidavits to extradite Leonard Peltier from Canada -- and this would catch the attention of Amnesty International and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals would call such conduct “a clear abuse of the investigative process by the FBI” and gives credence to the claims of Indian people that the government is willing to fabricate evidence to convict those branded as the enemy.
At Leonard Peltier’s trial, the Government presented evidence and argued to the jury that he personally shot and killed the two FBI agents. To do this, the Government presented (1) ballistics evidence purportedly connecting a shell casing found near the agents’ bodies with a rifle said to be possessed by Peltier and (2) the coerced and fabricated eyewitness account claiming the agents followed Peltier in a van precipitating the fire fight. Documents subsequently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the ballistics evidence was a fraud and that the rifle could not have fired the expended shell casing found near the bodies. Further, the FBI’s surpressed evidence showed the agents followed a pickup, not a van, into the compound and thought someone else not Peltier was in that vehicle. The documents also show the FBI was planning a paramilitary assault on that particular portion of the reservation against AIM within weeks preceding this fire fight.
Upon disclosure of these documents, a renewed effort at a new trial was sought from the courts. While concluding that the surpressed evidence “cast a strong doubt” on the Government’s case, our appellate courts denied relief. The US Attorney’s Office has now admitted in court that it has no credible evidence that Leonard Peltier killed the agents. Under our system of justice, if there is a reasonable doubt, then Leonard Peltier is not guilty -- yet he has been in prison for over 24 years for a crime which he did not commit.
The FBI still withholds thousands of pages of documents of its investigation of the deaths of the FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation, claiming in many instances that disclosure would compromise the national security of the United States. In the absence of such disclosure, no new efforts at a new trial are possible.
Despite Congressional interest in an investigation of the tragic events at Ruby Ridge in Waco, this is the first time any member of congress has called for an airing of this issue, and it is with our thanks that we are here. It should only be the beginning of a Congressional effort to explore a threat by our principle federal investigative agency: as this agency is designed, it is supposed to protect our most fundamental freedom. The most recent response by the FBI, however, has been a concerted lobbying and media campaign to stop and interfere with prospects of clemency granted by the President of the United States. The FBI’s involvement in the politics of our country is a cause for great concern and alarm -- and along with all the other matters presented at this briefing here today -- they should be investigated and never allowed to happen again.
Judge Heaney, in a letter to Senator Inouye, urging executive clemency for Leonard Peltier, has urged that the process of healing begin. He stated: “favorable action by the President in the Leonard Peltier case would be an important step in this regard. It is time for America’s wars against the indigenous people of this hemisphere to stop. Freeing Leonard Peltier will be an important start of this process.”
And I thank you.
Transcript from the Congressional Briefing for Leonard Peltier, Washington D.C., May17, 2000

To What Is this Gallery Exposing Us?

2007-10-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

On Friday, October 12, as another woman and I were walking to the video store after 8 pm, we noticed a lot of men with drinks in their hands milling around on the street. Turns out it was the opening of a new exhibit of photographs at the Exposure Gallery. In keeping with the name of the gallery, the exhibit was called Nude. When you entered the gallery and turned left you saw a torso shot of a nude black man with his penis pointed towards the door. That was as nude as it got. Aside from a fairly striking print of a head-shot that was being raffled off (a donation by a famous New York artist), most of the printing was a tad less than crisp, and most of the shots were a lot shy of imaginative. Only a few were, to my mind even evocative or energetic. Though, to be fair, I am old and have seen it all before (and better).

It set my teeth on edge when I first noticed last month that this art gallery was moving into 754 East Broadway. Galleries are notoriously the stalking horses for gentrification of neighbourhoods the wealthy dub "dangerous." From what I've seen so far in life, once the rich culture-stalkers start coming and they don't get shot, they start looking around for what they can buy up and "improve" (i.e., control).

According to an article in the Courier, Exposure Gallery has moved here after 18 years on Beatty Street in Yaletown - an area that has notoriously gentrified over that period of time (not, to be fair, that there is any proof that this gallery caused the gentrification). The Yaletown location was also prone to shootings back then. The late founder of Exposure was president of a nonprofit that worked with the city "to establish safe live-work studios for artists in old warehouses," with galleries open to the public on ground level. Exposure was only paying $700 a month when their lease ran out this year, and a beauty salon edged them out with a bid to pay $1900 a month. The article doesn't say what Exposure is paying at the Broadway location, but mentions that they have a lease for 5 years. In an area where storefront operations tend to come and go quickly, that could make them one of the most stable businesses around.

Exposure gallery is actually volunteer-run by the Vancouver Association for Photographic Arts, a nonprofit membership organization for community photographers. Members pay $95 a year to join {$55 for students), and $40 for every shot they enter in a show. If they sell a picture (according to the Courier) they pay the gallery no commission. So, you could call Exposure a starter gallery for budding photographers, or you could call it a vanity gallery for eager amateurs. But in any case, it must be true that the curatorial judgment is subordinate to the self-selected pool of entrants and the self-interest of those who pay the bills.

This was only the first show I've seen there, so I can't really say that there won't be works of genius on the walls in future. And, to be fair, my view was rather jaundiced by my views on galleries as harbingers of gentrification doom, and by seeing a shiny new car replete with two over-coiffed lapdogs parked out front (now that would have made a photo). Most of the celebrants at the opening actually looked not terribly wealthy - maybe $25 an hour city outdoor workers fresh from printing photographs while they were out on strike? They seemed to be having a high time, lubricated by wine, so perhaps there's a rationale after all for calling it high art?

November 5 is the next deadline for submissions, and Friday, November 9 is the next opening.

view from the 'hood

2007-10-07T11:42:00.000-07:00

Looks like the strike might be settled soon. that'll be good, though i've enjoyed the free range-ness of the park near my home. the dogs seem to like it too. more stuff to smell, more things to roll in. The leaves outside my window are turning, and my downstairs neighbour's patio furniture is buried in fluttery brown and orange. seems like i don't pay too much attention to the goings on in the area, but last week, i went to a healing ceremony in honour of a dear friend who died. a teepee was erected on the front lawn of her apartment building, and tables of food laid out in a common area. cedar boughs decorated the entrances and people drummed and sang and told stories of our beloved sister. She lost one battle, but we are left to remember her by the many that she won. mount pleasant reverberated with the music, laughter and sorrow that sent her on her way, and wrapped us with her memory. Now we are responsible for one another, just as we were before. watch out for one another, we need each other.

Strata Warning

2007-09-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

Think twice before buying into a strata, and listen to what others with more experience have to say.

Lots of strata apartment buildings around here are laying whacking huge assessments on the apartment owners. One auntie near Mt. Pleasant just got a $20,000 assessment, and one in Mt. Pleasant just got a $78,000 assessment. In both cases, there was a leaky unit (or units) in the building, and so the cost of repairs on those units is being divided among all the units. But not only that, the strata councils are taking the opportunity to roll other expensive items into the assessment at the same time. In the case of the $78,000, they decided to charge everybody to put in a green roof - lovely, if you can afford it - and to make other adjustments to other apartments. For $78,000, this auntie is only getting new windows that will reduce the amount of direct sun in her 4th floor unit.

