[00:00:45] Ian Bushfield: I’m Ian Bushfield. Happy birthday, dude.

[00:00:47] Matthew Naylor: Thank you. Thank you. I am, you know, rusticating out at a lovely villa on Vancouver Island in, in the town of Bowser, which I will get to a little bit later.

[00:01:00] And I am you know, very happy to be here I’m actually still very happy to be podcasting, but if people want to get me a gift, maybe they should head over to our Patreon page at patreon.com/cambiereport.

[00:01:16] Ian Bushfield: Patreon.com/cambiereport. That sounds like a good website.

[00:01:20] Matthew Naylor: Yes, that’s right. patreon.com/cambiereport, where they can contribute anywhere from zero to 33, for example, dollars towards keeping this podcast up and running.

[00:01:34] So we’ve got a good show for this Labour Day weekend: some drama in the NPA, some kind of reprehensible behavior from some people in Vancouver municipal politics and rumblings about potential mayoral candidates and, GOGO gondola.

[00:01:52] So let’s get into it.

[00:01:54] Ian Bushfield: First off, I want to get to this piece in the Tyee that just came out today from Jen St Denis, past guest of the podcast. And it

[00:02:03] Matthew Naylor: Yeah.

[00:02:04] Ian Bushfield: really gets into this new, or this continuing, brouhaha of various groups that are trying to speak out about the situation in Strathcona Park and in the Downtown Eastside.

[00:02:17] But in particular, it’s getting quite vile. there are a number of individuals and groups that are starting to speak out and try to call for things like there should be an audit of the services that are in the Downtown Eastside to see if they’re cost effective. They’re saying there’s not enough safety in the situations they call harm reduction of failed experiment, which I, I think the Supreme Court of Canada would disagree with.

[00:02:45] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. like if you’re going to call something a failed experiment, you actually have to point to the data. Like you have to point to data and show how the null hypothesis has been achieved. Like you can’t just say it’s a failed experiment because I hate these people.

[00:03:02] it’s a failed experiment because it fails to give me money. Well, it appears to give other people money. Like this is the kind of callousness that I find absolutely reprehensible in the right. And it’s, it’s just so. It’s disheartening and disappointing. And like it’s unbecoming of the kind of city that we should be like the right answer left at their best in the city have agreed on the need for infusing our drug policy with compassion and with understanding and. Like to see people drifting away from that to see people drifting into the, rhetoric of personal choice and personal failings and using like just disgusting terminology,

[00:03:53] Ian Bushfield: It goes even farther than that. one of the current board members of the NPA, Christopher Wilson was, caught on tape, telling people to consider quote, start harassing these lowlifes, referring to homeless people, using drugs. And Yaletown.

[00:04:10] Matthew Naylor: Okay, well, first off harassment is against the law and that is like harassment. With the desire to inflict mental distress on someone is a tort and like they are exposing themselves. To liability here. Like, obviously this isn’t legal advice because like, fuck those people, they,

[00:04:32] Ian Bushfield: people saying this, not the people who need help or who

[00:04:35] Matthew Naylor: no, no, no. The people, no it’s the people or behaving reprehensible and are, like possibly going to get themselves sued. but have some goddamn compassion, and the idea that like this former rebel media employee, Christopher Wilson, who has weaseled his way onto the NPA board, is advocating It’s like stochastic terrorism. It reminds me of those kind of, well, if someone were to take the law into their own hands, kind of, you know, advocate kids who are not counseling you to go and, do reprehensible acts, but they’re going and advocating for, you know, individual, liberty and individual.

[00:05:25] I get incensed about this. So I’m a little.

[00:05:28] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. Yeah, no. Yeah. Total let’s I’ll come back to the naming the names. two of the groups that are making a lot of these calls, one is called Safer Vancouver and the other is Step Up. And Step Up, longtime listeners and political watchers in Vancouver will remember from a couple of years, you know, in the, before times before the pandemic, when the biggest thing people were upset about in theory was the school tax surcharge that David Eby and the BC NDP had brought on that, you know, that tax on that extra property tax on homes over, I think it was two or $3 million.

[00:06:03] Matthew Naylor: It was a substantial amount. And, you know, one of my favorite pastimes, was to go and do my rights around Shaughnessy and just look up all those houses on and their assessed property values and see exactly how much money they would be expected to pay extra, in that school tax.

[00:06:20] And it was not much. It was like a couple thousand bucks at most. and that was the high end of the thing. Like I Step Up, step up to what?

[00:06:32] The other group is, of course…

[00:06:34] Ian Bushfield: Safer Vancouver, it’s a newer one, and it’s seems like it’s largely online. It’s headed by, someone named Dallas Brodie.

[00:06:43] Matthew Naylor: Oh, no, really? Yeah.

[00:06:46] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, Brodie is apparently a former member of the Shaughnessy Heights Property Owner’s Association.

[00:06:50] Matthew Naylor: I know Dallas, boom, man. And he used to be a BC Young Liberal when I was active in the party. Oh, that’s disappointing. It’s hard to see people go down that dark path. Wow. That’s gross and sad.

[00:07:05] Ian Bushfield: So on the other side of, I guess the debate on the right, you have the NPA elected caucus who have now taken into forming their own or creating their own Twitter account @NPACaucus and releasing a statement, essentially distancing themselves even further from their board. They say they categorically denounce the statements made by Mr. Wilson. They do not reflect the values of the NPA caucus and it’s signed by all the sitting councilors, commissioners and trustees.

[00:07:35] Matthew Naylor: Well, maybe, maybe Rebecca Bligh will have some company on the independent benches .

[00:07:41] Ian Bushfield: Well, it makes me wonder, like, does the NPA caucus run against the NPA in this coming election? Because that seems to be where we’re headed.

[00:07:51] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. And like, given that this is, I mean, there is one more board election between now and the actual choosing of candidates. So I think that is probably going to be the one that is going to determine whether or not this, shakes out to be a, right versus right style issue. those counselors will need to find a new home and that will mean adopting some other party banner, of some variety, whether that’s Pro Vancouver or Yes Vancouver or Vancouveratta the party, whoever, you know, the, those errant leftovers of the one scraps the Vancouver city council. it does indicate to me that, like, there is something happening with the right that is very at odds with the history of the NPA. Where like a, a fairly, I would say even disinterested, almost right wing cabal of small businessmen, usually appointed like civic minded joiners that still believed in like a measure of personal Liberty and opposing communism and socialism in its various forms.

[00:09:13] Ian Bushfield: That’s always the classic reason for the center- center, right to get together in BC, is to keep the socialist hoards out.

[00:09:21] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. And like, that’s why I was there. I mean, in greater or lesser, I’ll be honest with why I was there, but the, um, Yeah, you can’t change the formula of Coke without raising some ire. Like there’s going to be a Coke Classic resurgence at some point and New Coke, which I assume is what this, this entity is, is going to end up presenting itself to the general public has, a warmed over Rebel Media kind of redux thing is not going to be appealing to most people, cause it’s so out of step with Vancouverite values.

[00:10:07] Ian Bushfield: I mean, there’s definitely a fringe or a certain segment that values that, you know, Wai Young didn’t flame out entirely in the municipal election. She did post a number of votes more than I think most people were expecting. It’s not enough to get you the mayorship and

[00:10:28] Matthew Naylor: Yeah, not allowed to elect people to council at all. Like it’s. I think that what they, what their strategy was is let’s hijack the most, you know, by some definitions, successful entity in a political entity in the Western world and see if that can allow us to, ride. Like Hannibal on an elephant to victory, but I, I don’t think that’s actually going to happen.

[00:10:53] Like the Republican Party in the United States does this kind of maximalist approach, but it requires an entire side of a country to be United in promoting maximalism rather than conciliation.

[00:11:09] Ian Bushfield: So that I think leads us into the psych series of articles that Dan Fumano has just been pumping out. You know, he’s got one about Ken Sim that we’ll get a bit more into. He’s got more about how he’s trading barbs with the party over campaign finances in the last election. And then he’s just got a Roundup piece that I encourage you to go and read on the key figures from the 2018 election, you know, where’s Way Young at today? What’s Hector Bremner doing? Spoiler alert, both are ruling out a future electoral run,

[00:11:45] Matthew Naylor: What these incredibly ambitious people are considering running for politics.

[00:11:49] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, well, at least, Yes Vancouver still seems to exist versus Coalition Vancouver seems pretty defunct, but then again, you know, we’re still quite a ways from an election.

[00:11:59] Matthew Naylor: And Yes Vancouver I think made an effort in the post election period to actually have like salons and and try to exert itself as a party that was interested in, actually contributing to the civic debate, which is more than I can say for the NPA, for most of its history, to be honest, like the NPA exists as a vessel to elect people rather than, as a movement, which I think Yes Vancouver kind of sees itself more as.

[00:12:26] Ian Bushfield: But, so what’s really interesting about Ken Sim here is he, I think we mused on the last episode about whether he would run again and whether he’d run with the NPA, but now he’s formally ruled out running with the NPA. And I think he actually expressed it to Dan Fumano as I want to run against them. Not, I want to run for mayor. I want to run against Kennedy stewards. I want to run against the NPA.

[00:12:49] Matthew Naylor: Well, I mean, it’s hard to run against Kennedy store because it’s like shadow boxing, But I think that’s a good thing. I think maybe Ken Sim isn’t necessarily the vessel that would be most effective at doing that, but it’s nice to see that people on the right are as appalled as I am at this perversion of, of what, being a pro business civic politician. You know, pro economy, pro development, the civic politician is in Vancouver.

[00:13:18] it is essential that we stand up against these like regressive and hard right elements in our society. And it’s, it is I think, most important to follow that people on the right do it because. otherwise the right allows itself to become co-opted. I mean, I think we should like congratulate and, and praise the caucus for distancing themselves from the malicious and malignant elements that have reared their head on the NPA board.

[00:13:52]and so too, with Ken Sim, now as to the political viability of such candidacy, I’m not sure,

[00:13:58] Ian Bushfield: So one of the things that lends some credibility to his run is Fumano reached out to Peter Armstrong who observers and followers will know as like one of the. Big names behind the NPA sort of the shadow power and the shadow money behind the NPA. he has been a member of the NPA for 30 plus years, but he said, he’s going to let it lapse because quote, I’ve lost faith in the direction of the current leadership.

[00:14:26] The current administration is taking it in a reactionary, difficult direction, and he’s more ecstatic to learn that Sim is considering a 2022 run and will help in any way he can.

[00:14:36] Matthew Naylor: Well, ecstatic might be pushing it a while, but I realized that I don’t think I’ve ever formally quit the NPA, but, this is terrible. I don’t want to be associated with this party. And I resigned. Yes, that is me publicly doing this right now because I am so horrified at this. This is

[00:14:54] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, it it’s the Michael Scott, I declared bankruptcy situation. You just have to do that. And it’s effective, right?

[00:15:01] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know, Scott didn’t quit the NBA. He was kind of expelled from it, but apparently all you need to do is kind of generally intimate that you’re displeased from the party and then you’ll be expelled. But,

[00:15:16] Ian Bushfield: They can’t fire you, you quit

[00:15:17] Well then let’s cross the bridge and look at what’s going on over in Surrey.

[00:15:22] Matthew Naylor: Yes. So, speaking of blasts from the past, we might in fact have two pest mayors blasting at each other in the next campaign. because a recent poll, has former Surrey mayor and former conservative MP, Dianne Watts leading current and also former Surrey Doug McCallum by an, almost two to one margin.

[00:15:48] This is a Pollara poll. that I, not exactly sure who has commissioned it.

[00:15:55] Ian Bushfield: The national police Federation, it says in the Vancouver Sun piece.

[00:16:00] Matthew Naylor: All right. What an interesting choice,

[00:16:04] But the actual pulling numbers show that 55% of those surveyed would vote for Watts. while 27% are, backing McCallum, 18% considering voting for another candidate. This is of course, very speculative. Watts has said that she’s not officially considering anything, but she is of course not ruling it out.

[00:16:24] Which to me sounds like she definitely considering it very strongly.

[00:16:29] Ian Bushfield: I think we felt pretty definitive that it was Mario Canseco considering Kennedy Stewart in a poll on him doing pretty well, that led to him running.

[00:16:38] Matthew Naylor: Oh, yeah, a hundred, a hundred percent like, polling moves politicians, probably more than, it is actually a snapshot of the actual race as it is. Especially this far out at a municipal level, like there’s so much variety and variation that can, can happen in between now and election there.

[00:17:02] Give him that like we’re, you know, how many is, will politics shakes out?

[00:17:08] Ian Bushfield: I think one of the reasons the Police Federation did this was not for the mayoral poll so much as the question about the police transition plan, where they found 58% oppose the plan and 48, 4% were strongly opposed. Those would be people who I assume either don’t like the way McCallum is going from RCMP to Surrey PD, or just don’t want that at all 70% would want to referendum.

[00:17:34] Matthew Naylor: No.

[00:17:35] Ian Bushfield: Agreed.

[00:17:36] Matthew Naylor: I’m like, I’m just fundamentally opposed to referendum because they don’t think that they’re actually like, particularly good expressions of the public will. But the thing that I like worry about most with this kind of thing is can you imagine if this went through?

[00:17:48] And so we went back to an LRT plan compared to the sky train. Like I know that’s, that’s very farfetched, but like that LRTs seemed pretty locked in. The last,

[00:18:01] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, things change.

[00:18:04] So another element of this poll that’s really

[00:18:07] Matthew Naylor: back and then they changed back again.

[00:18:10] Ian Bushfield: There’s an age breakdown of the support for Watts versus McCallum. And it kind of baffles me that among 18 to 34 year olds. McCallum is leading 42 to 34 over Watts versus the 55 pluses are 71 to 12 for Watts.

[00:18:29] Matthew Naylor: I think that’s latency,

[00:18:31] Ian Bushfield: It may, it may also just be the fact that there’s only 400 respondents to this poll.

[00:18:37] Matthew Naylor: yeah. So it’s, it’s not a, like, I don’t know what the margin of error is in the breakdowns, but. I also think that among 18 to 34 year olds, I think that like, are things totally falling apart in Surrey right now? Not necessarily. So like a default parked vote, is probably going to favor McCallum for those of people who remember, Watts’ last terms.

[00:19:05] I can imagine that those are remembered fondly, especially since they’re falling right into the nostalgia cycle right now. and for those people who remember both Watts and McCallum’s terms, I think that 71% speaks fairly well for itself.

[00:19:23] Ian Bushfield: And I think the last thing most younger people would remember about Watts or if they remember anything would be her running for BC Liberal leader, unsuccessfully.

[00:19:33] Matthew Naylor: well, I mean, she might have a chance to do that again too pretty soon, but I’ll leave that to PolitiCoast to discuss.

[00:19:39] Finally, speaking of transit options. The construction on the $2.8 billion Broadway subway is to begin this fall. and the official consultation for the Burnaby Mountain gondola started up a couple of days ago. I have already filled in my consultation report.

[00:19:59] And I encourage everyone else to do the same. They are considering a couple of separate routes, including, routes that include the kind of transfer station that allow for a bend, which both extend the trip and increase the cost of the station.

[00:20:18] Ian Bushfield: So the big question with the Burnaby mountain gondola is I think there’s a lot of residents in the Forest Glen area, this area sort of just like up the hill from Production Way. There’s at least enough who have been vocally opposed to the idea of a gondola going over their backyards. So TransLink is considering two ways to kind of bend the group. So it either goes from Production Way kind of towards Burquitlam, but not to Burquitlam because there will be no reason to go there. You know, there’s only a couple thousands of homes going in there and it only takes 25 to 40 minutes to get to SFU from there by transit versus eight by car. It’s very weird location.

[00:21:03] And the other route would go to Lake City Way, which frankly in my mind makes no sense because that stations shouldn’t exist because there is nothing there.

[00:21:12] Matthew Naylor: Yeah.

[00:21:13] Ian Bushfield: Not that there’s much Production Way, but at least it’s an established hub.

[00:21:18] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. I mean, Lake City Way exists. I think mostly out of the desire to put the stations in kind of, I think even distance apart.

[00:21:29] Ian Bushfield: It would have felt too long if you didn’t have it there.

[00:21:32] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. And like, I don’t know. I I’ve known people who do use the station like very regularly, but, it is not a station that I can imagine gets a ton of traffic given the, largely industrial and trucking complex, businesses that surround the area.

[00:21:51] I think there’s a, there’s a large trucking hub nearby. But those, those have trucks. So it is essential, but the people who are using the gondola to get to us, if you feel in that consultation. So, do get to that translate website. they are going to be presenting to Burnaby city council in relatively short order.

[00:22:16] So, make it a part of your labor day weekend plans, or do it first thing Tuesday morning, make sure you get onto that website and fill up the consultation. It does not take very long. it’s just a couple of questions about where you live and how, like what type of transit you use and how often you have to go to, to bring the mountain, as for the other.

[00:22:38] Major construction project. $2.8 billion are got to be pumped into the ground, including, stationed that has stolen Mike importance, which is very sad to me, but I will sacrifice for the greater good.

[00:22:52] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. So the announcement on the Broadway subway earlier this week, week was mostly the announcement of which firm they’d picked. They picked the, Spanish infrastructure engineering firm, Acciona and Italian tunneling company Ghella who’d come together as a private consortium. I don’t think there’ve been too many other bids because this is a very complex project and it’s not like you can just.

[00:23:16] Start a company and be like, I’m going to build a subway halfway through, one of the densest parts of Western Canada.

[00:23:22] Matthew Naylor: It would have rightly been refused and, you know, we didn’t have the foresight of Calgary to keep that right away clear under, under 7th Ave. man, it’s kind of upsetting that we have to like look to Calgary as a city with foresight, for its public transit projects.

[00:23:40] Ian Bushfield: Part of that is just, it wasn’t as built up as early. And what was built up was like horse cart,

[00:23:48] Matthew Naylor: well, no. during the run up to the 88 Olympics, when Calgary like purchase the right of way and then build there, they built the station under city hall that has never been used, but, it is there. And I think it is, well thought out. I think that the fact that Broadway was a historic road in Vancouver and, you know, it has long been built up.

[00:24:11] It is a very different thing, but, well we’re going to, we’re going to build a subway and it is good. So,

[00:24:19] Ian Bushfield: and by 2025, in theory, it will go to Arbutus and maybe eventually it will go to UBC, but await further money announcements from the province and federal government for that.

[00:24:32] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. Well, hopefully, maybe Justin’s listening and feels like giving me a birthday present, send it all the way. It’s nice to see, these projects finally start to break ground after so much talk. It’s the first major construction of subway line in, since really the RAV line.

[00:24:50] I know the Evergreen Line also it is a fairly substantial expansion, but like it is the first in Vancouver since RAV

[00:24:59] Ian Bushfield: Oh, the Canada line.

[00:25:01] Matthew Naylor: RAV. Richmond-Airport-Vancouver. Yeah. Sorry. I’m using I’m using the archaic term.

[00:25:06] Ian Bushfield: on the same page now

[00:25:08] Matthew Naylor: Yes, we are, but not the same landmass. So why don’t we move on to Vancouveratta

[00:25:13] Ian Bushfield: you’re on Vancouver Island. you mentioned the town of Bowser that you’re in. Where does that town get his namesake?