When you're hit with an assessment like this, it can wreck you financially.

The auntie with the $20,000 assessment is in her sixties and on a fixed income. She was planning to live in her unit til she got a bit older and then sell it and buy someplace smaller and cheaper. Now she says she can't qualify for a mortgage increase because she doesn't have enough income, but she isn't permitted to sell the unit without first paying off the $20,000 assessment and she hasn't got enough money. Further, if she manages a short-term loan, maybe from friends, so she can pay the assessment and pay back the loan when she sells, she won't realize enough money now for a downpayment on another place. She thought she had her financial endgame figured out, but now she's screwed.

People who recently bought their condos and then got hit with these big assessments are also in real trouble. They haven't realized any paper increases in their property value, and they haven't paid much off, so they don't have enough equity to get a mortgage increase. Even if you can afford to pay more per month, you can't qualify for mortgage debt that is higher than the value of the property.

The auntie with the $78,000 assessment is married and they do qualify to add this onto their mortgage. But it will increase their mortgage payments by $300 a month. They have a disabled child and that increase will work a real hardship on them. They are thinking of renting their strata flat out to somebody who has a higher income than they do, and then renting a cheaper place in another town to live in until they get this paid off. As their apartment has so much sunshine, I suggested she rent it out to someone who could pay the whole rent up front and put in a nice grow-op. But even that won't work, because strata management, unlike management of other properties, are now bound by regulation to do monthly inspections to see if there are things like grow ops or meth labs in the units. With the cost of strata living soaring into the stratosphere, it's no wonder this is becoming a significant problem. People working ordinary jobs can't afford to stay housed.

This type of precarious financial arrangement is going to be on the rise, as owners of older apartment houses are deciding to stratify their buildings to get their capital out. I'm sure this must seem a particularly desirous way to go if you're an owner who thinks that some big repairs will be looming soon.

The way I read this publication from the Canadian Bar Association (BC branch), theoretically each person who buys a condominium owns and is responsible for their own unit, with joint responsibility only for common facilities. However, when you buy a condominium you also become a strata owner - and through that label, obligations are imposed. Stratas are governed by strata councils, and strata councils have been given obligations under the Strata Act. Among these are the obligation to repair a leaky building and to raise this money through owner assessments. So, someone else's leak can and must be made your problem, even if you don't have a leak.

Here are some websites about strata councils and their obligations:

www.fic.gov.bc.ca/pdf/responsibilities_strata/Guide04.pdf

www.cwilson.com/stratafaq/

www.hpo.bc.ca/PublicationsForms/InformationSheets/Act.PDF This link has contacts for getting a look at the whole Strata Property Act.

Alternatives to strata buying include coop living, in which you can't sell your unit but you also don't have to put up such a huge amount of capital to live there. Cost of living there is also sometimes means-tested, with those who can afford "market rate" helping pay for some units that are at below market rate. Coops can also be leaky, and it's a fact as one auntie graphically showed me, that around Vancouver there are leaky coops that have gone years or even decades without major repairs to leaky units and water-damaged common areas, because they are waiting for government money that was promised but seems interminably slow to come through.

In both coops and strata housing, management is hired by a council. This is often such a difficult job that now there are management companies that rotate their managers between different buildings, so that no one manager has to put up with the bad buildings for very long. What makes a management job painful is that the strata or coop council is often a scene of strife. This is typically because argumentative and highly opinionated people enjoy carving out a niche for themselves in these bodies, and by their behaviour they tend to drive more considerate types out. Then, when a decision is taken by council, it may happen that the easygoing people are at the mercy of snobs, nuts, or shit-disturbers who don't have others' best interests at heart. In a strata situation, people who ignore all these goings-on as just unpleasant politics may be suddenly be forced to paint their apartments a disgusting colour, or be suddenly presented with a staggering bill for repairs or innovations they can't afford.

So, if you are in strata housing, make it a point to be vigilant about what's going on with the building you partially own, even if it's a pain in the butt to put up with your co-owners. People who rent can just move. and if you own a whole home, you can probably quietly let it rot about your ears until you die. But if you own a condominium you're in business with a lot of partners. Not only are there risks, but the richer partners can effectively squeeze the poorer ones out.

Drug activity increasing in sight

2007-09-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

One of the aunties reports that drug distributors are giving stuff out to their sales people in Sahalli park now, not long after dark falls - that's earlier as dark comes earlier. She says she saw them there around 9:30 pm this week. Sahalli park is where Fraser Street ends at 8th Avenue. It has a really popular little kids' playground where mums, dads, and nannies tend to congregate with tots in the daylight hours, if the weather be good. Also there is the Broadway Youth Resource Centre just a block away at the corner of Broadway and Fraser. BYC has an addictions counselor, but now young addicts won't have far to go to be in temptation's way when they're trying to quit.

An auntie also reports that the back parking lot of the KFC at Prince Albert and Fraser must have become a late-night shooting gallery, because she sees piles of hypodermic needles lying around there early in the morning. People scoring drugs in this neighbourhood have too far to walk to the Insite safe injection site before injecting (although they could get there really quickly on a #8 bus that stops right in front of the Broadway Youth Centre).

The movement of drug distributors to Sahalli park (and their customers to nearby fast-food property) could well be related to the police sweep of the obvious dealers on the Downtown East Side. There were 63 smalltime dealers charged after being picked up by police there last July. According to a CBC.ca report on that sweep, the spokesman for the drugs squad had no comment to criticism that these sweeps displace dealers to other neighbourhoods.

Of related interest may be this link to a 2006 Vancouver Coastal Health Youth Drug Survey

If you or someone you know is looking to get off addictive drugs, here's a site that lists drug rehab centres in BC: http://www.drug-rehab.ca/BCrehabcenter.htm This website also mentions that youth heroin addiction is on the increase. It also reprints an article by John Pifer from the Abbotsford news asking: "who in Ottawa or Victoria was behind the insane decision to end the need for Vancouver Port Police at a time when massive drug shipments were increasing?"

Another auntie says that the main problem in this neighbourhood is that people are coming into the area without adequate housing so they have to do their business out in the parks and the street. If your neighbour is quietly shooting heroin at home and going to work feeling no pain, it isn't scary like your neighbour doing illegal stuff out in plain sight and maybe taking offense that you see them doing it, too.

Residential Inspections - Provincial Law

2007-09-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

Received from the Residential Tenancy Office in Victoria, in response to my inquiry, the following information - it seems to say that inspections of rental property can be random or can even be as regular as monthly, but that they cannot be done without cause, nor without notice:

Please refer to the following:
http://www.rto.gov.bc.ca/documents/RTB-107.pdf
When the legislation was updated in January of 2004, it allowed the
landlord to conduct monthly inspections with proper notice in writing.
This "inspection" is not limited to suspicion of illegal activities, it
is just that - an inspection and as such, is allowable by law. Not all
landlords exercise their right to conduct monthly inspections, but they
are permitted by law to do so. If you wish further confirmation of the
landlord's right to inspect monthly, please refer to the following
section of the RTA.

Landlord's right to enter rental unit restricted
29 (1) A landlord must not enter a rental unit that is subject to a
tenancy agreement for any purpose unless one of the following applies:

(a) the tenant gives permission at the time of the entry or not more
than 30 days before the entry;

(b) at least 24 hours and not more than 30 days before the entry, the
landlord gives the tenant written notice that includes the following
information:

(i) the purpose for entering, which must be reasonable;

(ii) the date and the time of the entry, which must be between 8 a.m.
and 9 p.m. unless the tenant otherwise agrees;

(c) the landlord provides housekeeping or related services under the
terms of a written tenancy agreement and the entry is for that purpose
and in accordance with those terms;

(d) the landlord has an order of the director authorizing the entry;

(e) the tenant has abandoned the rental unit;

(f) an emergency exists and the entry is necessary to protect life or
property.

(2) A landlord may inspect a rental unit monthly in accordance with
subsection (1) (b).

Hope this helps for now.

...Information Officer
RTB Victoria

VCC-Clark Sky Train Station Needs Something

2007-09-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

The new (last April) VCC-Clark Sky Train station is in Mt. Pleasant, on Great Northern Way across the street from the SPCA dog-adoption facility and the Vancouver Community College parking lot. There are a lot of newspaper boxes (including the Courier now - yay!) and there was temporarily a huuuuge volleyball space out back of it during the summer - but otherwise, its surroundings are pretty bleak. The land behind it is occupied by the railway, and the ground in front of it is covered with nothing but gravel. One of the aunties commented that it needs some food shops or something around it to draw more people in and make it safer to use, especially after dark.

Single Transferable Vote and Mt. Pleasant

2007-09-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

Households in Mt. Pleasant recently received a lovely publication by the B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission showing their draft proposals for new electoral riding boundaries. This included maps for two scenarios - one is a population-weighted adjustment to the current single-member proportional system, and the other is a proposal for how the boundaries would look if the BC Single Transferable Vote becomes the way of choosing members of the Provincial Legislative Assembly.

You may recall that the BCSTV was approved by 57.69% of BC voters in a referendum on May 17, 2005 - but 60% was the supermajority required to change to this system. But the Campbell government has apparently laid plans to submit the BCSTV to another vote in May of 2009 - the same time that the Liberal government has to submit its own government to elections. If the change gets approved, it would first be in effect for the 2013 election.

In the first of the Boundaries Commission's scenarios, Mt. Pleasant's boundaries would be very similar to what they are now - in the BCSTV version, Mt. Pleasant would be part of an overall East Van riding.

From a Mt. Pleasant perspective, I think the change to STV would probably be good. Notwithstanding the fact that every solution has its own problems, here's what I think there is to like:

*get to vote for more choices

*East Van seen as a unified constituency - we really do have a lot in common compared to West Van

*have more options for finding an MLA to bring your issue up to the legislature - hopefully one of your seven will take an interest - and if they all support you, you have a much stronger hand

*novelty and the fact of more choices will bring out more voters - they won't be confused as the mainstream pundits have predicted. They'll be more intrigued, as everybody likes to figure out their choices.

*no more "hold your nose and vote" to keep the party you don't want from getting in. If you vote for the Work Less Party and they don't get enough votes to make it, you can have your voting credits roll over to the NDP or the Greens (or the Liberals if you prefer) instead of being written off and leaving the leading party with a bigger lead. And if your candidate wins by more than enough votes, your "leftover" vote portion will contribute to the success of your second, third ... even your seventh choice.

*Will likely make the parties be more responsive to local issues - right now, Mt. Pleasant is a "safe" seat for NDP, but then you only have one member, who is already assured of your vote, so you haven't much leverage

I also like the fact that there was a Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform made up of one man and one woman from each riding in BC that sat for a year to determine the fairest electoral system for BC. The BC-STV (British Columbia Single Transferable Vote) was their answer. Headed by Jack Blaney, former President of Simon Fraser University, this assembly had a tremendous education on what kinds of electoral systems there are in the world and how they have actually been working. When the year was up, the members of that study commission were unanimous behind their choice and they worked like the dickens to get people to vote for it. It nearly attained the required supermajority of BC voters, and it will apparently be coming up for a vote again - either to succeed, or to fail more decisively (that's up to us).

There is still a lot of information about this Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform and their conclusions online at http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public - even instructional audio and video.

The boundaries on the district maps we received were drawn up by three appointed men who sat as the Electoral Boundaries Commission. There is still time to give feedback on what they have drawn up. You can submit online or go to a hearing or both. The first Vancouver hearing was September 8, but there will be three more hearing dates: September 20, October 19, and November 13. To find times and locations, visit the Electoral Boundaries Commission webpage http://www.bc-ebc.ca/hearings.

Grow Ops and Random Residential Suite Perusals

2007-09-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

One of the Mt. Pleasant aunties told me this weekend that the city now requires property owners to inspect for grow ops and is holding the owner responsible for this crime. I'm trying to verify this point - here's what I've found so far (please post a comment if you find out anything I don't have):

1) Due to the strike, it is impossible to talk with anyone at City of Vancouver about residential inspection bylaws. But I found information online that inspections are being required in other parts of the province. For example North Cowichan, has been requiring owners to inspect every two months to control drug crime, but is thinking about scaling back to every six months.

2) The Province for Sunday Sept. 9 had an article by Tony Gioventu, executive director of the Condominium Home Owners Association, about grow-ops in strata housing, so I called him to ask about the Vancouver bylaws. He told me "you can't force somebody to inspect," but that landlords to have the right to inspect properties under the Residential Tenancy Act [and strata managers have special inspection requirements]. Gioventu pointed me to a comprehensive guide to the provincial Residential Tenancy Act on the web page http://www.rto.gov.bc.ca/ - but it has no obvious information about inspections other than before the tenant is in residence and for purposes of returning a deposit after a tenant leaves. When I tried to phone this government office for more help, there was a message saying we're sorry, all circuits are busy now. I've sent them an email asking:

I'm trying to find information about the right and responsibility of landlords to inspect premises during a tenant's residency, to look for illegal activity. It seems that this responsibility is being laid on landlords now by police, but we would like to see the relevant laws, with respect to notification requirements and so forth. Please advise.

3) In this 2007 web page, the Vancouver Police Department sets out guidelines for owners about Illegal Activities on Rental Properties. They state: "A regular inspection of your property can prevent problems from occurring."
They also say that Responsibilities of Owners include putting an addendum into your rental agreement forbidding illegal activity, on the premises or property, including but not limited to:

any drug-related criminal activity
solicitation (pimps, prostitution activity)
street gang activity
assault or threatened assault, in regard to persons on the premises
unlawful use of a firearm
any criminal activity that threatens the health, safety or welfare of the landlord, other tenants or persons on the residential property or residential premises.