[00:25:19] Matthew Naylor: Bowser is named after one of BC’s early premiers, John William Bowser, John William Bowser was not a particularly successful premier. He only served for about a year.

[00:25:34] Ian Bushfield: That was actually pretty common in the early years before we had parties. Cause no one could keep dysfunctional BC politicians together.

[00:25:40] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. and he was succeeded by one of his friends. He was also, and I think this is a little more interesting. he is the only premier that we don’t know where he is buried.

[00:25:56] So, a while ago, a couple of years ago, a man on Vancouver Island tracked down every grave of every BC, premier on I believe visited all of them, but he couldn’t find the grave of John William Bowser.

[00:26:10] Now it’s not because he’s still alive. He would be quite old if he had survived to this day and in fact, his death and his funeral are well-documented, his funeral was at the Anglican cathedral in downtown Vancouver. And no one seems to know where that casket went after, what the Vancouver Sun describes the same marvelous ceremony.

[00:26:36] So I have been a little bit obsessed with this recently and I have been cycling around, like the, the Masonic cemetery, because he was the chief of the BC Masons for a year in 1915, 1916. And so I thought he might have been buried in the Vancouver Masonic cemetery because he was, well, buried after the inauguration of that cemetery. if anyone knows or has any information as to the whereabouts as, of the bones of John William Bowser, please do get in touch because it’s driving me crazy. Okay.

[00:27:13] Ian Bushfield: Can find all our contact details at cambiareport.ca. We’re on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, I think

[00:27:20] Tell us where Bowser lives or rests.

[00:27:25] Matthew Naylor: yes, help us track down the bones of Bowser, support, independent journalism, independent civic, journalism at patreon.com/cambiereport. Thank you all for joining us on this lovely, relaxed Labour Day, weekend, and stand strong against the rising tide of evil that appears to be polluting Vancouver’s right.

[00:27:48] Ian Bushfield: Not just COVID-19

[00:27:51] Matthew Naylor: Stay safe, everyone.

[00:27:52] Ian Bushfield: Good night.

[00:00:29] Matthew Naylor: It is August 14th, 2020, and there are 792 days until the Vancouver municipal elections. This is the Cambie Report. I’m Matthew Naylor

[00:00:40] Ian Bushfield: I’m Ian Bushfield and joining us today for a special segment, is Micah Goldberg

[00:00:45] Micah Goldberg: Hello. Thanks for having me back on the program.

[00:00:48] Ian Bushfield: No problem. We’re gonna talk a bit about the Vancouver Park Board’s most recent controversy with you, Micah. We have a bunch of stuff to say about the NPA, housing, lots is going on and by-elections potentially.

[00:01:01] Matthew Naylor: You know where things are not going on? The Vancouver city council, were Dan Fumano has characterized the goings on as postpone and delay a torpor induced troubles. If I ever did see one. Vancouver city council also approved rezoning for 258 secured rental units in a tower on the former Denny site.

[00:01:23] The most expensive Denny’s ever.

[00:01:26] Ian Bushfield: But before we even kick it off. There’s something we have to do every show Matthew.

[00:01:30] Matthew Naylor: We need to grub some for some money. So www.patreon.com/cambiereport. if you join our Patreon, you can get access to a bunch of exclusive Patreon content. We sometimes do extended interviews up there. There are stickers there’s merchant. And, there is also, the access to our fabulous Slack channel, with Leg and Boot Media, where listeners of both Cambie Report and PolitiCoast can discuss goings on local provincial, municipal, and global.

[00:02:02] Ian Bushfield: Indeed

[00:02:03] Matthew Naylor: patreon.com/cambiereport. It’s been a little while.

[00:02:07] Ian Bushfield: Micah, the park board. We talked about it a few times last week. Me and Tessa, this time, we’re going to talk about their motion from July 14th, actually a full month ago. They’re allowing camping in the park.

[00:02:20] why are people angry?

[00:02:21] Micah Goldberg: Well, you can, yeah. Tell how contentious the decision was based on the four, three vote. It was very tight. essentially you have, people on the two extremes of this issue and, some people in the middle here who have a tough time figuring out which side they’re coming down on the existing park control, bylaw, restricted people from entering the park, after 10:00 PM and from, creating a.

[00:02:48] A structure or erecting a 10th, say overnight in the park. Okay. And what this amended by law allows people to do is to, say pitch those tents. overnight, as long as are taken down early in the morning, the next day. And there are some limitations about where the tents can go up, but, it ended up being contentious because I think that there’s a segment of people who maybe feel fatigued by the homeless issue because of how prevalent it is.

[00:03:16] It’s a significant issue, not just in Vancouver, but all over the lower mainland and for property owners, let’s say, this issue has been talked about a lot, particularly in recent years as the problem has become more widespread. And I think the sad truth is that there’s just no easy answers here. So you get a polarized discussion, but you also get people who are just frankly, They want the homelessness issue to go away and it’s just not going away.

[00:03:44] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, I think we saw that in the, you know, in this constant debate around it, Strathcona park. Now it was crap park. It was often Heimer park. It’s unclear where the next part will be. Or, you know, the tent city in Strathcona park will be more permanent, but you see this debate somewhat along party lines, but you also see people.

[00:04:08] Like Pete Fry. Who’s a resident of Strathcona expressing some frustration and expressing some of the frustration of those residents who are tired and want more, what their park pack is. They see it

[00:04:22] Micah Goldberg: well, let’s talk, let’s talk a little bit about those extremes, at least on the political spectrum. For some people, you know, the tent cities represent. areas that are, seem to be unsafe, where they feel like they can’t access parks, which are supposed to be a public resource. They create fire risks, sanitation issues.

[00:04:42] they may be hubs of, violence. and frankly, for some people they’re just unsightly. But on the other side, you have individuals who are sympathetic with the campers themselves. these are individuals who have nowhere else to live, who. For the most part are suffering from mental health or addiction issues.

[00:05:01] individuals who are trying to escape abuse, and are seeking safety through these, attendance cities. So you have, it’s true. You have this appropriation of a public space away from the public, but on the other hand, you have homeless individuals who are, you know, trying to perform essential acts in public, who.

[00:05:19] At least with this, we’re going to have to pack up every morning, lose their community and sense of permanence. That’s sort of the debate on the extremes.

[00:05:28] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. I, I think that. It’s worth it to consider what purpose parks have in an urban context. And one of them is amenities, certainly like place to recreate and in play. And another one is basically just open space or wooded space for general use, and doesn’t have to be for recreation and perks. Often served these kind of general use and oftentimes like uses that would not otherwise be prioritized by ruling elites.

[00:06:05] those uses throughout history, the modern notion of perks. Like, as it originated with the city beautiful movement in the eighties, nineties and 19 hundreds emphasized a lot of, green open spaces and like monumental grand juror. And then that has kind of shrunk down into this pocket park model that Vancouver has adopted.

[00:06:26] Although we do have our occasional monuments every once in a while, see Bloedel conservatory, for example. but like there is. Like a need that city council won’t prioritize or has a hard time prioritizing. And then that just unmet need needs to flow somewhere. And parks ended up being a pretty logical place for that because everywhere else has, like those highest and best use requirements for property taxes. One of the things that I was thinking about when reading up on this article was remember that.

[00:07:00] parking lot that got turned into a dog park a while back for basically property tax reasons where there was a, a huge property tax cut for what was originally a money making enterprises and then became a voluntary developer amenity. I’m interested in knowing like how many of those properties exist and like how many cycles through the property development cycle, every, Every year.

[00:07:25] And if there is any chance that those kinds of places can be used, on a press, more dependable basis than, taking away amenity from other, other residents.

[00:07:40] Ian Bushfield: right. And we’ve seen this play out across the lower mainland and elsewhere where people who have nowhere else to go, literally seek refuge in these parks. And I think that’s where Micah you’ve seen the jurisprudence play out when people say, Oh, you know, the city moves in with an injunction to kick people out.

[00:08:00] And the people who are there say. We have a charter right to live somewhere. We have nowhere. Why can’t we be here?

[00:08:08] Micah Goldberg: That’s exactly right. in, if you look at why the parks board decided to change or amend their, their bylaw, it’s because of jurisprudence that has evolved mostly since 2008, since the Adams case, which I’m going to talk about in a moment. if you, the, the debate within the parks board itself, I councillor Coupar, for example, is asking why we allow people to openly camp and parks in the first place.

[00:08:35] that for a variety of reasons, we shouldn’t enable this type of housing solution. And if you look at them green party side of the parks board, and particularly a councillor Demers. as the vice chair of the board, his response was that the park board is trying to create this balance that recognizes the importance of people being able to use the parks, but also recognizes this series of jurisprudence that has effectively made the bylaws as they existed previous to July 14th, unconstitutional, this Adam’s case, which came out of Victoria.

[00:09:12] Reached the Supreme court in 2008, and the was upheld with an asterisk, let’s say by the court of appeal the next, the next year, there was a bylaw in Victoria that prevented people from building shelters in public spaces. So there was no prohibition say on sleeping in a public area, but having a tent, having a tarp over your head, having a cardboard box even, were all deemed to be contraventions of this bylaw and the defendants who are homeless individuals argued that these types of bylaws infringe on the rights of homeless people to their life, liberty, and security of the person.

[00:09:47] This was a, a section seven challenge and their overarching argument was that the bylaws attack the dignity and personal autonomy of the city’s homeless population, the city’s response. was a bit more technical because what they said, the real issue was had nothing to do with the prohibition on, structures or tents.

[00:10:10] It was actually the homelessness itself. That was the issue. This is sort of a side step, to get around this section seven challenge. When they say that since the bylaws themselves are causing the homelessness and the dangerous conditions that come with being homeless. section seven, wasn’t engaged.

[00:10:27] Matthew Naylor: it’s interesting to look at how this compares to some of the public housing policies of other cities. I mean, New York has one of the best public housing models in the world that just sort of takes, for example, you know, luxury hotels and because anyone who wants a.

[00:10:48] You know, temporary home in New York is entitled to get a temporary home in New York. if they live there, if they’re a resident, they can go and request. One of these hotels in the city provides them, for them, it speaks to the values of, government and the society that, and also really its needs that the.

[00:11:09] Homeless need a place to go. They, they need somewhere to stay because they will continue to exist and, you know, be matter and take up space. And, that has to happen with dignity. mostly some, some places don’t care, Canada, has. Kind of stepped into the land of creating some positive rates, but mostly it’s a, a negative right to not be obstructed from, using a public space, Republican amenity, Ian, a manner that would bring you closer to security.

[00:11:43] You have the person, am I getting that right?

[00:11:45] Micah Goldberg: I think you’re right. That, the courts at least have been very shy to read and positive obligations on the government. and because the charter and the constitution at large purposefully doesn’t contain any. rights with respect to property that has in its own a specific way. Come at a disadvantage too.

[00:12:10] The homeless population who may not otherwise have any rights to say a safe place to sleep, or a permanent shelter over their heads, things that you might otherwise at least, Challenge for within the charter that that’s kind of a nonstarter, the way that the constitution is, has been built up.

[00:12:30] Matthew Naylor: It’s interesting that property rights in terms of their negative form will often benefit the hyper wealthy or, you know, the ones with the most property, but the positive corollary of negative property rights is something that would benefit, the least advantaged among us.

[00:12:49] Ian Bushfield: The wealthy can afford the best lawyers.

[00:12:51] Matthew Naylor: yeah. Sir for upcoming Matthew Naylor hire here. If you’re looking by the way,

[00:12:57] Micah Goldberg: yeah. And I think that that could be its own entire deep dive can be report in and of itself. Probably more suited for some sort of legal podcast, but the Cadbury report knows no bounds. in any event I’m gonna, just double back here, to the case. So I’ve sort of set up the background of what’s going on in this case, what the arguments were, but in Adam’s the single most important factor was the true circumstances facing the homeless population.

[00:13:26] And I recall, A couple of weeks ago where Horrigan got in some hot water for saying addictions was more or less a choice people made that went to the heart of why it is people are homeless in the first place and how you see or perceive the circumstances surrounding people falling into homelessness or becoming homeless in the first place.

[00:13:46] in Victoria at the time, Adams was decided in 2008. There were 800 people that weren’t just facing unstable housing, but were actually homeless, including 60 children. There were about a hundred and a hundred or so shelter beds in Victoria, which could be expanded to 300, some odd beds in extreme conditions.

[00:14:07] And, there was uncontradicted expert evidence to suggest that exposure to the elements without adequate protection created significant health risks. This was a lethal concoction to the city of Victoria. His argument, these three factors taken a combination. There was this, the gap that existed between, the amount of homeless people that there were in Victoria and the amount of available beds, which meant as a judicial finding, that the interview who were trying to pitch these tents and trying to.

[00:14:42] Put a tarp over their head had no choice, but to sleep outside in the cities, parks, or streets and the effect of the bylaws, which prevented them from even putting a cardboard box over their heads, or, or the most rudimentary form of shelter, meant that these people were completely exposed to the elements and they were among the most vulnerable and marginalized individuals in the city.

[00:15:07] This was justice Ros’s, move towards finding that the bylaws were, unconstitutional because of the significant and potentially severe health risks that were created just as Ross pointed out that a full third of homeless women in Victoria said that the reason that they were homeless was because they had been abused where they lived.

[00:15:29] Ultimately the court dismissed the city’s technical arguments found that the risks associated with being homeless, weren’t really at issue. So the sidestep strategy didn’t work. The real issue was prohibiting people from, having a shelter over their head.

[00:15:46] Matthew Naylor: A type of bylaw was actually truly preventing people who knew to sleep in parks from actually sleeping in parks. It just forced them into the less safe situations where people couldn’t stay in camps for, they feel a sense of community where there is Jane Jacobs, you know, eyes on the street that help enforce community order or, Where they have to go out into, you know, more secluded areas in, into the woods, into parks, into, more remote parks, that are more difficult to police.

[00:16:19] And you know, some of my friends who have suffered from homelessness before have been robbed in precisely these types of situations, it is terrible, and this would be safer.

[00:16:29] Ian Bushfield: I mean, there’s the pushback that many will cite. Isn’t that Oppenheimer park. Wasn’t the safest place. There was violence. There, there were issues in that specific camp. at the same time, we listened to people who were there and, you know, they’ll acknowledge that it wasn’t perfect, but it was still the least bad option or for many, it was a community that they needed and that they could rely on. Like, I think going back to one of the things that was said early, like there’s not an easy situation or not anyone’s ideal, but when it comes to a choice between pitching it. Tend to know city park and what, I guess, just like walking off into the sea, like there aren’t better options here. So this is how we get here.

[00:17:15] Micah Goldberg: Walking off into the sea wasn’t judicially discussed, but the court of appeal, a pined on the Supreme court decision and kind of clarified it. So the court of appeal, one thing I should state right off the start is that more or less the Supreme court decision that I just described was upheld with one exception.

[00:17:34] Ian, you were describing, this. Call it an impossible choice here. There there’s no choice that will please everybody. But the court of appeal said this, that in one circumstance, there would be an easy choice. If, for example, the city of Victoria had that’s enough. That’s okay. to shelter, every single homeless person, then the bylaws actually could be enforceable.

[00:18:02] So the bylaws were only unconstitutional to the extent that this gap existed. This is important for a couple of reasons, but it also shows the direction of the court, which says if there is actually a bed you can sleep at in a shelter available to you, then this notion that pitching attempt is somehow important or vital falls away because all of the, foundational principles that support.

[00:18:30] The finding that, the bylaws were, unconstitutional in the Adams case would, would fall away.

[00:18:37] Matthew Naylor: So like what, what would that look like? Like Yves, some officers was patrolling a park after closing time and they came across someone in the 10th. Would they be asking like, do you have a safe place to go tonight? The park is closed. and then if the answer was no, they would just have to either direct them to one of the shelters spaces that the knew about, or just leave the B.

[00:19:02] Micah Goldberg: I’ll try to answer it two ways. So let’s take your, hypothetical situation where a ranger approaches a homeless interview or an individual in a tent, and they ask, do you have any, alternative options for housing available? To answer your question. If that individual answered.

[00:19:19] Yes, the Bible officer would be within their rights to say you can’t camp here. You have to go to this alternative means for housing that you have. That’s because of how homeless individual has been defined in the new bylaws. A homeless individual is only somebody who does not have reliable, secure access to housing.

[00:19:38]  that was the first decision. that’s Adam’s decision. The second decision picks up, even on something you were talking about earlier, which was the, the true state of conditions in what most people call it, a tent city, in the Schatz decision, which, was that a decision 2015?

[00:19:56] dealing with Abbotsford bylaws, where they prohibited tents for being, erected and requiring, individuals who wanted to camp overnight in the parks to apply for a permit, to have a credit card and insurance and, they would be charged $10 a night effectively. It was making it impossible for homeless people to camp and parks.

[00:20:14] that decision focuses more on the cold realities of the tent cities. How dangerous they can be with the fire hazards and, and gain violence and discarded drug paraphernalia, sanitary issues, there’s other problems. All of which was described in a decision rendered by two justice Inkson, Kingston actually adopted similar language from the additive it’s decision, particularly around sections and found that the bylaws decreased dignity and independence increased.

[00:20:43] the psychological and physical harm that might come to, an individual who is, Again, the fundamental problem in Shan’s much like Adams was that, at the time of the decision was made, there was insufficient, viable, and accessible options for the residents of Abbotsford who were homeless. And chief justice Hinkson recognize the court of appeals variation and found that if there were no other viable and accessible options for housing, then the bylaws are necessarily, unconstitutional, but he added that the city’s homeless cannot be allowed to sleep and erect shelters in public spaces as a fundamental personal choice.

[00:21:27] If this gap didn’t exist because the dignity concerns would fall away. so I think if I’m reading between the lines sure. And I’m taking off my lawyer hat for just a second and I’m putting on my public policy hat, there’s a hidden incentive here to governments, which is, if you, I want people out of tent cities.

[00:21:48] If you want to eradicate the, eyesore, let’s say, if you find it to be an eyesore, then give them a bed to sleep. Now chief justice. Singson didn’t say that, but if I’m really reading between the lines, that’s what I see.

[00:22:04]  Ian Bushfield: ultimately we would hope our politicians actually care about all of the residents of their constituency. Including those without houses and would try to find homes for them. But the argument you’re referring to makes a lot of sense as well and will appeal to some others. I think where the park board in particular comes down into a tougher spot is they don’t have any authority to do that.

[00:22:30] It’s not the Vancouver park board’s job to build houses. It’s their job to. Mow the grass and maintain Vancouver’s parks. And so they’re kind of in this tough situation where they’re not responsible for building the homes. The province is doing a bit, the city’s doing a bit, but clearly it’s not enough.

[00:22:51] And so I can sympathize with the frustrations of the park or both have no power. And everyone hates when they use their power that they do have. The number of abolish the park board posts I’ve seen out there. It’s not necessarily a bad idea, but

[00:23:09] Matthew Naylor: Nope, not necessarily a bad idea, maybe a good idea. Maybe an idea that I ever flirting with pretty strictly. yeah, I don’t know. I find, I find that like a unified city government is probably more sensible than the system that we have at the moment.

[00:23:28] Ian Bushfield: Well, it’s more powerful, but let’s start to turn this conversation towards. close to bring it back to the park board bylaw. One of the things I asked you before we started recording Micah, because there was a split like John Erwin of Coke voted against this bylaw, but is calling Glen Giesbrecht also voted for it.

[00:23:46] Erwin said there was a failure to consultants in indigenous and unhoused people. I think he took the view that this is still kind of a punitive bylaw versus. when was probably saying this is something that’s better than nothing. The greens all voted for it. The MPA all voted against it. So is this bylaw better than not having a bylaw?

[00:24:05] Micah Goldberg: first of all, there was a bylaw, but the bylaw was unconstitutional. If you are supportive of the concept of responsible government, you should not have an unconstitutional bylaw on the books. Not only is it useless. It’s kind of an affront to the rule of law itself because you’re not recognizing what the courts have explicitly said.

[00:24:29] So beyond just not being able to enforce it. it’s just not a good idea to have it. Now. I, the reason why I’m on this program among other things, I also love talking to both of you guys, but one of the reasons was that there is some frustration out there about why the parks board has, Gone this route, why they have decided to allow, people to, camp in parks legitimately.

[00:24:54] And the simple answer is the parks board didn’t have a very fun choice to make, but they needed to have a law on the books. If they were going to have one that complied with the jurisprudence. And in my view, they’ve taken a strong step towards, a bylaw that looks like it would withstand constitutional scrutiny.

[00:25:14] Eddie and as you put it so eloquently, the, a bylaw that it replaced simply was not a bylaw at all. It was worse than no bylaw. so I do think, that the, that the parks board is better off with this bylaw than with the one they had before. Now, whether you think that there should have been. Some other bylaw, something else that complied with the constitutional standards and tried, and by the court, I’m open to that sort of criticism.

[00:25:44] But I, see, I don’t think that the park board had much of a choice when faced with one side that wanted to keep the bylaw as is, and maybe conduct some additional consultation and, an actual motion on the books that. Could withstand constitutional scrutiny. So the one last thing that I want to, put out here is, about what enforcement is going to look like.

[00:26:12] and you and I were talking about this, before we started recording, I must say, I’m not sure how this bylaw could be enforced. There’s 14 full time park Rangers. There’s something like 240 parks in Vancouver. How it is that these 14 park Rangers with the limited enforcement powers that they have are going to be able to go into the tent cities and convince these individuals to pack up and leave the security and permanence of their homes.

[00:26:44] And these are frankly, as close to a home as these individuals have. I just don’t see how that’s going to happen. One of the criticisms is that. This bylaw has been enforced without teeth. And that very well may be true. I think it’s a practical issue that the parks board, knows about. I’ll be curious to see how they confront that, or if they take any steps to actually do something about enforcing this new bylaw.

[00:27:09] But the cold reality is that these 14 Rangers probably won’t do much, but as I said, at least the bylaws can come into compliance with our constitution. That’s

[00:27:21] Matthew Naylor: It’s one of Canada’s great traditions of passing laws to be honored in the breach where really the, the major rule in Canada is don’t cause a ruckus. and then everything else is just sort of offshoots to be deployed, to prevent said, ruckus.

[00:27:37] Micah Goldberg: Okay. Excellent. Thanks a lot guys. Cheers.

[00:27:42] Matthew Naylor: And speaking of ruckuses, there is a bit of kerfuffle going down within the NPA. So four of the directors, Jane Frost, Jenny Richards, Marie Rogers, and Corey Sue resigned July 24th, citing poor communication and failure to build the party. Now, the NPA has always been a bit of a. Party of convenience, let’s say, where the non-communist could gather and control Vancouver basically. because that was the big debate. Well, forever in Vancouver.

[00:28:20] Ian Bushfield: Well, and that’s something you only really need to do in election years. And it being two years and 792 days from an election, not that urgent or important for them to exist.

[00:28:33] Matthew Naylor: no. but like , there was a point where parties like become change agents themselves. And I think that the NPA has looked at parties like one city and groups like abundant housing Vancouver, or. even the greens and seen a much more active, militant base or partisan based, compared to the rather moribund NPA when really all the treacherous wanted to do was have a board meeting and couldn’t even get that done.

[00:29:06] Ian Bushfield: for over four months.

[00:29:08] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. Which I mean, not great. You want, you want to, at the very least keep fun, very sick.

[00:29:14] Ian Bushfield: I think even Vision was pretty active until the end there when everyone just bailed, but they had a core supporter base and it kept things moving. Like there were people who were, as, you know, Pro-Vision as they were. Partisan new Democrats or, federal liberals or what have you. And the NPA has just not had that same, like grassroots base.

[00:29:37] Matthew Naylor: No, they have not. Part of that is because it hasn’t needed to fundraise quite as much as some of the other parties because of its money, connections, and, just sort of the history and demographics of the NPA.

[00:29:53] Ian Bushfield: yeah, they just call up their three developer friends and they have all their checks cut for the next election. It’s a little more than that, but

[00:30:02] effectively.

[00:30:03] Matthew Naylor: it was timber barons, but you know, basically. Still.

[00:30:06] Ian Bushfield: So the NPA has run into a series of, controversies, even since the end of 2019. We talked with Rebecca Bly back in December when she left the NPA caucus to sit as an independent, this followed a bunch of right-wingers and anti-Soviet types. Assuming certain board positions, people with connections to rebel media and some rather, darker, more regressive stuff that didn’t necessarily represent the, the mushy, the like broad tent that I think the NPA has been historically known for.

[00:30:43] They do have some on the right, but they’re also more friendly too. The progressive culture that is Vancouver well being a bit more economically, moderate than vision or cope or whoever else.

[00:30:56] Matthew Naylor: And if you, like, if you want to go listen to one of my Sam Sullivan sessions, okay. I think it was just one, but, the. The description that Sam gave of the NPA was often a party of right wing businessmen that picked a council candidate slate of left-wing I won’t say like activists, but they were people acceptable to Vancouver’s left.

[00:31:19] And through that, synergy of the two. Sides of the NPA, or I can’t even say sides because it wasn’t really a wing. It was like the management arm and the political arm that was helpful. They became, what was the most powerful, political, or most successful political entity in the, 20 century. now it should be noted that the NPA directors that quit the party are not the ones that Ian was bringing up.

[00:31:50] as related to the antisocial and, sort of distasteful stuff that, some of these people, one who comes to mind is, is, Gomez, Tang who once ran for yes. Vancouver is a public school board trustee, who took over the board, last year. but basically they just, haven’t been like, you know, you, it’s not even an ideological conflict so much as a, failure to lead, I guess, because a lot of these people have, have been looking for some kind of, Direction, some kind of leadership, someone to step up or, or an agenda to be set. and literally no one is doing it.

[00:32:32] Ian Bushfield: On, like, there aren’t many options out there for people who who aren’t green essentially

[00:32:38] Matthew Naylor: if I may shamelessly plug. Yes, there are.

[00:32:41] Ian Bushfield: But even they’re relatively quiet, like they ran their campaign, but. No, one’s heard of them since. And that’s fair enough. It’s quite a ways from the next election.

[00:32:51] one city, at least isn’t throwing any controversy up. And you mentioned this split between the NPA, board and caucus and even its caucus. Hasn’t been free from controversy in the last, few months, the council has been. Divided, but at least they’re not embarrassing the party as far as I can say. I mean, you can disagree with Colleen Hardwick’s positions,

[00:33:16] Matthew Naylor: She’s not an embarrassment. She’s a very, representative voice for a particular type of NPA voter.

[00:33:24] Ian Bushfield: But this debate over, police school liaisons came up at the Vancouver school board, following many of the black lives matter protests and June and NPA school trustee Fraser Ballantyne in the debates there talked about how Caucasian kids in the district are actually the visible minority. And should be heard more from on this question about cops in schools , it just kind of came off where he did apologize for it.

[00:33:52] I don’t know exactly what he was trying to do,

[00:33:55] but people

[00:33:56] Matthew Naylor: that is super mysterious. To me, that seems like a dumb thing to say.

[00:34:00] Ian Bushfield: I know we talked with Micah about the positions, the. Board is taking on, or John Coupar is taking, for example, on, homeless camps. And, you know, there is a legit position there, I think, or at least one that’s widely reflected, but there’s a lot of vial under there that you play with fire. If you get too close to that.

[00:34:21] And so the caucus skirts, these issues to varying degrees.

[00:34:26] Well, yeah, like you said, the NPA exists solely just to be. The

[00:34:31] Matthew Naylor: not yet the party with principals and those who have principles, but can’t articulate them, but definitely know what their principles are. Not. British Columbia was ever less.

[00:34:42] so what do you think is in store for the NPA? So they have one more board election before the actual appointment of candidates, that was one of the things that Rebecca Bligh raised as a issue that she does not believe that she would have been appointed as a, as a lesbian candidate.

[00:35:04] and you know, I think those are interesting concerns combined with this idea of a, Like a failure to launch really of a political party. I don’t know where they are able to go from. Like, it’s going to require some leadership after the kind of debacle at the end of the last election, with spending and where these funds were going.

[00:35:33] and then this sort of board catastrophe, happening.

[00:35:38] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. So earlier this year, I think it was back in February. And I think it was talked about on the show on the program. Ken SIM was a rumor to be interested in running for mayor again, and he’d launched a website and. Brought about, you know, started talking up some points. It wasn’t clear though, if he was eager to try again with the NPA or to go as an independent or do something else.

[00:36:07] but I would suspect he’s the kind of guy who has the connections. Right? He was the guy who was, the story goes, talked into it by the big names of the NPA, into taking their banner. So yeah. I would suspect that that signals the mood, brewers and shakers behind this party are moving and shaking and aligning things.

[00:36:28] And maybe they’re just happy to let, whoever wants to be on the board in the interim play, play politics for a little bit while for a little longer, but soon the adults will come back and the money will come back.

[00:36:43] Matthew Naylor: That is my suspicion as well. Like money, money moves, mountains, here as in basically any time or civilization throughout history.

[00:36:53] Ian Bushfield: And we do have

[00:36:54] much stricter finance rules now than we did in advance of some of the previous elections, but money can find different ways to move different mountains. It moves a bunch of hills now.

[00:37:06] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. especially since like parties, this fundraising reform stuff does involve, candidates actually having the responsibility to take on quite a bit more. fundraising personally. And so their nomination campaigns are never paid for by the party and are actually required to donate some set amount often to, you know, the central party in order to fund their national party campaign in the case of the federal election or, just sort of general civic advertising in, Vancouver.

[00:37:44] I feel like the board election, which was pretty much ignored by the upstart and of the last round that eventually ended up splitting off and forming. Yes, Vancouver. They, some of them left for reasons that were not like totally consistent with the yes, Vancouver. I don’t know, image of itself, I guess. you know, young hip Hector Brenner was running on the same ticket as, anti-Soviet Glennis Chan. and that I think makes for an uncomfortable set of bedfellows. I am interested to see whether yes, Vancouver becomes the party, that is that home, where the program Coover is that party or whether MPA is that party or whether that relatively small part of Vancouver’s, political society in a way, young etc.

[00:38:38] Notwithstanding, is represented by an actual standard bearer party. It’s all up in the air and it’s basically going to come down to, what happens when the NPA, kind of shake itself out of its torpor and realizes that they have an election to run in about a year and a half. So stay tuned for both six months or so.

[00:38:59] from now, when the NPA might realize that they are a political party and start acting like it.

[00:39:06] Ian Bushfield: well at the city council level, they don’t seem to have fully realized that yet as their party caucus seems to be divided into largely two camps. On the one side, you have Melissa de Genova, Lisa Dominato and Sarah Kirby-Yung, who Dan Fumano has pointed out as have started to vote more consistently with OneCity’s Christine Boyle and independent mayor Kennedy Stewart to advance marginally reasonable buildings in the city, such as for example, the Denny’s site, the 28 story tower that’s going up there, or these zoning amendments that will allow six story instead of four stories on arterials. If that extra portion is rentals and not condos. On the other side, you have Colleen Hardwick who is joining quite often, the three green members and Jean Swanson from COPE and quite often, Rebecca Bligh, who was formally with the NPA, as we mentioned.

[00:40:08] Matthew Naylor: Yes, Rebecca Bligh had a fairly mixed housing voting record. If I recall, like she wasn’t as. Strong as a for example, Lisa Dominato, who was, I think the best councillor on city council for supporting a new units of housing.

[00:40:29] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, and these aren’t hard and fast lines. Like there are quite a few issues where I think, Hardwick was the only vote against or there

[00:40:38] Matthew Naylor: There’s a lot of those Hardwick Swanson votes.

[00:40:41] Ian Bushfield: and those come up a lot as well. You kind of have a scale of like conservationists to, urbanist as it would go. But I just really want her to point out this, excellent piece in the Vancouver Sun by Dan Fumano, that talks a lot about this July 24th vote over these zoning permits, which went six to five, but he just, you know, we haven’t had a ton of episodes over the summer, but it’s because council has been kind of just doing the same thing and we’re all

[00:41:09] Matthew Naylor: That’s definitely the reason and no other reasons.

[00:41:12] Ian Bushfield: I’m going with that exact reason. So.

[00:41:15] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. There was no major changes in both of our lives that took up a lot of time. Anyway. Maybe, maybe we’ll talk about that at the live show sometime.

[00:41:25] Ian Bushfield: if we can ever have those again,

[00:41:28] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. So denver motto has talked about what I think a lot of city hall Watchers have viewed as the problem of Vancouver city council, which is a lack of ability to. Do stuff. And moreover not only lack of ability, but a lack of political will to even engage with the idea of doing stuff. Like what started out with that super optimistic, van ride up from the Riverside community center to city hell to get to work has ossified into a. elegant antler shed layer. That looks great, but does very little,

[00:42:12] Ian Bushfield: well in this, Whole article is centered around the zoning amendment change for six story buildings. That motion was deferred six to five pending, further consultation. This is just where we’re at. So we can’t even decide that having two extra stories of rentals. And now there’s an argument that putting extra renters along major commercial streets is like saying here renters can exist in our city, but they have to live above all of the truck fumes and stuff.

[00:42:44] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. And that actually wasn’t the original idea in Vancouver city planning itself, which was to focus, The development of multifamily homes into link where we’re in your back roads, laneways, et cetera, side roads, so that the buffer ended up being a row of single family houses that ended up being kind of low, low income.

[00:43:10] I mean, it’s still a single family house in Vancouver, but, certainly not some of the more, Anticipated developments in Vancouver were not, this kind of rental own way. arterial focused thing. This is a new development and it could change. It should change. It’s dumb.

[00:43:27] Ian Bushfield: So, yeah, here we have a city council being. characterized as postpone and delay while we’re still in the midst of a housing crisis, an opioid crisis and a pandemic. So

[00:43:39] Matthew Naylor: Yeah.

[00:43:40] So in particular, Vancouver city council is a little frustrating to me because like with a weak mayor system, council needs to step up and show some leadership. the benefit to Vancouver’s party system is that when one party has a majority in particular, The government has a lot of leeway to like develop that vision and, executed in this type of council’s split of this kind of partisan breakdown. It is very hard without like actually some kind of special training to.

[00:44:18] Run a council or cure council, or even sit on a council that doesn’t have procedures for moving things forward in a body, right. For the disagreement

[00:44:30] Ian Bushfield: Well, and the other half of it is the number of people coming out for these projects, whether it’s through virtual consultations or in person. Is an arms race. Now it’s, you know, there were over a hundred speakers for this Denny site development. You get the NIMBYs who come out and then AHV as being effective at bringing out the people who support development and you have more and more coming.

[00:44:55] And so, provincial and federal governments can deal with this because not everyone has a right to speak before them. you can. Submit things in writing and ask to be a representative who speaks there, but it does make it a little more efficient to bring things forward. and like city council has played around with these rules a little bit in terms of speaking length and some of those types of approaches.

[00:45:19] But you know, if every resident in the city of Vancouver showed up to debate or to speak to an issue, At some point, council’s got to say, all right. I think we’ve heard from a representative sample. Let’s move on.

[00:45:33] Matthew Naylor: well actually represented the samples a little bit tricky because like vinca for city council is responsible for waiting not only based on the city’s needs and you can manufacture something that looks like the last civic election, if you wanted, but you also have to develop based on the neighborhood needs and answer the question. Do the people who live nearest by matter most, most of the councils ended up answering that question. Yes. and, and wait accordingly, although, and , actually, this is a nice little area to shoe horn in a little announcement that I have. I was recently appointed to the Vancouver board of variance. And so I’ve been spending the summer, you know, making tiny changes to the footprints of buildings and, adjusting the amount of building that can be near a tree, which sounds very boring.

[00:46:23] And. Can be very boring, but also is actually very fulfilling and, informative at the best of times. So, for those of you who are denizens of the, what zoning board approved this Facebook group, for Vancouver, the answer is in part this guy. Thank you.

[00:46:44] Ian Bushfield: Well, one of the councils where things may get shook up a little, so that perhaps things flow more difficult. Yeah, I guess so Burnaby for long time has just been a one party state, the Burnaby citizens association in the last election, like Hurley, independent famously won.

[00:47:03] And in the last few years, things have been getting. More complicated as three BCA members calling Jordan Dan Johnston and Paul McDowell all left the party over disputes where I think they thought it was getting too close with Hurley and the remaining BCA members, James Wong, SAB, Dolly wall, and Pietro Kellen, Dino and Nick Volkl.

[00:47:24] Kind of took a more pro Hurley stance. And then you also had Joe Keithley representing the greens just to really make it a mess. But you basically had, a very minority situation council

[00:47:35] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. And it’s weird for that to emerge out of what looks like to be a very unified election, but in times of political turmoil in that kind of churn, you do, parties will realign themselves and reinvent themselves to reflect the views of a pipe of us.

[00:47:52] Ian Bushfield: I think the BCA really just represented Derek Corrigan. And once he was out of the mayor’s chair, you had counselors whose only. Purpose was to be counselors. And they just happened to be able to get under the correct banner. And then they didn’t actually have as much ideology tying them together.

[00:48:09] And so they’ve started to fracture. Now what throws this into even more disarray is unfortunately to Burnaby city counselors passed away earlier this year, Nick Volkow and Paul MacDonald. So there will now need to be by-election right to fill both of those

[00:48:27]

[00:48:31] one was aligned more with him, I think. And one was not. So McDonald had left the BCA and vocal was still with it, just to con it’s a mess. I’m trying to keep up with it. And I live in this city and it’s hard.

[00:48:45] So we’ll have a byelection for two counselors. Everyone in the city will get to vote. the city was waiting a little bit to see what the province would say. You can do because we are still in a pandemic. And so having a bunch of people line up at polling stations is probably a bad idea.

[00:49:03] Thankfully, elections BC has released its COVID-19 by-election guide because I guess there are dozens of councils that actually need bio elections because turnover happens quite a bit. When you count up how many positions there are across the province.

[00:49:17] Matthew Naylor: Yeah, there are, there were over 2000 city counselors in BC, so.

[00:49:22] Ian Bushfield: Statistically some will resign die. Otherwise vacate their office.

[00:49:27] Matthew Naylor: Yeah, hopefully it’s juicy scandal for the Cadbury report to cover.

[00:49:32]  Ian Bushfield: the by-election will involve, more mail in ballots, more advanced voting, trying to create more physical distancing, reducing high touch surfaces, maybe drive by voting or something like curbside voting. I dunno, just otherwise making it easier so that people don’t have to be in close proximity, coughing and wheezing, and getting each other sick.