Such violations would be considered cause for ending the lease.

The Vancouver Police Department site also states that property insurance will not cover damage caused by grow-ops. Such damage can include mold from growing plants indoors, and fires or rewiring from use of a lot of extra electricity.

If you have further information about bylaws, leases, or current practices in Mt. Pleasant around Random Residential Suite Perusals (inspections) by landlords, please post in the Comments section.

Best Tai Chi deal in Mt. Pleasant

2007-09-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

The Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House (at Broadway and Prince Albert) has renewed the contract of Dr. Lyla Yip to teach Tai Chi there weekly. Classes resumed after the summer break today - but you can join the class at any time.

Dr. Yip is a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor with Western medical background as well, and she's also a longtime student and teacher of Tai Chi. In fact, she's a model for a statue of a group of Tai Chi practitioners that is going to be erected in one of Vancouver's parks.

The class meets each Tuesday from 10:45 to 11:45 am, and I like it so much I changed my work hours so I could attend it. Because of her medical background, Dr. Yip can customize the excercises to anyone's needs. Many of us need work on flexibility, strengthening, posture, and relaxation, which can all be helped by Tai Chi and the related Chi Gong practices.

Today, September 4, we did work on simple exercises for the tendons of the foot and leg, and practiced standing with balance and relaxing the joints. Then we practiced a Chi Gong exercise called Flying Eagle, went through the Yang-style 24 Steps, and then learned about 5 minutes of a beautiful form called Tai Chi Fan.

Because the class is held just before the Senior Lunch the Neighbourhood House holds on Tuesdays, some who attend are seniors. It's very good for seniors, but younger people can enjoy it and benefit just as much. Also, if you are mobility-impaired you can still be part of the class.

Did I mention that it only costs $3 a class and you can attend on a drop-in basis? This a wonderful price deal - the class is worth much more than that.

I've been using Tai Chi as my main form of exercise for a few years now, and I really love it. It's calming and strenthening, it gives you balance and confidence, and it's almost impossible to get hurt doing it, too.

We need a few more regular class members, so please come on down and try it.

Random Residential Suite Perusals - B.S.?

2007-09-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

Following up on previous post:

Three of us went to the place and were shown a vacant apartment by a resident who assists the manager. She had never heard of Random Residential Suite Perusals until we told her and showed her the sign. On re-inspection, the sign looked like not such a great photoshop job, and I'm wondering if it is B.S. I did not manage to get a look at one of the current leases, but the longtime resident who showed us the place insisted that management can't go into the suites there without permission in advance, even to make repairs. She told an anecdote that in the recent past a resident left another couple in charge of her apartment and that the other couple ran a grow-operation in there. She said even in that case there was allegedly advance notice, but the people just disappeared and left the grow-op. She also told us that there had been a "party" for the residents recently, with police telling people how to keep themselves safe. This sounds more in line with what else we've seen about crime-free multi-housing activity in the city.

"Random Residential Suite Perusals"

2007-08-25T00:45:00.000-07:00

The building at 639 E. 8th Avenue has cracked stucco and an obviously broken drainpipe, but at least it has some new signs. The sign hanging out front reads:

"Fraser Manor - Vancouver's first fully-certified crime-free multi-housing community."

There are two other signs beside the front door. One reads:
"we have joined the Vancouver crime free multi housing program keeping illegal activity out of rental property."
The other sign has an image of a cobra poised to strike, encircled by a ribbon with the initials R.R.S.P. above the snake, and below, the phrase "Random Residential Suite Perusals." The rest of that sign says:

"This building does random residential suite perusals* [*inspections] to ensure the safety of its residents and to protect the building from any illegal activities. Any resident found to be partaking in any illegal activity will not only be evicted but they will be prosecuted to the utmost extent the law allows."

Searching the web for more about this draconian policy, I try "Random Residential Suite Perusals" on Google Canada. It says my search did not match any documents: Did you mean: "Random Presidential Suite Perusals"

I do find that the phrase "crime-free multi housing" has been used in Vancouver at least since 1997, when several East Van neighbourhoods had it as a line item for $10-$25,000 in their community safety grant budgets.

In New Westminster, the police offer a "crime-free multihousing workshop". Their website only mentions safety tips for building managers, like keeping the keys and files safe, being safe when showing a unit to strangers, and protecting the money.

The RCMP in Burnaby also have a section about Crime-Free Multi Housing on the web. Perhaps the R.R.S.P. serpent lurks on their page under the phrase "how to strengthen rental agreements for the benefit of residents and owners alike..."
or maybe the phrase "how to spot potential trouble-makers."

I wonder how far they go with random inspections to spot trouble-makers?

Reason for eviction: roaches under the sink.

The strike: Silver linings

2007-08-22T22:21:00.000-07:00

It's really a pleasure to see all the long grass and wildflowers in the park, now that the park workers are on strike.

Looking for places to offload your trash is a good way to become familiar with Vancouver lanes, now that the garbage workers are on strike.

Used booksellers are having a business boom, now that the librarians are on strike.

No city workers' vehicles clogging up traffic, or tearing up the paths in the park with their tires.

No noise and carbon emissions from leaf-blowers and huge gas-powered mowing machines in the parks, either.

No garbage pickup means more time to look over the trash around the bins to see if you want anything. Binners can sleep in.

Less garbage and recycling truck noise. Easier for everybody to sleep in.

Privately employed landscapers don't have to look enviously at guys with better-paid (and less-supervised) city landscaping jobs.

Food banks and panhandlers can look for more sympathy and gifts from city workers when they start getting paid again - "it could be me" will become "it was me."

Banks can look forward to collecting a lot of interest on city workers' built-up credit card debt.

The dogs in the neighbourhood get such a thrill when they smell a rat.

Women who used to sell blow-jobs to guys in city trucks stopped just off Broadway on their way to work now have more time to enjoy the sunshine.

Hey, things are great - don't settle it!

(Just kidding!)

Librarians' Pay

2007-08-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

There's an interesting article in the web magazine The Tyee, titled "Vancouver's Library Strike: Women's Pay on the Line." Tom Sandborn, the author, wrote yesterday, "to date the city negotiators have refused to discuss any of the local's four key bargaining demands: pay equity, improvements for part-time workers, job security and general benefit improvements." Women librarians doing jobs mainly carried out by women are reportedly getting $6 an hour less than people doing jobs for the library that are mainly carried out by men, and the women also have a much slower route to pay advancement.

So, if you ever want to check out the new Harry Potter book down at Mt. Pleasant branch, better call city hall and tell them to Settle the Strike.

Just to spur you on: you may recall that the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously in a case involving Newfoundland and Labrador that provincial government had the right to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and delay pay equity settlement if budgetary considerations are severe.