[00:49:50] Matthew Naylor: Well, one way that people don’t have to be near each other in Burnaby, but still spend some time together without coughing. And do you think I’m getting to their sick is by cycling the central Valley Greenway. And I just wanted to highlight one of my favorite summer rides. for the sort of light Vancouver Radha, in particular , it is so beautiful.

[00:50:15] It is a nice, largely downhill track, from, well, it goes from the expo, Telus world of science, to. the new West key and is largely downhill in that direction. with two large kind of gross, horrifying Hills, and The reverse is a nice gentle incline that is still very manageable for writers of most categories and skill levels.

[00:50:43] I just want to talk about some of the interesting things that the central Valley Greenway can show you about the different types of cycle infrastructure available in Metro Vancouver. First off, there are so many like jarring transitions from like beautiful graded bike overpass over highway to truck route.

[00:51:06] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, that little white line that separates you and big trucks doing 60, 80 kilometers an hour.

[00:51:14] Matthew Naylor: those things are scary. Like I have been slip streamed off a road by one of them. Like I. I was riding on Australia and most of the roads where I was with, in the city that was built on a swamp, are like greeted embankments. And so I was writing on the side of the road, And this truck slipstreams me right off the road.

[00:51:37] It was just like being hit by a wall of whim that suddenly blew out from the side of the vehicle and sent me careening down, made me late for business, organizations, class, which I showed up to bleeding and bettered. So. And get another argument for separated bike ways. Burnaby get on. It would be so easy.

[00:52:01] There is more than enough room on that road. gravel socks.

[00:52:06] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, there’s a surprising amount of gravel on that route for how major it is. Like together with BC Parkway, it basically just loops the sky train and

[00:52:19] Matthew Naylor: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been thinking a lot about gravel and permeability recently, just because it’s one of the things that board of variants has to consider. and, it is fascinating to look at what can happen when stuff like that goes wrong, case in point Houston, which basically set up a system where you get.

[00:52:43] Was just sort of like they ran a sheet of plastic wrap under their city and filled it up with water. There was nowhere for it to go.

[00:52:52] There’s also like. Two aggravating things, both at the, the Vancouver trail. one is that the Central Valley Greenway was actually a expo 86 project that was supposed to extend all the way to the expo dome. it did not. It petered out at Clark at wWhat I consider to be Vancouver’s worst monument Columbus circle, which was originally installed around, 86 to be the end point of the official central Valley Greenway line, because why would you want a commemorative expo trail to end up the expo building Vancouver and.

[00:53:32] instead of terminating at this delightful geodesic dome, ends up at, Columbus circle, which is a monument to Christopher Columbus, that we’ve talked about on the show before, because big Dick Satan showed up there one day, after. Well, the Columbus statue had been removed some years prior, had, was replaced subsequently by nothing.

[00:54:00] so an empty plinth stands there. Now the Satan statue stood for, I believe only one day and the penguin statue that succeeded both acts of gorilla art, were eventually taken down and taken to Vancouver parks, for disposal or re use.

[00:54:19] You had a chance to write it this summer.

[00:54:21] Ian Bushfield: I have not, I have not been on my bicycle much this summer. after my bike was stolen last summer, I have to keep it , on my balcony now. Cause I don’t trust my storage locker. So that extra impediment plus the, involvement with the baby meant I haven’t done as much, but we have done a few family trips with a bike trailer that have been quite lovely.

[00:54:42] We don’t get as far, but you’re getting to use a bike trailer is fun. Haven’t made it all the way around from the BC Parkway side to the CVG though, but looking forward to it again,

[00:54:54] Matthew Naylor: Well, hopefully you’ll be able to get a ride in, in some fashion before the end of the summer. I certainly hope to, one of my favorite rides is doing central Valley out and then, BC Parkway back. and, yeah, hopefully you get to get a nice ride in some time soon. Maybe in fact, you are on one right now.

[00:55:17] The meta commentary of me talking about the trail that you are on sounding magnificently in your ears, before the sky train plays you out.

[00:55:27] patreon.com/cambiereport

[00:55:30] Matthew Naylor: Give us money clearly. We’re rusty. Thanks all for listening. It’s good to be back. See you soon for more regularly scheduled content. for the Camry report. I’m Matthew Naylor.

Ian Bushfield: I’m Ian Bushfield

Matthew Naylor: Goodnight.

Matthew Naylor: There are 799 days until the Vancouver municipal elections. This is the Cambie report. 

[00:00:37] Ian Bushfield: I’m Ian Bushfield.

[00:00:38] Tessa Vikander: I’m Tessa Vikander

[00:00:40] Ian Bushfield: We’re back it feels like it’s been a while, but it’s only really been like a month and a half, maybe two months. It’s not that much.  We’re going to start producing more regular content. Thank you to everyone who continues to support the show. As Matthew would tell you, patreon.com/cambiereport.

[00:00:56] We’re so pleased to have still over a hundred people supporting the show. We’re going to keep doing content as long as it takes and as long as people keep listening.

[00:01:06]We have a lot to cover today. Let’s kick it off with one of the biggest things that’s been happening over the last couple of months, not the COVID-19 pandemic, but the, defund police black lives matter protests. And I think possibly the first way to bring this to a Vancouver context is you are following the tweets of Oscar winning animation artist Pearl Lowe, who’s not had a great recent experience here in Vancouver.

[00:01:34] Tessa Vikander: Yeah. So Pearl is in the middle of painting a mural for the Vancouver mural festival. And she checked a Twitter earlier this week to save that two days in a row. The same white man had come and harassed her at one point calling her a bitch. And what else? Like harassing her about the lift equipment that she was using?

[00:01:56] She actually posted a photo of him as well. yeah, she said that it made her cry and she just kind of spent the rest of the evening crying. Well, finishing up doing this painting and,

[00:02:08] Ian Bushfield: Tessa, why didn’t she just report this to the police?

[00:02:11] Tessa Vikander: Well, interesting question. the Vancouver police department, I responded to her tweets about this incident on Twitter and said, have you reported it to us?

[00:02:22] And she replied, it’s saying as a black woman, I don’t trust the police.

[00:02:27] Ian Bushfield: I don’t know what’s going on with the cops social media game in the last few months in responses protests, it reminds me of like Burnaby RCMP, like two weeks after the protest really kicked off. They put out their video of like, here’s our school liaisons, welcoming kids back to school in the fall, or, you know, in a couple of weeks when they went back in June and it was like cops, just some of them wearing face mass, other, you know, but still all in full body gear and just being like we’re here. And then the Burnaby school district retweeted, and everyone was like, read the room. Maybe not the best time for it.

[00:03:06] Tessa Vikander: yeah, yeah. It’s pretty clear that police departments around the world are on the offense right now in terms of social media. and I think that’s interesting to see, particularly with publicly funded organizations, it’s, it’s one thing that you kind of expect from private companies that they’re like doing damage control and everything, but then to see it from publicly funded institutions is quite something else.

[00:03:31] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, and the police do operate very differently than many other institutions. And I think we’re really getting a peak into that as the debate in Vancouver around, defending the police really kind of highlighted how no one except possibly the province really has that authority. So there was a debate back and forth about whether the city of Vancouver could just cut the police budget and they had proposed do to cope, cutting it by 1%.

[00:04:01] And they sent that to the Vancouver police board, who then just said no, because apparently they’d have that power.

[00:04:07] Tessa Vikander: Yeah. And that continues to shock me.

[00:04:10] Ian Bushfield: I guess the council could insist on it, but then it would essentially go up to the minister of public safety and solicitor general Mike farmer’s office. And he would have to decide what a reasonable budget would be. But so much of the budget is just a black box of like the police need this much money and the city goes.

[00:04:29] Okay. And so the province has announced a reform of the police act coming. we’ll have to see what the committee comes up with and what they decide to do. But I think a lot of people were surprised that council did not have more tools in its toolkit. Although, again, this is a place where, you know, Kennedy, Stewart, mayor of Vancouver is the chair of the police board.

[00:04:50] He doesn’t get a vote on the police board, but he could. Theoretically, take a stronger role in pushing for defunding the police. If that was the thing he wanted to do,

[00:05:01] Tessa Vikander: And so in the same way that, we saw where the, Vancouver city council wasn’t really able to take action or have much impact. Recently, we have seen another instance in which they are able to have an impact on the potential at least potentially have an impact on the operations of the Vancouver police.

[00:05:21] Do you wanna describe what happened there?

[00:05:23] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. So there were a couple of motions that work their way through city council. The first one’s one that’s been underway. For quite a while at the behest of groups, like the BC civil liberties association, a union of BC Indian chiefs and others to ban street checks in the city of Vancouver.

[00:05:40] Tessa Vikander: Can we pause? What’s a street check.

[00:05:43] Ian Bushfield: Check.

[00:05:44] I was just about to say, I mean, it’s when the police stopped someone who’s not under any suspicion and asked them for their ID and record that, and then. We don’t really know necessarily what they do at that. This, it seems in many other cities where they do collect racial data, disproportionately targets, racialized people, black indigenous people of color.

[00:06:11] And once you’re in the police database, you can be targeted again again and again. and it’s a way to criminalize communities and it’s not really shown anywhere as far as I know, to actually improve public safety. So it’s really just a way to. Over police already over policed communities.

[00:06:28] Tessa Vikander: Right. And so the police kind of. They use, I don’t know the excuse that like, Oh, this person was looking or acting suspicious to myself as a police officer, decided to check in on them and stop them.

[00:06:41] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. Or perhaps there was a crime in the neighborhood and they just want to collect info about the people who are around there who might be witnesses or might be involved in it. But it’s a lot of assumptions that are going into this for people who are otherwise completely innocent. So the city council finally, after quite a while, pushing this back and forth and referring it to committees, heard in late July from 34 speakers who supported this at the hearing.

[00:07:11]no one showed up who was opposed to this ban on police, street checks. And the motion was ultimately moved by Kennedy, Stewart and supported by Jean Swanson that. And it’s, you know, peak city council politics, where they will write to the police board to inform them that while counsel deeply appreciates recent efforts to reform policing services and the efforts of the VPD to quickly implement related changes council’s priority is to end the practice of street checks in Vancouver.

[00:07:39] Tessa Vikander: It’s really interesting buttering up going on there. Huh?

[00:07:42] Ian Bushfield: yeah, the politics of.  Writing these council motions. So it’s not even a Vancouver ban street checks. It’s a city council asks a very, very nicely that we not do it anymore.

[00:07:54] Tessa Vikander: And do they have the power to impose that on the cops?

[00:08:00] Ian Bushfield: as far as I understand it, the city doesn’t right. The police board controls the Vancouver police within the realms of the police act. That’s set by the province.  I guess this is the most they can do is ask very nicely and sternly. And they’re doing that, I guess. I mean, it’s good to see.

[00:08:18] It’s unfortunate. They don’t have the power to do more.

[00:08:21] Tessa Vikander: Okay. So maybe perhaps contrary to what I was saying. This isn’t actually another instance in which they are having success, or it’s still to be seen whether the council is going to have success on this front.

[00:08:33] Ian Bushfield: yes this seems to be the modus operandi of this council.

[00:08:37] Tessa Vikander: Got it. And what else are they doing?

[00:08:40] Ian Bushfield: And there was a second motion and this followed straight after, all the protests that called on, Vancouver police to deprioritize. policing in mental health and social issues. So this one went to hearing and there were 146 people who came and spoke for it, which is, you know, quite a few people who put their time into speaking to democratic issues.

[00:09:05]so of those 146 who spoke to the issue 144 spoke in support of it, two opposed. So it was an overwhelming support for this idea of asking the police board to spend less time, going after people for mental health issues, homelessness, drug use, sex work, and put more of that money from staff into, non police responses.

[00:09:32] Tessa Vikander: Right. And I think that this also relates to a frequent issue that people in Vancouver and perhaps across North America have where they see someone is, in, in psychological distress, is maybe a danger to themselves, maybe a dangerous to other people, you know, is like on the street and acting in very erratic ways and it’s quite uncomfortable to be around.

[00:09:56] And so you’re like, okay, well, I would like to get some support for this person. I don’t feel comfortable being on the street with them around who do I call? And it it’s always been called the police, at least from any kind of information I’ve picked up just through living in Vancouver.

[00:10:14] Ian Bushfield: I mean, the default is, you know, you call nine one one and they ask you, do you want police, fire or ambulance? And you’re like, well, nothing is on fire. no, one’s dying. So, I guess I’ll go to the other one and maybe ambulance would be a better option or actually firefighters are pretty awesome. I mean, who who’s against the firefighters.

[00:10:35] Right.

[00:10:36] Tessa Vikander: Yes,

[00:10:37] Ian Bushfield: I mean, we can have a shift, right?

[00:10:40] Tessa Vikander: That is an instance in which the police will show up for.

[00:10:43] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. And we’ve seen the results of that in the number of wellness checks gone. horrific in recent months and historically where police are called to check in on someone who’s not committing any crimes. And then that person later ends up dead either directly at police hands, through a shooting or some other incident like that.

[00:11:06] Or there’ve been a few where people have mysteriously fallen off their balconies after the police showed up.

[00:11:12] Tessa Vikander: Yeah, sorry. I, Grew up in a very large house in Kitsilano. My mum was the owner of the house and we rented out all of these tiny little bachelor suites in the upstairs of the house. And there were times there was one time when one of the tenants was, like being quite violent and loud and was like having some mental health issues clearly.

[00:11:36] And the only thing that we could do in order to get support was to call the police. The police came to our house and they wanted my mom to let them go upstairs and talk to her. And my mom had to stand her ground and just say, I don’t think, think that four armed police officers going out to talk to this woman who’s in psychological distress is going to be what helps her or what deescalates the situation.

[00:11:58] And I remember being there and they it’s like, they almost arrested my mom because they, she was in their way. I was doing their job anyway. She eventually talked them down and, you know, I don’t remember the end of the story, but it was a really intense situation to see, the potential impact that those cops showing up for this wellness check could have had.

[00:12:16] Ian Bushfield: Definitely. So this motion from council ultimately asks the police board to itemize all of the work that they’re doing on all of these different.

[00:12:25] Tessa Vikander: What does it mean to itemize?

[00:12:28] Ian Bushfield: So right now the police budget is very, succinct. It doesn’t actually break down what the cops are spending all their money doing.

[00:12:36] So the council wants to see the money spent on, responding to mental health, homelessness, sex work issues, the number of tickets being issued for enforcing bylaws related to that and the cost of enforcement.

[00:12:48] Tessa Vikander: And they’re also looking for input from black lives matter.  Wish DCC LA Hogan’s alley society.

[00:12:56] Ian Bushfield: And a whole host of other groups representing, indigenous peoples harm reduction groups, justice groups. And they say people with lived experience equity seeking and other community groups, as well as, People who specialize and work on the front lines of many of these issues and ask how the city could support future harm reduction and safety services.

[00:13:19] Ostensibly outside policing. Yeah. this was an interesting bullet in the motion because, because of this one, counselor, Michael Wiebe had to recuse himself for part of it. Cause I guess his mother sits on the board of one of those organizations. So he was in a special conflict of interest with just like a fraction of it. So procedurally, they had to like break this motion up and pass it mostly with weep, but then that one without, he wasn’t the only one who recused himself. Melissa De Genova and Sarah Kirby Yung from the NPA. Also both had to recuse themselves for this entire debate because I believe both of them are married to cops. so any motion that would call for changes to the police budget could affect. Directly there, you know, family’s livelihood. 

[00:14:04] The motion goes on to ask for a staff report on how to timeline and budget to deprioritize policing, and bring forward response to mental health, sex work, homelessness, and substance use, and focus that through community led groups, nonprofits, et cetera. And then there’s, you know, a few other points that refer to writing to the provinces police act and to get this all done within the next several months, by the end of the year.

[00:14:32] Tessa Vikander: Right. And it’s quite remarkable to see the city moving on these. Items, because these are things that advocacy groups have been asking for for years, like basically through my entire adulthood.  and I, you know, I’m, I’m really hoping that this goes somewhere. You know what I mean? I hope that it’s not just lip service.

[00:14:53] I hope that it doesn’t just end up in a pile of, we tried that and it didn’t work. You know what I mean?

[00:14:59] Ian Bushfield: Totally. Yeah, it’s difficult because the activist demands of defund, the police were never going to be met quickly. the, you know, as I described the way police are funded and controlled in BC means that. Even if council was a hundred percent on board, they couldn’t have done it over again. Right. this seems to pave the path to asking the tough questions and getting some details that could be used for future advocacy and pushing a, what was impressive is both of these motions.

[00:15:28] We just talked it’s about passed unanimously. I mean, with various, recusals and people who abstained, but you know, the NPA agreed that these were reasonable approaches to take the. left parties all agreed. So some unanimity among our council was nice to see.

[00:15:46] Tessa Vikander: so in a motion, that’s coming down the pipes from Lisa Dominato and I believe exclusive on this because she is away on vacation and messaged me today a little bit about this upcoming motion that she has. so it’s still in the works, but she is looking, to create a provincial, federal and municipal taskforce on mental health and addiction with a mandate to review the current service delivery and outreach framework, including the interdependencies and coordination between our different levels of government.

[00:16:18] So, you know, she doesn’t say it directly in her messages to me, but it seems that she’s building off of, this prior work around, yeah. Addressing mental health needs within the city and the province and part of her interest in having a coordinated approach to this is, having seen how effective.

[00:16:39] Our responses to COVID-19 have been when we’ve had municipal, provincial and federal governments working really closely together. so, you know, it’s proven that they can do that when it’s needed. And so she’s saying, okay, we need to do this for mental health work.

[00:16:54] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, we’ve been in a public health emergency. See for overdose crisis for several years, for the last couple of months, we’ve seen record breaking numbers of people dying each month as kind of the dual crises undid a lot of the work that seemed to be turning things around up until, you know, February of this year.

[00:17:17] So the social distancing, all these other things combined with the underlying systemic issues have just made it. So much harder to keep up with this. And, you know, the province has made some steps to provide safe supply and things like this and has worked a bit with the city, but it seems like it’s just not been effective or in the right, you know, or not enough.

[00:17:39] Tessa Vikander: It clearly has. It’s clearly not enough. And it clearly hasn’t been, effective because it’s been absolutely horrific. These increases in overdose deaths. Like, can you imagine, think of how traumatized people are by COVID-19. And then imagine also being in a community where you’ve already been living through an overdose crisis for many years, and then it gets worse as, at the same time that COVID-19 restrictions come in.

[00:18:05] Like that is, that is the absolute nightmare. Like COVID-19 yes, it’s a nightmare. But can you imagine also being impacted by this overdose crisis and it getting worse?

[00:18:15] Ian Bushfield: And it’s so tough, right? I’ve been keeping up with Garth Mullins podcast, crack down. Where they’re documenting this from the front lines. And each episode is very heavy, right? Because you’re hearing directly from these voices. The latest one talked about the evictions from Oppenheimer park that happened a couple months ago and how the tent city there, the province did manage to create housing by buying up hotels for most of these people.

[00:18:45] But for some people there’s such deep. And warranted distrust of provincial or government interventions that they didn’t want to stay there. So they moved to crab park and then they were evicted from there. And now they’re in Strathcona park where local residents are upset

[00:19:03] Tessa Vikander: Well, some local residents. We don’t know if

[00:19:05] Ian Bushfield: yeah.