If we want equal pay for women workers in Vancouver, we'd better get it in place before the bills for the Olympics hit the fan.

Fortune Unhappiness

2007-08-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

The shooting at the Fortune Happiness restaurant near Broadway and Fraser continues to be a major topic of discussion in the neighbourhood. For anyone who still doesn't know, eight people were shot at 4:30 am Thursday, inside the restaurant with the yellow awning across the street from the bus stop for the #8 when it turns from Fraser onto Broadway. Seems that two men in balaclava masks came into the restaurant, one from the back door and one from the front; they focused on one table and shot it up with some fast-repeating guns. Two young men were shot dead and three women and three men at the same table were wounded.

Reportedly, the restaurant had been staying open all night for a while. According to a conversation I heard today, one person said that there were always people playing Mah Jongg at Fortune Happiness and that they thought it was a gambling parlour. Another person said she had always thought there was prostitution being run out of there. Some media implied there were drugs. It could have been all three - or, perhaps none of them. Some people seem to think there is something sleazy per se about all night restaurants, but when a city runs all night people need places to eat all night.

One of the aunties who watches her block and lives near the restaurant observed that police may well have known something was going to happen. She says there were cops in unmarked cars roaming around looking at stuff in the area during the night before the shooting. This seems to contradict the reaction of some people who've called in to the radio saying this stuff wouldn't happen if Vancouver just had a bigger police force. A First Nations mother who lives around the downtown eastside told me the police came to her house Thursday night and questioned her son about the shooting. She said they are always trying to pin all sorts of crimes on him - even though [maybe because?] he is an athlete with leadership potential. She said she had even seen her own name on a list as a suspected drug dealer, which she called ridiculous. You've heard the phrase "round up the usual suspects," right? It's not that much of a joke.

The day of the shooting, when not much news was being released, the CBC-TV midday news featured police saying that they wanted to let people know that this was a "targeted" and not a "random" shooting because they didn't want to hurt the reputation of the neighbourhood. Yes, there are houses for sale around here for 100% more than they went for 5 years ago - back when everyone said it was a bad neighbourhood. Not that we need to have shootings, but I think we need to appreciate our unsavoury elements - the crack-smokers in the alley, the street prostitution, the dog poop and litter on the sidewalks, the drunks sleeping on the street, the KFC and the empty store-fronts. Because if they weren't around, then property values would rise, rich people would move in to replace the great working-class mix we have, and property taxes would be even higher than they are now.

Today, CBC radio reports that police have raided a location of the United Nations gang in Abbotsford and seized some guns they think might be related to the shooting here [although, later that day police were quoted as saying that the United Nations gang had nothing to do with this shooting]. It's called the United Nations gang because it unites members from many races. Let's think of another reason to do that besides drug smuggling, eh?

Being discussed among the neighbours is how we could put an end to this kind of crime like the Fortune Unhappiness shooting, by legalizing, regulating and taxing drugs. A fellow running a weed-eater in the hood yesterday told me that he considers it tragic that some of his relatives are hooked on crack, but he pointed out that when they do get their crack hit they are able to put in a day's work. Having the drugs illegal didn't keep them from getting hooked, and it puts them in bad company and harm's way dealing with their addiction. Imagine how much tax money there would be for rehab, policing, and all kinds of stuff if that huge underground economy could be tapped. Maybe our property taxes could even go down.

Mt. Pleasant Community Centre delay

2007-07-31T02:54:00.000-07:00

According to a Vancouver blog called Shane's World the new Mt. Pleasant Community Centre that's being built on the triangular corner of Kingsway and Main, between 7th and 8th Avenues, has experienced more delays and will not be finished until 2008. Meanwhile, the children who drew the pictures on the fence around the site are probably graduating from high school by now.

The current Mt. Pleasant Community Centre will be closed when the new one is finished. The old Mt. Pleasant Community Centre (not to be confused with the Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House, at Broadway and Prince Albert) is in Mt. Pleasant Park at 16th and Ontario. It has a fitness centre, gymnasium, racquetball courts, several multi-purpose rooms and an outdoor swimming pool. (Of course they're all closed right now, while we wait for the city to settle the strike.)

The new Mt. Pleasant Community Centre is supposed to house a new public library, and when it opens the old library in Kingsgate Mall is destined to be closed. (Of course it's closed right now, too, while we wait for the city to settle the strike.)

I hope you checked out lots of books before the strike.

Skunks and Dogs

2007-07-29T00:05:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of skunks walking around Mt. Pleasant. This evening one walked through our yard, was chased by our dogs, and sprayed them. Things I have learned about this situation:

1. Don't call your dogs into the house. It is already too late. Make them stay outside until you are ready to bathe them outside or march them straight into the bathtub, because if you let them in they will rub skunk smell all over everything - either trying to get it off, or because they like it, I'm not sure which.

2. Skunk smell that is sprayed on doesn't smell like skunk smell lingering in the air. It smells sort of like a combination of gasoline and sesame oil. I didn't think it was skunk when the dogs first came into the house, I thought maybe someone had sprayed chemicals on the dogs.

3. If you have young, dumb dogs, chances are great that they will get sprayed. Best to be prepared. According to a chemist's site I saw (too late) online, tomato juice doesn't work. Even though the report last week on CBC radio said it does. However, if you go into Mac's at 10:30 pm and buy six liters of tomato juice, everybody will know that your dogs got into a skunk and be sympathetic - if their dog got into a skunk, they will recognize the smell.

3. This nice chemistry professor in California has posted a site that explains what the main ingredients of skunk spray are - even shows the molecules - and what will work to neutralize them. You can find it at http://www.humboldt.edu/~wfw2/deodorize.shtml

Basically, he says, they have to be oxidized, and you can do that with baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and liquid detergent - or chlorine bleach (but don't use the bleach on the dog).

Another site said you could use vinegar instead of the peroxide, and that it wouldn't bleach the dog's coat as much. Here's the operational part of William Wood's advice:

For pets that have been sprayed, bathe the animal in a mixture of 1 quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide (from drug store), 1/4 cup of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and a teaspoon of liquid detergent. After 5 minutes rinse the animal with water. Repeat if necessary. The mixture must be used after mixing and will not work if it is stored for any length of time. DO NOT STORE IN A CLOSED CONTAINER - it releases oxygen gas so it could break the container. This mixture may bleach the pet's hair. I have heard of one black Labrador retriever that was chocolate colored after this treatment. (Paul Krebaum's Recipe from Chemical & E ngineering News , October 18, 1993, p. 90).

Some additional tips. Do this outside so the volatile skunk spray does not contaminate your house. To remove residual skunk odor from your clothes and any towels or rags used in this clean up procedure, wash them with one cup of liquid laundry bleach per gallon of water.