[00:19:05] Tessa Vikander: is. I do know that, the Cottonwood community garden, at least when the tent city first came in, actually was inviting the. Campers to like collect wood from their scrap wood pile for the sacred fire.

[00:19:20] Ian Bushfield: That’s a really good story.

[00:19:21] Tessa Vikander: Yeah, it’s really neat. It was really neat to see how they were responding in such a positive light.

[00:19:26] And they had even established a kind of protocol for how to interact with the community in a positive way. And they sent this out on their listserv or something. I don’t remember how I saw this letter that they had written. And then at the same time, the Strathcona Residents Association was saying, we understand that there’s a need for this, but we don’t want this in our backyard.

[00:19:46] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, and they didn’t formally endorse it, but they definitely spoke to the concerns of a subset of residents who threatened a tax strike, where they would refuse to pay their property taxes until the province and city did something about the tents, which is like, I get that Strathcona is one of the poorest neighborhoods, you know, postal codes in Canada.

[00:20:09] So many of the residents there aren’t, even though they’re housed, aren’t super well off and have. We’re personnel limited incomes and all of this, but it struck me as just insensitive to talk about not paying your property taxes, because you feel grumpy that people have it worse off than you, and they’re not being treated worse.

[00:20:31] Tessa Vikander: and I actually, I garden near there and, you know, it’s interesting because it is such a large park. It is so big. It is a huge park. And when that tent city went in, it was almost as if like there was so much park left around that tent city area that I was kind of like, well, this seems like a good park if you’re to choose any park in Vancouver.

[00:20:53] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, it’s not the same as Oppenheimer

[00:20:56] Tessa Vikander: It’s all the same as often. Absolutely. I have seen though that the intensity is like encroach, is it, you know, it’s getting bigger and it’s encroaching outside of the area that had it had initially said that it was going to be kind of, you know, taking up. and I was talking to a friend of mine that was kind of like, yeah, it doesn’t seem like they’re in anyone’s way.

[00:21:12] And she was like, Oh, actually that’s the soccer field that I like, my games were normally on. so yeah. you know, I wasn’t entirely right about that, but, I guess we’re not really having soccer games right now. Anyway.

[00:21:22] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. It’s like, it’s a really tough situation,  on the latest episode of crack down, they talked to some of the people who were being evicted from Oppenheimer at the time. And there are definitely a lot of people who don’t want to be in those situations, in those tents. And it’s just a matter of it’s the only place they can really be.

[00:21:41]and so the province thankfully is doing quite a bit. In terms of buying up hotels and trying to create housing, it’s still clearly not enough, but at the same time, there are also other people who, you know, legitimately, like I said, don’t trust the state. And if they’ve been given the opportunity to move into these places, sometimes that doesn’t work because it strips them from the community.

[00:22:05] They built the neighborhood supports. there’s a lot to be said for. You know, being around people, you know, and trust and being shipped to a hotel room on Granville street, when you’re used to being in a different part of town where, you know, different people, it’s, it doesn’t work. Right. So these aren’t simple situations.

[00:22:25] And I dunno, can we hopefully invoke a bit of dr. Bonnie Henry’s advice to just try to be kind as much as we can.

[00:22:33] Tessa Vikander: Agreed.

[00:22:34] Okay. Moving to a now slightly more uplifting topic. Vancouver has approved a pilot project to allow outdoor drinking at select city plazas because as we know, no one drinks at any other parks or areas in Vancouver, but you know that aren’t restaurants like no one drinks outside, which is a total lie.

[00:22:56] Ian Bushfield: Well, this is a very good thing

[00:22:59] Tessa Vikander: It’s a start.

[00:23:01] Ian Bushfield: well, and it, and it’s a good thing because there’s a huge racial element to who can safely drink illegally, frankly. Like I can probably get away with having a beer at kit’s beach and no one’s gonna say anything, but you know, I, I talked to Stephanie Allen for my other show, PolitiCoast, and she talked about how her and her friends.

[00:23:22] We’ll never drink where it’s not allowed because they are afraid of the police and they’re afraid of being harassed and they know it will happen. So taking some of these rules away is as important as the discussion around funding issues.

[00:23:37] Tessa Vikander: Right. And I think for me, what’s what is the kind of, the point of incredulity and laughter is the fact that it’s just happening at four select city plasmas.

[00:23:48] Ian Bushfield: Oh, my God. It’s so bad. I mean, council is doing better than the park board that can’t even like, decide if they want to consider doing this. And so for plazas is a step, a credit to credit to the city of North van who did permit it in nine parks a month before Vancouver.

[00:24:08] yeah, it was a smaller story because city of North Van’s a smaller community, but yeah, they, I think were one of the first communities to lead the way.

[00:24:16] I think the article I’ll link to in the show notes also mentioned, I guess, Penticton tried it for a month. It’s not clear if they’re still ongoing, but. I don’t know. I feel like if you’re in the Okanagan, you’re just sitting at a winery drinking anyway, although that’s a pretty privileged thing to say,

[00:24:31] Tessa Vikander: Well, I was in the Okanagan recently and I was sitting on an inner tube, floating down a tiny little river.

[00:24:37] Ian Bushfield: With a beer?

[00:24:38] Tessa Vikander: no, not with a beer, but some of the people I was with had beers. Yep.

[00:24:42] Ian Bushfield: So the. Pilot project starts Monday, August 10th, and we’ll run until October. The four plazas are the  šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ square. Tried to get the pronunciation. I have not practiced it enough. That’s the renamed Vancouver art gallery North Plaza square a lot 19 at 900 Cordova street. the Bute-Robson Plaza, that’s at 800 Bute and a temporary pop-up Plaza that’s at Cambie and West 17th Avenue. So three fairly downtown

[00:25:16] Tessa Vikander: Lot 19 at 900 Cordova street. What’s that?

[00:25:20] Ian Bushfield: I don’t actually know exactly where that one is…

[00:25:25] Tessa Vikander: Lot 19 and 900 Cordova Street, that is downtown.

[00:25:30] Ian Bushfield: It’s right beside the Vancouver club. It’s at the end of Hornby street between Hastings and Cordova where Hornby street would go through, 

[00:25:39] Tessa Vikander: Yes, near the tourism Vancouver visitor center.

[00:25:45] Ian Bushfield: Yeah.

[00:25:46] So, yeah. Right downtown.

[00:25:47] Tessa Vikander: those of us who don’t know it, we’ll know it soon.

[00:25:50] Ian Bushfield: And I guess each of these has been, discussed with the local business improvement associations. Each has fairly close access to food and other options. So these will be good opportunities for people to do some socially distance visits with some beers or wines or whatever else you choose to bring.

[00:26:09] You’re only going to be able to drink between 11 or noon depending on the square. And it will close at 9:00 PM. I guess to stop overnight partying in these plazas

[00:26:19] Tessa Vikander: Wine.

[00:26:20] Okay. I thought you were just casually mentioning cocaine use and these areas. And I was like, okay,

[00:26:24 ] Ian Bushfield: not quite there yet

[00:26:26] Tessa Vikander: someday we’ll decriminalize hard drugs.

[00:26:30] Ian Bushfield: someday, but if you’re taking transit to these plazas as of August 24th, you will be required to wear a mask. As TransLink has announced its new policy.

[00:26:41] Tessa Vikander: What do you think about that, Ian?

[00:26:43] Ian Bushfield: Oh, it’s one I’ve gone back and forth on. I think everyone should be wearing a mask while on transit. I am a bit personally skeptical of you know, creating rules and mandating it because of the challenges that enforcement of anything creates.

[00:27:01] Tessa Vikander: because we know that armed police officers, the transit police will be able to enforce that rule.

[00:27:08] Ian Bushfield: yes. Now we’re being told that the initial focus is going to be on awareness and education. and I think that is the right way to approach it. I, you know, I don’t think this is something that we put on bus drivers because it’s not in their job description to be confronting passengers who don’t follow every rule to the letter.

[00:27:25] Tessa Vikander: Right. Like that would, yeah, they have a hard enough job as is.

[00:27:29] Ian Bushfield: And there is a nice exemption for people who have a disability or medical condition that makes it either difficult to put on a mask or, some irritation or breathing issue. they will have to go and get a specific exemption card. So you can’t just wear a sign that says I’m an asshole who doesn’t want to wear a mask.

[00:27:47] And it’s because I’m disabled. Like we’ve seen in the States. I think

[00:27:51] Tessa Vikander: Oh, is that what

[00:27:53] Ian Bushfield: some people are making

[00:27:54] like

[00:27:54] Tessa Vikander: pretending that they’re disabled.

[00:27:57] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. Because it’s 2020, and everything can go bad.

[00:28:02] Tessa Vikander: It is so exhausting. You know, I’m, I’m glad, that masks are going to be required on TransLink. I understand that there are enforcement issues. I hope that by saying that it is a requirement that more people start wearing masks on transit because. Okay. I have not been traveling on transit since the pandemic.

[00:28:23] I’ve been very lucky to have a, a vehicle that I’ve been able to use. but I’ve been sitting on Twitter from folks that, you know, they’re the only person on the bus with a mask on. And that really worries me.

[00:28:35] Ian Bushfield: The one thing that gives me some hope or at least. Makes me less worried is I’ve tried to look around for some of the science and evidence. And as hard as I can tell transmission on transit is rare. And as far as we know, it’s not really happened in BC. Now, transit use went way down. So perhaps it was just a lack of opportunity for the virus to spread.

[00:28:59] Tessa Vikander: I feel like there are probably 50 people in this province who would ever think to go and look about whether COVID-19 spreads, spreads on transit specifically.

[00:29:10] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, I like the data. So like where this virus spreads right is parties, is when you’re in a close quarters, indoor place with other people who are infected for long periods of time. That’s why parties are bad. That’s why offices can be bad. That’s why I’m really nervous about schools. But as far as we’ve seen, and there’s been some studies on this, that transit isn’t that risky, but you know, if this helps encourage more widespread mask use so that when we are required to be in close quarters, people use that overall. It’ll hopefully be a good thing.

[00:29:47] Tessa Vikander: Yeah. And it would certainly make me more likely to choose transit as an option, knowing that it’s mandatory.

[00:29:55]Ian Bushfield: One place where transit options are being continually debated though is in Stanley park where the park board had restricted vehicle access. They’d said, no cars can go around the roads as of April 8th. And then on June 23rd, they allowed one lane of traffic to return with a dedicated bike lane remaining.

[00:30:15] And yet there’s been a consistent undercurrent of people who are very mad about this and who want. Cars to fully return to Stanley park, including the people who own the tea house out there who did a quote unquote observational study to find that the park board’s estimates of 10 to 11,000 cyclists using this by claim was too ambitious and really only 6,400 did and therefore full vehicle access should be restored.

[00:30:43] Tessa Vikander: I feel like 6,400 cyclists in one day is a lot.

[00:30:47] Ian Bushfield: It feels pretty good. Like considering a lot of people are still staying home.

[00:30:51] Tessa Vikander: The 6,400 cars go through.

[00:30:54] Probably not.

[00:30:55] Ian Bushfield: Probably there’s a lot of traffic because people cut through there to try to avoid where they should be driving. Some of these people have launched a petition. I think this actually started by David fine out of the VanPoli Facebook group. And they’ve gotten 27,000 signatures of people who want the park board to open the roads to cars.

[00:31:15] Tessa Vikander: Some really passionate vehicle drivers.

[00:31:18] Ian Bushfield: What I’ll give credit to is the Vancouver Humane Society who, points out that. You know, they’ve had a long, beef with the horse carriage writers who go around on there because they don’t believe horses should be used in this way, which is, you know, a reasonable bull position. I don’t know if I a hundred percent agree that it’s the animal abuse they claim, but I’m willing to hear them out.

[00:31:40] They do point out that the current situation is creating additional conflicts between cars, bikes, and horses who are sharing this road. But they’re not eager to see it go back to the old way either.  Their solution is to get rid of the horses or to let the horses free.

[00:31:57] Yeah. So it’ll be interesting to see, as you know, as I mentioned earlier, park, board’s not been the most responsive agency. It was nice that they were able to close this, I think, but pressure is mounting on them to reopen it and just go back to normal, even though I think like if you’ve ever walked the Stanley park, seawall the psych or biked it, like.

[00:32:19] The number of conflicts on that path are high. And so giving cyclists a bit more space, I think it was a big win for the city.

[00:32:27] Tessa Vikander: I totally agree. I’ve I haven’t biked it in years because it is so busy.

[00:32:31] Ian Bushfield: It’s a thing you do once.

[00:32:33] Tessa Vikander: Right? The thing you do once when someone is in town,

[00:32:36] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, totally.

[00:32:38] Tessa Vikander: which, which says something because you and I both have been, or are bike commuters.

[00:32:44] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. I mean, the seawall doesn’t take you anywhere other than around, or I guess to North van, but it’s not the most direct route.

[00:32:53] Tessa Vikander: Yeah. Fair enough. All right. What else we got on our schedule here today, Ian.

[00:32:59] Ian Bushfield: Well, I think we’ll close it off as a slightly shorter episode. And we’ll bring Matthew back after some technical difficulties next week to discuss a few other stories, but let’s close off with the Vancouveratta and I wanted to talk about gassy Jack since the wave of protests have put him back in the spotlight.

[00:33:17] As his statue in gas town has been splattered with paint. A number of times, and people have really started to. Rethink and question his legacy. So Tessa, how much do you know about gassy Jack? The namesake of gas town?

[00:33:32] Tessa Vikander: I know very little and, all that comes to mind is a man who farts.

[00:33:37] Ian Bushfield: the, the name gassy is just because he apparently liked to talk. He was just a big talker and gossiper and boost salesman.

[00:33:45] Tessa Vikander: That’s so

[00:33:46] Ian Bushfield: Now. Yeah, it’s not even that exciting.

[00:33:49] So Jack Deighton was according to this recent piece in the Tyee, a failed minor, or respected steam boat, captain, and a backwater pioneer who made the place famous gas town for balancing a board above the muck between two whiskey barrels and staking his claim with a supply of cheap booze,

[00:34:06] Essentially, he was a settler to British Columbia in the late 19th century. And like it said, try to get his start gold mining failed at that. He ran a Steamboat for a while between new West. And I think further up the Fraser Valley, started a pub there. I think it failed. And then he moved to gas town where he started his more famous pub and just basically supplied the laborers with cheap alcohol and was famous for chatting it up. And so people like to venerate him as the kind of like open-minded spirit of Vancouver in the early days who tried a bunch of different things and made his own way.  but has a little bit more controversy to him.

[00:34:49] Tessa Vikander: The backstory is…

[00:34:50] Yeah. So he was married twice, his first wife, not much is known about her.

[00:34:57] But his second wife, which his age was about 39 or 40 was a 12 year old Squamish girl named Quahail-ya who lived on until she was about 90. So he basically had married one Squamish woman. she passed away, I believe after having the first child with him. And then he married a child and then she was kind of forgotten by mainstream history. Well, the coast Salish people and the Squamish people specifically kept Quahail-ya’s memory alive well into the 20th century where she was still alive and kept her story alive of actually gassy. Jack had this thing where he married a child.

[00:35:40] Tessa Vikander: So we have a statue celebrating a pedophile.

[00:35:44] Ian Bushfield: Yeah.

[00:35:45] Tessa Vikander: Yikes.

[00:35:46] Ian Bushfield: So

[00:35:47] Tessa Vikander: Time to move on Vancouver.

[00:35:50] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, reasonably, some people are calling for the statute to be replaced with, let’s say something more, worthy of veneration. And maybe we can remember Gassy Jack’s memory in something less, distinguished.

[00:36:08] Tessa Vikander: right. Like a page in a textbook or a small plaque ed in obscure museum.

[00:36:16] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, the city of Vancouver has said that they are consulting with the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, matriarchs, and urban indigenous leaders to understand and coordinate dialogues regarding the future of gassy Jack and the statue there. I guess it will be seen whether his statute comes down.

[00:36:36] Or continues to be a source of conflict, I guess, but we’ll put this longer link to this long Tyee piece in the show notes, a big shout out to Megan Stewart who wrote this. It’s a really good and thorough piece looking at, not just gassy Jack, but just the difficulties of statutes. And I know if we had Matthew on, he would defend, he loves statues, even when they’re problematic. 

[00:37:01] Tessa Vikander: It’s a good

[00:37:05] Ian Bushfield: We’ll leave it here. Gassy Jack, the namesake of gas town. yeah, pedophile

[00:37:10] Tessa Vikander: way to end the show.

[00:37:12] Ian Bushfield: as mentioned. We’ll be back very soon and continuing through the summer through the fall and onwards. Keep the show going at patrion.com/cambia report. I’m Ian Bushfield

[00:37:23] Tessa Vikander: And I’m Tessa Vikander

 Tessa Vikander: [00:00:28] Hi everyone. My name’s Tessa Vikander.

Today on the Cambie Report, we have Kimberley Wong and Matthew Norris, the co-chairs of Vancouver Just Recovery, a nonpartisan coalition of community groups advocating for equity in the rebuilding and recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

If you’ve been following the news even loosely, you’ll know that the COVID-19 crisis is impacting minority groups the hardest.

This financial recession is different from previous recessions because this one’s affecting women more than it is men. For example, women make up 48% of the workforce, but represented 52% of job losses.

At the same time, we’re also seeing an increase in anti-Asian racism. The Vancouver Police Department said on May 1st that it had already received reports of 20 anti-Asian hate crimes for this year, whereas there were only 12 reported in all of last year. In April alone, there were 11 hate crimes that involved anti-Asian aspects, and we know that lots of incidents go unreported.

Kimberley and Matthew, welcome.

Kimberley Wong: [00:01:28] Thank you.

Matthew Norris: [00:01:29] Hi

Tessa Vikander: [00:01:30] So co-chair Kimberley Wong is also a community organizer who works with multiple arts and nonprofit organizations in Vancouver. She’s a queer Chinese-Canadian femme whose work mirrors the intersections of her identity. Kimberly currently sits as the chair of the City of Vancouver’s Chinatown legacy stewardship group.

Hey, Kimberley, where are you joining us from today?

Kimberley Wong: [00:01:52] Hey, I’m sitting in my home in Hastings Sunrise right now.

Tessa Vikander: [00:01:56] And when you look outside your window, what do you see?

Kimberley Wong: [00:01:59] I see a beautiful overcast day.

Tessa Vikander: [00:02:03] Welcome. Co-chair Matthew Norris is also the vice president of the Urban Native Youth Association. A PhD student in UBC’s Department of Political Science and a member of the Lac La Ronge First Nation.

Hi Matthew,

Matthew Norris: [00:02:17] Hi.

Tessa Vikander: [00:02:18] Where are you sitting right now at you?

Matthew Norris: [00:02:20] I am in my living room, which has been turned into an office of sorts, with my dog and the couch and the sun is starting to come out on our deck.

Tessa Vikander: [00:02:32] Nice. What’s your dog’s name?

Matthew Norris: [00:02:34] Hi. His name is Alfie.

 Tessa Vikander: [00:02:36] Hi, Alfie.

Matthew Norris: [00:02:37] He did perk up a little.