For buildings, decks, etc., a solution of liquid laundry (Chlorox®) bleach (1 cup per gallon) will work. CAUTION - THIS MAY BLEACH THE BUILDINGS, DECKS, ETC. Try it on a small area if bleaching may be a problem. The bleach must come in contact with the spot where the secretion was sprayed Repeated applications may be necessary for large amounts of the skunk spray. DO NOT USE THIS ON PETS. It will not work for skunk spray that has drifted over a large area or is trapped in a house. Only time and adequate ventilation will help in this case.

A small lesson

2007-07-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

The young child who lives across the street came outside today in company of an older man, perhaps a grandfather. They made a paseo around the house to examine the flora and fauna. As they walked back my way, the boy was chanting "too - many -bees." I, too, was watching bees in the flowers in my front yard. There were many. The grandfather chanted "lots - of - bees" and the boy changed to the same.

Means of Production youth want your opinion

2007-07-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

The Environmental Youth Alliance has a project called Means of Production that does a lot of work in North China Park. Over the past few years, young people have terraced the north part of the high sloping part of the park and have put in many kinds of plants. They also built a tool shed and recently added a sturdy bench and some fencing made from willow branches. Sometimes they host events like the recent two-part series on herbal medicines. The EYA says the goal of this project is "to bring urban youth into closer contact with natural spaces and food production." You can read more about it on the website www.eya.ca. A week or two ago they added a big sign asking people to comment about what Means of Production means to them. There's a box with a slot at the bottom left, and some paper - and a string that probably used to have a pencil. Be sure to comment when you stop by the park, about how interesting and heartening their work is. And don't forget to bring your own pen or pencil.

To get stop signs and traffic circles

2007-07-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

The corner of Prince Albert St. and 8th Avenue has become pretty dangerous, because it is hard to see traffic coming along 8th Avenue. There are stop signs on Prince Albert, but none on 8th. Many large vehicles park on street near this intersection. When they used to park mainly on Prince Albert between Broadway and 8th, it didn't cause as much of a traffic hazard, but now for some reason the trucks and buses have moved to park mainly on 8th. Even a van or SUV can block the view of oncoming traffic, especially because of the curve of the hill in both directions. To see if anything is coming you have to pull way out in the intersection in your car, and you might get hit doing it. I have witnessed one accident recently, and been involved in several near misses.

Because of this, I wrote the City Traffic department, through their website, asking for a 4-way stop to be put up at this corner. Basically, they said we haven't had enough accidents there yet! But that we could get a calming circle if 2/3 of the neighbours want to pay. Here is the text of the reply:

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Kim, Dave
Date: May 23, 2007 1:01 PM
Subject: FW: Web Submission - Contact Form WO#4086
...
Thank you for your e-mail regarding traffic safety at the intersection
of Prince Albert and 8th Avenue.

4-way Stop signs are installed when the existing 2-way control is no longer adequate or efficient. When installing 4-way stop signs to improve safety the decision is made based on a number of factors including the accident history at the intersection provided by Police and ICBC records. We then follow guidelines for Stop sign installation as set out in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Canada. The M.U.T.C.D. warrant calls for 4-way stops if 5 or more right-of-way conflict accidents per year have occurred (right angle collisions, not rear ends or side swipes). Traffic volumes must generally be balanced, with 200 or more vehicles per hour on the lesser street. Another consideration for 4-way Stops is an average delay of 30 seconds or more to side street traffic. Efficiency problems would be evident by high volumes in all directions, and delays to traffic in the stopped direction.

The intersection of Prince Albert and 8th was previously examined and accident records for the intersection show three reported accidents within a 5 year period. A traffic count at the intersection found north/south vehicle volumes to be about 102 Vehicles per hour along Prince Albert and about 132 vehicles per hour on 8th Ave with delays of less than 30 seconds. Therefore, for the reasons explained above, 4-way stop signs are not recommended for the intersection of Prince Albert and 8th Avenue at this time.

A traffic circle is another traffic calming option which can be pursued through the local improvement process. This allows residents the opportunity to have a traffic circle installed on their street by agreeing to pay for the installation. The process for acquiring a property owner funded traffic circle is by obtaining a 2/3 majority of property owners to sign a petition in support of the traffic circle. If you would like an information package sent to you, please contact me by return e-mail or call me at (604) 871-6279. If you would like information on property owner funded corner bulges please contact John Jang of our Local Improvements Branch at (604)873-7183.

At an intersection, vehicles parking on the street must stop at least 6 metres from the back of the sidewalk on an intersecting street. If you notice vehicles parking within the intersection clearance, please call Parking Enforcement at 604-257-8727 to request enforcement of the Street and Traffic Bylaw.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me.

>Dave Kim
>City of Vancouver Greenways and Neighbourhood Transportation Branch
>453 West 12th Avenue
>Vancouver BC V5Y 1V4
>
>Phone: 604-871-6279 Fax: 604-871-6192
>Email: dave.kim[AT]vancouver.ca
>
>http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca

---------------------------------------------

The following was submitted through the Traffic Management website from
http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/transport/traffic/contact.htm

1. What is the nature of the comment?
Suggestion

2. What do you want to comment on?
Local Traffic

3. What is the location?
8th Avenue
Prince Albert

4. Comments:
This corner has had crashes and many near misses, and much needs a 4-way stop or a circle. It is impossible to see past tall parked vehicles, especially because of the hill, and you take your life in your hands by pulling out without seeing nearly every time you cross 8th on Prince Albert. There are many van and SUV owners who need to park on street around there, and also some large trucks driven by residents, so this situation is going to stay bad.

John Graham - Canadian Rights Violated

2007-07-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

John Graham was a resident of the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood until he lost his appeal to the BC Supreme Court of Appeal to stop his extradition to the United States, June 26th. He is currently in jail awaiting the decision to hear his case in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Why should You be interested in John's case? It could happen to you, especially if you are a visible minority.

The FBI want to extradite a Canadian Citizen, for a CONTROVERSIAL murder of another Canadian Citizen (both are Canadian aboriginal First Nations People). The controversy is, the FBI may have been involved with the murder and they are 'covering' up their part in it. After all, they did the first autopsy and found the cause of death to be due to 'exposure'. After the family of the murder victim had an independent coroner do a second autopsy, it was learned the person was shot in the head. How could the FBI 'miss' something so obvious.

In the early 1990's, the National Film Board of Canada produced a documentary on the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. Even the family suspected the FBI involvement of this murder. Now the FBI have to change their story their story to save 'face'. Thirty years after the murder the FBI 'suddenly' have 'new' evidence, and John Graham's nightmare begins.

The following is written by the RCMP officer who had arrested Leonard Peltier. Peltier's case is very much related to John Graham's. Leonard Peltier was also extradited from Canada on fabricated evidence and sentenced to life imprisonment, also on fabricated evidence, and suppressed evidence would have shown his innocence. The same fate awaits John Graham unless the Canadian Government stops the extradition. If the US want a trial, let him be tried in Canada where he can receive a fair trial.

Letter by Bob Newbrook

The charge by the FBI against John Graham, a Tuchone Native of the Yukon, for a murder which occurred in South Dakota in 1976 is again a blatant fabrication of evidence.

According to FBI documents, the frozen body of a Native woman was found on private land near Wanblee, South Dakota on February 24, 1976. The following day, a pathologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Dr. W.O. Brown, performed an autopsy which included, by his statement, “the removal of the brain from the body” and determined the cause of death to be exposure. The corpse’s hands were severed and sent to FBI headquarters for further finger print analysis. The body was buried as Jane Doe and subsequently identified as that of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a Mi-Kmaq Native of Nova Scotia, Canada, who was a member of the AIM and a U.S. federal fugitive at the time of her death.

On demand by counsel acting for the family of the deceased, Bruce Ellison, the body was exhumed on March 11, 1976 and a pathologist of the families choosing, Dr. Garry Peterson, determined the cause of death as a bullet wound to the head.

Mystery and intrigue have surrounded the case for years. On September 16, 1999, a distant cousin of Anna Mae, Robert Pictou-Branscombe, convened a press conference in which he stated that FBI provocateur Douglass Durham had planted rumors about Anna Mae being an FBI informant. He further alleged that she was taken to a house on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota, where she was interrogated by other AIM members, and a self-proclaimed Executive Director of AIM, Vernon Bellecourt, had ordered her execution. Branscombe also alleged that she was killed by Graham.

The FBI quickly responded by stating that new evidence would be put before a grand jury. In 2003, a homeless alcoholic named Arlo Looking Cloud was arrested, tried and convicted of being an accessory to the first degree murder of Anna Mae. The evidence was a video showing Looking Cloud being interviewed by police while in detention, stating that he and John Graham had taken Anna Mae in a car driven by a Native woman named Theda Clark to a place where he saw John Graham take Anna Mae to an embankment by a fence and shoot her in the head on December 12, 1975. Looking Cloud had visited the scene with police officer Bob Ecofy shortly before the trial, supposedly to re-enact the crime for police evidence.

There are many discrepancies associated with the evidence at trial, which the government appointed lawyer for the defense, Tim Rensch of Rapid City, did not broach. For example, the pathologist, for the BIA, Dr. W.O. Brown, had stated in his report of the autopsy which he had performed on February 25, 1976, that the body had been dead for 7 to 10 days, putting the time of death around February 18 to February 15, 1976, and not December 12, 1975 as stated by Looking Cloud. Also, had the body been laying in the cold open countryside for over 2 months, the flesh would have been scavenged by coyotes and crows. The owner of the ranch who discovered the body, Roger Amiotte, stated that the fence in question had not been erected until some 15 years after he found the body. Additionally, Mr. Amiotte stated that the body was wrapped in a blanket when he found it.

In FBI documents titled “A summary of investigation of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash”, it is stated that “During the crime scene search, the earth below where Aquash’s head had rested was spaded in an effort to obtain physical evidence of which none was located and no earth was removed from the scene”. The documents also state that there was no evidence of foul play. This contradicts the evidence on tape given by Looking Cloud, which was used to convict him and indict Graham, that Anna Mae was shot in the head at the scene where the body was found. If this were the case, blood would certainly have been present. A separate document makes reference to certain staff members in the hospital where the body was taken who noted matted blood in the hair on the head of the corpse.

It seems clear that Anna Mae Aquash was murdered elsewhere and transported to the location where her body was found. After exhumation of the body and the FBI’s official statement’s loss of credibility, a different story was concocted and John Graham implicated. He was arrested in Vancouver in December, 2003. During an interview with me at the pre-trial detention center, he stated that he had driven Anna Mae to a safe house on the reservation in 1975 when she had told him that FBI Special Agent David Price had previously arrested her and taken finger prints, photographs and notations of body markings for future identification purposes. Also, she said Price had threatened her that unless she named the AIM members present at the Oglala shootout at the time of the deaths of the two agents, she would not live another year.

The onus lies with the prosecution to prove guilt. Court is not a crucible for truth, and witnesses are routinely coached prior to testifying in order to achieve predetermined results; nuances are shaded, memories reprocessed and vulnerable suspects can be intimidated into confessing to something of which they are not guilty. The FBI has power and privilege. The persecution of John Graham is a clear attempt by the FBI to vindicate themselves with respect to this shameful and abhorrent chapter of history.

John Graham was committed for extradition in appellate court on June 26, 2007.

--Bob Newbrook, June 26, 2007.

Where is Mt. Pleasant?

2007-07-09T21:57:00.001-07:00

In a way, one might say that Mt. Pleasant is a state of mind as much as a geographical location. It's a neighbourhood that so far has few pretensions, a little down at the heels but well liked, a little laissez-faire but with people keeping an eye out for each other, a mixture of mainly older apartment houses and some remnants of older homes modestly cared for, a place of the greatest diversity of ages and ethnicities you can imagine. On the other hand, the City has designated an actual geographical area to be called Mt. Pleasant. Here's the map they provide on the web page http://vancouver.ca/community_profiles/mount_pleasant/ The southern boundary they designate is 16th Avenue. The Northwest part of the map seems to include the southern shore of False Creek. So our neighbourhood is in for some big changes, too.

Google Maps offers a hybrid of linear map and satellite maps. I focused this map query on the northern end of Mt. Pleasant, at Terminal and Main, but you can move around in it and find your own street.

Mt. Pleasant School's New Sprinkler System

2007-07-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

Just curious about why a sprinkler system was being installed this week in the field on the east side of Mt. Pleasant Elementary School (2300 Guelph St.). In this rainy climate, the grass stays green anyway, and we've heard so much about the schools being strapped for funding. Community members do play soccer there (check out Issa and his teammates there on Wednesday evenings), so maybe the grass needs extra attention...?

But maybe, aha! There's an ulterior motive for the sprinkler system that has nothing to do with green and more to do with brown. An article last April in the Vancouver Courier is all about the doggie poopoo problem children have encountered in that field. Because the yard is largely fenced, it's an enticing and pretty safe place to take doggies for a run, and some days you see an awful lot of dogs and their owners gathered there. On Friday, there was even a class going on in the northeast corner of the schoolyard, teaching manners to dogs that get violent with other dogs.

According to the article - and I can tell you from observation that it's true - some dog owners don't scoop their dogs' poop, or do so incompletely, leaving a residue for elementary kids to slide in.

In some cities, like New York, you see signs that say "curb your dog." That means that the place for your dog to take a poop is in the street, just alongside the curb. Then it's easy to pick up - you don't have to take the grass with it - and it's possible for streetcleaning machines (or rushing rainwater) to wash up. I never see anybody curbing their dog in Vancouver, and we don't have any signs to that effect. But this might be a good thing to start teaching our dogs until a better alternative is devised.