Tessa Vikander: [00:02:38] So both of you are doing this Vancouver Just Recovery work as volunteers. Just before we launch into a bit more about the coalition, Kimberley, can you help us understand a bit how COVID-19 is affecting racial minorities, especially around the job market?

Kimberley Wong: [00:02:55] Yeah, sure. So, I mean, I am from the Cantonese diaspora, so I can’t in particular speak for all racialized minorities, but I can speak to specifically how racialized women are disproportionately affected by this pandemic. And more so in particular, women in the Filipinx diaspora who have always provided this frontline work and are further marginalized by this.

I also think it opens up conversations about the gaps in which we think about racism as something that is systemic, and it’s something that may start with slanted comments and grow into a dehumanizing sentiment for an entire racial group, which of course impacts the job market.

Tessa Vikander: [00:03:33] Hmm. That’s a really great point. Thank you for that.

Matthew, do you want to add to what Kimberley was saying about how racial minorities are affected by COVID-19?

Matthew Norris: [00:03:44] So coming from my experience with Urban Native Youth Association, we see that, you know, it’s in regards to the recovery and response efforts to COVID, but also, yeah and on, in, issues in general as well. We see these minority communities having less access to political voice to inform what a response looks like.

So often communities fall through the gaps in funding or in programs or in what services they have access to. And so we’re hoping by organizing this coalition to give some voice and to give some opportunity to raise some of the concerns that that may have not been addressed to date.

Tessa Vikander: [00:04:25] And so how did this coalition come to be?

Matthew Norris: [00:04:28] So the coalition came out of some communities and organizations and individuals discussing some of the impacts that the COVID pandemic has had. The COVID-19 epidemic has made clear a lot of the failings of the status quo by showing the disproportionate impacts that many of Vancouver’s vulnerable communities are facing.

So we’ve witnessed the lack of protection for renters, the lack of protections for homelessness, especially as you, people were instructed to socially isolate. We’ve seen numerous vulnerabilities in our welfare system.

And the lack of community connections and relationships that resulted in the panic buying that we saw with toilet paper and cleaning supplies, that had a significant effect on those not in the financial situation to be able to do that.

But we’ve also seen issues around the precarity of our housing market where it seems that the majority of people living in Vancouver are spending more than 30% of their income on housing and are one, two, three months away from failing to meet their rent or their mortgage deadlines.

We’ve also seen issues pertaining to health come up. We’ve seen gaps in the status quo pertaining to environmental concerns and protections.

And we’ve also started, started to see things that we’ve already known, but being emphasized around the safety of women in the workforce. The protections required to ensure the prevention of domestic violence. The COVID epidemic has shown us the gaps and the protections for laborers and workforces.

So kind of all of these things brought a bunch of cross policy and cross organizational people together to say like, well how can we organize on bringing these gaps to the forefront. And how do we inform a recovery effort that addresses some of these gaps in the status quo to make a progressive future that effectively fixes what has been a problem for so long.

Tessa Vikander: [00:06:40] Right. And of course, unless the people who are directly impacted are properly consulted with, you know, these recovery measures, then they’re not going to properly address these gaps in the system.

So if I understand correctly, then the work that you’re doing is to help bring these voices up to the places where policy decisions are being made?

Matthew Norris: [00:07:01] Yeah, precisely. I know we had a difficult time, I’m speaking from the UNYA perspective again, and I’ve heard from advocates of the Downtown Eastside as well that in the rollouts of recovery measures, a lot of these frontline community organizations had difficulty getting information or providing input. And so often efficiencies might not have been present where they could have been.

And so seeing the effects of the response efforts, we’re trying to organize so that these gaps don’t inform the recovery and the rebuilding efforts as well.

Tessa Vikander: [00:07:38] Right. And so are you primarily then coordinating between these community groups and the City of Vancouver?

Matthew Norris: [00:07:45] So initially, we focused on the joint statement, had a very municipal focus. And so certainly that’s been the intention is, to engage in conversations with the City. But due to the City’s relationship with the province as well, that some of the asks in the joint statement were provincially focused.

But currently the coalition is made up of organizations and community organizations and individuals based in Vancouver. So it certainly has a municipal focus.

Tessa Vikander: [00:08:17] Kimberley, can you tell me how many groups the coalition is representing, and some examples of groups that are involved?

Kimberley Wong: [00:08:25] Yeah, of course. So, we have a mix of organizations and individuals who have signed on to the, endorsed the joint statement. But we have hundreds of folks from across different sectors in the city. Folks from the BC Health Coalition to Out On Screen, which is a queer and trans cultural organization, to folks in Chinatown doing a lot of important work providing essential services to Chinatown seniors who have barriers with regards to language access, as well as monetary access.

So we’re seeing a lot of folks from across the board who are, you know, who have been advocating for a lot of the things that we’re talking about in the joint statement for a long time, who are now finally seeing this pandemic as an opportunity to organize around changing the system to work for those most affected by these gaps now and always, so that we can all recover from the chaos and increased marginalization that this has brought and forge forward together.

Tessa Vikander: [00:09:25] Yeah, absolutely. I’m just looking at your joint statement here and I want to read two sentences that really jumped out to me at the end.

“Threats to the City of Vancouver’s essential services, programs and public priorities present a significant risk to Vancouver’s vulnerable communities in an already unaffordable city.

“This danger could get even worse if there is pressure for Council to pass an austerity budget in 2021. Any recovery strategies should offer every resident the same opportunities to rebuild their lives and thrive in a safe, inclusive, just and caring society.”

 I want to get into the issue of an austerity budget. We’ve heard some talk of perhaps lowering property taxes. This jumps out to you as something that could have a significant impact on marginalized communities. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

Matthew Norris: [00:10:13] I’d be happy to jump in here, Kimberley. If that’s okay?

Kimberley Wong: [00:10:16] Of course.

Matthew Norris: [00:10:18] So one of the things we considered was like, what’s the alternative? We’re trying to mobilize around a recovery and rebuilding effort that is, you know, human rights-centric, that is climate change-centric, that is social justice-centric, in an effort to address the gaps of the status quo, specifically in terms of vulnerable communities.

When we look at what the alternative is, there seems to be two what we think is dangerous alternatives that are circling in the discourse. In the short term, due to the inability of the City to run a deficit and the lack of fiscal powers that they have on hand, there is a significant risk that we will see a proposed austerity budget.

I think other municipalities have already come forward with it. Plans to either reduce property tax increases or to have no increases across the board for the next budgetary cycle. This is worrying. We’ve seen there’s some analyses floating around there that show that these kinds of austerity budgets support those that have the most means to already recover from the impacts of COVID. And that an austerity budget that reduces the revenues that cities are able to leverage requires that there be cutbacks on social programming, on services, on infrastructure. And these are all services and programs that vulnerable community members need the most.

What does an austerity budget mean? It means, it could mean less affordable housing initiatives. It could mean less access to libraries and public facilities. It could mean slower movement or no movement on climate change initiatives. And so that’s worrying.

I think it relies a lot on this kind of idea of trickle-down economics, which are widely criticized and critiqued for not being effective at protecting the best interests of vulnerable communities who have the least financial abilities to recover, but also who’ve been disproportionately impacted by COVID as well.

Tessa Vikander: [00:12:39] Kimberley, do you have anything to add as to why this coalition is needed?

Kimberley Wong: [00:12:43] Yeah, certainly. So I think about, you know, what’s next? What’s happening right now? Because our governments, our federal, provincial and municipal governments are all currently planning their recovery strategies to avoid the impacts on the economy and to support those who have been financially impacted by this epidemic and the measures taken to respond to it.

And it’s, I think, important to differentiate between short term recovery and long-term rebuilding. And I think of short term recovery as in needing to help those hurting now. So for example, the joint statement that we’ve been talking about that we issued last week called for increased levels of financial relief to municipalities to raise the money necessary to replenish to the reserve spent on COVID-19 initiatives. And it’s a critical need for without these tools, cities would be unable to reopen the services and programming that a lot of the vulnerable communities that we’re talking about rely on and it will severely restrict the city’s ability to make headway on addressing issues of social justice and concerns that existed pre-COVID-19 on things like housing affordability, on climate, on public transportation.

And then the long-term, I think we need to ensure that too, these are able to respond to these sorts of crises in the future. Like as a start, allow things like allowing municipalities to run deficits and like implementing congestion taxes and lots more.

I think also we have to think about the things that we want to hang on to that have been day-lighted by this. Things like safe supply and increases in income assistance and disability or an increased commitment to the permanent social housing from the province.

And there’s lots of things to ramp up on to continue to increase city-level actions on climate, on reconciliation, on support for the alternate culture sector. And then things like, you know, people with disabilities have been fighting for a wider sidewalks for decades. And I think there’s space to finally do that, to reallocate street space away from cars, to create more space for wheelchairs, pedestrians and bikes.

And of course, bigger picture lessons as well, of the important role of the public sector. And to help the health and safety of the most vulnerable among us.

Tessa Vikander: [00:15:03] Right. So the work that you’re doing, Matthew and Kimberley, it sounds like it’s really, this coalition is attempting to bring together so many different groups from different areas in the city. How are you doing that? How like strategically and logistically, what does that look like?

Kimberley Wong: [00:15:21] I think Matthew and I both occupy kind of lateral but very different spaces. I think I can speak for my own networks. I occupy a lot of different community organizing spaces in the queer and trans community, as well as in the Chinatown community. Which I think has been a stronghold of a lot of incredible community organizing the city for decades.

But we’re uniquely positioned to be able to speak to different communities that are being affected by this pandemic, through those lenses of our identity. Matthew, do you have anything to add to that?

Matthew Norris: [00:15:52] Yeah. And one of kind of the foundations of the organizing of the committee was to ensure that we’re not overburdening organizations and community leaders who are already facing significantly high workloads. So part of the philosophy around organizing was taken from some of the other informal coalitions that I’m part of in terms of indigenous rights.

And it’s kind of transitioning those to the informal coalition for the Vancouver Just Recovery. Some of those principles came around a consensus based decision making, but mainly it’s been around this idea of quick mobilization of network and relationship building.

Kimberley Wong: [00:16:38] If I can just add…

Tessa Vikander: [00:16:39] Yeah

Kimberley Wong: [00:16:40] I think that organizing in a time where we can’t physically come together has proven difficult for many folks, but I am constantly in awe of the organizers of folks like the COVID-19 Coming Together group. Who are mobilizing community care through Facebook groups, through Zoom, through Slack, through calls and, you know, especially just in grocery care package drop-offs, things like that.

So it’s more evident than ever now that community care is something that has always needed to recover from things like this. And that has always been there in communities. So supporting those folks and supporting those initiatives is more important to now than ever.

Tessa Vikander: [00:17:24] Right. Can you, Kimberley, tell me how you’re rolling the coalition, like who’s making the decisions? What’s that process like? Are you meeting online and real life?

Kimberley Wong: [00:17:34] Yeah. So right now we’re having biweekly Zoom calls with a couple of our core members, so folks who represent larger organizations, to try and keep the numbers down. So we are a consensus-based coalition, which means that all the decisions that we make, all of the statements that we put out in the future, are written together, are approved by all members that have signed on to endorse as well.

Tessa Vikander: [00:18:00] So Kimberley, what are the next steps for coalition?

Kimberley Wong: [00:18:04] So some of the next steps, I think we want to organize around specific outcomes and some of those specific topics and outcomes that I can speak about, are things like an expanded municipal financial power and more tools to respond to the current and future crises of this nature, a progressive economic investment and no budget cuts.

So with things like healthcare and services, transportation, public infrastructure, public services, and energy and climate transitions, we want to make sure that we don’t backpedal on the gains that we’ve made in the past couple of years with progressive policies and with some of the folks that sit on City Council who have been able to advocate for those things.

And also of course forge towards a new normal, but to respond to some of the weaknesses and shortcomings of the status quo with things like housing affordability, climate change, homelessness, the opioid crisis, implementing a living wage across the board and public transportation.

Tessa Vikander: [00:19:03] I think you bring up a really great point there, which is particularly trying to find a new normal, because I know one of the things that, you know, we’re frequently seeing on social media is, people saying, you know, I can’t wait for my life to get back to normal or when things are back to normal.

And of course, we hear also, you know, dissenting voices to those ideas saying: no, the normal that we had was not okay. We need a new normal.

Kimberley Wong: [00:19:26] Exactly. Yeah. And then we’re seeing a lot of the communities that are a part of the coalition speak to this exactly. Folks who are from the disability community have been saying we need these things. They’re essential services, you know, for our lives forever. And so us having to, for example, work from home and find ways to connect that don’t require us to come together as physical people, to make extra leads as her folks who are immunocompromised. You know, finding ways to do this in ways that center those marginalized voices is really important and has come up more than ever now.

Matthew Norris: [00:20:06] I had one quick point to make.

Tessa Vikander: Please

Matthew Norris: So I think your point around “recovery to normal” is a really good point. I think it’s dangerous to talk about, like, let’s just get back to the way things were. I think COVID has highlighted the discrepancies and the shortcomings of normal, of the status quo.

It’s highlighted all the people who fall through the gaps of our societal supports. And I think we have an opportunity, coming out of COVID to recover and to rebuild, to address those gaps. We’re necessarily going to have some kind of financial investments or recovery efforts or a stimulus package, which is going to be aimed at helping people impacted by COVID, which is a lot.

And it stretches across different communities. But if we don’t take a social justice lens on what these recovery plans and strategies are going to look like, then we risk not only, you know, creating more obstacles and more impacts on vulnerable communities as their voices aren’t included in the planning process.

But we’re facing the risk of re-entrenching the status quo. If we’re doing something innovative and if we’re doing something bold, let’s build on the positive feelings of community and togetherness that COVID has like really brought out in the Vancouver community and let’s do something that is new, that is exciting, that addresses a lot of the concerns that we have now seen to the 10th degree. And let’s make a new normal. And I think that’s one of the principals behind this coalition.

Tessa Vikander: [00:21:59] Thanks for that.

And so to build on that, I think that therefore one of the things that we’re hoping is that, not to say that there’s a silver lining from this COVID-19 crisis, but like if we can work to find positive things that may come out of this crisis, one could be that folks who are not affected by, were not immunocompromised, who do not have physical disabilities, that they may be sensitized to these issues of the importance of being able to work from home or attend conferences online and that sort of thing. Is that what you’re getting at?

Kimberley Wong: [00:22:31] Exactly that.

Tessa Vikander: [00:22:33] Wonderful.

Jumping back a little bit to the nuts and bolts of how this coalition is working, you’ve put out this statement and I’m just wondering, like, do you have meetings with council representatives coming up, with city staff or is that something that you’re looking to do?

Like what are, what are your strategies for pushing ahead?

Matthew Norris: [00:22:51] I think we would welcome any meetings with city staff or City Council.  We have been fortunate enough to have the joint statement endorsed by, I believe last time I checked it may be different now, four City Councilors.

So the joint statement that was released was sent to all of City Council and the Mayor’s Office. It was also sent to the relevant provincial and federal ministers whose mandates land in this area. But certainly I think the coalition is interested in sitting down with decision makers to express the concerns and the principles and values that the coalition is representing.

In terms of next steps, the coalition has a number of areas and of concern and interest that we’ll be meeting about shortly. And I think the plan is to continue to organize amongst ourselves to push the envelope on these issues. So we’ll likely see additional calls to action coming forth.

 Tessa Vikander: [00:23:58] And then Matthew to jump back to a question that I asked earlier, it was that it sounds like the coalition is really bringing together a very broad range of groups, so many different groups, and I was just wondering how it is logistically that you’re doing that? I know Kimberley was mentioning that part of it for her is that like her own identities and involvement in the other work that she does means that she’s connected to certain groups that she’s able to therefore help bring forward into this. Can you tell me, how this is going for you?

Matthew Norris: [00:24:28] So it originated in a small group, but it’s already grown large and rather quickly. And that’s kind of one of the values that the original organizers kind of instilled into the process was that we wanted to make this as open as possible.

So if any organization out there is interested in and shares the values of the joint statement is interested in participating and organizing and connecting with other organizations or communities different than their own, then I encourage them to look at our website, sign up. We’ll add you to upcoming meetings lists, and join the conversation about what a just recovery should look like in Vancouver.

But part of the ask too, is that we’re not trying to create additional work. There’s the understanding that a lot of these organizations are already strapped, with their workloads. And so that kind of gets at the informal nature of the coalition, that the memberships and the endorsements on certain press releases or statements, will adapt as we go. So organizations are able to endorse, on the fly, as statements or letters or values or what have you, are drafted, agreed upon and sent out.

Tessa Vikander: [00:25:50] And speaking of extra work, how are each of you managing right now with this, you know, doing this extra volunteer coalition work on top of all that you already do? Matthew, do you want to go first?

Matthew Norris: [00:26:04] That’s a lot, I think we coined a new term, in one of the meetings, about being Zoomed out. I think on one hand with people working from home, it is somewhat easier to mobilize and get in touch with people, to jump on a video conference and to discuss ideas.

But on the other hand, we’re constantly on video conference now and it is taxing. And I think there is this new phenomenon of people being Zoomed out and, and being exhausted. So it’s something to consider, I think.

The work is good though. And as long as the work is good, you find the energy and you’re invigorated to have these discussions. I also appreciate the ability to meet new organizations that my professional work or my academic work doesn’t often allow me to interact with these people.

So there are strengths to it as well.

Tessa Vikander: [00:27:04] Hmm. And Matthew, do you have any like self-care practices that help keep you, you know, being able to do this work?

Matthew Norris: [00:27:12] My dog has been a lifesaver. The ability to go out and walk the dog three times a day forces you to take a break and to just get outside and enjoy the weather. That’s thankfully been pretty good.

Tessa Vikander: [00:27:26] Awesome. I really want a dog too, for that exact reason. Well, and because… yes.

Matthew Norris: It’s the best.

Tessa Vikander: Kimberley, how are you managing with this extra workload?

Kimberley Wong: [00:27:40] To kind of add on to Matthew, I was always exhausted. So this is nothing new, but it’s, I think, what he said, if the work is good, the people are good, and you care about what you’re doing, it’s worthwhile.

So far as self-care practices, there’s this thing called the magic bag that has changed my life. It’s like having a little warm cat sit on your shoulders and that’s been helping a lot.

Tessa Vikander: [00:28:06] And what’s the magic bag?

Kimberley Wong: [00:28:08] It’s this little bag filled with beans that you put it in the microwave and it warms up and you put it on your shoulders and it’s really nice.

Tessa Vikander: [00:28:16] Is there anything else that we haven’t discussed in this interview that you’d like to talk about?

Matthew Norris: [00:28:21] There’s some positive takeaways from this all. And I think it’s important that we recognize like the positive outcomes of the COVID outbreak and social isolation and all that. And I think it is just recognizing that we’re able to mobilize and organize and come together as a society.

And I’m talking about like outside of the coalition and to respect, you know, social isolating directives, to recognize and adhere to the advice of health professionals. And I think that’s inspiring. And I think that gives me hope that as a society, we’re able to mobilize and address other issues of societal concern, like climate change, like over-consumption, like housing affordability, which is good.

I think there was a lot of skepticism before this that we would be able to mobilize, you know, as a society around a single issue. And so this has filled me, at least, with some hope and optimism that these kinds of like big ticket asks that require collective action are actually possible.

And so that kind of motivated, at least my participation in what is the Just Recovery coalition, but I think it can extend to other issues as well.