Facebook group for MtPleaseAunt

2007-07-04T21:12:00.000-07:00

If you want to upload photos of the neighbourhood, there is only a little room on this blog, so if you have several photos you might want to join the facebook group Mt. Pleasant Vancouver BC CanadaGlobal

parks and trees

2007-06-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

Hey, Neighbours,
so a couple of weeks ago, on 7th ave. just a block or so to the west of the park at Fraser between 8th and 9th, a great big old old cedar tree was taken down. its roots were digging into the foundation of the house, and the owners of the house got a city permit to take it down. A few people gathered to watch and say good bye. Some Aboriginal folks brought drums and sang while the arborists did their work. the arborists were gentle with this big old Cedar, and cut it into slabs and hunks so people could take it and use it for something useful. I think quite a lot of the wood went to the Squamish Nation on the north shore, and some of my friends got some good size slabs which they'll use to make tables or stools out of. So, a beautiful long-time home to lots of birds and wee critters left the neighbourhood, but the remains are now in use in the homes of many more people .
it was a rainy cool Friday, and i was working at home. I took the dog out for a walk, and we went by to see who was all gathered to send the old tree on its way. then we went to China Creek park and Seamus ran about with an energetic younger dog for a bit. more about the park on another day, there are softball or soccer games nearly every night now. fun.

Anne Feeney at the Rhizome Cafe

2007-06-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

Anne Feeney played the Rhizome Cafe (317 E. Broadway - across from Kingsgate Mall) on June 23. It was the second time I've seen her there. The crowd was smaller than it had been in January - I guess more competition from other events, but she is a great singer and performer, especially of labour songs and feminist songs. She makes you pat your feet and sing along like crazy. Here's a link to listen to some clips of her newest CD "If I Can't Dance."

Activity at Great Northern Way Campus

2007-06-14T00:57:00.000-07:00

Four major schools in this area have a joint interest in a little campus a few blocks to the west of the VCC-Clark Sky Train Station. For a couple of years, not much has been happening at this location, which is jointly operated by UBC, SFU, BCIT, and Emily Carr. There was a scene shop for the UBC Theatre department there for a while, there's been a small green roofs experiment going on, there were some space rentals to movie companies, and a few temporary research-project offices. Last summer there was a festival there during the United Nations World Urban Forum. A 2005 article in The Tyee talks about plans to build a fancy glass Interactive Centre for Sustainability there, and how those plans had been postponed. The revised "early 2007" completion target also went by the by. The permit sign is still up and ground hasn't been broken.

Now, a librarian I met this week told me that an existing building that has just been painted black is to be the new home of the very first entering class of the Masters of Digital Media Program - a joint project of all the schools. According to her, after taking their core courses the students will each receive $50,000 to pursue a project, with the money coming from the school and from private industry. The private industry donors will receive the benefits of the students' research projects.

I found a press release online dated May 2, 2007, saying that the project is intended to "create a launch pad for the next generation of interactive entertainment leaders." It also said that Electronic Arts Inc. (Nasdaq: ERTS) was making a grant of $1 million to the campus.

The Electronic Arts Inc. website shows they are an interactive gaming company doing "Fantasy, Sports, and Strategy Videogames." The front page of the website shows a nasty-looking car crash and a list of 30 countries on 5 continents where you can get a game account -- oops, make that 31 countries as USA/Canada is listed as one. The games on the USA/Canada page include "Command & Conquer," "Boom Boom Rocket," and games about NHL, football, and Harry Potter.

On the other end of the gender taste spectrum, check out the Netwoman Blog. On this blog, a woman named Tracy Kennedy, who is a sociology doctoral student in Toronto, reports she is conducting a second life online as Tracy Trailblazer, a virtual Research Assistant for the Great Northern Way Campus, thus "creating a presence" for the campus in the online game Second Life. It is unclear from her blog whether she gets paid for real.

The web site for the Great Northern Way Campus is http://www.gnwc.ca/about-2/. It asserts that "The GNWC has joined the local community to help define this urban landscape as they create and deliver new professionally-oriented, educational and cultural programs."

If anyone knows how this campus interfaces with the local community, please post a response.

QLT not on the QT

2007-06-11T21:33:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was in North China Park and heard a sound like a car alarm and a lot of shouting. The noise went on and on. When I walked to the top of the hill and looked down to the north, I saw a demonstration going on, just across Great Northern Way. There were four young men with black balaclavas covering their faces, walking with signs. One of them had a hand-held electric bullhorn that made the alarm sounds, and he was also shouting through it. The amplified and distorted sound bounced off the walls of the buildings, so it was impossible to understand what he was saying. Another man was standing on the hill with me watching, but neither of us had binoculars, so we couldn't read the signs. There were four police cars parked around the four demonstrators. Two uniformed police stood on the sidewalk watching. After a while, a fifth demonstrator walked over, carrying a sign.

Finally one of the chants was clear enough that we realized it was a demonstration against animal testing. The building they were standing in front of was QLT Inc. I looked them up on the web, and found this listing:

QLT Inc.
A global pharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative therapies to treat cancer, eye diseases and niche areas. Combining expertise in ophthalmology, oncology and photodynamic therapy, QLT has commercialized two products to date, including Visudyne™ therapy.
Address: 887 Great Northern Way Vancouver BC, V5T 4T5
Tel: 604-707-7000
Fax: 604-707-7001
www.qltinc.com

Visudyne™ is a drug for treating age-related macular degeneration, and QLT manufactures it. There's a web page here that describes how Visudyne™ works.

Back in 1997, QLT acquired from Germany and then got approval for what was reportedly the first "photodynamic" drug, Photofrin™, used for treating lung cancer and esophageal cancer. Too bad it wasn't around before 1993 when my dad died of esophageal cancer.

In December 2006, the former CEO and President who got Visudyne™ through the drug approval process, Dr. Julia Levy, retired from QLT's board. Dr. Levy participated in developing photodynamic drugs in general, and Visudyne™, in particular, while she was a professor at UBC. She went private to form Quadra Logic Technologies in 1981. There's an admiring bio of her on the site Inventive Women,
and a quote from Dr. Levy appears on the blog Brilliant Idiot:

I think the financial success one has at the early stage of a company like that is being able to tell a story and sell a dream.

- Dr. Julia Levy
Co-founder, QLT Inc.

QLT is listed on the stock exchanges in two countries. In the US on NASDAQ (QLTI) and on the Toronto Stock Exchange - TSX - it's (QLT). According to QLT, their sales of Visudyne™ dropped 46% in the first quarter of 2007. As of June 1, they announced they were buying back shares of their stock from the public "for cancellation."
According to The Motley Fool, a website that makes stock recommendations, QLT has been buying back shares for a year. It says they can afford to buy back the shares with current profits, but their sales are dropping because another drug company patented a rival macular degeneration treatment. QLT also had to pay to settle a patent-infringement lawsuit over Eligard™, a hormone treatment for prostate cancer acquired when they bought another company.

When a company buys back its shares, that's supposed to signal to investors that they think their stock will do well in the future, despite current problems. But on the other hand, it could be a fake-out.

QLT's slogan might seem excessively arrogant to some:

"Our business is science. Our Product is life."