Tessa Vikander: [00:29:47] Right. So, for example, the fact that we are able to, you know, come together and maybe meet with friends in a park and have some like restraint and not hug them and ask each other, you know, like, are you comfortable with how much space we have with each other? So I agree with you so much Matthew because I’ve seen also people bringing up kind of hard conversations or hard questions or addressing things about comfort levels with each other in ways that I wasn’t seeing around anything else.

Matthew Norris: [00:30:17] Yeah, exactly. And I think, and like I was even more skeptical, like we, you hear discussions a lot around are we living in a post-truth society where facts have limited usefulness and all this stuff and that was getting me real down previously. But I think this kind of challenges all that, I think.

We are responsible and we are, for the most part, considerate of our neighbours and our communities. And I think that that is inspiring.

 Tessa Vikander: [00:30:52] Yeah. I feel you. I’m feeling my heart really full right now, just talking about that and like naming that. Kimberley, do you have anything you want to add to that?

Kimberley Wong: [00:31:00] No, I will stick by Matthew’s words as well.

 Tessa Vikander: [00:31:04] All right. Well, Kimberley and Matthew, thank you so much for joining us today on the Cambie Report.

Do you have any parting words for ideas of fun things that people could do in the next few days? It’s a random challenge.

 Kimberley Wong: [00:31:18] For folks who live with roommates or partners, my roommate and I bought a big bucket of clay and we’re making your own Scrabble board. So double the activities, double the fun.

Tessa Vikander: [00:31:30] Awesome. So clay work, that’s awesome.

Matthew Norris: [00:31:33] That was fantastic. I am jealous of that.

We’ve been revitalizing our garden. Our little tiny garden on our teeny tiny, like, I don’t even know how big it is, it’s not big, I can barely fit a chair out there, but on our tiny little deck. We’re trying to revitalize our garden, just to have some flowers and some greenery, to try and restrict the need to go outside.

And we’re, others are, who may not be as fortunate to have outside space, do need that for mental health and such. But, our little garden is also a little bit of a distraction. And good for our mental health anyways.

Tessa Vikander: [00:32:15] Absolutely. Wonderful. Well, thanks so much, both of you for those suggestions and small offers, and again, for all of your work on this coalition.

Matthew: [00:00:28] Hello and welcome to the Cambie Report.

I’m Matthew Naylor and I’m here with Dale Bracewell. Dale is the Manager of Transportation Planning at the City of Vancouver.

Thank you so much, Dale, for joining me to talk about how this pandemic has affected our transportation system and how it’s going to change things going forward.

Dale Bracewell: [00:00:49] Yeah, thanks, Matthew and I look forward to the conversation.

Matthew: [00:00:52] So just generally, can you give us a kind of overview as to how the transportation department has been coping so far with the change in well, you know, everything with this pandemic?

Dale Bracewell: [00:01:04] Yeah. I mean, I think it’s pretty evident, but you know, COVID-19 has been a pandemic that’s really been unprecedented and really a shock to our transportation system. But it’s, it’s quite noticeable, right, the dramatic decrease in all kinds of trips, um, and so I think, you know, looking at, you know, mode by mode, I could walk you through what that looks like and just gives you the, the idea of the scale.

Matthew: [00:01:32] Sure. Why don’t you do that? Why don’t you tell us how, I mean, we’ve all been looking at COVID trendlines, so why don’t you, why don’t you bring another sort of trend lines into our discussion here today.  How have those trips been looking, what are the trip counts at?

Dale Bracewell: [00:01:46] So kind of like the one that’s probably most obvious to the public is, you know, vehicles, cause the most amount of road space is actually allocated to them and so we have these permanent counters throughout the city.

And so we’ve been monitoring this and keeping it on a dashboard. And so in and out of like downtown Vancouver it’s sort of been, in April, an average of about 50% decrease and certainly those peak periods where you, you’d otherwise get those times of congestion and those have like flattened the most. And then, you know, citywide we kind of seeing about a 40%, um, reduction.

Transit is sort of like, I think for us, like the greatest, you know, area of like concern and when we kind of then talk about rebounding and, and recovery planning. But that’s you know, system-wide and Metro Vancouver, but you know, specific to Vancouver, it’s around that average of about 80% and so not as visible because, you know, a bus might be carrying only a very few amount of people but certainly huge decrease in trips throughout the day.

And then, you know, walking we have kind of a limited amount of opportunities to collect that kind of data. We’ve gotten into some automatic pedestrian counters. And so this is not really representative because so many people are actually, you know, for exercise getting outside but at least in the downtown counters those, those can range anywhere between 40 and 50% less, which kind of makes sense for the businesses that are essential services. They are the ones that are open.

And then, and then cycling is kind of the real interesting one because we have a variety of our permanent, you know, bike counters. Um, so when you kind of look at the ones that we would kind of more categorize that are like more commuter oriented, you know, locations in the city. That those are down anywhere between 35 to 50%. But then we have ones that say like on Point Grey Road or along the seawall, and in that one, that range can, can be anywhere from like 10 to 50% more.

Um, which then of course we think makes sense in terms of what has happened is people, again, getting outside and using opportunities of public space and our seawall to get out and be safe and social distance, physical distance, but ultimately getting out and having and do some healthy, um, uh, outdoor activity.

Matthew: [00:04:03] What is the biggest challenge been from your department’s perspective in this pandemic?

Dale Bracewell: [00:04:08] Well, I think, I mean, we’re a large employer, so I just mayb start there.

We, we, ourselves, I remember those early weeks as, as a manager, you know, supporting my staff team to all be working from home. And so, you know, just trying to do, you know, the kind of serving our public and trying to match up and do everything that we can to support the public health uh direction to, you know, stay at home and travel only if necessary. And so, so that’s kind of kind of one that, you know, as, as a public servant and it relates to a lot of kind of what, what people are seeing.

I think it, um, you know, of course, you know, the vehicle trip reductions by itself kind of simplified in terms of some of what otherwise could have been the challenges.

Um, but I’d say, uh, you know, what’s been growing over time is, especially as the weather gets nicer, we want to be, you know, really supporting those essential services again to the businesses like grocery stores and pharmacies and medical people who then ultimately still need the access to employment.

But the growing need is, is that time outside. That, that exercise for that good physical, emotional, mental health, yet encouraging people to still do that, you know, to stay local. and, and kind of trying to encourage people to maximize the enjoyment in their own community and their own neighborhood while they do that, as compared to, let’s say, coming to visit, you know, Stanley park or, you know, waterfront Beach Avenue Park, because, you know, we don’t want people to travel just for the sake of kind of enjoying a destination.

So, so then the other is, is that, you know, we didn’t have a good inventory of like grocery stores and pharmacies. And kind of as they’ve been now supporting, um, kind of their own, you know, physical distancing with queues sometimes needing to be outside the stores and, and, you know, then on our public street, right of way along the sidewalks.

And so, in a fast paced way, we, you know, have been trying to kind of respond and, and, and give good kudos to those types of businesses. And doing that, that’s kind of led to one of the initiatives where we have, you know, you know, looking at some, some localized sidewalk widenings. So that as those essential businesses provide those opportunities for physical distancings and ask to use some of the sidewalk, we’re also kind of giving people the opportunity who are, who’re still walking on the sidewalk and passing by to feel like they’re being supported from a public health perspective.

Matthew: [00:06:32] Alright, have there been any like surprises in the unfolding of the pandemic that have caught you off off guard at all, or have even just been like unexpected?

Dale Bracewell: [00:06:43] Well, I think what we’ve discovered, uh, Matthew is just also, we always care about supporting our most vulnerable. And so this is kind of one of those times where we get to learn and grow a little bit more about, you know, where again, we have, you know, transit dependent and, and, and it’s, it’s not possible for some essential workers, you know, to, to work from home.

And so, we’ve been discovering things along the way and I think, you know, a big part of the overall city effort and, and we’re just, you know, one, one part of a team of people who are trying to support like Downtown Eastside and how to really better understand what it means in terms of mobility for community resilience.

Um, you know, a big part of kind of our climate emergency plan is to, to think and supportive about more walkable communities. Um, and so we’re, we’re trying to learn and discover where are people kind of seeing the joy of that and kind of rediscovering of that at an, at a neighborhood level because that’s what we’re encouraging.

And that’s, now most people are trying to do that. And then where are we seeing that? That’s actually not very possible often. And so kind of how do we kind of make a deposit in terms of kind of the, the importance of responding to a pandemic. We’re still in a response phase, but especially kind of within a planning transportation planning team like mine, how do we really create a bit of an inventory and kind of bring this back into what ultimately will be, you know, that recovery and the rebuilding time so that ultimately we can aim to have a better city and a better opportunity to, to build out walkable communities and be supported for, for the choices that now people are either making again a new or they were already doing, but kind of how do they do that more in that like hyper local kind of way, in around what uh what they call home.

Matthew: [00:08:35] So do you see this as being able to feed into some of the development of the the City Plan and developing communities as more, I wouldn’t say independent, but like localized and, and self contained environments, rather than having these destinations like an entertainment district or like a recreation destination?

Dale Bracewell: [00:08:57] Yeah, absolutely. And I think what we’re unfortunately not able to yet do is kind of really have the opportunity to engage and ask people. And so, uh, at the best and most opportune time, it’ll be great to kind of have people, you know, reflect back on their like trip diaries that they were able to kind of make and walk within their community.

But even remote work, right, which I said, you know, we as a workforce are doing, of course hundreds of thousands of people in the city are, are, are doing, um, you know, remote work. And so how does that actually also, kind of support walkable communities?

Cause I know, for example, you know, here as I’m working from home, more often than not, then, you know, I’m kind of rediscovering, the things that are in around kind of my, my neighborhood in my community.

Um, and so kind of where do those things, you know, become opportunities for us, you know, going forward as we, what we’re going to try and do is ultimately really build upon what we then think are the positive, sustainable, you know, behaviours and choices that sometimes people had to make or are now choosing to make.

Um, since we’ve been kind of going through this for a few months and in, of course, what are, what are the ones that, you know, unfortunately, sometimes people need to make, you know, a drive trip, or more drive trips because they need to make more frequent trips to the grocery store. And now they’re doing that alone.

And, and so, you know, kind of really, processing as best we can, kind of the behaviors and the trends that we’re seeing, even even in the COVID response phase that we’re in.

Matthew: [00:10:25] Well, I guess that’s something positive to look forward to. But why don’t we actually shift gears and take a look at what that opening up is going to look like.

You know, we saw today the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, releasing new guidelines on gatherings and looking forward, we’re seeing the economy opening up again. What do you think the biggest challenges are going to be in that process for transportation?

Dale Bracewell: [00:10:51] I think the biggest challenge is to kind of really, you know, maximize what ultimately is I think a narrow window.

I think we have weeks to months to really get this right. And so how do we recognize that we’re not returning to normal in terms of what February 2020, you know, transportation is. Uh so with that in mind, like, you know, this is unprecedented. This is an opportunity for everything that we’ve been kind of trying to encourage more in terms of urban, sustainable mobility.

And like I was mentioning earlier about like what’s our kind of vulnerable community, but like how do we bring equity more into the fold in terms of the work that we have been already doing? And so really kind of want to think of like how do we advance resiliency in terms of transportation? So what, again, have we learned where we’ve got kind of those weak links and then kind of look towards this proactive, an intentional effort to actually better position ourselves.

So whatever this progress towards recovery is, how do we bring in, um, sustainable mobility in terms of like the long standing, not just the trends with the policy targets that we have. But now currently for climate emergency, we’re trying to get to two thirds walk, bike transit by 2030. And then doing at the same time, being flexible and adaptable to support all the good guidance about, you know, rebuilding and supporting, you know, economic recovery.

Matthew: [00:12:19] So, so you mentioned, when we were talking earlier, a little bit about benchmarking other cities. What, can you talk a bit, a little bit about what that is and what that process looks like for Vancouver? And then maybe expand on, on what models we might be looking at for our reopening.

Dale Bracewell: [00:12:35] Yeah, so I can mention advanced transportation planning, you know, it’s always, it’s always good to kind of–yourselves. And so it’s been pretty exciting. Um, we’re, we’re constantly, you know, watching out for what other cities are doing. So, you know, just along the West coast, you know, San Francisco, has kind of some, uh, slow open streets, but really, they built off of Oakland.

Oakland, I think really in a North American context is showing the greatest amount of leadership. They announced a plan for a hundred miles of actually like local in our context, more like local street, Greenways, bikeways being converted to be more, you know, people people-centered first and car traffic being just localized and access only.

They haven’t fully outlayed that a hundred miles, but they’ve been very bold and very quick to kind of move in that direction. Uh, and then, you know, just just last week, Portland announced, um, basically kind of an equivalent. At first it was announced kind of almost to the scale of Oakland, and then, you know, but then this is why we’re constantly trying to learn.

They’re gonna look for more towards, you know, tactical interventions at particular places along essentially the neighborhood Greenways, which, you know, predominantly can have more or less the same effect of reducing a lot of the car access if you kind of reduce some of the through trips.

So that’s kind of like some West Coast benchmarks, but you know, Milan is kinda one that a lot are pointing to certainly from kind of, I think I’d say not just a response phase, but a recovery where, you know, they’ve announced, you know, in the months ahead they’re going to be very intentional. Uh, I think it’s about 35 kilometers in terms of, you know, better and, and, and giving over more space on their streets for walking and cycling.

Um, and then there’s, you know, more regional ones. And so kind of our conversations with TransLink and our, you know, neighborhooding uh neighborhood municipalities, but Paris beyond the city itself is really looking to, in particular to cycling, hundreds of kilometers of kind of, you know, cycle routes in, in, through the kind of greater region of Paris.

And then just kind of most recently, Matthew, I don’t know if you heard that about London. And kind of one of my colleagues in like the C40 Cities kind of transportation network, you know, he’s been a part of like this kind of new streetscape, you know, plan.

And so it’s, I think exciting. I mean, we’re, we’re a very major, you know, Canadian urban city, but to see kind of one of these, you know, world urban centers like London all while they too, are going to have, you know, an equivalent amount of physical distancing on their transit as they kind of start there.

They’re kind of phased approach back in, but but really um looking towards being intentional about that road space, reallocation opportunity that’s going to keep supporting people’s opportunities to choose those walking and those cycling within their community and their neighborhoods.

So those are, I think, um, you know, some of the cities. Um maybe the last one just is Auckland. Auckland, I think as a kind of an urban heart center has, has done great things, not only for walking and cycling and public space.

So certainly as again, we have a lens on the mobility side to look towards, you know, public space and public realm. Um, there’s some other cities that are really embracing that as well, which again, of course, when we get past, you know, physical distancing opportunities, you know, walking, biking by the very nature of those modes increased people’s physical health, but they also increase ultimately their opportunity for social connectedness.

So kind of benchmarking ourselves to see what other cities are doing, bringing in public realm and public space. It’s also important for us as we kind of look ahead to mobility, recovery planning.

Matthew: [00:16:07] It’s interesting because all, all the like connections that, you know, the, the interpersonal connection that sociologists and urban planners get really excited about that kind of spontaneous connection is the kind of thing that we suddenly had to move to avoid because that’s how this things spreads.

You mentioned a little bit about closing off certain roadways to car access, for like making it access only for residents or users of that space. Can you imagine like a roadway in Vancouver where that would be appropriate? And would that look like actual physical barriers to the thing or just a different designation?

Dale Bracewell: [00:16:45] Well, maybe I’ll, let me, I’ll start with, you know, the efforts that have already been done. And Park Board approached us and, you know, looked for City Vancouver support for the closure of Stanley Park to vehicles. And so, that’s kind of a Park Board decision, but of course it, it touches base with our kind of the rest of the city’s networks.

So we did that and partnered with them in that. And so, I mean, there’s an example where, you know, even, you know, of course was really important, of course, that the destinations themselves that otherwise had the access or more or less closed. And so it gives us the opportunity to do that.

But in tandem with that, you know, along Beach Avenue, that’s kind of our best example of a busy street where, you know, we, we reallocated the eastbound lanes. Um, and so, you know, in that sense it has a bit of a transit impact. We have to work with TransLink to, to talk about what would be then, you know, some service that wouldn’t be in that direction, but ultimately, and again, supporting the public health and opportunities to have physical distance and enjoy other than walking or the cycling kind of along, you know, our densest and, um, part of our, our downtown.

So I think the, the kind of ways that you would see those as temporary tactical, I think are good expressions of what could be other future opportunities for us, and the teams kind of come up with a name for that called Room to Move.

And so right now we’ve been kind of in a, in a response phase towards those and, you know, Beach and Stanley Park.

But I think economic centers like downtown and like the Broadway area, the second biggest economic center in the province, and as we kind of look ahead from response to recovery, we need to think about, you know, sidewalk widenings beyond, I say, like that, what we call the Room to Queue, which is outside essential services.

So, so those, those, those, um, having it kind of landed in terms of like a declared a plan and, you know, next week, we understand that, you know, Council may have a motion something that they’ll talk about. And of course we have staff take guidance from them. So I think staff are, had some opportunities, um, to, to be responsive in this realm.

And we’re certainly kind of ready and benchmarking all the tactical ways. I mean, kudos to even the province of British Columbia. They’ve even come up with, kind of more of a probably either a rural or kind of a highway oriented community in BC, but still have come up with some of the kind of tactical ways that, uh, that cities like Vancouver can do more in this realm.

And certainly I think we’ll be ready to do more as either the weather gets warmer and these, these spaces are needed or of course if we’re in a very, well more known, longer recovery period where these space-based allocations are going to be important over time.

Matthew: [00:19:35] So let me ask you a little bit more in depth on that particular thing.

The idea of closing some laneways or some lanes to traffic or removing parks to facilitate both Room to Queue and Room to Move like what would be the criteria that the city would look at in order to evaluate the need for that kind of change to the traffic flow and how quickly could we see some things like that getting rolled out?

Dale Bracewell: [00:20:03] I think where, where exactly we’re at Matthew is, is your question where we’re creating kind of the principles around that. So again, equity will be, you know, absolutely important for us that we want to be able to be able to respond across the city for kind of where, where those, those needs are.

But yeah, a little bit of kind of insight is  arterials that have buses, that again, if, if more workers are going to be, you know, graduating back into needing to get to the destination while, you know, remote work and telecommuting is still continued, those bus stops become harder areas to kind of tactically intervene on. So that’s kind of one. Parking, we’ve started with, really supporting health workers and, relaxing the enforcement. But that again, again, in terms of being responsive, you know, we added parking enforcement back into the West End and then in the Kits Beach area.

So you know, where that, you know, in some places I think, you know, parking won’t be an issue in other places again, as we kind of graduate back into a phased approach to, to more people needing to be at work and more people needing to, you know, use what we want for on street parking, which is kind of like high turnover to be able to support those businesses.

So those can either still be opportunities or, you know, possibly, you know, constraints. And so I guess, you know, we’re at that principle creating stages and local streets and our bikeways and Greenways and that network is certainly seeming like a much easier opportunity to create ultimately connections to parks or connections to, you know, services and businesses.

I can’t quite say it would be an entire network at this point in time, but certainly starting with some principles and continuing to be responsive.

Matthew: [00:21:50] So it looks like you’ve got like a bunch of tactical interventions that are coming down the road, if you’ll forgive the pun, but the- they’re coming down the road like and they have to happen soon because they’re part of the initial recovery phase.

And then you’ve got a somewhat more strategic sense that this information and this sort of set of opportunities can be used to develop some of our transportation and infrastructure. But from what I’m hearing from you, that strategic stuff almost seems to be somewhat easier to reach for than, than some of the tactical stuff that we have to do in the near future.

Dale Bracewell: [00:22:28] Well, I’d say, I think both are important, Matthew. And so, you know, we’re a big city and so we have the opportunity to have I’ll call it more of the design operational teams that can kind of continue to focus on what, you know, might be the growth of Room to Queue and Room to Move.

And then particular to my team because, you know, we’re always at Vancouver, I think, based on solid, you know, policy. And so transportation 2040 and climate emergency response are still, you know, policy goals that we need to achieve. And, and how do we work in this kind of more short term tactical, but thinking about the values around those longer term.

And so this is kind of where I get excited is like this idea of mobility, recovery planning. Um, it’s not harder to do, but it’s, it’s hard to think about the engagement part, but it’s so important. We need to build back a better city. We need, like I was saying earlier, to really, you know, maximize whatever we’re learning now or whatever we could learn with, you know, a future growth of room to move those travel patterns and behaviors.

And we need to get ahead. We need to get ahead of what could be a real, you know, desire to not just get back for those that already were, you know, maybe using personal vehicles for their journey to work trips or for lots of trips that they might otherwise, you know, walk, cycle, take transit.

And so we need to get ahead of that. You know and we know in transportation planning that because we’re always kind of trying to promote and encourage and look at the barriers towards people’s orientation to choose walk cycle and transit and Matthew like a big life event is always one of those opportunities.

And so this is an opportunity for us to kind of really maximize right now where that car dependency is kind of quite low compared to their previous normal. And then again, kind of how do we learn, like I said, equity and so that we could embed that equity planning into our transportation processes beyond what we were doing.

And you know, it’s always important to support the economy. And so, part of transportation 2040 was, was, was clear about that. But for us, it’s sorta like when I was working on the Olympic transportation plan, this is not like, we’re not, we’re not trying to deliver anything that was like the status quo anymore.

There’s no returning to that. Um, so it’s, it’s how do we support the, the ongoing, you know, policies and, and looking towards transportation 2040 and climate emergency and then really thinking, you know, in towards what will be, you know, there’ll be a reframed and a repurposed, and Vancouver plan.

But how do we maximize equity and, and resiliency in terms of ultimately, you know, we- not just a recovery phase, but that recovery phase, it could be kind of longstanding. It’s certainly into 2021 and maybe a couple years and, and really kind of work with the community to help serve kind of where they live, where they work, and where they’re still going to want to move around.

 Matthew: [00:25:22] I really wanted to actually, to just touch on your comment about the Olympics, because it seems like this event is almost like an inverse Olympics where the Olympics saw this sort of spike in demand and everyone knew even going into it that things weren’t going to be on the same on the other side.

This is the sort of artificial dip in demand because of exigent circumstances and right now while I was going to ask you what the new normal was going to be, it looks like basically the new normal is up in the air, so maybe I’ll ask you a bit of a different question, what what is the best case scenario for a new normal?

Dale Bracewell: [00:25:58] That’s a great question. I mean what we what we do is, residents of Vancouver are you know happier and healthier and excited that they had all the opportunities to choose you know walking biking and transit and you know connect within their community.

And so the the hard work ahead though is you know outlining right now scenarios in terms of how to get to that final outcome because there’s still a lot of uncertainty that’s in front of us and so I think the big difference between the Olympic transportation planning and then- and now is that you know Olympics had, as always telling my team at that time, you know there’s only one day for an opening ceremony and we have to be ready. Uh in this case you know we’re dealing with uncertain timelines…

Matthew: [00:26:47] The Olympics had an end.

Dale Bracewell: [00:26:49] Yeah and so and then the other is is just again for the Olympics it was really important for us to plan for more trips. You know, at least certainly into the fall we’ve got a plan for less trips overall is what we would at least expect. But how do we, you know, looking at it from like a, sorry to be a bit you know transportation nerdy, but like from a mode split perspective you know, even if the total number of trips let’s say I’m making something up now in October it’s still let’s say 30% of what we otherwise thought fall 2020 would be, what’s going to be more important is being adaptable and flexible and that again that could depend a lot on maybe what we still need to do on road space reallocation for walking and biking and transit and public space but kind of be continue to be responsive and holding fast to those kind of longer term sustainable policy goals.

And then you know really being a partner to Translink again I think they’re doing a great job highlighting and showing us how important that’s been for Vancouver and how important that is going forward but what will be people’s levels of perception in terms of the you know the safety and the health of that. And you know will Tranlink get the support to have you know the capacity. And so where does the City of Vancouver, you know do we need to even do more for walking and cycling to kind of be a further support for our key regional partner.

And then also like you know where you know a lot of people have been financially impacted in terms of the hardship or just owning and running a businesses And so kind of again a bit of a different environment uh and yet lots of opportunities but how much and where and kind of again with consistency are still to be determined

 But I’d say we have confidence I mean this benchmarking by the cities the network of other cities that we have. Uh TransLink itself has kind of done some early scenario and modeling. And we’ll move into you know beyond scenarios into impacts again to to really highlight which trends are we trying to make sure we continue on that are beneficial for the kind of the health and the building a better city and which trends you know do we want to get ahead that where otherwise hinder our progress um towards you know the the strategic policy and and goals that we have here at the city.

Matthew: [00:29:03] Well Dale thank you. I think that’s all we’ve got time for today but I really appreciate that insight into how this massive global event is impacting our city and how we get around it. Uh any final words on how you see this event playing out in the next couple of weeks and months?

 Dale Bracewell: [00:29:22] Yeah well then I’ll go the one to the months, I think COVID has changed the way we need to do transportation planning and everything that we’ve talked about. What we’re still gonna learn, it’s, it is going to help us plan for a more resilient sustainable and equitable transportation system. And I’m excited about you know when we get back to really community engagement, how we weave that more into you know a climate emergency response in the fall and and ultimately even the next couple of years through our Vancouver Plan. And so have some hope in terms of uh kind of how to make the best of this you know world impact upon us.

Matthew: [00:29:59] Well hope is something that we can all use a little bit of right now.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Dale. I’ve been speaking with Dale Bracewell. He is the manager of transportation planning at the city of Vancouver. Thank you so much

Dale Bracewell: [00:30:12] Thanks Matthew.

Matthew: [00:30:13] Bye.

Ian Bushfield: [00:00:29] 686 temporary accommodations had been acquired in Vancouver to provide shelter for people experiencing homelessness. For April 26, 2020, this is the Cambie Report and I’m Ian Bushfield.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues and the province remains in lockdown. We’re being told to stay home if we can, but for those without secure and permanent housing, the difficulty of self isolation has been magnified.

Yesterday, the province announced a new order to provide shelter for those living in encampments in Vancouver and Victoria. And I’ll dig into that in a minute, including an interview with Jane Swanson.

But first, thank you to everyone who’s helped kept the show going. Over a hundred of you are sticking with us, and we’re super grateful for that.

As a bonus for those who might be in financial difficulty during this time, we’ve made our Slack available , to all our supporters. Simply visit leginbootmedia.ca to request an invite. If you can help keep the show going, we have more content on the way, including a special interview on the dire strait that TransLink has found itself in and more discussions on how the pandemic is affecting municipalities across Metro Vancouver. Visit patreon.com/cambiereport.

Yesterday, April 25th public safety minister, Mike Farnworth, minister of social development and poverty reduction Shane Simpson and minister of mental health and addictions. Judy Darcy made a special announcement in Vancouver about the new steps they were taking to provide temporary accommodations for people living in Vancouver’s Oppenheimer park as well as Topaz Park and the Pandora Corridor in Victoria.

Oppenheimer Park, for longtime listeners will remember, has been the site of a serious tent city with about 200 people living there in camps who have no other safe accommodations to go to. These are people who struggle with shelters in some cases and just don’t have anywhere else to go.

It’s been a source of tension over a number of years and over the past months in particular with repeated calls to evict the residents there from different levels of government. And pushback from those who call for safe, secure housing for the people who live there before any moves are made

During this pandemic this has been acutely in the news as the ability to self isolate or even access simple hand washing stations is very impaired there and they need safe accommodations in which to isolate. And there have also been reports over the months of violence in the area and sexual assaults. And so there has been a long desire to find safe accommodations and move people out of there, ideally, voluntarily. I don’t think anyone chooses to be there. It’s just the least bad situation. So yesterday’s announcement in some ways was very welcome news.

They note that since March, BC Housing and local municipalities have acquired 686 separate spaces in hotel rooms and community centers in the city of Vancouver.

This includes rooms in eight hotels that are largely empty at this time because of the pandemic, and there are another 64 beds in Coal Harbor and 79 in Roundhouse community centers. These spaces will be referral only and BC Housing will be helping coordinate the transition of people from Oppenheimer park to these hotel rooms.

As a benefit, there’s also daily meals, Wi-Fi, cleaning services and staff on site to make sure people, once they are in these facilities, are taken care of.  There’s going to be a full wraparound supports with health care, including mental health and addiction treatment and primary care if people need it.

And so the plan is for the ministry and BC housing to start moving people into these facilities this week, and ideally finish this all by May 9th.

On May 9th, the new ministerial order comes into effect, at which point enforcement officers can move into Oppenheimer Park and arrest anyone who’s there. And it’s this element to the plan that I think’s drawn the most criticism. As the people in the Downtown Eastside and in this park don’t have a positive relationship with local police or enforcement officers, and there’s a desire not to escalate any situations.

Hopefully things will move peacefully and there won’t be a requirement to come to that, but the fact that that’s been put in place does create some tension and uncertainty.

The other element of the uncertainty is that these are highlighted as temporary accommodations, which begs the question of what next? The province has said it’s working on a quote, comprehensive longterm plan to find permanent accommodations for every one of the people who are transitioned into these beds. And that may include temporary modular housing and other construction of affordable housing spaces. And we’ll have to see what that looks like.

The province has also said that these accommodations are in addition to about 1700 additional beds that have been secured for vulnerable people, including those experiencing homelessness across the province. These are other hotel rooms, community centers, emergency response centers across the province, and has been done in coordination with vulnerable population working group, regional health authorities, BC Housing and the cities of Vancouver and Victoria.

And beyond just this effort to find housing for the people in Oppenheimer Park, the province has said it’s been helping people in the Downtown Eastside to help isolate, working with the City of Vancouver to provide daily meals to almost 1700 households, regular deep cleaning of SROs in the Downtown Eastside, and just generally trying to help people who are in a very tough situation work through this crisis.

A couple episodes back, I talked to Karen Ward and Garth Mullins about the challenges people were facing and some of the news then that steps towards easier access to safe supply were being made. Since then, the province and federal government have announced even more relaxation of the regulations and people can access safe supply for the first time ever, which helps a lot of those people who are drug users to find the substances that they need to help them survive. So these are important steps with some important questions still remaining. And I think that’s what Jean Swanson has been trying to highlight as well as many others.

Jean Interview

Ian Bushfield: [00:00:00] Before we get to yesterday’s announcement, what have you seen or heard about the situation for people living in Oppenheimer Park during the COVID-19 outbreak?

Jean Swanson: [00:00:08] Um, people there tell me that it’s safer for them than the alleys, that they need washrooms and hand-washing, that it’s getting crowded. That’s basically it.

Ian Bushfield: [00:00:21] So there haven’t been many supports given for people in the Park, to your knowledge?

Jean Swanson: [00:00:26] No.

Ian Bushfield: [00:00:27] So the big announcement yesterday is that the province is going to be moving the roughly 200 people there into temporary spaces in hotels and community centers with wraparound supports. What was your initial reaction to this announcement?

Jean Swanson: [00:00:40] Well, I’d like to know how many of the spaces are actual hotel rooms as opposed to shelters in community centers. I think it’s a step forward for them to be, if there’s hotel rooms and some of them are, several hundreds of them are. I think so that’s good.

I am leery about the compulsive compulsion part of it. I think most people will want to move if they are given , the vast majority of people will want to move, if given a good alternative. And I think that’s what we need to be doing is giving people an alternative.

That’s said it’s not enough. I’m a really, really worried about, other people on the streets that aren’t in Oppenheimer park and about the people in the shelters, the homeless shelters . I think there’s probably 15 or 1600 people in shelters now in Vancouver. And, um, those are congregate settings and we are seeing that’s where the COIVID outbreaks happen is in congregate settings like nursing homes and prisons

So what I would like to see, and I’ve got a motion coming to council next week, is for hotel rooms to be provided for all people that don’t have proper homes.

Ian Bushfield: [00:01:52] Right. So just to come back to that first concern you voiced about the enforcement rather than the voluntariness. This was a public  safety order rather than a public health order. Why do you think it would be important that this be more voluntary? Like what’s the danger of this being a more enforced order?

Jean Swanson: [00:02:11] I think it’s really important when you’re dealing with people who are homeless to consult with them. There’s this great saying in the Downtown Eastside, nothing about us without us. And it implies, and I think it’s true that the people who you’re dealing with have good ideas for solving their own issues. If only you would let them get implemented and have input into in it. And I think that’s the best way to go.

Ian Bushfield: [00:02:37] And so are you aware of much consultation going into the announcement that was made?

Jean Swanson: [00:02:43] No

Ian Bushfield: [00:02:45] So not from the government, I know you had been lobbying for hotel rooms to be made available, like you just mentioned. The province hadn’t…

Jean Swanson: [00:02:53] I wrote an article about  my party COPE has an online petition that got about I think 2,500 signatures.

Yeah, I’ve been working for it and it is because that’s what people in the Downtown Eastside want, and that’s what they’re telling me. And then there was another letter, signed by a number of groups, Poverty Reduction Coalition, Pivot, the Carnegie Action Project and the Association of Aboriginal or Indigenous friendship centers that wanted hotel rooms for everybody, plus a number of other things, and including, not breaking up existing encampments unless there’s good alternate places for people to go, which is actually a recommendation of the US Center for Disease Controls in pandemics , let people stay unless you have a good alternative.

Ian Bushfield: [00:03:40] Right. So one of the strengths of the Downtown Eastside, and it kind of comes from what you were just talking about in terms of people working together, is that sense of community. Do you know if the spaces that are trying to be offered will be able to preserve that sense of community? Are they in the same area of the city? Are you concerned that people might be essentially dislocated?

Jean Swanson: [00:04:03] The province never says where they are, so I have no idea where they are. When Shane Simpson was talking about moving people into hotels, he said every consideration would be given to moving people together with their friends. So I’m hoping they’ll do that.

Ian Bushfield: [00:04:18] So you mentioned earlier the issue of people in shelters and other situations. You’re bringing forward a motion to try and make sure there are hotel rooms for those individuals. What’s the steps? Take me through the process you see beyond just saying these people need to be housed, like what actually needs to happen?

Jean Swanson: [00:04:39] The government would have to contact hotels that are empty and work with the unions of the workers in those hotels if they have unions and set up a system where they could acquire the rooms. I mean, they could do it by negotiation. They could do it with by emergency order. I think the way the province has got got them so far is by negotiation.

I know in California, and I think it’s Motel Six has been working with the state government to house a lot of homeless people in their motels all over the state. So I think it would be good if there was some sort of arrangement. Preferably if it could be done fast without an emergency order that would be good but I mean, yesterday there were 97 new cases in BC, which is up from 29 a day before. And so I think we need to be aware that we can have outbreaks and that congregate settings like prisons and shelters are good places to have outbreaks. There have been some really bad outbreaks in the States in shelters, and we need to do it fast.

Ian Bushfield: [00:05:44] Looking beyond the outbreak, the move here takes people from living on the street in these camps and other situations to hotel rooms ideally, in some cases community centers. The province has talked about finding permanent housing after that. Are you optimistic about that? What do you think needs to happen longer-term?

Jean Swanson: [00:06:06] Well, first of all, we need to get hotel rooms for everybody that doesn’t, that doesn’t have a home. So we don’t have enough yet. And secondly, nobody should be kicked out until there’s a proper home for them. This could be done by acquiring or leasing the hotels, which will probably be empty for awhile, and it could be done by building modular housing, dignified, permanent, hopefully passive for the climate modular housing.

Couple of years ago the province gave Vancouver 600 units of modular housing, which is good, and if we kept getting 600 units, I think 600 units a year or more, we could end homelessness across the province. I mean, you’d have to have modular units and other places. I think that year that Vancouver got 600 there were 2000 in the province.

This year they only put 200 in the budget for the whole province, which is a crime in my opinion. So coming out of COVID, if there was any economic stimulus plan, one good, really, really good way to work on that would be to build housing for people who are homeless.

Ian Bushfield: [00:07:14] That sounds good to me.

What else do you think needs to happen to support people in the Downtown Eastside and people who are homeless during this crisis, beyond the steps that have been taken?

Jean Swanson: [00:07:24] Some of them I’ve tried to work on like I got a motion pass calling on a province to have vacancy control in the SRO hotels.

There’s, um, I don’t know, at least 3000 low income people still living in single room occupancy hotels in the Downtown Eastside, and they’re being really rapidly gentrified. A new owner comes in, they often try and get rid of the tenants who are pretty vulnerable and then they do a few minor innovations and double or triple their rent.

And that’s one of the reasons why getting to 600 new modular units a couple of years ago didn’t reduce homelessness in Vancouver. It’s because we were losing so many SROs to gentrification. So stopping the loss of SRO to gentrification, which could be done if we had vacancy control, which is really cheap, just an administrative thing that would help a lot.

Another thing that would help a lot with be raising welfare and disability rates. Right now a person on welfare in Vancouver, a single person gets a $760. It’s not enough to eat and pay their rent. It’s pretty much a guarantee that if you lose your job and you don’t have EI and a good support system, you’re going to be homeless. The waiting list for social housing is about 4,000. So a welfare and disability have to go up. The province raised them $300 a month for COVID for the next three months, that should continue and be increased, in my opinion, so that people who don’t have work have.an the ability to to rent.

Ian Bushfield: [00:08:53] And is there anything else you think the city should be doing that it hasn’t been doing so far? I know a lot of the motions that get passed call on other levels of government to do things. What’s the role for Vancouver?

Jean Swanson: [00:09:04] Well, we’re working now, the city has been working actually quite well to try and get food into the SRO, food delivery to the SRO, working with VCC, they have a kitchen there, Vancouver Community College and Potluck Cafe. I’m hoping that can continue, food to the SROs, and trying to get the hand washing stations set up and get soap to them and if we could reopen some of the essential community services like Carnegie and Avalon cellar and the Gathering Place, that would be great.

I don’t think we can do that right now because of physical distancing. So the city put picnic tables, for example, in front of Avalon sellers so people can eat their takeout meals there and they’re sanitizing and re every so often. So the city is trying to do the small stuff.

The city could afford to acquire hotels, that’s why I put that in my motion, and I think it’s a priority if the province won’t do it, I think the city should do it, but it properly, it’s the, it should be the duty of the province and the feds.

Ian Bushfield: [00:10:07] All right. Is there anything else you wanted to mention before I let you go?

Jean Swanson: [00:10:11] No, that’s good. Thanks.